By Nhari
With all the drama surrounding the 2018 election, I am convinced it will not be won by the opposition, the reason being instead of joining established political parties, the easier thing to do, which many are now doing is to form a political party and then join the coalition talks. More mileage gained I suppose as opposed to joining a political party and having to rise through the ranks.
I would be pleased if all “opposition ” parties that have not been represented in parliament or that do not have members that have served in parliament could just be banished and sent where they belong. It seems Zimbabweans have shifted from the trend of starting churches as prophets to starting political parties in their houses and this will not work at all.
Assuming this happens and we don’t have the forty or so small political parties, we are likely to be left with 3 or so main opposition parties, there is still the problem of who leads, who gets what (ministry allocation) in the event that a government is formed.
And whilst all this tussling goes on and on, uncle Bob will be showing how “more organised ” ZANU PF is as they have already anointed him as the ZANU PF candidate.
So it is also my belief that this so called grand coalition will yield nothing more than fights for something that is still a dream and may not materialise, more like fighting over what to do with lottery winnings when you have a very remote chance of winning it.
My ideal solution for the opposition is each party goes on its own and the party that poses the best challenge gets support of the others going into the run off (I believe there is a better chance to get a run off as individual parties than a grand coalition).
Like what happened in France a typical scenario is where the losing parties then urge their supporters to rally behind the best opposition candidate in the run off.
That being said, this is a very unlikely scenario with the state of affairs in Zimbabwean politics at the moment and that leads me to believe the man for the job is none other than Professor Jonathan Moyo and I am sure the man himself knows it. I will outline a few reasons why.
Firstly, the professor has beaten both Zanu PF and the MDC as an independent candidate in Tsholotsho. This is a feat that has not been achieved by many since independence, and the reason this happened I believe was because he does serve the people.
The people of Tsholotsho are a happy lot because of his works and although they then voted against him when he returned to ZANU PF, he has won their hearts again. As a president, I do believe he will work for the people to feel his influence and in as much as I hate to admit it, he does a good job as the Tertiary Education minister as well.
The second reason is that the professor is probably the only politician who is most accessible and connected to Zimbabweans. For example, going through his Twitter feed, I notice that in most cases, he generally responds to literally anyone who asks him a question on Twitter. Whilst this may have no significant role in Zimbabwean politics, it shows he is happy to publicly defend his policies to the people, something which is rare in African politics.
Another reason is the fact that back in 2008, Moyo and a few others were punished for the ‘Tsholotshogate’, a meeting where succession was planned. He was the mastermind, and that shows in 2008, some 9 years ago, he knew this old fossil had to go and because his strategy did not work, he was expelled, left, and came back to destroy from within. I do not have an accurate idea of what goes on in the guy’s head, but I surely know he has it planned but he is still lacking lieutenants that can help him put plan into action.
Lastly I believe he is well positioned, being already in ZANU PF, he is guaranteed support of the military, and most if not all government arms if he were to be elevated. I personally don’t like the guy, but I believe he is the best and will serve the people if he does finally manage to get into the hot seat.
And Jonathan Moyo is only 60 years old.
