Political party leadership cannot be bought by wealth

By: Hatirebwi Nathaniel Masikati

MDC-T President Morgan Tsvangirai is at present the face of the party's struggle for power and is unlikely to be unseated at congress unless he personally decides to quit as the current formation he leads only became a party under his leadership in 2006 
 

While money can exert tremendous influence on politics, the reality is that political leadership has no coloration with wealth ownership. If anything the only coloration between political leadership in so far as wealth is concerned is that politicians increase their wealth dramatically as they gain political clout and power.

In Zimbabwe there are two fundamental constituencies that wield immense power that drives politics in the MDC-T/Zanu PF divide. The MDC-T’s strength is in the Workers while Zanu PF strength is in the Miltia.

There has been speculation that some business mogul will shortly take over leadership of the MDC-T party and transform it into a successful private enterprise.


Such hallucinations are wide off the mark though. It is no different from suggesting that the many financial moguls that have poured billions of sponsorship into Zanu PF are planning to take over leadership of the party.

Such reasoning is out of sync with established objectives of business moguls when they decide to fund political parties. Petit bourgeoisies hate political limelight and prefer to play politics in the background by supporting king making initiatives that install political leadership they believe they can influence.

The reason for that being simply that, the political turf is uncomfortable for the rich whose interests are more steeped in the protection of their investments while accumulating more than the glory seeking that anchors politicking.

The rich in any country are all too aware that their wealth accumulation and retention hinges on the political decisions of their governments and as such do not want to be seen to be publicly making those decisions that will expose them to accusations of corruption.

MDC-T as a Labour backed political formation is a sensitive political initiative whose leadership is best served by those with a deeper and clearer insight into what makes workers act in common purpose.

Most entrepreneurs find themselves baffled when people they offered employment start demanding more than just work and wages from them.

In like manner to how Zanu PF leadership were pushed against the wall by former Liberation War militia within and outside formal employment structures over their war efforts compensation, any petit bourgeoisie who risks taking up political office at the apex of a Worker anchored political formation will be in for a surprise when the workers he relies on for election to office demand payback for their continued political support of his tenure of office.

That is why any suggestion that any serious and successful entrepreneur let alone one as successful as Masiyiwa would consider taking up executive management of the party from whoever sounds so outrageously amateurish.

The leadership goodwill Morgan Tsvangirai has in MDC-T does not devolve from his wealth, personality, academic excellence, leadership prowess and any of the traits that are normally attributed to the rise of modern day politicians or his lack of them.

Rather Tsvangirai’s leadership of the MDC-T is anchored in deep roots within the Trade Union movement and his consistent yet legendary nerve in standing up for worker rights against the dictatorial onslaught by Zanu PF.

Any petit bourgeoisie who is fooled into believing that he/she has amassed enough wealth and thus political muscle to purchase workers’ support will be surprised at the reaction of workers when political issues narrow down to the personal interests that unite workers against employers and governments alike.

Workers will always be workers and their political interests will always remain at loggerheads with the interests of employers and government is in many countries the single largest employer.

Not surprisingly MDC-T outsiders and competitors that are at the forefront of peddling conspiracies about the MDC-T takeover by Strive Masiyiwa who for those in the know or with eyes to see has never been known to openly front controversial initiatives but prefers to work from the backrooms to achieve his ends.

Assuming he has in the MDC-T leadership case decided to throw his usual caution to the wind and take the bull by its horns, what benefit would accrue to the party’s opponents from any MDC-T leadership change that makes them so excited about Masiyiwa taking over the reins at MDC-T?

According to Magora, Masiyiwa’s takeover of the MDC-T leadership has been signed and sealed from the date the party moved to change its constitution to entrench Tsvangirai’s life presidency of the party and Masiyiwa as the chief financier pulled the plug on its finances.

Not being Masiyiwa’s spokesman Magora admits that his conclusion that Masiyiwa is the unrivalled MDC-T financier is informed from relentless Zanu PF onslaught on the business mogul for funding the MDC-T which onslaught has failed dismally because of the international tentacles of Econet that have managed to sustain the party even in times when the country’s economy was in limbo.

If the MDC-T has changed its constitution to make Tsvangirai its life President as Magora and many others before him have falsely peddled then the planned Masiyiwa takeover of the party at its next congress is an exercise in futility.

Assuming Masiyiwa’s planned contest of the party presidency is premised on Masiyiwa’s intentions to scuttle the planned MDC-T constitutional changes to the terms of office of its presidents one wonders how that will translate into the negatives that Magora piles on Tsvangirai.

If Masiyiwa is as Magora claims is an MDC-T member, how does his planned decision to contest for the presidency of the party he belongs to translate into a loss of control of the party by the current president?
In any event if Masiyiwa is dedicated an MDC-T member as Magora portrays him to have been in single handedly financing the party’s operations, what would change if he took over the reins of the party?

Political parties in Zimbabwe quack in their pants at the mention of Tsvangirai’s name.

The reason for that is he has been able to lead the formation of the MDC that surprised all and sundry in the 2000 Parliamentary and 2001 Presidential elections.

And when then MDC Secretary General, Welshman Ncube decided it was time to cash in on his investment in the party by leading a middle of the road split in the National Executive of the party, it was the half that remained faithful in Tsvangirai’s leadership that emerged the stronger of the two halves.

All Tsvangirai did was to maintain close ties with ZCTU leadership and that constituency used its established and expansive structures to keep party grassroots support firmly behind Tsvangirai’s leadership of the party.
Tsvangirai’s leadership of the party after the 2005 split was never saved by some petit bourgeoisie’s financial input but rather by the trust he had built in grassroots of the party.

To argue that without financial support from some petit bourgeoisie Tsvangirai will lose or has lost the trust of the grassroots is to be naive.

The position is simply that workers trust Tsvangirai and he remains the face of their struggle against exploitation not just by politicians but also by the entrepreneurs.

A business mogul employing thousands of workers will not only find himself in political confrontation with the workers but will find that his enterprises will be adversely affected by his political indulgences.

For all we know the MDC-T congress is the organ with the prerogative to change party leaders and the party’s constitution and that can happen by prior notice or from the floor. The conspiracies being peddled by MKD and Zanu PF zealots in this regard are nothing more than cynical political campaigns aimed at destabilising the MDC-T party.

From a vantage point however, it is as unlikely for a serious and successful entrepreneur to risk take over leadership of the MDC-T party as it is for a White Commercial farmer to contemplate take over leadership of Zanu PF.

The workers would oppose such a move to the extent Zanu PF militia would oppose the farmer’s intentions.
The intervention most likely to succeed in the MDC-T leadership succession planning any of its key sponsors can gamble on is to promote the campaign of a preferred challenger for the Presidency from within the party hierarchy.

Even then some key strategists may not be well received as President of the party because they may lack appreciation of what drives workers to rally behind the at present when Tsvangirai is in charge of the party.
That is something Professor Welshman Ncube and his group only discovered when they staged the 2005 split only to lose popular support of the party grassroots.

In any event we have stated it before and it’s worth repeating here that the tenure of party political leadership must be left to member satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the leader’s performance rather than constitutional prescription.

This is so because should a political formation force out a popular leader through term prescriptions the popular leader can easily form a rival political party that will lure grassroots support from the formation that unwittingly decides to part ways with him and go on to embarrass the previous formation in elections.

The bottom line is that no amount of wealth is sufficient to guarantee anyone political office at the highest level of a political formation.

That is mainly a function of the office aspirant’s connection with party grassroots and at present nobody rivals Mugabe within Zanu PF and Tsvangirai in the MDC-T.