Zimbabwe political vibes

Left:Premier Morgan Tsvangira:Stop disruptions on commercial farms


Right:President Robert Mugabe:Farm occupations will continue despite the nonsense from the SADC Tribunal declaring them illegal

That President Mugabe is living in the past is no longer a debatable issue. What is debatable is how many of his Zanu PF faithfuls are still with him as events unfold condemning the once awesome Zanu PF dogma into the annuls of the country’s history while the proponents are still alive.

In his traditional Independence day interview with the State controlled ZBH TV President Mugabe not surprisingly disclosed that newly found political allies in the Coalition Government from the MDC-T are in the transition from sanction imposers to sanction opponents but need time and encouragement to summon the courage and overcome the embarrassment of leading the call for sanctions to be lifted.

"You have got to understand that yesterday the opposition thought sanctions would be a good weapon against the ruling party that would yield them a favourable position in the political system.

"So for them (MDC-T), after calling for the imposition of sanctions yesterday to go back to those same people and say remove the sanctions is difficult.

"Although I know that they want them to go quickly it is not easy. Prime Minister Tsvangirai preferred to call them restrictive measures when saying they should be lifted.

"That is the best they can do. They will have psychological difficulties and we should help them get over it.

"The sanctions are unwarranted and it is important that we sing the same song. With time they will have summoned the courage to go to the same people and say we don’t need them anymore," he said.

Nothing can be further from the truth. The MDC-T has always maintained that it did not call for targeted sanctions to be imposed on anyone but the party supports punitive measures imposed on Zanu PF leadership for its culture of impunity and disregard of fundamental Human Rights.

The MDC-T is under no psychological difficulty in that respect and infact has done half the work for Zanu PF to unshackle itself from the sanctions by accepting to be in a coalition government with the internally and internationally loathed Zanu PF party.

That act alone has sent a softening message to Western democracies that Mugabe and his Zanu PF are no longer immune to political diversity and international assistance to return the country back to democratic governance.

The momentum that had been gained by Zanu PF to get travel sanctions on its leadership lifted is fast fading away as Zanu PF malcontents are refusing to take the opportunity to show the Party is ready to take democratic reforms on board by embarking on fresh farm invasions, continuing to detain and persecute political opponents, failing to uphold fundamental clauses of political agreements signed by Party President Robert Mugabe and ratified by its management Politburo.

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Deputy Premier Prof Arthur Mutambara: there are no sacred cows in farm disruptions

A surprise tour by a Premiership Ministerial Task Force to evaluate the extent of reported disruptions in the commercial farms around the Chegutu area of commercial farms was undertaken the day after President Mugabe made his revelations about the psychological barriers on MDC-T coming out in full force against the sanctions.

Chegutu is in Mashonaland West Province where the President hails from.

Task Force leader and Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara who had declared unequivocal support for the irreversibility of land reforms embarked on by Zanu PF and forcefully demanded the lifting of the sanctions was less convinced about the wisdom of swallowing Zanu PF mantra hook, sinker and line before checking out its accuracy.

“There will be no holy cows. The axe will hit where it may and we will not tolerate any government official who is prolonging lawlessness in the country,”

“Our country is trying to attract investment, attract foreign aid, we can’t afford to be damaging business confidence in this country,” he told exiled Zimbabwe radio station VOA News in a telephone interview from the farm forcibly grabbed by Senate President Edna Madzongwe.

That is not the language of person suffering psychological effects to speak for a cause. Rather it is the voice of a convinced and concerned principal in the coalition government that will confront whoever President Mugabe appoints to do the dirty work of attempting to have targeted sanctions hanging on his neck lifted.

They will be asked to account for what has happened to Madzongwe for her alleged disturbances Stockdale Citrus Farm. Unfortunately she has already indicated what the answer to that question will be unless President Mugabe somehow manages to find the power to change that which unfortunately he neither has nor is willing to attempt to secure and apply positively for his personal relief from the nauseating travel ban he lives with.

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MDC-T MP’s reportedly helped themselves to the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe’s charity vehicles allegedly availed for the free use of the new legislators struggling to cover their constituencies with the paltry US$100 per month they are being paid leaving egg all over their party leader’s face.

