The two MDC-T leaders Tendai Biti (SG) and Morgan Tsvangirai (President) in whose name proximity seekers and Zanu PF are fuelling rifts and breakup the Party
If there is a Zanu PF political initiative that has failed the test of time none must beat the imaginary rift between MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Secretary General Tendai Biti.
Ever since the infamous 12 October 2005 MDC fallout that saw former MDC Secretary General succumb to Zanu Pf infiltration to lead a tribal breakaway faction now derisively known as MDC-PF because of its leanings on Zanu PF, the Zanu PF spin doctors sheltered at Zimpapers and ZBH have done everything possible to place a wedge between the MDC-T President and his Secretary General in vain.
There appears to be an entrenched belief that the MDC-T is an opportunistic political formation of ideologically bereft gold diggers who can be set on each other by fabricating any sort of lies about any of its leaders’ political ambitions.
The misguided belief is validated by the October 2005 split of the party that Zanu PF infiltrators in the CIO instigated through spreading malice among the leadership of the then nascent movement whose members had not matured as politicians.
Then, some gullible and overambitious, elitist leaders had jumped at the opportunity to lead the Party and set unrealistic timeframes in which they believed the party could wrestle power from Zanu PF reeling from unpopularity fuelled by unbridled corruption, violent political repression of opponents and an ever declining economy.
Tendai Biti was one of the few degreed leaders who refused to join the academic elitists that deserted founding party leader Morgan Tsvangirai to join the faction that had invited Professor Arthur Mutambara to lead the breakaway faction after openly accusing Tsvangirai of lacking academic grounding and strategic capacity to lead them.
It turned out that despite his inferior academic attainments Morgan Tsvangirai was blessed with the magnetic appeal to the party grassroots and with the backing of the sharp brains of Tendai Biti, Elias Mudzuri, Nelson Chamisa and Tapiwa Mashakada to name but a few and the staunch support of the Trade Unionists that were the backbone of the party he managed to attract the attention of other seasoned academics and political strategists like Eliphas Mukonoweshuro, William Bango, Jameson Timba and Ian Makone to name but a few who worked tirelessly to revive the party from the ashes of the split and built it into the formidable political force it now is.
Zanu PF attempted to play the people around Tsvangirai against each other by labeling the advisors Tsvangirai had sought after being deserted by the tribal elitists the Kitchen Cabinet and those that were rallied behind him from the original National Executive the real cabinet.
It was a Zanu PF ploy meant to stifle the revival of the party that had given the ruling Zanu PF its stiffest political challenge since assuming power some 25 years back by creating mistrust between the new and old party Executives and Presidential advisors.
Then it was reported by the Zanu PF mouthpieces ZBH and Zimpapers that there was a serious fallout between Tsvangirai and Biti and Mashakada over the party President’s reliance on the advice from the so called ”Kitchen Cabinet” that was leading to another imminent party split that we are yet to witness.
The collapse of reunification talks between the MDC-T and MDC-M were played out in the monopolistic Zanu PF media mouth pieces as being down to ideological differences between Secretary General Tendai Biti and President Tsvangirai and his kitchen cabinet that was about to cause yet another party split that never materialized.
Joined by the disgruntled MDC-M starring imminent the unsavory prospect of a crushing defeat at the polls acres of press space were devoted to drumming up the rift between Tsvangirai and Biti with suggestions that the former was at the verge of deserting the unstrategic and ignoramus Tsvangirai.
To date the desertion has not occurred.
During the GPA negations there were numerous allegations that Tsvangirai and Biti were at each other’s throat over the decision to join the coalition government and they were about to split. No prize for guessing who was spreading the heresy.
The formation of the coalition government quashed all the rumours that Zanu PF had been spreading and new grounds had to be fabricated to justify the continuation and widening of Tsvangirai/Biti rift.
Attempts to turn the two against each other over the appointment of Gono and Tomana failed as the MDC-T remained adamant that the appointments were unconstitutional and must be reversed.
It was left to the sanctions mantra where the Zanu PF propaganda machinery thought they had finally found the evidence of the rift between Tsvangirai and Biti when they disclosed that Biti had defied Tsvangirai and condemned the continuation of sanctions which no one other than Zanu PF zealots cared to take notice of as the sanctions issue is only emotional for Zanu PF adherents who blindly hero worship anything their party leadership presents to them.
The more amusing episode of the Tsvangirai/Biti rift is the one currently playing out at Zimpapers.
“MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai has come under fire for allegedly backing a Cabinet minister who publicly attacked the party’s Secretary-general Mr. Tendai Biti,” reports the Herald albeit falsely.
The Zanu PF mouthpiece claims that some nameless “Senior MDC-T party officials “are reportedly angered by what they claim is "connivance" by Mr. Tsvangirai and Public Services Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro to "publicly ridicule Mr. Biti" without specifying by whom the report was made to the Herald and for what purpose.
The rift has been shifted from party differences between Mr. Tsvangirai and Mr. Biti and been relocated in their roles as Prime Minister and Finance Minister respectively and has been spiced by the inclusion of Public Service Minister Eliphas Mukonoweshuro whom the paper used to ridicule as a member of Tsvangirai’s Kitchen Cabinet prior to his election as an MP in the March 29 2008 harmonized elections.
