MDC-M in danger of being swallowed by Zanu PF

By: Hatirebwi Nathaniel Masikati

MDC-M President Professor Mutambara is unwittingly leading his formation into the Zanu PF clutches from which it will never come out the same if ever it will

The Zimbabwe political formation that claims to be the most strategic and enlightened is in real danger of going under.

The formation that emerged from the infamous MDC split on 12 October 2005 promising to rebrand not just itself but also the politics of the country has found it difficult to sustain its elitist ideology and strategy as envisaged at its formation.

The Professor Mutambara fronted formation whose anchor and key driver is former MDC Secretary General Professor Welshman Ncube, has tried to forge lasting alliances with other pro-democracy institutions without any success.


Its fortuitous presence in the coalition government that it thought would help the party visibility by giving it a platform to articulate its superior political thinking and up to date democratic politicking has not helped much in increasing support for the party.

Links forged with Dr. Simba Makoni’s equally struggling MKD party were severed as the party abandoned him to pursue the opportunity for roles in the coalition government.

Having secured substantial presence in government the party of elitists attempted to consolidate by forging alliances with Zanu PF to secure the Speakership of Parliament that would have given it the most eminent hands on position in government but the strategy went horribly awry when its fielding for the Parliament Speaker position Paul Themba Nyathi was comprehensively beaten to the post by the rival MDC-T formation’s candidate and current Speaker Lovemore Moyo.

Having previously broken away from the MDC-T and later spurned alliances with Civil Society under the rainbow Save Zimbabwe Campaign, Dr Simba Makoni and his MKD as well as having pulled out from alliances forged with MDC-T as it became apparent that Morgan Tsvangirai was about to win the Presidency in the runoff election, the MDC-M formation stagnated in isolation and needed to do something extraordinary to regain momentum.

The alliance with Zanu PF in the election of the Speaker of parliament was conceived as the masterstroke the party needed to regain the momentum it had lost in the harmonised elections of 29 March 2008.

The collapse of that initiative was a major political setback for the struggling tribal enclave political formation.

It was the setback that encouraged Dumiso Dabengwa to ditch the MKD and embark on the revival of the Zapu formation that previously dominated politics in the Southern region enclave until it was swallowed by Zanu PF in December 1987 Unity arrangement coerced by the Gukurahundi massacres.

The Zapu revival could not have come at a worse time for the MDC-M as it meant serious competition for limited tribal supporters in a region that without division does not have enough parliamentary seats to enable a clean sweep winner of the regional seats to form a government.

The programmed tenure of office of the provisional coalition government that had sheltered the party’s electorally embarrassed top guns is nearing foreclosure while the party of elitists has not made any headway in growing and consolidating its minimal grassroots support.

The prospect of another election with the MDC-M in its current state of disorganization and irrelevance can only mean one thing for the party and that is its total annihilation at the polls.

That is why the party is vehemently opposed to any talk of the country staging elections in the near future.

It simply does not hold the numbers that will return it to the corridors of power and worse there is nowhere to scrounge for the requisite support after its reputed political promiscuity with anyone holding the potential to keep the party afloat regardless of its ideological differences with such person or entity.

Party anchor Professor Welshman Ncube has of late been speaking with the confidence that betrays his formation’s strategy to remain afloat- a done electoral alliance with the nationally loathed but militarily powerful Zanu PF.

Using his Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC) shelter Professor Ncube recently took advantage of his position to whip Traditional leaders support for Zanu PF and the deferment of the holding of elections to foreclose the coalition government’s term.

MDC-M’s Professor Ncube exploited his position as one of the 3 JOMIC co-chairpersons to urge traditional Chiefs to campaign for the delayed staging of elections on the grounds that elections would cause regime change by toppling President Mugabe-as if that is a cardinal sin.

Further he whipped the Chiefs’ emotions by alleging- as Zanu PF has, that the regime change from the elections would not be favourable to the country as it would be motivated by external interests of the USA, Britain and their EU associates which is absolutely outrageous.

Professor Ncube sang from the Zanu PF hymnbook on sanctions in melodies only a seasoned Zanu PF adherent could manage to produce and that was telling for those that believe in the autonomy of the MDC-M and its ideologies.

"An honest appraisal of the sanctions is that those who maintain sanctions have a different agenda from the three parties in the inclusive Government.

"Their agenda is they want Mugabe out and as long as he remains in the picture, then my honest opinion is that these sanctions will remain in place.

"We have had meetings with diplomats and those western countries don’t want any arrangement with Mugabe in it.

"We have to accept reality, these sanctions are here to stay even if we engage the European Union and the Americans, they won’t lift these sanctions," he ranted.