MDC –T President and country Premier had directed MP’s from his political Party to resist compromising temptation by accepting donations from the discredited Reserve Bank Governor and wait for the Government to source funds that would enable them to acquire vehicles of their choice through the legislated Parliamentary vehicle acquisition scheme.

Twenty five MP’s from his Party allegedly defied his directive and helped themselves to the unprocedurally distribute Reserve Bank vehicles leaving the Party leader embarrassed.

Unspecified party sanctions await the insubordinate MP’s for their actions which could include threatened dismissal from the Party sources have disclosed.

These are the same MP’s who a year ago and without any Party and Government financing managed to cover the width and breath of the same constituencies to source for votes to make a difference for their constituents.

For them to put personal interest ahead of the Party interests that gained them the prestigious seats in Parliament and threaten as they are alleged to have done to cross floors if confronted with Party disciplinary measures is a challenge the MDC-T must never allow setting of a dangerous precedent.

The deviants must be brought to line without fear or favour as what they did is the height of insubordination in any functional organisation.

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Ghandi Mudzingwa: prsecuted granted bail denied freedom

Ghandi Mudzingwa and two other MDC-T activists are to endure another long wait for the matter relating to their High Court granted bail to be appealed and heard by the Supreme Court.

Their crime is that they were opposed to the Mugabe led Junta regime that they embarked on banditry means of petrol bombing police stations throughout the country to oust President Mugabe from power.

The laughable merits of the case aside President Mugabe must realise that this is a matter that underpins the reason why travel sanctions against him and his cabal of ill advisors will not be lifted regardless of whether or not MDC-T sings from the same hymn as he does on sanctions.

There will be discord when the political detainees’ chorus of the lift sanctions song is sung as the MDC-T will be singing for the release of its supporters which it now has the distinction of presiding over prolonged detention on what the Party calls trumped up political charges by its erstwhile partners in government from Zanu PF.

The setting of trial dates for other detainees recently bailed out may in the mind of President Mugabe, be a good selling point for his sanctions lifting salesman because it means the country upholds the rule of law.

The unfortunate reality is that by continuing to pursue the cases against political opponents President Mugabe and his Zanu PF followers are extinguishing any hope the sanctions imposers had gained that there are changes in the country warranting a review of its leadership’s freedom to travel to other countries.

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As the country celebrates the 29th anniversary of its attainment of freedom from British colonialism which is misnamed Independence Zimbabweans for once have a flicker of hope that their country is about to turn the corner that will see it emerge from the economic woods it has been wondering about in the past decade.

Amazingly a Presidential decree has been issued that those wishing to attend the National festivities must comply with a Presidential dress code that excludes Party regalia because of the national nature of the event.

Not that the issue is of a matter of death and life nature but the Presidential decree confirms what everyone in the country knows that President Mugabe’s advisors have accepted that the occasion will infuriate him if Party regalia is allowed as he will not be able to see anyone still in support of his beloved Party.

For the President to agree to that kind of trivial advice that lowers him to the level of a housewife or domestic worker in ensuring that children and in many cases husbands are properly dressed for occasions shows how frightened Zanu PF and him personally is of affording the international community the chance to see people dress as they feel if it will show how far his support has whittled down to insignificance.

The argument that the myopic and paranoid decree has been issued in the spirit of inclusivity in the government leading this year’s Independence celebrations flies in the face of the reality where critical inclusivity matters such as the outstanding appointments of inclusive Provincial Governors, procedural appointments of key government personnel such as Permanent Secretaries and Ambassadors, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor , Attorney General and the swearing in of a party nominee for Deputy Ministerial appointments remain stalled by the very same President who rushes to ban party regalia at national events as if the attire will cause the government to fail to deliver on its planned programmes because of such attire.

The MDC-T MP’s would do better in mobilising their supporters to enjoy the freedom of Independence by wearing attire they fancy for National events rather than rush to grab expensive cars with no political benefit to the Party at a time when clearly their political competitors are using the Presidential decree to camouflage reality of the political allegiances of Zimbabweans which do not favour their Party.

