Picking on “soft target” Tsvangirai and MDC

Pic: Former zambian President Dr Kenneth Kaunda whose legact the Editor of the Post of Zambia Newspaper lives under.

The Post of Zambia’s Editor must have missed his Zimbabwean political idol’s assessment of the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai at the Rainbow Towers Hotel- Harare on 15 September 2008 following the signing ceremony of the tripartite Zimbabwe Global Political Agreement GPA by Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Prof Mutambara.

We are tempted to conclude that in the light of his timid attempt at counselling Morgan Tsvangirai to sign-up to, in his own words “a may not be the ideal political arrangement” just because it was recommended by Africans.

After that historic occasion, Mugabe for all his reputed strong arm tactics and mesmerising aura among African leaders admitted that Tsvangirai is an insolent and harder nosed political opponent than he ever held him to be.

“He has no respect for anyone. He said no to me. Then he said No to the Sadc mediator. And he even said no to the King (Mswati). He does not know what it means to disobey kings,” lamented Mugabe.

If the Post of Zambia had the faintest idea of who Tsvangirai is and what he stands for that has elevated him from a humble Trade Unionist to the most revered political leader in Zimbabwe he would not have wasted his time on an opinion couched in loathed Mugabe and Mbeki mantra.

The Post of Zambia’s Editor has the condescending attitude towards Tsvangirai that has seen Tsvangirai humble many of his better academically qualified opponents in elections and political strategy.
“MORGAN Tsvangirai and MDC are pushing their luck too far,” declared the Post of Zambia’s Editor in introducing his warped and condescending opinion.
Surely there is no luck to talk about the MDC and its leader at present after SADC and the AU whom the Editor defends abandoned their ratified democratic protocols to defend an octogenarian political despot who lost the 29 March 2008 Presidential elections and unleashed militant retribution against the electorate that claimed no less than 150 innocent lives and displaced over a quarter of a million of the electorate in a desperate bid to retain power.
What kind of luck is that? We call it MDC and Tsvangirai political misfortune underwritten by SADC and AU. Period.
“In politics, one must not be too stiff-necked, too harsh and unyielding. It is sometimes necessary to yield to those moving towards us,” the Post’s Editor disingenuously discloses his condescending attitude towards the subject matter.
All Zimbabweans know who among their leaders is the most stiff-necked, iron fisted, wooden headed, vicious and despotic. We suspect even the Post’s Editor knows that leader to be Mugabe and not Tsvangirai but because he is awe stricken by Mugabe’s vicious credentials he has chosen to assign those qualities to Tsvangirai whom he mistakenly thinks is the weaker of the two leaders and thus the easier to intimidate.
Have we got news for the Editor of the Post of Zambia!
Indeed yielding is legitimate and essential when the yielder is convinced that those who are striving to make him yield are in the right. But in the case under consideration they are not.
The Sadc leaders that are striving to pin him down to an unworkable and unheard of co-management of a Ministry in a coalition Government have through their Secretary General Tomaz Salomão that frankly and openly their resolution was an untried experiment in 21st century politics.
Has the Post’s editor ever applied his mind as to why SADC in its wisdom or mainly the lack of it found it proper to recommend an irrational and harmful resolution whose validity is subjective and unreasonable for a “UNITY” government they have forced upon Zimbabweans.
Could it be that the Editor believes that yielding to co-managing the Home Affairs Ministry of the novel “INCLUSIVE” Zimbabwe government is a lesser threat to MDC and Tsvangirai’s political fortunes than asking Sadc and AU to live by their democratic pledges to their citizens and compelling Mugabe to accept legitimate electoral outcomes in Zimbabwe and live by them.
That would be some kind of indictment Mugabe and Zanu PF wouldn’t it?
Where is the inclusiveness and unity of the envisaged government if there is such evident mistrust between the parties to the agreement?
Why does the Post Editor avoid the seemingly paradoxical Zanu PF and Mugabe demand for exclusive management of the Defence Ministries and its demand for inclusion in management of the Home Affairs Ministry?
How feasible is it for the parties to co-exist and cohesively manage government affairs under such evident mistrust between them? Those are the issues he must address Tsvangirai and Zimbabweans on with convincing facts but which he conveniently avoids.
“It is also commonplace wisdom that little annoyances should not be allowed to stand in the way of a big pleasure,” the Post’s Editor declares.
We must for once agree with him on that. Having done so we must ask what pleasure would exceed a Presidential election winner forming the next Government after the hard fought victory. Nothing we must tell him. Not even being coerced to become a key member of a Unity Government where his powers are checked by a contestant he defeated in the election.
“Tsvangirai should realise and accept the fact that concessions are inherent in negotiations,” lectures the condescending Editor of the Post of Zambia.
As if Tsvangirai did not know that or has not compromised far too much by merely accepting to negotiate power sharing with a loser of the highest Political office election in the country.
And while at it why should Tsvangirai alone accept the fact that concessions underpin negotiations and not Mugabe? What has Mugabe conceded so far in the negotiations in Zimbabwe that points to the fact that he understands that underlying principle?


