The global agreement on the way forward for Zimbabwe is now in place. The team to drive it is now on board. In the cockpit are President Robert Mugabe confirmed, Prime Minister Designate Morgan Tsvangirai, Deputy Prime Ministers Designate Professor Arthur Mutambara and Thoko Khupe.
Their mission is to halt the decline of Zimbabwe into Economic abyss, Social decadence and Political chaos.
The supporting crew is yet to be finalised in the detail of their positions and hierarchy.
While the objectives of the new transitional government are common cause, the modus operandi to attain them is hazy.
Like all outputs of negotiation the global agreement is less than ideal but nonetheless a workable basis upon which those tasked the responsibility to turn around our country’s fortunes can achieve extraordinary things for our country.
A lot of satisficing took place to cobble the global agreement under conditions that were highly pressurised and threatening to explode.
That political leaders agreed to the contents therein is enough basis upon which we shall hold each and every one of the people who will accept responsibility to execute its implementation accountable for its success and or failure.
The details in the agreement will shortly come up for public scrutiny and they will be thoroughly examined and critiqued.
What is certain for now is that the country is saddled with a compromise government of protagonists from the polarised political divide.
Robert Gabriel Mugabe has been legitimised as the country’s President for at least the next 18 months subject to the maximum 5 years meaning his overdue retirement will not take place before he turns 86 at the min and 90 at the most. Sad indeed given the struggle he faced to articulate the national vision at the signing ceremony on 15 September 2008.
One could not help but feel pity for the tired octogenarian as he struggled to remain relevant to the country whose liberation from colonialism he ably marshalled and heroically attained.
He required support of the podium throughout his speech only managing to stand upright for less than 1% of the 45 minutes it took him to churn out his incoherent tirade that was punctuated with boos from the audience and face covering by the dignitaries invited for the momentous occasion.
So out of touch was the President that even the few supporters who chanted his totem when he took to the podium were left speechless with shame at what their former hero has now become because of advanced age.
The Presidential acknowledgement of the deal speech will be subjected to in-depth analysis later on. For now it suffices to say that it was the anticlimax of national expectations.
The Presidential speech underscored why the country has been on a political social and economic tailspin and freefall. The leader is aged and tired and his advisors are downright dishonest about the kind of advice they give him.
They are either benefiting from his ineffective control or retarded conceptualisation or they have become victims of the familiarity syndrome and follow him because of past glories under him other than anything he has to offer at present.
Prime Minister designate now has real work on his hands.
Nothing can be more demoralising than the spectre of having to work with a person as out of touch as President Mugabe on any project more so, on a project as critical as the turnaround of Zimbabwe’s ruined economy, tattered international image and catastrophic humanitarian crisis.
As if dealing with a demented Mugabe is not a onerous task for the Prime Minister designate he will have to also content with keeping the loose cannon that has been imposed on the people’s will that Professor Mutambara is as his deputy.
After listening to his maiden speech as Deputy Prime Minister designate Zimbabweans will be excused for the booing reception part of his speech as he talked down to them in the rhetoric that Mugabe in his heydays used to mesmerise the nation with.
Add to this that the Prime Minister will have to deal with 15 Mugabe pliant Cabinet Ministers and totally whimsical of the national wishes over 28 years in power against the expectations of the nation for immediate change, Mr Tsvangirai has more than his fair of the Zimbabwean burden.
Many of the selfish leaders from Zanu PF will find seats in the new government and we do not expect them to suddenly abandon their selfish agendas and substitute them national agendas.
For that reason it is crucial for the Prime Minister (PM) designate to appreciate that all national hope has now been invested in him and the warm reception his maiden speech as PM designate received from the witnesses to the signing ceremony bears testimony to that.
President Robert Gabriel Mugabe
The majority in Zimbabwe has long lost faith in the leadership of this president. His speech after the signing ceremony confirmed why in no uncertain ways.
The gathered Excellencies from Sadc and AU as well as other foreign dignitaries and ordinary Zanu PF supporters and Members of Parliament present held their faces in shame and looked at floors and up the ceiling for cover as the old despot stuttered through his rigmarole of a speech that was not connected with the occasion of the signing of an agreement signalling cessation of political hostilities with former foes and the beginning of a new era of cooperative engagement with the global village.