Inclusivity does not equate to banishment of political affiliation and in any event the founding agreement upon which inclusivity is founded recognises and encourages political diversity and freedom of such assembly.

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And while still on the subject of national Independence celebrations, how Independent is the country, now that it has shelved its own mint in preference of US dollars for economic transactions?

How divorced is the outcry for the lifting of the sanctions to the desire to be Dependant rather than Independent?

That the Zimbabwe currency had been rendered valueless is not in dispute but abolishing National currency in preference of currencies from elsewhere is a clear sign of how far we are from being Independent and we can only thank the MDC for emerging that reality which has always been kept away from us by successive Zanu PF regimes.

When we reach a point when we can reintroduce our own currency it will be an indication of the distance we have covered in becoming truly Independent and Zanu PF will not have claim to exclusive ownership of that Independence as they currently think they do the political Independence from colonialism.

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The month of May will be hive of political activity in the country with PF-Zapu planning its Special Congress to officially endorse its pull out from the 1987 forced marriage with Zanu PF.

The Special congress will signal the death of the Unity accord and we hope the December 22 holiday in honour of the event will now be moved to 15 September to commemorate the signing of the Global Political Agreement that ushered the Coalition government.

Political Party agreements must never be elevated to National events and feted by declaring public holidays in their memory because when the political thinking changes as it will always do the event will become meaningless.

Mavambo Kusile Dawn (MKD) movement formed to support Dr Makoni’s flopped Presidential in 2008 has announced it will launch itself as a duly constituted political Party on 13 May 2009 after several false starts that have seen the movement lose the support of stalwarts Edgar Tekere and Dumiso Dabengwa.

Dr Makoni will be the uncontested interim President of the Party notwithstanding his widely reported disagreements with the MKD National Executive Committee over allocation of the Movement’s assets and fiduciary impropriety.


The movement has announced that it has now sealed alliances with Dr Madhuku’s National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) and the powerful Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions Secretary general Wellington Chibhebhe as well as three irrelevant nameless political Parties that have agreed to disband into the MKD led Party whose name is yet to be disclosed.

In addition to this impressive array of supporters the MKD disclosed that a dozen MDC-T MP’s have approached the movement offering to cross over to it as soon as it constitutes into a registered political Party.

The MKD mused at the prospect of it gaining immediate parliamentary presence from that development in similar fashion to how Professor Welshman Ncube mused at the prospect of gaining the Trade Union and Civic organisations support when he severed relations with MDC –T President and current Premier Morgan Tsvangirai and invited Professor Mutambara to lead the rebel MP’s that joined him in October 2005.

The anticipated political scoop never materialised for Prof Ncube as the 2008 election results proved but maybe Dr Makoni will do better seeing he managed 8% of the cooked National presidential vote and was trailing runner up in that election by a manageable 35 percentage points.

The MKD is taking courage from seeing a blanket of posters throughout Harare asking if people are still hungry or jobless after their preferred MDC-T leaders joined Mugabe’s Zanu PF in government.

The answer that makes it opportune for the MKD to launch the political alternative is obviously yes many Zimbabweans are still hungry and jobless but there is an improvement that the MKD will be the first to acknowledge and that the MKD will never achieve in a lifetime if given the chance as its leader was there in Zanu Pf for 28 years and left the mess he now claims he can clean up.

The MKD must never rely on crossovers from the disgruntled MDC-T legislators who are aware of the implications of a Parliamentary floor crossing and the consequences of standing against an MDC fielding in an election at present.

We dare the dozen MP’s declare their disaffection with the MDC-T and resign rather than hide behind the soiled petticoat of the MKD.

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The Mhunga bus disaster near Chivhu on the Harare/Masvingo road that claimed 29 lives and left another 44 injured is truly a National tragedy that epitomises the tragedy of misrule.

The busy road has taken a hammering from years of neglected maintenance and is now a deadly trap for motorists many of whom have used the road over years when it provided the smoothest drive anyone could get on the national highways of the country.

Not any longer as evidenced by the number of fatal accidents occurring on the road.
We extent our heartfelt condolences the bereaved families.