“If one is not prepared to compromise, then they must never enter into or think about the process of negotiation at all,” the Editor declared.
Indeed. Tsvangirai and his MDC were invited into these negotiations by SADC and AU resolutions after those political institutions realised that the democratic process in Zimbabwe had gone awry.
Not because Tsvangirai and MDC had failed to form a government after winning the 29 March elections but rather because Mugabe had used the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the Joint Operations Command (JOC) to circumvent the electoral process and staged a Military Coup in an affiliate State which they could not endorse.
Other than International recognition of his victory in March that was negatively impacting on Mugabe’s claim to the Presidency, Tsvangirai had nothing else to concede as his winnings had already been expropriated by Mugabe.
The concessions in these negotiations were thus expected more from the electoral thieves in Mugabe and his Zanu PF rather than from Tsvangirai whose concession was simply reduced to accepting participation in a government in which Mugabe had a key role despite losing the elections.

Weird as it sounds SADC and AU coerced Tsvangirai into making those concessions on promises they would underwrite equitable power distribution between his victorious MDC party and Zanu PF.

Instead however SADC shifted goal posts and started using a none Presidential election disputant Prof Mutambara to reduce Tsvangirai and his MDC’s power base and create a wedge between him and the faction that in theory is loyal to Mutambara but in practice its elected MP’s are pro Tsvangirai in their majority.

But the Post of Zambia editor would like us to ignore these realities and join him in condemning Tsvangirai for refusing and or failing to compromise in negotiations.
We cannot agree with him on that.

If anything we feel Tsvangirai has compromised too much in the negotiations and he will not carry the aspirations and hopes of impoverished Zimbabweans that invested their trust in him and his party during elections.

“It is sad that Tsvangirai and MDC could dismiss the decision taken by the Southern African Development Community Extraordinary Summit of November 9 as a ‘nullity’, the editor declares.

His verdict is informed by the fact that it was Tsvangirai himself who asked for this meeting and for Sadc’s intervention and the SADC solution for the sharing of ministerial portfolios in the (inclusive) government dispute was not unreasonable.
In both cases the editor is wrong. Implementation of the Zimbabwe GPA is underwritten by the Sadc mediator who in turn reverts to the SADC Troika reference Group if he fails to assail a dispute and if the troika fails to resolve the dispute SADC intervention becomes mandatory. Both Zanu PF and MDC referred the impasse on Ministerial portfolios to SADC for resolution.

The only point of departure was and still that Zanu PF and the faction of the MDC that is led by Prof Mutambara which has been christened MDC PF for its leadership affinity with Zanu PF had reduced the dispute to one Ministry of Home Affairs whereas the MDC led by Tsvangirai insisted on 10 disputed Ministerial allotments, appointment of Governors, Top Civil Servants, Diplomats, State Commissionaires and clarification and definition of the role of the National Security Council apropos as well as an address of insincerity incidence observed in the GPA implementation process.

