picHon Senator David Coltart
Hon Senator David Coltart’s “A perspective on the Zimbabwean talks and the election of the Speaker 3rd September 2008” has started his third term as a legislator as a high flyer headed for political misery of unimagined proportions.
He has inextricably fallen into a cobweb of political deceit, eliticism and downright confusion which is not representative of the wishes of the majority in his constituency.
After the tragic12 October 2005 split of the MDC National Executive into two factions with almost equal representation, Hon Coltart made the conscious decision to side with the Professor Welshman Ncube led splinter group having failed to mediate between the factions.
That was his first political miscalculation. The faction did not only fail to resonate with the grassroots support of the MDC despite its cynical decision to retain the original party name, symbol, slogan and regalia, but it also fared badly in the elections that were massively boycotted by the electorate.
It is not in dispute that it was the combined legal brains of Hon Coltart and Professor Welshman Ncube that prevailed on the rest in the faction to retain the original name, insignia, motto and regalia on account the factions had equal claim to the goodwill the party name had cultivated if not more for the splinter faction.
The political brinkmanship premised on legal supremacy within the faction over the faction that rallied behind founding Party President Morgan Tsvangirai that instructed the faction to seek legal remedies to complete their boardroom coup against Tsvangirai failed when the High Court dismissed an application to sanction the decision of the faction’s “Disciplinary Committee” to relieve Tsvangirai of his party membership and authority as Party President.
That was the second miscalculation involving Senator Coltart in the factional politics that had emerged in opposition politics. This was to be followed by hostilities between hitherto erstwhile political allies in the fractured Party which turned nasty and violent over assert splitting between the feuding parties.
Coltart’s close confidant in the faction then Hon Trudy Stevenson MP was severely assaulted by political thugs masquerading as Tsvangirai supporters and she fingered MDC youth leader the late Tonderai Ndira and others as the assailants.
They were promptly arrested and charged with the assault only to be released by the Courts when the State failed to produce evidence forming a prima facie case against the youths.
The sad period after the split saw the Ncube led faction go into overdrive vilification of Morgan Tsvangirai and his backers that was granted acres of space in State owned Print and Electronic broadcasting media.
Tsvangirai held onto the Party Head Quarters and several vehicles while the splinter faction grabbed the Cheque Book and Party operating account as well as the Bulawayo Party offices as it had the former Party National Treasurer and Secretary General- (mandated signatories of the account)- in its ranks.
As a consequence of that State Political Financing support was deposited into the account and the splinter faction with two authorised signatories accessed the funds and used them to finance its maiden Congress in February 2006.
Professor Arthur Guseni Oliver Mutambara was roped in from political wilderness and unveiled as the new President and leader of the breakaway MDC faction. That was the third miscalculation by the faction as it triggered discontent and some defections from the faction back to the original grouping.
The remnant MDC party organs had to reschedule their Congress to April to allow for gap filling in its structures for positions deserted by those that had teamed up with Professor Ncube.
Both factions reported resounding success of their Congresses but immediately thereafter they faced a popularity test in the Budiriro Constituency bye election. The seat formerly held by the combined MDC was to be contested by the two factions separately and Zanu PF which also fancied its chances competing against former allies turned political foes.
Tsvangirai’s candidate swept to victory with a landslide and the high level fielding by the breakaway faction now under Prof Mutambara’s stewardship, Gabriel Chaibva National Information and Publicity was pushed into a distant third place with a paltry 504 votes.
The party grassroots had settled the leadership contest by rallying behind founding President Morgan Tsvangirai and dissociating themselves from the splinter faction.
Many high level defections from the splinter faction back to the original party were witnessed but key faction figures like Secretary General Professor Ncube and former Party Vice President Gibson Sibanda, Treasurer Fletcher Dulini Ncube, Deputy Secretary General Priscilla Misihairambwi Mushonga, Paul Themba Nyathi and of course Hon Coltart braved this initial setback and hang on perilously to the leadership against the tide of discontent with their divisionist project.
After enduring a barrage of relentless criticism and realising their project was in trouble over impending March 2008 harmonised elections, the faction capitulated in April 2007 when its leadership announced it would support the sole opposition Presidential candidacy of Morgan Tsvangirai.
The announcement was made subject to the MDC led by Tsvangirai agreeing to a coalition pact accommodating the turbulent faction and allowing it dominion over Matabeleland and Midlands provinces.
The negotiations for the coalition pact collapsed in March 2007 when the turbulent faction made some unreasonable demands which were outrageous and devoid of merit and thus were rejected by the MDC under Tsvangirai as they sought to create an elitist political package that had no grassroots support basis.
