In July 2014 Mugabe called and then cancelled talks on the economy he will call for the talks again!

 

In July 2014 the then Zanu PF spokesman, Rugare Gumbo, told the country that Mugabe was ready to listen to what others had to say in finding a way out of the economic mess the country was in.

“The economic transformation we want to achieve requires the voice of everyone, including the opposition and civic society,” said Gumbo. Something was up alright!

When you see a frog hoping around in the midday heat, you can be sure something is after his life!

It was a complete shock and surprise the when a few weeks later the party dismissed the whole idea as if it was all a bad joke.

“Zanu PF did not make the call in jest,” explained my friend Mark at the time. “They had thought long and hard about it and meant every word they said. They had envisaged the stakeholders meeting producing a national body to take over responsibility of running the nation’s economy with Zanu PF calling all the shorts and ready to take over as and when it pleased.

“They were confident they would get the MDC and the usual crowd of other Zimbabwean stakeholders to play along. Zanu PF would grant Morgan Tsvangirai and a few other MDC leaders positions high in responsibility and authority but with all the political power taken away as happened during the last GNU.

“President Mugabe soon realised that no one in SADC much less in the move savvy international community was going to be fooled by this charade of political reform. Tsvangirai has lost all political credibility; SADC leaders saw him as nothing more than Mugabe’s poodle.

“If Mugabe was ever going to get the financial assistance Zimbabwe needed so desperately to kick start the economy then he had to accept a lot more serious political reforms than the window dressing reforms he was offering. Mugabe was not prepared to do that and hence the offer for talks was withdrawn as a bad joke!”

I did not believe Mark back then but I do now.

After the rigged July 2013 elections Mugabe’s celebration of the landslide victory was a subdued low key affair and none of the usual gorilla silverback chest drumming of bygone years. Many people expected Mugabe to take cars, the $4 million Highlands mansion from Tsvangirai, etc. He did no such thing as if he realised he had overplayed his hand by denying MDC some shred of political credibility throughout the GNU years.

The SADC rebuff of his July 2014 offer of a new political arrangement with the totally discredited Tsvangirai forced Mugabe to do something he has never ever done in his whole political career – prop up the credibility of his political challenger!

The barrage of criticism of MDC’s failure to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU and the more recent blunder of MDC-T’s recall of former MDC-Renewal MPs have left MDC-T, especially Morgan Tsvangirai, battered and blooded. In a recent interview on Nehanda Radio Mukanya Thomas Mapfumo said it in no uncertain terms that Tsvangirai is sell-out; that floored the latter forcing him to take the full count.

The criticism has angered Tsvangirai supporters but what many people may not know it that the criticism of Tsvangirai has left Mugabe and strategists in Shake-Shake House foaming at the mouth with anger.

It is bad enough that Tsvangirai has lost credibility outside Zimbabwe but for him to lose credibility inside Zimbabwe too would mean a political awakening of the otherwise docile povo. A wide awake electorate is the one thing Mugabe cannot afford and will not tolerate!  

Zanu PF strategists have adopted a two pronged strategy to counter the expose of Tsvangirai and his MDC friends as sell-outs who betrayed the people throughout the GNU years. CIO agents on the internet were instructed to:

1. Discrediting all those saying that Tsvangirai is sold-out by denouncing the critics as the sell-outs deserted the country. “Come back home, if you have anything to say,” the agents have argued again and again; as if to say only those still in Zimbabwe have something valid to say and the minute one left the country the mind goes completely blank!
2. Admit Tsvangirai sold-out but so what; it is a none-event of little or no consequence. Of course it is major event with far reaching consequences to the present generation and many more to come. If the sell-out was a none-event then so too the political and economic hell we are caught up in with all it mindless and institutionalized political violence. And the economic meltdown that has forced millions into a life of abject poverty and despair; forced millions to leave the country, etc.; all these are all none events too.
   Implementing the reforms was our ticket out of this political and economic hell. By selling out Tsvangirai, not only costed us the chance to get out of this hell in July 2013 but cost us many other future chances as long as remains a leading voice in the opposition camp, which is why Mugabe is now doing his best to prop Tsvangirai.

Since July 2014 when Rugare Gumbo made the initial admission that Zanu PF was willing to talk with other stakeholders to find the way out of the economic mess, the national economy has got progressively worse and not better. It is set to get worse and worse as long as Mugabe and Zanu PF remains in power. There is no other way out of this economic mess other than Mugabe and Zanu PF calling for dialogue with credible stakeholder and opposition leaders and not with discredited sell-out leaders.

The cancellation of July 2014 all stakeholders meeting to map out the way out of the political and economic hell Zimbabwe finds itself  in has been a good thing in that more people now know that Tsvangirai and MDC leaders are sell-outs and are therefore not to be trusted with the task of implementing the democratic reforms. Mugabe’s attempts to prop up Tsvangirai and MDC as the credible voice of the people has failed to fool SADC and the international community and more and more Zimbabweans are waking up to the reality that MDC leaders are sell-out!