On the second instant, the resolution directing co-management of the Home Affairs Ministry was absurd, inconsistent with the GPA letter and Spirit that allowed each Party only 1 Minister for each of the 31 Ministries agreed upon and has no provision for co-management.

Further the resolution was outrageous and a betrayal of Tsvangirai’s trust in the impartiality of SADC because it allowed Mugabe dominion over all Security Ministries he has in the past abused to entrench himself and party in power which abuse needed to be counterbalanced with MDC control of the law enforcement Ministry.

And finally the resolution that was passed as a decree as opposed to a recommendation by an informal Sadc Heads of State fora without locus citandi to preside over the Zimbabwe dispute as a jury rather than mediator and conciliator was and is still a legal nullity whichever way the Post of Zambia editor sees it.

It is legally impossible of execution because the authority that issued it has no legal means with which to enforce it other than politically.

That is why the MDC has taken a political decision to reject the resolution and appeal it to the further mediation consideration of the AU.

But that does not go down well with the Post of Zambia editor who believes that rejecting a SADC resolution is contemptuous of the SADC.

We wonder if he holds the same beliefs about appeals in judicial litigation where aggrieved litigants reject lower court decisions and appeal them to the highest court possible until they exhaust chances of attaining a desired remedy.

If he does we do not hesitate to tell him that he is a pathetic tragedy holding a dangerously influential position in Zambian, Sadc and AU communities that he must be stripped of.

“From the very beginning, Tsvangirai had relied on American, British, Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and other European support. Africa had never been an option for him.

For a long time, Tsvangirai and MDC had no meaningful contact with African countries, governments or political parties. In saying this, we are not in any way trying to choose friends for them.

But we are merely wondering why countries that have never supported liberation or progressive movements in this region are today the allies and ardent supporters of Tsvangirai and MDC,” the editor pondered loudly.

The reality is that for a long time African politicians have been overawed by the antics of despots like Milton Obote, Idi Amin, Muamar Gaddafi, Charles Taylor, Kamuzu Banda, Mobutu Sese Seko, Emperor Bokassa, Mengistu Haile Mariam, Hosni Mubarak, Kenneth Kaunda, King Mswati and Robert Mugabe for them to care about political upstarts like Tsvangirai.

The coups that litter African history mirror the blind leadership the continent has witnessed where obsession with power retention has overridden developmental change desires of Africans.

The African leaders did not care about the MDC and its leader until he proved that with or without them he was the most popular leader in the country by defeating Mugabe and his awesome Zanu PF party in the 2000, 2002, 2005 elections where they retained their rule of the country by electoral rigging and vicious political thuggery.

All African leaders were privy to observer reports into electoral conduct in Zimbabwe and were convinced that Tsvangirai and his MDC were true representatives of a critical mass of Zimbabweans they could no longer afford to ignore after witnessing his party secure nearly 50% of votes in three consecutive elections his party participated in under conditions no other party had managed to win 10% of the rigged vote.

This entrenched conservative “prove your worth before receiving my endorsement” African and Asian value system which runs contrary to the Western value system that actively seeks to identify and promote competition and thus is dynamically manage change is the reason why the Western democracies identified Tsvangirai’s leadership capabilities much earlier than the Africans did.

They were waiting for a sign and when they realised Tsvangirai and his MDC were there to stay in Zimbabwe politics they began to cautiously warm up to him and his party and in that process wanted to as they now seem to be pushing for, take credit for mentoring Tsvangirai.

This is the reality of African political hypocrisy that the Post of Zambia editor must expose in the interest of African developmental politics but alas he is hell bent on promoting conservatism.