It is not clear why a senior MDC-M official like Professor Ncube would be against an initiative that would pave the way for his Party President or alternatively himself if nominated through the democratic processes his party brags of, to assume the National Presidency in place of the dislodged President Mugabe.

The only reason is that MDC-M has clinched a deal with Zanu PF to contest the next elections as an independent political formation in order to split the votes in the region that the Party has struggled to charm and after the elections form a coalition with Zanu PF which would allow the two parties to form the next government.

The shared belief in MDC-M and Zanu PF is that MDC-T will sweep seats in the Southern region constituencies if it contests elections against any party with the PF suffix and therefore MDC-M is more appealing to the electorate in the enclave than Zapu PF or Zanu PF.

Obviously this belief is without justification on the ground as the electorate in the region has experienced what happens when they vote for parties and or individuals with limited or no chances of forming a government without Zanu PF involvement.

Zapu was battered into joining Zanu PF in 1987 and ended up swallowed. Professor Moyo won the Tsholotsho North constituency on the false pretence that he was anti Zanu PF only to crossover and rejoin the party after his election. MDC-M sought Zanu PF support for the election of Paul Themba Nyathi as Speaker of the coalition government within a year of the party having campaigned against association with Zanu PF and now its anchorman and President are at the forefront of campaigning for the retention of President Mugabe as Head of State rather than for his dislodgement to make way for them to assume that headship.

Zanu PF and MDC-M have been brought closer to each other by a real fear that two political formations are facing an electoral defeat of unimagined proportions. But in reality it is only Zanu PF that stands to win in that alliance if at all it will succeed in elections.

While Zanu PF and MDC-M are frothing at the mouth over the effects of sanctions on the outcome of elections they are not telling the nation why sanctions would be the decisive factor in this year’s elections alone when hitherto Zanu PF has pushed for holding of elections in war zones under the same sanctions and still emerged “victorious.”

In its editorial which normal is the Zanu PF position on national issues the state owned Herald newspaper declared that the Chiefs’ position on sanctions removal before any elections are held must be upheld and respected.

Yet in 2008 the same paper’s editorial was that the Presidential runoff election could not be postponed because the same Chiefs were under siege from electoral violence and the same sanctions now being complained of.

Infact then it was the Zanu PF position that elections were the best weapon with which to defeat sanctions as the electorate would decide which direction the country would follow and under whose stewardship the puppet MDC-T party or the Liberation heroes party Zanu PF.

What has changed that position now when the “effects” of sanctions like shortage of cash, empty retail shelves, black marketeering, hyperinflation and dilapidated social and economic infrastructure has been mitigated to a large extent and quality of life has dramatically improved on its 2008 levels?

"We continue to hear reports of sporadic outbreaks of violence, mostly motivated by a desire to revenge past wrongs," the Herald wrote in justifying deferment of the impending elections to wing up the coalition.

This was the same publication that denied prevalence of any forms of violence during the 2008 elections. This was again the same publication that agitated for the final defeat of puppetry politics in our country by any means possible.

Yet now it purports that there is need to heal wounds of violence it never acknowledged nor exposed in the first instance.

The Chiefs that the herald now holds in great esteem as custodians of the people’s views were not allowed to defend the same people under siege from Zanu PF violence and cannot be expected to do so now.

It intrigues to hear the Herald concluding that the people spoke and made it clear in the last election that they prefer that power is shared in order to achieve peace and harmony.

How where and by what means did the people express that view when it is clear from election results that there was a massive swing from Zanu PF to the MDC-T that saw the Zanu PF surrender a two thirds Parliamentary and Senatorial majority as well as a 90% local authority majority and half a million Presidential ballot majority to settle for a rigged 47% Parliamentary,50% Senatorial and 45%Local Authority seat popularity as well as its Presidential candidate settling for a distant second place trailing the winner from MDC-T by a massive 5 percentage points.

The fact that not a single nation recognized the outcome of the bulldozed Presidential runoff election yet he still remains ensconced in the position by ginya (military force) does not mean that the people want him there as the Herald would like us to believe.

One needs only look at the national anxiety over the timely conclusion of the Constitution reform programme that would pave the way for the holding of elections to terminate the SADC imposed coalition government to realise that the very people the Herald claims voted for the coalition are not at all interested in its existence.

Zimbabweans have been clamouring for a change in government since 2000 and are not about to surrender on that now because they y have been exposed to a coalition government that is fraught with political squabbles and rigid in its response to their needs.

We all want a dynamic government which responds quickly to environmental changes and adapts quickly not this agonizing coalition nonsense the Herald is intent on promoting.

The sooner it winds up the better and by then MDC-M will have been swallowed by Zanu PF yet the new Zanu PF party will still be irrelevant to our future.