MKD leader Dr Simba Makoni overrated and ambitious
Zimbabwe is generally a trendy nation. The origin of the insatiable appetite for the in thing or any craze among the populace is difficult to trace but it is evident in every facet of life in the country.
The appetite knows no season nor bounds.
There however appears to be a link between the acceptance of any craze that finds its way into the economically and politically besmirched country and its foreign origins.
Imported trends be they cultures, performing arts, personalities, attire, cosmetics, foods, gadgets, academic qualifications, political systems, management systems etal seem to find instantaneous acceptance and massive following than they would otherwise get in other countries.
Political capital gains that have accrued to the likes of Dr Simba Makoni, Dr Eddison Zvobgo, Professor Arthur Mutambara, Robert Gabriel Mugabe, Dr Joshua Nkomo and many others hogging the political limelight today and in the past are steeped in this irrational foreign is better infatuation.
Despite his public grandstanding against foreign influence and domination within Zanu PF the party and in particular its President Robert Mugabe is the epicentre of promoting the foreign infatuations culture gripping the nation.
Regrettably the foreign is better culture has been promoted to a point where it is sometimes impossible to detect as it seamlessly fits into national socio-economic and political systems.
Under President Mugabe Zanu PF has driven the nation to accept that nothing positive can be achieved through localised initiatives and innovations.
This may come as a surprise for many given the party’s obsession with sovereignty and patriotism dogma.
But it is for real given the fatal collapse of locally contrived initiatives hitherto witnessed by the nation and the incessant shrill outcry coming from the party against EU and USA sanctions.
It is unpardonable for a country that boasts an abundance of natural resources and intelligent human capital to be ever squirming about sanctions imposed by other countries with limited or no natural resources to mention about.
It gives credence to the irrational belief that foreign is better as the populace is continuously subjected to surviving on imports.
Yet the same imports can be supplanted by local products with minimal innovation and political will.
Zanu PF has vowed that it will only appoint Provincial Governors in accordance with locally agreed provisions of Constitutional Amendment No 19 on condition that foreign imposed sanctions against its leadership and the country are simultaneously lifted.
It follows therefore that if the sanctions are maintained Zanu PF will deny locals the desired provincial governors that they are comfortable with in dealing with development issues to improve their quality of life.
The logic of denying local communities leadership they would be comfortable to work with for self sustenance because foreigners refuse to deal with sanctions they hardly know exist is lost to the rational mind.
More importantly does a country as richly endowed as ours is need foreign loans and grants to develop its economy when it could instead of trade its resources for technology to become internationally competitive.
How have the restrictions on travel by Zanu PF politicians negatively impacted on trade between our country and the rest of the world when 90% of goods in our retail sector are imports?
There is something that we are not doing right when we can import 90%of our needs instead of producing them on our own.
That is where the fad of foreign is better becomes a liability for our nation.
We have been reduced to a huge flea market for goods and services from the very foreigners whom we blame for imposing sanctions on our country and Zanu PF leadership and become blinded to the fact that we are now an economic colony of industrialised nations all over the world.
Amazingly we are not waking up to this reality as we continue to play into the sanctions trap by denying our local communities the leadership they need to embark on local developmental projects that would mitigate the international economic intrusion in our country.
Instead we are rewarding incompetents and political patronage parasites with leadership positions and all they do is drive our country further into economic servitude for the foreign countries we want to help us reconstruct our productive capacities.
You can bet they will not do much as our self sufficiency will not only result in losses of the lucrative markets they have in our country but may even result in us infiltrating their local markets with better quality and cheaper goods given that most have to rely on recycles of raw materials where we have an abundance of natural resource deposits waiting to be extracted and processed.
When will we ever focus on developing our productive capacities to extract process and market our raw materials as finished goods?
Instead of crying foul over imagined sanctions imposed by foreigners it is us who are refusing to add value to our resources and contend with the paltry individualised income we get from exporting them raw?
Until such time we realise that local is better and excellent when processed to finality by us for us we will forever remain under sanctions be they pronounced or unpronounced against us.
Which brings me to another dimension of sanctions we impose on ourselves by limiting our leadership choices to proven failures and or divisive political charlatans.
Dr. Simba Makoni is ever being touted as a potential Mugabe successor in Zanu PF succession conspiracies and lately has been rumoured to have been offered the Finance Minister’s position in MDC-T succession conspiracies.
The MKD leader with nothing to show pointing to his latent leadership potential for the many years he has been in active politics at very senior levels has long lost leadership value for Zimbabwe yet there are still some disciples rooting for his elevation to national leadership for no other reason than his possession of foreign qualifications.
While they sell him as a reformist unifier there is nothing in his tracks to suggest that.
It is laughable that a Zanu PF politburo member of the past 3 decades like Dr
Makoni is still being regarded as a reformist and unifier when on analysis his three decades in Zanu PF are littered with political discord, intolerance and vicious repression against political opponents.
Worse when in the 2008 harmonised elections he decided he had seen enough of the devastation he had presided over and wanted to redeem himself he decided against joining hands with the people united against Zanu PF vandalism and formed the divisive MKD.
The MKD presidential vote was to be used as the scapegoat for the Presidential election rigging and paralysis that has bequeathed us the current unworkable coalition government.
So much about Dr Makoni’s unifying credentials.
How a politician who shows such disdain during the hour of people’s greatest need can still be thought of as a sober and responsive prospect for the office of President defies logic.
Equally amusing is the often peddled lie that Dr Makoni is adored by Western nations and that puts him in good stead for mending the country’s broken bridges with those nations for the benefit of the country.
For all we know Dr Makoni commands the respect of Western nations for nothing other than that he was educated in Britain and once again foreign is sold as better to us.
But we also know why there were feuds in MKD following Dr Makoni’s defeat in the 2008 Presidential elections and why the MKD is still struggling to find its feet 2 years down the line.
Rampant misappropriation and theft of donor funds and assets by the MKD leader were alleged and are still haunting Dr Makoni and making it difficult for the political formation to move forward.
Allies Dumiso Dabengwa of the revived ZAPU and Arthur Mutambara of MDC-M that backed his 2008 presidential bid have since severed ties with him and his MKD for those reasons among others.
Fortunately for the country there are many who are not infatuated with Dr Makoni’s foreign qualifications and grooming rendering his MKD initiative an insignificant political irritation with as little a chance of getting him to the throne as are the MDC-M and revived ZAPU are in respect of their leaders Mutambara or whoever they choose at the next congress or Dabengwa respectively.
The difference between Dr Makoni and his MKD when compared to ZAPU and or MDC-M is that the MKD leader is deluded into believing that he has adequate national following to land the Presidency of the country whereas the ZAPU and MDC-M are only interested in spoiling MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s ascendancy to the throne in the misinformed belief that Zanu PF still commands enough support from other regions than Matabeleland to block Tsvangirai.
The reality though is that MDC-T has long surpassed Zanu PF support in all regions of the country and even the most ardent MDC-M and ZAPU will know that voting for anyone else from their formations in a Presidential election is wasting votes on losers with no chance of surpassing Mugabe of Zanu PF let alone Tsvangirai of MDC-T.
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