The collapse incensed Professors Ncube and Mutambara prompting Prof Mutambara to pass the uncomplimentary “Tsvangirai is an indecisive political midget incapable of leading the MDC to electoral success in the impending 2008 harmonised elections” jibe.
He followed that up by pulling out his faction from associating with other opposition players under the Umbrella Save Zimbabwe Campaign (SCZ) that had drawn him and his faction closer to Tsvangirai and the original MDC when the President Mugabe had viciously scuttled a prayer meeting at Zimbabwe Grounds on 11 March 2007 killing Gift Tandare and arresting and thoroughly beating opponents in police custody.
The only notable opposition leaders to escape the police arrest or brutality after arrest were from Prof Mutambara’s faction. That raised heightened suspicion among grassroots opposition supporters that the Prof Mutambara led faction was a Zanu PF project to destabilise cohesion in opposition politics.
The vicious suppression of opposition politics in Zimbabwe by President Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF elite attracted worldwide condemnation and escalated the long running political disputes in the country to the SADC Heads of State meeting which then resolved to mediate the crisis and appointed then South Africa President Thabo Mbeki its mediator in chief on Zimbabwe.
President Mbeki swiftly moved to formalise dialogue between the feuding Zimbabwe politicians and invited leaders of the then ruling Zanu PF Party and opposition MDC factions to South Africa for talks over the crisis gripping the country.
In doing so president Mbeki was relying on his previous knowledge from engaging the MDC and Zanu PF after the disputed 2001 Presidential elections that resulted in dialogue between the parties that was abandoned when Zanu PF ditched agreements reached and decided to go it alone in ruling the country.
In addition to that his decision to invite the breakaway MDC faction was also based on his personal dislike of Morgan Tsvangirai for his lack of advanced academic achievement and his affinity to the Matabeleland tribes whose leadership formed the majority in the breakaway MDC faction and are direct descendants of South African Tribes that fled North into Zimbabwe during the Tshaka dynasty conquest wars and his personal closeness to Mugabe and Prof Welshman Ncube.
It is widely held in the country that President Mbeki was never in the mediation process as an impartial moderator but with the mission to assist Zanu PF dismantle the MDC whose growing stature in Zimbabwe was having a contagious effect in politicising the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) that could shift the balance of power in his country’s politics.
In addition it is widely believed that President Mbeki saw Tsvangirai as the embodiment of resistance to continued Zanu PF supremacy in Zimbabwe and impossible of reconciling with Mugabe which could be much easier if Prof Mutambara and Ncube were catapulted to eclipse his popularity in opposition politics as they were closer to Mugabe’s ideology than Tsvangirai.
Those negotiations managed to clear the way for a reasonably violent free harmonised election and the legislation of Constitutional Amendment No 18 (CA No 18) that saw electoral rigging through rigging and ballot stuffing severely curtailed.
In January 2008 the breakaway faction led by Prof Mutambara realising it would never win the elections on its own and that most of its senior executives from the Northern constituencies would be ditched by the electorate attempted to resuscitate the alliance with the original party by yet again endorsing support the sole candidacy of Morgan Tsvangirai for President in return for 70% uncontested fielding in Matabeleland and Midlands areas while contesting 30% of Mashonaland Manicaland and Masvingo provinces.
Once again it was the proposal fell through when it was determined that the MDC breakaway faction was not in command of the support it claimed in Matabeleland worse so in the Midlands, Masvingo, Manicaland and Mashonaland provinces.
The leadership of the faction was severely hurt by the close failure of its deceitful project to succeed at the last meeting and vilified Tsvangirai as having been bribed by Zanu PF.
They announced that their President Prof Mutambara would therefore contest for the country’s Presidency against Tsvangirai and Mugabe.
On the eve of the sitting of the Nomination Court for the harmonised elections Prof Mutambara chickened out of the Presidential race instead endorsing the candidature of Dr Simba Makoni who had decided to run against his Party leader whom he accused of having unprocedurally circumvented internal contestation to represent the Party at its Congress.
Many eyebrows were raised why a Party opposing Zanu PF would decide to support a Zanu PF dissident Presidential contestant who had only been in the main arena for no more than 56 days before the elections if the Party was not in alliance with Zanu PF.
After picking up hints from his recent SW Radio Africa debate with Brian Kagoro , Hon Senator Coltart decided it was time to set the record of his faction straight and dispel some widely held perceptions about his party that were impacting negatively on it.
After the elections were held and it became apparent Tsvangirai had beaten Mugabe in the Presidential contest and his Legislative and Local Governance candidates had humbled both Zanu PF and MDC PF contestants throughout the country, presidential contestants Mugabe, Towungana and Dr Makoni did not concede defeat there and then as was expected.
