After reading the transcript of Professor Welshman Ncube with Violet Gonda of SW Radio Africa I was convinced more than ever before that Professor Ncube is a dangerous fundamentalist who has been elevated to the leadership of our country thanks to the Global Political agreement.
There is the frightening arrogance in his belief that the political doctrine of the MDC-M should be implemented literally, without interpretation or adaptation that runs through the entire interview that I shudder to think would result in if he and his party were ever going to be elected to majority party status in our country.
Professor Ncube was at the centre of the reasons why the MDC split into two on 12 October 2005 and in the interview he sheds more light as to why the split was inevitable given his passion for self righteousness and obsession with self image.
First he argued that his Party name is MDC and not MDC-M as it is widely referred to in media coverage because there is no party registered as such in Zimbabwe and he is accurate about that.
The media use the prefixes of the surnames of the party leadership in the MDC to distinguish between the MDC splinter formations rather than in the strictest sense of their legally registered names.
Under normal circumstances a senior official in Prof Ncube’s capacity would not raise such trivialities in an interview where he was being examined on his party position towards contentious issue from the GPA but because he is a fanatical nitpicker he had to unsettle the interviewer with the objection to a party name he had hitherto never raised in previous interviews with any other media house he has given interviews to and been referred to as representing the MDC-M.
Fundamentalists are generally offended by trivial issues which they defend with disproportionate overzealousness with disastrous consequences in many instances.
But it was his summation of why the party he belongs to settled on who to assign to Ministerial responsibilities that exposed the fundamentalist views that drive his party.
“Well Violet, that’s illogical. The question of who this party deploys to government is an exclusive prerogative of this party.
It cannot be said because this one was elected, this was unelected – we have an obligation to deploy this or that person. On the contrary we have deployed Moses Mzila Ndlovu, David Coltart, and Tapela – all of whom were elected. We have deployed only so-called unelected people who are the senior leaders of the party and even that for good cause.
You are not going to go around buying our Members of Parliament who work with you and expect us to then deploy them into government.
And we did that quite deliberately and we were being asked to deploy people who were already working for another political party and we are not imbeciles, we will not do that and we’ll never do that.
We will deploy people who will stand by, defend the party, die for the party and will not deploy turncoats who can be bought overnight,” he declared.
In essence therefore it does not matter to the party who its grassroots supporters would want to represent them in government but rather who the party leadership believes will stand by, defend and die for the party under whatever circumstances and there is no better barometer to measure that level of loyalty than seniority within the party.
Frightening indeed!
When later in the interview he was confronted by the interviewer with accurate information about perceptions widely held in relation to his party’s alliances with Zanu PF he forcefully stated;
”I’m tempted not to dignify that rubbish with an answer. You have just been saying right now – passionately defending your right of your freedom of expression, freedom of the media to exist and to hold views and to allow people to propagate their views through their media as freely as they want to and you were very passionate just a few minutes ago – and surely you must be equally passionate about our right as a party to hold views which are different from MDC-T and which are different from yours and which are different from civil society and which are different from those of Zanu-PF, and therefore we don’t exist for the purpose of agreeing with this or that particular party.
And therefore when we disagree with the favourite party of some interest you can label us whatever you wish and we wouldn’t care a hoot. We take our position on the basis of our party policies and on the basis of our principles and we hold no brief for Zanu-PF. We disagree in a lot of ways, too many ways with Zanu-PF to be even considered as a party, which bids for Zanu-PF.
Just as much as we disagree in terms in particular of the practices of the MDC-T, fundamentally disagree with them in many ways and it’s our right to do so. The fact that we do disagree with them does not make us Zanu-PF.”
This was after he had earlier disclosed that his party position is to oppose the positions in MDC-T to avoid reinventing Zanu PF within that party and not because of shortcomings in its popular message of pledges to
the nation.
“So it’s quite simple as far as we are concerned and the principle issue is you cannot disagree with Tsvangirai and his party. All of us exist to serve them, if you don’t serve them you will be perceived in a negative way, if you jump at the top of the highest mountain and say Tsvangirai is God, you will be worshipped by the media and civil society – that is the bottom line and indeed you should be worried if you are a true democrat.
