Talking about MDCs talks and about taking Zimbabwe forward

by Discent C. Bajila

2013 January 08 14:38:47 | 3382 Views

OUTSIDE the escalation of violence, one issue that seems to be dominant in the run up to Zimbabwe’s elections is talk about talks. Between 5 February 2008, the ‘Super Tuesday’ when Dr. Simba Makoni announced that he will stand for Presidency and 29 March 2008 the actual voting day we were ‘reliably’ informed that there were ‘serious’ talks inside Zanu-PF and within army rankings to pull a major surprise and do mass defections to Dr. Makoni’s then yet to be formed party.

The other time Morgan Tsvangirai was actually having heavily sponsored talks with Paul Siwela and the two had to fly to London to conclude some deals whose full content will be revealed in a free Zimbabwe. The most the public got out of that was that in Paul Siwela, Morgan Tsvangirai had found a suitable and credible person to represent the interests of the people of Matabeleland and with whom he would walk to state house. How that arrangement failed remains a mystery but all we know is that between then and now Paul Siwela has been running all over trying to establish a political home for himself just about the same speed at which Tsvangirai has been running all over doing stuff that is now public knowledge.

The most interesting talks about talks are those involving the two MDC formations. Back from mid-2007 they sounded like a very brilliant idea and they still sound brilliant up to this day. They give the public hope that the coming together of the two MDC formations will result in a clear defeat for Robert Mugabe and his demonic Zanu-PF party. Back in 2007, the proponents of the coalition used a simple analogy which actually scared most political players. They simply barked “The pro-senate and anti-senate factions of the MDC need to come together and save the situation. We need to rid ourselves of the Kenyan Syndrome”.

As we step into the 2013 election environment the talk about MDC talks is back. The annoying thing though about current talks about talks is that they are happening only on the social media and hence extremely uncoordinated. They are so uncoordinated that one cannot get clarity on what exactly these talks about talks aim at achieving. Is it about just removing Mugabe then agreeing on a post Mugabe agenda later? Is it about Welshman Ncube being ‘advised’ to realise that beyond 2013 elections he will be irrelevant? Or is it about whipping MDC to accept being swallowed by MDC-T so as to prevent a situation where Morgan Tsvangirai contests for the fourth time and is still not declared a winner they buy losing what teenagers call ‘swag’?

Given the reality that these are just talks about talks, it however becomes critical to identify key points that are carried over from 2007-2008 periods to 2012-2013. These points are;

• The need to remove Robert Mugabe and Zanu-PF from power
• The need to avoid the Kenyan Syndrome
• The need to have a strong and credible representation for the people of Matebeleland

These three are real and important issues that need careful and through interrogation. That interrogation must end with an analysis of whether the structure of the coalition being parroted on social media will be a lasting and sustainable response to our national challenges

The need to remove Robert Mugabe and the need to avoid the Kenyan Syndrome are two related matters that can be talk about interchangeably. The term Kenyan Syndrome refers to a period in Kenya where there was a broad movement to remove Daniel Arap Moi from power. However this will not happen because there so many opposition parties which would split the vote and Moi would always win. It was widely suspected that many of these parties were financed by Moi himself for the purposes of dividing opposition votes. In the end these parties came together under what they called the National Rainbow Coalition. That way they conquered the decades old Moi government and in came current President Mwai Kibaki.

That lesson alone would be sufficient as a message to Zimbabwe’s political parties that it is paramount for them to come together to bring an end to Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe.

However, the story of the National Rainbow Coalition does not end there. As soon as the coalition came into power, it became apparent to them that the only agreement they had made was that they shall together unseat Moi. Otherwise they differed on almost every issue about the development and administration of Kenya. Shortly after that, they were at each other’s throats with pangas, machetes, bows and arrows committing horrific acts that alarmed the whole of planet earth.

Today that new Kenya that was formed out of a coalition based on the satisfaction that would come with the ouster of Moi is known as an example of ethnic and political tensions in 21st Century Africa.

This is just but a brief of what the Kenyan syndrome is.

Back home, it remains important for us to keep learning from Kenya and say while it is good for us to avoid the Kenyan syndrome, it is equally important for us as a people to ensure that whatever pact we force on our leaders it must have more about what happens after Mugabe and Zanu-PF are gone than what positions do we offer for certain individuals in political parties.

In addition to old disagreements of 2008 talks and new disagreements on who should lead the coalition, it is the discussion on what happens after Mugabe has gone that spells doubt on the possibility of the two MDCs coming together for the 2013 elections.

While the MDC has spoken the truth to sustain itself, MDC-T has been inconsistency on several issues especially those that the MDC views as fundamental to the reversal of the legacy of Zanu-PF. For example, the MDC-T has had no uniform stance on devolution of power and proportional representation. They have been saying things to suit audiences while the MDC has spread its devolution message uniformly across provinces to the extent that those who love it love it truthfully and likewise those who hate it hate it truthfully. The two parties have exhibited sharp differences on such matters as the use of violence in mobilising for internal power and general discipline of party members. MDC has had zero tolerance to indiscipline to the extent of expelling ill-disciplined elected public officials while MDC-T has viewed strictness as vindictiveness and hence became home to people expelled from other parties for indiscipline. These have become an addition to its stock of ill-disciplined cadres whose actions saw the MDC-T fielding more than one candidate in several constituencies in 2008.

In fact, the number of issues on which the MDC-T has flip-flopped while the MDC has been maintaining a principled stance a too many to mention. The reality is that these unfortunately run into the core of what a post-Mugabe agenda for the coalition will be like.

Unity, democracy and peace in the post-Mugabe era are paramount issues and it becomes important for us to move out of Kenya and search for positive examples on successful administration of post conflict African states. It is perhaps out of these positive examples that we can get helpful solutions to Zimbabwe’s seemingly unending problems.

In 1994, for 100 days 1million Tutsis were massacred in cold blood by Hutus in what has become known as the Rwandan Genocide. This had never been seen perhaps in the entire history of human conflict.

Population demographics and the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide are important lessons that Zimbabweans can learn. Rwanda is a dominantly Hutu country to the extent that Tutsis form a tiny minority. However after the genocide, they found it wise to have General Paul Kagame- a Tutsi- to lead the revival and reconstruction of Rwanda. Today Kigali, the Rwandan Capital is known as the cleanest city in Africa while Rwanda itself has been ranked first in the Ease of Doing Business in Africa Index by the World Bank (2012).

In a country where ethnic tension has been doing rounds since the 1960s and in a country where there is so much talk about removing Robert Mugabe with a coalition where the people of Matebeleland will feel represented both in qualitative and quantitative representation, it should perhaps start to ring in people’s minds that the solution to Zimbabwe’s crisis could be electing a leader from a minority ethnic group.

Of cause this leader does not have to be any other person from the minorities but a tried and tested person who will have the ability to stabilise situations in the event o domineering tendencies. That leader has to be someone who appreciates diversity and commands a deep understanding of democracy, human rights, community development and servant leadership.

As we talk about talks, let us look beyond Robert Mugabe’s demise and sincerely ask ourselves about the Zimbabwe we want.

Young Communist League of South Africa National Secretary Buti Manamela once wrote that; “As in life, political events have a way of conniving with each other as if by design - and can result in political foes singing the same tune. But such coincidences also help us to learn the lesson that any unity of political forces should be questioned and that, as political actors, we should always be aware of the motives of those with whom we suddenly agree.”

Ziqunywa amakhanda ziyekwe

Talks Tsvangirai Welshman Makoni

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Source: Discent C. Bajila