Dr Makoni whom the faction supported started proposing a Government of National Unity (GNU) instead of conceding defeat and congratulating Tsvangirai notwithstanding he had not managed to poll 10% of the valid vote.
The call was made before even the official results were made public confirming that Mutambara, Makoni and Mugabe were in league with each other to stop Tsvangirai’s ascendancy to the Presidency regardless of what the results of the election were.
And when 33 days after the Presidential election the official results were released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) confirming Tsvangirai had won the election albeit with disputed final tallies that ZEC refused verification of in terms of the law, Mugabe conceded defeat and accepted the runoff contest created by the disputed figures.
Towungana never said a word while Dr Simba Makoni yapped about the GNU to the extent that when the dispute was referred to SADC at its emergency meeting in Lusaka Makoni was there despite results ruling him out of any further interest in the contest.
When SADC exerted pressure on Tsvangirai to contest the runoff on guarantees of full monitoring and equal freedom to campaign it was only then that the devious Prof Mutambara rushed to South Africa to congratulate Tsvangirai and promise him support in the runoff.
The motive was clear that the balance of power was gravitating in Tsvangirai’s favour and any opportunities of political accommodation were in league with his main wing of the Party.
Mugabe then rolled out his vicious military campaign that left no less than 130 MDC activists dead in its wake and Tsvangirai promptly pulled out of the runoff when it became apparent SADC were not in a position to live up to their guarantees about the election runoff.
On 27 June Mugabe was the sole contestant in the race and romped to a landslide “85% victory” according to ZEC figures this time availed within 2 days of the election having been staged.
The same process had not been possible of conclusion in 32 days when Mugabe had been thoroughly beaten to the post by Tsvangirai.
The election process and its results were widely condemned as a sham by the SADC and AU observers Mugabe had selectively accredited at the exclusion of local monitors who had been credited to observe the election during the first round but were barred from the second round observation of the continuing election.
But the prevaricating Prof Mutambara was there at Mugabe’s 6th coronation as President represented by the party spokesman Gabriel Chaibva of the 504 votes Budiriro by election firm signalling a shift yet again in the faction to Mugabe’s side.
Prof Mutambara was taken aback by the barrage of criticism that visited his faction as a consequence of Chaibva’s endorsement of Mugabe’s legitimacy against the international condemnation of the process leading to his “election”.
He promptly relieved Chaibva of his responsibility as faction spokesman but he had done enough to be secretly assigned the Zanu PF ambassadorship to convince vocal neighbouring Botswana to endorse Mugabe’s re-election which later earned him deportation and prohibited immigrant status from that principled country.
A week later it was the turn of Prof Mutambara, Prof Ncube and Welshman Ncube to endorse Mugabe’s re-election when they stealthily went to State House to pay homage to Mugabe in the presence of President Mbeki who was enroute to the G8 summit in Japan where the Zimbabwe electoral impasse was to feature prominently and he wanted to take evidence with him that he was still in charge of ongoing mediation of the crisis.
Any previous concealment of what the faction stood for was left bare for all to see. Furtive denials and explanations of the embarrassing episode by the faction would not wash with a distrusting electorate.
After the G8 international public condemnation of Mugabe’s electoral malfeasances that had started at the AU’s Heads of State meeting in Egypt and continued in Japan was escalated to the UN Security Council where the motion to impose international sanctions against the Junta regime led by Mugabe was supported by the requisite 9 members only to collapse when China and Russia vetoed.
After that near escape President Mbeki prevailed on cornered Mugabe to resume mediated dialogue with political opponents that he had ditched when he defiantly proceeded with the sham runoff on 27 June that failed to gain him recognition and he again invited the original group of negotiators notwithstanding that the election had proved the irrelevance of the Mutambara faction.
Attempts to coerce Tsvangirai to sign up to an exclusively President Mbeki chaired mediated process was vigorously resisted until the Sadc Heads off State conceded to the request to expand the mediation to include AU and UN representatives whereupon parties signed up to a Memorandum of Understanding on 23 June 2008 setting the stage for full fledged negotiations on power sharing to commence in earnest.
What followed the negotiations was that there arose a stalemate on the roles of Mugabe and Tsvangirai in the transitional government apropos at the talks and President Mbeki had to personally intervene to salvage the talks with a proposal that was declined by Tsvangirai who rightly observed it was heavily in favour of Mugabe and Zanu PF despite them having lost elections to him and his MDC Party respectively.
Tsvangirai stormed out of the negotiations in protest of what later emerged to have been a ganging up between President Mbeki, Mugabe and Mutambara against him to accept a ceremonial Premiership position in the transitional government.