“The British and Americans never supported any of our liberation struggles in this region. These are the same countries that classified our liberation movements as terrorist organisations,” he declares in his African conservationist approach.

Indeed the Western countries committed cardinal generational sins against African humanity through slave trade and colonisation but they also realised the folly of their imperialism and were forced to abandon it by African militarism.

Once they were forced into retreat they actively sought to champion democracy within their countries and the world to atone for their mistakes.

They may not have achieved ultimate democracy but they are light years ahead of African democratic systems.

“What is it that they have found more interesting, more favourable, more acceptable in Tsvangirai and MDC that they did not find in Mandela and ANC, in Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo and Zanu and Zapu?

What is it that they see in Tsvangirai and MDC that they did not see in Sam Nujoma and Swapo, in Samora Machel and Frelimo, in Dr Agostinho Neto and MPLA and so on and so forth?” he prods.

That Western interest in Africa dates back to the slave trade and imperial expansion seems lost to the Post of Zambia editor.

The Western democracies view Africa as a critical source of economic resources that are being abused at a time when they could be exploited and utilised to improve the quality of life throughout the globe.

When African liberation movements came into the way of this agenda they initially resisted them with vengeful force but African resolve for self rule triumphed over the might of imperialist military supremacy.

The Western leaders could not have been realistically expected to warm up to African Liberation movements that were threatening their smoothly coordinated access to the economic resources in Africa.

When they were belatedly forced to take stock of their human losses in wars that were beyond their capacity to win they tactically withdrew from political leadership of the countries and financed the election of preferred leaders in their former colonies.

Mugabe’s election in 1980 was sponsored and made possible by his former British colonial masters.

They hoped he would restore peace and tranquillity in the country and thereby create conditions for free trade between his country and the former colonisers as well as with any other nation the Zimbabwe leadership established convenient trade relations with.

But Mugabe went at a tangent and started terrorising people and trashing all known human rights conventions the country had hitherto ratified.

It is absolutely stupid for the Post of Zambia editor to then sing from Mugabe’s script that Tsvangirai and his party are puppets of Britain and America.

Many Zimbabweans will disagree with him with irrefutable evidence that the MDC is a truly Zimbabwean political initiative necessitated by Zanu PF excesses and nothing else.

“Today, Tsvangirai is going round raising concern about the worsening humanitarian condition in Zimbabwe when he was the one who campaigned vigorously for sanctions against his own country, his own people,” the editor declared.

Tsvangirai is unduly credited with calling for the imposition of sanctions on Zimbabwe without any evidence being given as to how an individual of his humble stature and alleged limited intellect could convince the most powerful nations of this world how he managed that feat.

We can assure the editor of the Post of Zambia that he is wrong in this belief. There are targeted sanctions against close associates and aides of Mugabe because they are at the forefront of trashing human rights in Zimbabwe.

If the editor doubts us we dare him challenge Mugabe to desist from applying the law selectively, restrain him from wanton arrest of opposition politicians, prevail upon him to respect property rights, freedom of speech, freedom of political assembly and association, open broadcasting airwaves, concede electoral defeat and generally rule by consent rather than military cohesion.

It is sad that the editor of the Post of Zambia Newspaper is still steeped in UNIP political dogma that failed Zambia to a point where Zambians depended on Zimbabwe for food security and daily life necessities in similar ways to how Mugabe’s mantra has reduced Zimbabweans to food scavengers in all bordering Sadc countries and is not ashamed to promote such shameful policies.

Targeted sanctions against Zanu PF despots have not impoverished Zimbabweans. Rather it is Zanu PF grab and squander political leadership that has reduced most Zimbabweans to destitution as national productivity has plummeted to nothing and the country now relies on imports for national survival which is a complete reversal of the economic principles Zanu PF inherited from colonists which guaranteed national self sufficiency.

“There is no doubt that Tsvangirai sought to take over power in Zimbabwe at the back of national failure,” lamented the editor.