You shall be worried and indeed not just worried, you shall be truly afraid because you have a culture, you have a party, you have a civil society which is a mirror image of Zanu-PF in its behaviour, in its treatment of dissenting voices – because you believe that the positions you have taken are an eternal truth. Who dares challenge an eternal truth?” in his own words.
But the people are not frightened of Tsvangirai and the MDC he leads and they do not have reason to other than if they are persuaded by the likes of Professor Ncube.
On the contrary they are afraid of Professor Ncube’s fundamentalist views and his arrogant disposition towards anyone who dares tells him that he may be leading his party in the wrong direction by opposing popular ideas for nothing else other than that they are making a political opponent with the electorate.
Ideas will never be popular unless they carry perceived benefits for the electorate and the electorate has wised up to phoney promises from politicians that it will not be easily led up the garden path as Professor Ncube and his party discovered after 29 March 2008.
On the outstanding issues from the GPA Professor Ncube exposed bare the fears that are widely held that these negotiations are much ado about nothing.
His admission that all issues before the negotiators arise from the GPA which is the acronym for Global Political Agreement signed between Zanu PF, MDC-T and MDC-M political parties to manage the Presidential elections stalemate that emerged after the harmonized elections in March 2008 makes the current effort a waste of critically short time to move the country forward.
The same people who negotiated the GPA and initialed each and every clause in it are being asked to revise their agreement because of implementation misgivings by one party to the agreement –Zanu PF.
The issues in dispute are complimentary and implementation of what was initially agreed is seen as a means with which to address all the concerns but not by the original negotiators and subscribers and the nation wonders why that should be the case.
According to Professor Moyo the outstanding issues are outstanding because they have not been fully implemented as per the GPA and the reasons for that is because the parties mistrust each other in that if demands from the MDC-T arte fully implemented before the concerns from Zanu PF are addressed there are no guarantees that Zanu PF concerns will be addressed.
It is an absurd way of viewing issues because there is a cause and effect process that must instruct the priority of implementation of the agreement.
As Gonda put it and the Professor conceded;
“But don’t you realise that you can or you may discuss the issue of the external radio stations until you are blue in the face but nothing is going to happen because the creation of some of these radio stations such as ours had nothing to do with politicians and you have no authority to ask for the radio stations to close down. And secondly we all know that this is a Zanu-PF pre-condition – the closing down of these external radio stations – you can’t close down things you don’t like – isn’t that what it all means, isn’t this what democracy is about?”
The same question can be posed in respect of the unfulfilled clauses in the GPA. Logic demands that subscribers implement all the aspects of the agreement that are within their control before moving onto those aspects of the agreement that require foreign concessions.
But no Zanu PF wants foreign concessions before full internal implementation of what it agreed, agrees and knows is necessary to be done internally to move the country forward.
That is why SADC set a 30 day deadline for resolution because the internal issues do not need hours to agree and implement as they have already been agreed to but are being deliberately delayed implementation as bargaining chips by Zanu PF with Professor Ncube’s implied consent in complicity.
People however know pretty well why Professor Ncube has been compromised by the coalition government. He has no chance of winning an election and returning to government in a ministerial capacity in elections to end the coalition and that is why he would rather see the outstanding issues drag on while he secures a job.
In a country where jobs are 80% in short supply we are tempted to empathise with him but the best chance he has os securing long term employment lies somewhere in a government that is internationally free to transact for the good of the nation and the current coalition government lacks that credibility.
A final word on the so called party sellouts he loathes for working in collusion with MDC-T as opposed to his preference for an alliance with Zanu PF during the elections of Speaker of Parliament.
The looming by elections challenge from the MP’s the MDC-M recalled from Parliament will not be good for the MDC-M as its candidates will be humiliated by the same renegades it dispensed with exposing the deep craters in the party leadership vision and philosophy.
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