The State owned Herald Newspaper reported that Mugabe and Prof Mutambara had struck a deal where they would form the next Government excluding Tsvangirai and his MDC formation.
President Mbeki would not deny the pact having been reached outside the negotiations before him but Prof Mutambara hurriedly called a Press conference to refute the allegations but only managed to do exactly the opposite when he lost his emotion and accused Tsvangirai of dithering to sign the agreement he and Mugabe considered fair in the circumstances.
In the spirit of the alliance between Mugabe and Prof Mutambara the later issued a hard hitting Heroes Day holiday solidarity message that exalted Mugabe and the heroic achievements of the Liberation struggle he directed and slamming Western governments hypocrisy over sanctions and demands that power negotiations must reflect the people’s will as reflected in the March 29 elections outcome.
He attacked Tsvangirai indirectly as a stooge of the Western governments in sync with Mugabe’s favourite line of political demagoguery he has used since his regime was slapped with travel sanctions for political intolerance and human rights abuses.
The dispute was back at the SADC Heads of Government meeting in South Africa where Tsvangirai again refused to sign and argued for a role reversal with Mugabe if the Heads of Government felt it was equitable in power share allotted to him and Mugabe.
Mugabe was livid when the counter proposal for role reversal was tabled to him confirming to the SADC Heads that there was something amiss in the proposal.
Sadc Heads of State minus Botswana allowed Mugabe to convene swear in elected Parliamentarians elected in March as their election was not in dispute but he misread that approval and proceeded to convene parliament the day after the swearing in ceremony.
It turned out that prior to the Parliamentary Speaker elections on 25 September 2008 Zanu PF and MDC PF together with Independent Tsholotsho North MP Professor Jonathan Moyo had caucused and agreed that Zanu PF would not field a candidate for the Speakership but would rally behind the MDC PF candidate and once they push through his election they would form a substantive coalition government minus Tsvangirai and his MDC.
Mugabe had threatened to form that government unless Tsvangirai signed up to the deal that he and Professor Mutambara had endorsed.
Paul Themba Nyathi was offered by the alliance after the Zanu PF preferred candidate John Nkomo was withdrawn after Professor Moyo had threatened to vote for the Tsvangirai endorsed candidate in retaliation for Nkomo’s previous disrespect of his person.
He was soundly beaten by MDC’s Lovemore Moyo after the Party had also caucused with elected MP’s in the MDC faction who do not want the risk of being aligned with Zanu PF which has a ruthless reputation of genocide in their constituencies.
That result delivered a shattering blow to the cynical political agenda between Mugabe and Professors Mutambara and Ncube.
Mugabe was forced to open Parliament with a salute to the hostile MDC Speaker and mayhem broke in the August house when the MDC MP’s heckled and jeered him throughout his speech and handed him and their Speaker a petition querying the legitimacy of Mugabe in their August house when his election was in dispute.
That did the trick. President Mbeki was forced to revive the stalled mediated talks he had suspended when Mugabe had promised SADC heads that he would steer out of trouble through the Parliament alliance he had struck with professor Mutambara that would give him the coalition majority necessary to form a government.
When he turned up for the 7th September round of talks he tabled a two tier power structure that gave Tsvangirai the Government Supervision powers he desired and Mugabe the State supervision powers he will die to retain to his grave and stated he was not leaving for his country without agreement regardless of how long it took to secure it. That was more like it.
The deal was signed much to the relief of President Mbeki who unbeknown to the parties in Zimbabwe negotiations had been told by his ANC Party in South Africa to secure the deal or never return as the crisis was threatening the 2010 World Football extravagance awarded to the country being moved to another country over insecurity caused by the Zimbabwe crisis.
He got the deal but it cost him his job as President of South Africa because no sooner had he touched down home soil with the Zimbabwe crisis resolution agreement in place than he was slapped with a recall notice from his ANC principals or face a vote of no confidence motion.
He promptly resigned. The recall was attributed to political gerrymandering with the prosecution of the Party President but runs deeper than that as it threatened the country’s stability if the World Football Cup was to be moved to another country over Mbeki’s failure in reigning in Mugabe’s excesses.
These are the facts Hon Coltart tried to spin around and use to create a favourable impression of his faction that is, has been and will always be in league with Zanu PF.
The reasons why Hon Coltart embarked on the faction image cleansing mission was to prepare groundwork for the real business of the Professors as mandated by the faction sponsors in Zanu PF and that is to reverse the election of Lovemore Moyo as Parliament Speaker by setting the platform on which whoever will preside over the matter will have to work from.
The Zimsentinel will expose that in the next post
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