Biti gag PDP from criticizing opposition "except on principle" as though he has any! By P Guramatunhu

"Members are advised that as a party, we have adopted a friendly approach to all opposition efforts. On that note, we shall not publicly denounce other opposition parties except on a matter of principle," read part of Tendai Biti’s PDP gagging order.

Why Biti bothered to add “except on a matter of principle” is laughable; since when has PDP or, before it, MDC-T shown that it has any principles. The party should not confuse opportunism with principles; the two are poles apart.

It is no secret that ever since Joice Mujuru was booted out of Zanu PF in December 2014 Tendai Biti has been seeking a political marriage between his party, PDP, and Mujuru’s ZimPF. It is nonsense to even suggest that Mujuru and her ZimPF colleagues like Didymus Mutasa and Kundakwashe Bhasikiti the process of being booted out of Zanu PF has been both traumatic and transformative ZimPF members have been transformed from corrupt, incompetent and Zanu PF tyrants overnight into blue-blood democrats.

None of the ZimPF leaders have given up any of the looted wealth and only the very naïve would believe that Mai Mujuru and Mutasa would not resort to the same dirty vote rigging tactics they employed during their Zanu PF days if they were elected back into office at the next elections.

If PDP was committed to a democratic Zimbabwe as the party’s name implies then the party would never form a coalition with a group of corrupt and murders thugs like ZimPF as a matter of principle. But since PDP has put aside principles; they do not care about the political partner’s past, present and future as long as they stand them a chance to get back on the gravy train, it is no surprise they are courting ZimPF which is Zanu PF in all but name.

“Biti has been on record as saying the opposition in Zimbabwe has failed because it lacked "the liberation component" that Mujuru and her band of former Zanu PF stalwarts possessed,” read the Newsday article.

Again, this is Zimbabwe opposition nonsense; one hundred years from now when all the generation that took part in the liberation war are gone and no party will have liberation component; what then!

President Mugabe has politicized the Police, Army, CIO and Prison Service, just as he has done with other state institution, so much so they have been transformed into Zanu PF institutions in all but name. One of the key democratic reforms MDC was tasked to implement during the GNU was the security sector reforms, designed to break all President Mugabe’s tyrannical tentacles to end his control of the Police, CIO, etc. MDC leaders shied away from implementing the reforms and sought instead to befriend security sector personal so the party would have “the liberation component”.

MDC were free to befriend anyone including those with liberation war credential but why that stopped them implementing security sector reforms beggars belief! As long as the state president retains the tyrannical powers over the Police, CIO, etc. it is, of course, impossible to have a healthy and functional democracy and yet Tendai Biti and his MDC friends in the GNU maintained they were still committed to delivering a democratic Zimbabwe.

If people like Tendai Biti, Morgan Tsvangirai, David Coltart, and all the other MDC leaders in the GNU were principled then they would have apologized to the good people of Zimbabwe for selling-out by failing to get even one democratic reform implemented during the GNU and then resign from all public life, ride into the sunset.