The disconnect in his speech and the occasion was so bad it earned the archaic President boos from the audience whose expectations had been raised by the preceding speeches of the designate DPM and more so PM.
First he lost the interest of his audience when he stepped to the podium and acknowledged protocol while leaning on the podium and like Mutambara omitted to acknowledge the Honourable President of the Senate and Speaker of Parliament because he had no prepared speech to remind his demented mind.
As if that was not enough disregard of protocol to alienate him with the audience expectation of him to show practical acceptance of the deal he had just signed he referred to the DPM designate as Comrade DPM Professor Mutambara and the PM designate as just Mr Tsvangirai with no hint of acknowledging his new title despite the DPM having acknowledged him as President.
There was more to come when after suppressing a torrent of anger and the urge to attack the Western leadership particularly of the United Kingdom and the United States of America by putting on facial expressions showing he was withholding some deep anger, he lost it and went on the tirade against the British and Americans over their sanctions and regime change agenda against his country.
At Zanu PF rallies such speeches earn him ululations, applause and appreciative whistling from the audience. At this occasion it earned him deserved boos.
He abandoned that line and talked about the land and earned some adulation from the Zanu zealots in attendance and decided it was time to take the bull by its horns.
He denigrated Western interference in the country’s economy and laid ground rules on how the new relationship found in the political settlement will work and that was only if it excluded Western interference and embraced Eastern association and aid.
That was at a tangent with the preceding appeal for locked humanitarian aid doors to be unlocked and free flow to commence forthwith.
He got carried away and landed in hot soup when he declared that democracy was another proposition for Africa as opposition in African politics was about violence and the boos reached a crescendo.
There was a man who almost everyone in the audience held accountable for the pre sham June 27 runoff election violence that claimed more than 130 opponent’s lives and displaced thousands others pointing at his victims as instigators than taking the opportunity to apologise and appeal for reconciliation.
That was callous.
He was angered by the boos and tried to recover by telling the practical joke about Tsvangirai’s disobedience that no one was spared including King Mswati but it did not raise his spirits that the audience did not take to his joke kindly as it was in bad taste.
Then he tried an even more subtle one by trying to portray Mbeki as a resolute and focussed negotiator who age permitting he would have consulted anytime on techniques of how to reject a no answer from a girl he had proposed.
For a President whose second marriage is shrouded in allegations of infidelity, abuse of office in that the current wife was his former secretary and callous neglect of a loyal first wife the joke was indeed in bad taste and unbefitting of the occasion.
The nation does not expect anything positive to accrue from his stay in power. Grudgingly they have been bludgeoned to legitimise him through this deal but there is desperate apprehension about his role and ability to change.
But Mugabe is too old and senile to be expected to change so all the nation can hope for is that he will not be the face of our new order as he was in the past 28 years if the new beginning has to be realised.
The nation would be happy and eternally grateful to him if his political visibility is restricted to purely State functions. For the avoidance of doubt no more speechifying about Western imperialism, look east, sovereignty, sanctions, regime change, War cabinets and the liberation struggle of the 70’s will be required from him as it has no potential to move the country out of the current abyss.
All that was expected of him after the signing of the agreements was the Action plan to accomplish the country’s mission statement to the agreed performance standards with the Ministers and the benchmark measures agreed for their performance.
After that most of his time must be spent assessing and evaluating government performance reports and flagging deviant performance and reviewing performance standards.
Access to State asserts and finances by this man must be strictly restricted to State functions like opening parliament, travel to Sadc, AU, UN and other beneficial Economic and Political fora requiring Head of State presence.
The use of the State Motorcade and Helicopters as well as stationery and Civil servants secretarial services and any moveable assets in his State Offices and residences for purely Zanu PF business like Politburo meetings, meetings with Chiefs and electioneering must be banished as he must use Zanu PF resources for that.
After all, taxpayers, extend reasonable Political Parties financing through the Exchequer to all parties that are represented in our Parliament.
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