Could there be any better justification for change of national leadership than proven failed leadership by the current leadership?

It is pathetic that the editor believes that failed leadership in Zimbabwe was caused by Tsvangirai and the MDC when the very existence of that party was justified by mounting discontent with Zanu PF leadership.

“And he must be very frustrated today that the national failure he sought has come to his country but not with the appropriate share of power he wanted.

But despite his lack of respect for Africa and fellow Africans, over the last 12 months, the political fortunes for Tsvangirai on the continent increased beyond belief.

But the way he is going about things will make him lose all that support in a very vast way.

The support that he got from Africa made it possible for him to have the status that he has in his country and the world today.

If he wants to lose all this, he should ignore what Thabo Mbeki is saying. Mbeki has raised very serious matters concerning Tsvangirai and MDC’s behaviour and attitude,” the editor concluded.

Nothing can beat this for the editor’s sheer political stupidity and irrationality.
If Tsvangirai is frustrated it is not because he entered the political fray with the objective to cause national failure but to halt and reverse the country’s economic decline by democratically wrestling power from the corrupt and hopeless Zanu PF leadership.

SADC and the AU have conspired with Mugabe to deny him that opportunity and that is what is frustrating for Tsvangirai as that conspiracy has worsened the Zimbabwean humanitarian crisis.

If his lack of respect for African leadership models has endeared him with the people he aspires to lead in Zimbabwe why must he be expected to abandon a working political strategy and follow that which has caused Mugabe to lose his popularity if not outright political stupidity.

The reason why Africans like the Post of Zambia editor are mesmerised by the growth in Tsvangirai’s popularity throughout the African continent is because Tsvangirai is speaking for many impoverished Africans across the African continent whose voice is suppressed by Liberation political leaders through vicious military repression.

What sort of support is this from African leaders who intervened to deny him ascendency to the presidential throne in Zimbabwe after winning a legitimate election that the editor is crowing about.

If Tsvangirai’s popularity is on the ascendancy it is because many other sane countries and rational people throughout the world sympathise with victims of bullies and brutes.

Mugabe and Zanu PF are typical examples of political bullies and brutes in Zimbabwe and evidence of their brutality is everywhere for anyone with eyes and ears to see and hear.

The editor does not explain to us how a Tsvangirai who has never related with African leaders managed to secure their support to grow his popularity in the continent because the truth is that he has no explanation for that.

Tsvangirai like Senegalese President Wade has worked extra hard to gain African leaders’ respect as a genuine Zimbabwean political leader but Mugabe’s established State sponsored propaganda machinery has tried with some measure of success to sell him to Africa as a Western puppet and the Post of Zambia editor is a buyer into that mantra.

It is tragic that the editor relied on Mbeki’s letter to arrive at the conclusion that Tsvangirai and his party are fast losing credibility within SADC because he has disagreed with substantive leadership in the region.

If Mbeki was a Zimbabwean he would be a card carrying Zanu PF supporter. That is the undeniable fact that emerges on analysis of his relationship with Zanu PF and his leadership style similarities to those of Mugabe.

A common denominator between him and Mugabe is his intolerance of political competition and reliance on framed military and selective law application interventions to silence opponents.

We shall not waste time commenting on Mbeki’s ideas and opinions but merely state that he is a failed former President of South Africa with a superiority complex that is nauseating for the common man and women.

He adds no value whatsoever to Tsvangirai’s growing popularity as his sole mission is to support Mugabe regardless of how wrong or right the octogenarian despot maybe.
Tsvangirai can only gain SADC Heads of State lasting respect by openly challenging them to act in the best interests of impoverished SADC citizens and in particular Zimbabweans he leads.

He will be accommodated in the Presidential Union if he eulogises the current SADC leadership but he will lose grassroots support in Zimbabwe something the Zambian Post’s editor is oblivious to.

