Hopewell Chin’ono: My End of the Road with the opposition in Zimbabwe

By Hopewell Chin’ono

A friend sent me a commentary video by a Zimbabwean called Brett Holley. I then realized that he is actually my Facebook connection and was the same person as Brett Mu Vet.

He compressed what I have been saying all along about our politics in one long video.

I am glad that there are people out there who are prepared to put their heads on the block and say the inconvenient truths that seek to ask the relevant questions.

I hope that our people will start listening to such critical voices because they enhance the discourse on the national question as opposed to the hate filled emotional rambling that we often read mostly on twitter.

If our people still refuse to listen to such progressive heads and progressive voices, then they should be told the truth that the CHANGE they are seeking is a pipe dream to be pursued but never attained.

Politics is not about book theories and wordy material, it is about foot soldiering, building networks in communities and understanding the requirements of your specific political terrain.

In his latest video, Brett raises so many critical issues and questions and also reaches conclusions many of which are reflective of his frustrations with the opposition.

Today I am not going to go deeper into opposition or ruling party politics, I will just end by throwing one of the pertinent issues raised by Brett out there.

The MDCA told us that they knew of a ZANUPF rigging plan and that they had a solution for it, victory was said to be certain.

Shouldn’t the opposition explain what happened to that solution framework which seems to have failed to work because they claim that they were rigged out of their Presidential victory?

We were told that all the V11 forms are there and that we would see them in court, we never saw them when the judges asked for the evidence!

I remember at a press conference foreign journalists asking the leader of the opposition a day or 2 after the elections about the whereabouts of his V11 forms.

The opposition leader said that they had all the V11 forms in place promising to release them as soon as was possible. One month after the elections there are still NO V11 forms.

When are we going to see these V11 forms so that in the court of public opinion, we are able to make a judgment based on evidence and not emotions?

That should be the beginning of revealing the truth of what happened with the election on the part of the opposition party.

Those with critical minds will not buy the rigging claims without V11 forms.

The very least that opposition leaders should do if they respect the common man and woman in the street and village is prove their case to their voters and the nation at large.

Nelson Chamisa can claim to have been congratulated by the United Nations on his “victory” but critical minds will interrogate such outlandish claims and take them for they are.

Many opposition voices including G40 folks are throwing figures online particularly on twitter to whip up emotions.

It seems to work because our people run with such unsubstantiated rambling posting it in WhatsApp groups and other social media platforms.

I guess that anything that remotely substantiates rigging claims will do for anyone who refuses to ask the difficult questions regarding the rigging claims.

Personally, I won’t be following this charade anymore until I see the V11 forms.

Like what Brett says, anyone who asks critical questions is quickly labeled a ZANUPF sympathizer or something worse followed by crude vulgarities that I can’t repeat here.

It can’t be a party of change and progress that refuses to be asked critical questions opting to demonize genuine folk who want to enhance the democratic discourse through sharing knowledge and learning.

I get it if that happens in ZANUPF because that has always been their Modus Operandi. But surprisingly, they seem to accept criticism nowadays and will even reach out to explain issues, something that was unheard of during the Robert Mugabe days.

So folks from today onwards, I won’t write anything about the opposition.

I will keep the ruling party on my radar asking the difficult questions and engaging on what they are doing and I hope as a citizen with a stake in Zimbabwe you will do the same too.

ZANUPF should be held to account and we should remind them of the election promises that they made on the campaign trail.

I wish the opposition well and hope that its leadership and supporters will one day realize that without critics, they will not develop. They won’t grow.

Until that moment of introspection and acceptance, I will not write about Nelson Chamisa or the MDCA.

We will talk about other things and hopefully one day we will revert to normal politics when the opposition gets its act together and answers the questions about the V11 forms.

7 people were killed by the military in the streets of Harare over this rigging issue, the least the opposition can do is give answers and provide evidence of their claims.

It is called accountability, we can’t demand that from ZANUPF and yet turn a blind eye when it is the opposition which one day might be in power.

We must have one standard for office bearers or those seeking our votes.

I speak to Nelson Chamisa, we phone each other and we are able to separate the politics from our social relations.

He is only 40 years old and if he listens to constructive criticism, he will grow into a potent political force.

Having supporters is not enough in Africa, knowing how to use that support and harnessing it to win elections and knowing how to get into power is part of that journey.

For 19 years the opposition has failed to do that and when you point out issues related to those failures, you are labeled an enemy or a ZANUPF supporter.

If you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again expecting a different outcome, there is a name for that…

Chamisa needs to teach his supporters to be tolerant and to be receptive of constructive criticism as it is part of ethical leadership, something that ZANUPF failed to do in 37 years.

Having packs of marauding supporters who dish out insults, lies, vulgarities and misogyny is not reflective of a party offering to give alternative leadership to ZANUPF’s years of ruinous, incompetent and corrupt rule.

Leadership is about talking and more importantly it is about listening to what the citizens are saying, not just those that preach what you want to hear, but also to those who push back on what you say.

That in my view is the mark of a genuine democrat who seeks to and is capable of offering a better route in enhancing our country’s political, social and economic fortunes.

I will not judge any opposition party and its leaders against ZANUPF, they must be better than the ruling party and not ask us to compare them against a bog standard put in place by the ruling party.

Good luck to my friends in the opposition, they will need it.

For now we will focus on following what the ruling party will be doing, criticizing it where it gets things wrong and applauding it where it gets things right.

My last word: Until we as a nation stop the praise and worship nonsense that we see on twitter and other social media platforms, we are going nowhere.

More importantly, NO REFORMS, NO CHANGE. If there are no reforms I might as well predict another ZANUPF victory five years in advance to save you the pain of anxious anticipation.

Let us put our minds to work and disengage from emotional rambling.

You can listen to Brett’s video here

Hopewell Chin’ono is an award winning Zimbabwean international Journalist and Documentary Filmmaker. He is a Harvard University Nieman Fellow and a CNN African Journalist of the year.
He is also a Fellow at the University of Oxford’s Africa leadership Institute.

Hopewell has a new documentary film coming out which is looking at mental illness in Zimbabwe called State of Mind. State of Mind has been nominated for a top award in Kenya.

Hopewell can be contacted at [email protected] or on twitter @daddyhope