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29 April 2008
By Tafadzwa Musekiwa
AS A young Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) MP, I recall Webster Shamu coming to sit next to me one sunny afternoon in the Zimbabwe House of Assembly dining room sometime in April 2002.
Shamu who was then MP for Chegutu, representing the ruling Zanu-PF said something to me then that six years later seems to have been a prophecy.
Stating the obvious, he said that, if the Zanu-PF old guard had a policy of renewal, the likes of the late Learnmore Jongwe (then MP Kuwadzana) and Job Sikhala (then MP St Mary’s) and I might not have made it into Parliament. Shamu said the continuous refusal by the old guard to accept the changing times would one day come back to haunt them.
He went further stating that, the biggest problem in Zanu -PF was the people who President Robert Mugabe listens to. As a result, Mugabe was told what those around him thought he wanted to hear most of the time, while those that really know the mood on the ground never got to a chance to communicate anything to the old man, he said.
If the news that Robert Mugabe was told to step down by his colleagues, just before he roped in Jabulani Sibanda, the 37-year-old war veterans leader, who at the time of independence was about nine years old and his war veterans to force his endorsement as Zanu-PF presidential candidate is anything to go by, I am just wondering what those that had advised him against running are thinking today. What about those whose advice Mugabe followed? What is he thinking about them today?
I find it interesting to note that it is only the Bright Matongas (Deputy Information Minister who only became a Zanu-PF MP five years ago and about whom nobody knew anything before then) and the Patrick Chinamasas (Justice Minister who lost an election the only time he has presented himself to the people) that seem to be excited about the current situation. Those in the know view this period as potentially disastrous not only for Zanu-PF as a party but for Mugabe as well.
I recall that Zanu-PF had a plan in place to deal with Mugabe’s succession. According to Amendment 18 of the Zimbabwe’s Constitution (2007), the intention of clauses 2 and 3 was to amend sections 28 and 29 of the Constitution in order to make Senate and the House of Assembly sit as an electoral college and elect a president if a President dies, resigns or is removed from office instead of an election being called within 90 days as was provided for. The composition of the House of Assembly was amended to increase the number of seats from 150 to 210, all of them all elected .The size of the Senate was increased to 93 members.
The delimitation of constituencies, done by the Mugabe’s appointees, the ZEC, came out with revised constituencies which drastically slashed the number of constituencies in the urban areas and the Matabeleland region where they realised the MDC was strong. This clearly favoured Zanu-PF since most of the new seats were allocated to rural constituencies.
Following the unfortunate split of the MDC into two in October 2005, the assumption was that the MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai would win the urban seats of Mashonaland, Masvingo and Manicaland while the MDC, led by Professor Arthur Mutambara would get Matebeleland, both urban and rural, and thus effectively dividing the opposition vote equally. This would have left Zanu-PF with rural constituencies in Mashonaland, Masvingo and Manicaland where the majority of the seats had been allocated.
For Mugabe to ensure that everyone was on board with him, his key advisers advised him to hold harmonised elections so that even those that did not want Mugabe but were Zanu-PF would be forced to campaign for him also in the process of campaigning for Zanu-PF MPs, thus ensuring him a chance to win the presidency.
The plan seemed perfect, in the eyes of Zanu-PF, that they even ensured a fairly peaceful pre-election environment as well as agreeing to count and publish vote tallies at the polling stations. The plan was to ensure a Zanu-PF victory through a fairly peaceful but not necessarily free and fair election. In politics however, as has been proven time and time again, no matter how you strategise, plot and conspire, as long as the people are not part of that equation, the plot is bound to fail. Because these strategies did not take into account the people’s interests as well as the issue of Mugabe’s unpopularity, the failure of Zanu-PF in the general elections on March 29 came as no surprise.
I am sure those in Zanu-PF who had seen the light when they advised Mugabe that he was unpopular and was likely to lose if he had gone for this election are now telling the hardliners that; “We told you so.” The problem is that now it is a bit too late to amend things; the people have spoken. The vote for change, the vote for MDC and Tsvangirai has been cast. In spite of any attempts to bury the fact, even the most casual observer can see the overwhelming evidence that the same people who voted on March 29 are likely to vote again in any future election and, in fact, those that did not vote for one reason or another including age, are not likely to vote Zanu-PF.
Zanu-PF is reportedly entertaining ideas of harming or persecuting Morgan Tsvangirai on the assumption that such action will ease their political misfortunes. Such actions are bound to be disastrous and any attempts to harm him will only make him more popular as people will sympathise with him even more. Worse still, the safety of the perpetrators of such a heinous crimes will not be guaranteed in any future inevitable new Zimbabwe.
What also has to be understood in the broader context is that Didymus Mutasa’s “dear old man”, as he described Mugabe, is indeed old. I don’t wish him dead though a lot people wish he was. But it’s a fact of life that at 84, his days are naturally numbered, thus the Zimbabwe solution becomes more urgent than normal.
In his absence and in the absence of a clear front runner to take over Zanu-PF, the likelihood of the party crumbling and the MDC taking total control of the political scene, leaving Zanu-PF just relying on the military and the judiciary, is real. Any politician will know that relying on military power or state institutions like the judiciary has its dangers, especially in the 21st Century; there are enough examples to be cited such as Thailand and Pakistan where such institutions have succumbed to the whims of the majority.
It is unfortunate our learned colleagues in the judiciary and some of our military top brass such as General Chiwenga and his wife Jocelyn as well seem not to realise that the more they exacerbate this problem the more it’s likely to work against them in the very near future.
Surely, one cannot be blinded by patronage not to see such overt evil. It is only prudent for Zanu-PF, the judiciary and the military to realise that there is need not to continue holding the wishes of the people hostage. The defeat of Mugabe and Zanu-PF’s was always inevitable. The wisest course of action for them now is to concede defeat.
One way or the other Mugabe and Zanu-PF will have to come to terms with the fact that the MDC is now the majority political party in Zimbabwe and ‘President’ Morgan Tsvangirai is the most popular politician in Zimbabwe today, and is here to stay. The people’s patience is running out; any attempts by Zanu-PF to prolong this stalemate will merely aggravate the situation.
My own thinking is that at the end of the day, doing the right thing today will give Mugabe a moral high ground in future regardless of the wrongs he has committed in the past. It’s not too late. We are living in constantly changing times, and during this period, some might be tempted to abandon their principles and integrity for the sake of patronage. Let us not find ourselves wanting despite the seemingly unavoidable temptation for power.
The future is in the people of Zimbabwe’s hands and ultimately some people including some of the judges and magistrates whose decisions are only aiding and encouraging injustice will end up paying a very expensive price when the time comes.
Time will tell.
Tafadzwa Musekiwa is a former MDC MP for Zengeza currently in exile in the United Kingdom.
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