All Sadc Heads of State may withdraw their support from Tsvangirai and his MDC which for all we know is next to none existent in most of them but that will not diminish his popularity with Zimbabweans who agree with him on the cowardice of SADC leaders where dealing with Mugabe and Zanu PF excesses are concerned.

“This is how Mbeki reacted to Tsvangirai and MDC’s attitude, arrogance, lack of humility, lack of respect for others, and lack of gratitude to their African neighbours. Tsvangirai’s excessive dependency on Western Europe and North America for political and financial support will backfire.

What Tsvangirai should not forget is that for all that life has dealt them, one thing that Africans have not abandoned is hatred for colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism in general.

The Zimbabwean campaign is the biggest Western Europe and North America have ever mounted in an independent African country.

We have had problems in Kenya, Uganda, Congo, but we have never seen Western Europe and North America do what they are doing in Zimbabwe.

Why?, the editor enquired.

Simple. None of those countries have ever openly stolen elections and trashed democratic practice to the extent Mugabe and Zanu PF has gone to.

Further Mugabe has an open confrontational approach with the leadership in those countries that alienates him from them and invites their ire in dealing with him personally after all they have done for him to become the first Black Prime Minister of Zimbabwe.

Unfortunately his loud mouth is not backed by matching resources and he is ever on the receiving end of negative consequences of his political brinkmanship.
Maybe the editor would like to remind Mugabe of his opening remarks that yielding is noble to avert a more serious consequence in this regard.

“Tsvangirai shouldn’t mistake the African people’s commitment and desire for democracy as an acceptance of Western European and North American political domination,” the editor advised.

Indeed and he has never committed that sin. What he has done is to refuse to be fooled by disguised African kleptocracy being sold as African democracy. That is what principled political leaders must do. Reject political mirages.

“There is no sensible alternative for Tsvangirai and MDC outside negotiated political settlement as expressed in (an inclusive) government,” the editor intones Prof Mutambara.

Why not? Is African democracy better served by negotiated settlements than elections? If so why then hold the elections in Africa?

There is no need to satisfice on the Zimbabwe political impasse. The root cause is the refusal by Zanu PF to hold credible elections and live by results of such elections. That is the alternative open to Tsvangirai and MDC in their quest to gain power legitimately.

If opinion leaders like the Zamia Post’s editor were to campaign for SADC and AU to compel member states to resolve political differences through credible elections open to monitoring by any interested party, SADC leaders would not make dreadful mistakes of resorting to elitist political pacts that circumvent the will of citizens.


“In conclusion, we can only say that intervention only works when people concerned seem to be keen to come together and work together in unity.
If they want to be sweepstake winners where there can only be a collective winner, then there is a problem.

We hope Tsvangirai and MDC will see sense in what Mbeki is saying and make amends,” he concluded.

By people concerned we hope the editor also had in mind Zanu PF militants. They are the ones who profess openly they will not work with anyone as leader of the country other than one with Liberation war credentials.

The majority in the population do not have those credentials and thus the stage for acrimony as opposed to cooperation is set and the editor does not address its basis.
With regard to his conclusion that winners must cede their winnings to competitors we are at variance. Why compete if the price was there for sharing by other means in the first instance.

In any event competition we believe brings the best out of people if there is a prize for effort spent in competing.

We also hope that as much as we appreciate the editor’s desire for Tsvangirai to consider Mbeki’s recommendations, Mbeki. Mugabe, Sadc, AU and the Post of Zambia Editor must also consider his position and uphold his winning status and advise him in that capacity rather than the present position where they want him to be subservient to Robert Mugabe whom he beat at the polls.

Picking on Tsvangirai on the assumption he is weaker than Mugabe is condescending and unacceptable and will not work as the editor will sooner rather than later find out.

Mugabe found out rather belatedly and conceded. The post of Zambia editor may not wait as long as Mugabe did to discover realities about Tsvangirai and the MDC.