Mandaza calls on Tsvangirai and Biti to "resolve their difference" - muuding Zimbabwe's dirty political waters!

Zimbabwe is an independent country; it is up to us and no one else to make independence work; the country’s destiny is in our hands.

 

The very fact that 34 years after independence we find ourselves in this tragic position where millions now live in abject poverty and hundreds are dying every day unnecessarily is proof that we are doing something wrong. The challenge before us therefore is clear – do we have the courage and resolve to turn the spotlight on ourselves to see what we are doing wrong and to put it right.

 

Of course we did not have to wait for 34 years or till we were up to our eyes in the mess to carry out this serious but necessary introspective review; we should have been doing it all the time as a matter of course. We are where we are; we cannot turn back the clock and change the past. What we can do is face up to our past mistakes and thus start the climb out of the mess. Or refuse to admit we are even capable of making any mistakes and sink even deeper in the mess of our own making.

 

Sadly, it seems there are many who are keen that the nation should sweep its mistakes under the carpet.

 

“Zimbabweans are worried about the implications of this implosion and we hope (Morgan) Tsvangirai and his colleagues will resolve their differences sooner rather than later for the good of this country,” Ibbo Mandaza told the audience at a public panel discussion last week.

 

He was commenting on the on-going national debate on the in-fighting within the opposition MDC party. How the nation deals with this issue will have a huge bearing on whether the country has a quality leaders going forward or not. Whether or not the nation moves out of this mess it totally dependent on that one factor – quality leaders; make no mistake about it, we are in this mess because of the men and women who have led this nation these last three decades have been corrupt, greedy, tyrannical and devoid of common sense.

 

So Dr Ibbo Mandaza, THE IBBO MANDAZA, the head of the highly regarded and respected of Southern Africa Political and Economic Series (SAPES) and therefore one of the leading figures in shaping public opinion in Zimbabwe; thinks the MDC leaders should “resolve their difference” and remain as the country’s hope for leaders to get out of this mess.

 

It is that people like Dr Mandaza have failed to see the many, many blunders by the MDC and the most serious blunder being the party’s failure to implement the reforms?

 

“We failed to secure critical reforms before participating in the elections,” admitted Samuel Sipepa Nkomo in the Independent newspaper. “The whole world advised us not to get into the elections without reforms, and so in everything that we have been saying we have failed to acknowledge that we also made a mistake.”

 

The admission by Mr Nkomo is historical in that this was the first time anyone in the MDC has ever admitted their failure to implement the reforms was a mistake. He is also admitting that the party’s failure to implement the reforms was compounded by the party’s refusal to listen to advice.

 

So someone of the political astuteness of Dr Ibbo Mandaza MUST have known of MDC’s blundering incompetence.

 

Could it be then that Dr Mandaza is aware of MDC’s blundering incompetence but what he has failed to comprehend is the seriousness of the MDC’s blunders?

 

 The consequence of MDC’s double blunder of failing to implement the reforms and then paying no heed to the warning not to take part in the elections was that Mugabe was able to rig the elections and stay in power. Now if anyone, much less Dr Mandaza, cannot see the dare and tragic political and economic consequence of the Mugabe and Zanu PF “victory” on morning of July 2013 Zimbabwe elections then they are blind.

 

Some people acknowledge Tsvangirai, Biti and the rest of the MDC leaders’ breath-taking incompetence and they also fully comprehend the heavy, heavy price the nation is pay and will continue to pay as long as the Zanu PF dictatorship remains in power because of the blundering incompetence of MDC. Nonetheless, these people still want Tsvangirai and his MDC faction to survive, others want Biti and his faction to survive and then there are others, like Dr Mandaza, who wants MDC leaders reconciled to form some grand opposition coalition.

 

This is an instinct reaction, nothing to do with reason; regardless of the MDC’s pathetic past performance they are all we have. “Yes we wanted oranges not lemons. The reality is we have lemons,” they will argue. “We must make lemonade!”

 

The truth, these people are refusing to accept is they do not have lemons either. The MDC is one tree that will never bear any fruit, not even lemons!

Tsvangirai, Biti and the rest of the MDC leaders had the majority in parliament, in cabinet, the support, encouragement and advice from SADC – as Mr Sipepa Nkomo has admitted and five years to implement the democratic reforms. And yet they failed to get even one single reform implemented because none of them even appreciated the importance of the reforms. Not one of them!

 

Even is the penny has finally dropped; Tsvangirai, Biti, the lot finally appreciate the importance of reforms; what hope is there that they will get Mugabe and his Zanu PF friends to implement any reforms, given the tyrant now has the advantage of the parliamentary majority, a weak and feeble constitution, etc.? None!

 

I explained to my late mother that the secret of plane flight was the shape of the plane’s wings and flow of air round them. I told her the planes have to use the runway to get speed to get the necessary airflow and lift off.

 

I jokingly asked her if she would like to pilot a plane. She said no. We both laughed; knowingly fully well that plane would never take-off.

 

She had no confidence the plane would take-off and her instinct would be maintain the speed at 30 mph or 60 mph – a speed she envisaged she could survive if she crashed. She would run out of runway without ever reaching the 100 mph or whatever take-off speed!

 

My mother had no problem being a passenger though and had many opportunities to fly to many places.

 

If she had no chose but pilot the plane herself; she probably would have crashed once or twice. After that, I believe she would have bitten her tongue to stead her nerves and kept the throttle open to reach the take-off speed.

 

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because corrupt tyrants like Mugabe and incompetent leaders like Tsvangirai have denied the ordinary people the information to enable them to make their own decisions. If the MDC supporters had known all along about the MDC blunders Mr Sipepa Nkomo admitted then the crowd outside Harvest House would have been demanding the resignation of the whole MDC leadership. Instead, the herd of blundering wildebeests was demanding that Tsvangirai should remain leader ignorant of the latter’s breath-taking incompetence.

 

The people of Zimbabwe would have, by now at least, learnt the essential of a health and functioning democracy; it is nowhere near as complex as flying a plane. All they wanted is the information which the politicians have denied them and the misinformation from people like Dr Ibbo Mandaza has only served to muddy the waters Zimbabwe's very dirty political waters.