Save for the exclusion of the use of the derisive kitchen cabinet label the drafting in of Mukonoweshuro is couched from the imaginary competition to curry favour with Party President between Mukonoweshuro and Biti dating back to the dark days of the party split and its revival and reconstitution.
It is a replay of the discredited Kitchen Cabinet smear campaign by Zanu PF that failed to split the party but instead galvanized it to win the 2008 elections from the ashes of the 2005 split.
The MDC-T nominated Cabinet Ministers are serving in a coalition government and accountable for their performance therein to the nation first and party last.
Since Cabinet portfolios are assigned by the coalition Principals namely the President and Premier and Deputy Premier Mutambara why would MDC-T officials at party level be the ones to be offended by a spat in government between 2 Cabinet Ministers in defence of their government portfolio?
Equally intriguing would be the logic behind the Premier who recommended appointed the two Ministers would side with one to the detriment of the other and cause friction in his party?
The Public Service salaries issue is not an exclusive MDC-T issue of concern but that of the cabinet which is made up of appointments from MDC-T, Zanu PF and MDC-M.
Prime Minister Tsvangirai is a leader of that cabinet and has every right to clarify cabinet position on Government business such as payment of salaries.
Finance Minister Biti has an obligation to advise cabinet on the ramifications of awarding pay increments to the fiscus but certainly not to announce such advice to the nation before Cabinet has adopted his recommendations.
Eliphas Mukonoweshuro is the political Functional Head of the Public service Ministry and has every right to defend his leadership space in that ministry if it is invaded or perceived to have been invaded.
The rift if any is in government not MDC-T but even then there is no rift on the salaries issue except that it has been played out at rallies and meetings as opposed to the cabinet Office where it should rightfully be agreed upon and passed onto the Public Service Commission by the relevant Minister for execution.
But not according to the Herald which is doing the Zanu PF divisive bidding and political henchman role.
"Some people believe that Mukonoweshuro’s attack had Mr. Tsvangirai’s full backing and blessings. What has made the situation worse is that Mr. Tsvangirai is yet to react to the fallout," the Herald reported as fact that an unnamed source had informed it about the spat when that is clearly false.
Why is it easy for the Herald to name Biti, Mukonoweshuro and Tsvangirai’s involvement in the spat but not the other senior sources from the same party making the preposterous and baseless accusations against the three Senior party officials they are setting on each other?
There is evidence that there is exasperation in Zanu PF why all their efforts to prise Biti from Tsvangirai are heating a brick wall. It is commonly held that among Zanu PF ranks that Biti is the MDC-T hardliner holding the party together and the minute he falls out with Tsvangirai the party will disintegrate or at least lose most of its appeal.
Zanu PF functionaries used to kneeling before its Supreme Leader to curry favours considers any form of professional difference of opinion big headedness on the part of subordinate ranks that is intolerable and must be punished for.
"How can he challenge the party president and the Prime Minister like that? I am not saying Mr. Tsvangirai ordered the dressing down, but certainly I do not feel any sympathy for Biti," the Herald wonders why it is possible for the MDC-T Secretary General to publicly opine and escape party Presidential reprimand when such behaviour towards the Zanu PF leader will attract s official reprimand from party structures.
Within the MDC-T, President Tsvangirai and Secretary General Biti are much closer to each other in similar fashion to closeness that existed in Zanu PF between Eddison Zvobgo and Robert Mugabe in Zanu PF.
When they disagree in private or public it does not mean they are engaged in power struggle for the control of the party but rather that they enjoy a leadership style they want to permeate the party ranks that allows people to express opinions openly and allow the differences and or consensus to instruct party policy formulation.
But within MDC-T as well as in Zanu PF there are many who do not understand this leadership style having grown up under a leadership style that criminalises disagreement with the leader and where management through the grapevine is practiced by the leader.
The management by the grapevine system allows the leader to acquire unhealthy total control of the organisation by creating conditions where lower ranks compete for rewards from the leader through feeding rumours and fashioning conspiracies against rivals to gain proximity and curry favour the main leader.
The MDC leaders on an average day receives no less than 20 calls and private visits from proximity seekers within party ranks who have some conspiracy theory against his leadership to tell.
In Zanu PF it is even worse as everyone thrives on hero worshipping of leaders at any party level to grow within party ranks and acquire power and influence.
The proximity seekers actually rely on public evaluation of their conspiracy theories before submitting them to the leader and in so doing invite an opportunity for opponents to tap into their intentions and develop counter strategies and in the process of seeking evaluation the enemies of the party find opportunities to craft divisive power conspiracies that create none existent rifts such as those we hear to exist between Biti and Tsvangirai.
Mr. Biti, in his capacity as Finance Minister, has every right to advise Cabinet against awarding unrealistic wage increments to Civil servants but it is not his duty to deliver the bad news to the workers and he knows that.
Is the Herald attempting to tell us that President Mugabe as chairperson of the Cabinet is siding with Biti’s announcement of a wage freeze his cabinet has not endorsed?
The reason why MDC-T spokesman Mr. Nelson Chamisa refused to comment on the matter is not because he is fighting “his own internecine battles for describing MDC-T treasurer-general Mr. Roy Bennett as "an angel".
Rather he is only too aware that there is nothing for him to comment about and give credence to the imaginary allegations emanating from Zanu PF and even if they were true he is not the official Cabinet spokesman to comment on cabinet disagreements.
No comments:
Post a Comment