MDC-Zanu PF coalition a forced marriage

By Senator Obert Gutu

Coalition governments are by their very nature,tenuous. The situation becomes even more delicate when unwilling political players are circumstancially compelled to enter into the same government.

This is somehow akin to a forced marriage.You will have to take leave of your senses first before you can believe that a forced marriage will be blissfull, happy and longlasting. The MDC led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and ZANU-PF  are strange bedfellows.

Whilst the MDC is a young,vibrant and forward-looking political party, ZANU-PF is basically an old boys and old girls club that remains perpetually locked in the mantra of communist-style dogmatism where the cultivation and nurturing of individual personality cults is the order of the day.

For this reason, it is impossible to imagine the existence of ZANU-PF as a unified party beyond the natural life of its present leader. ZANU-PF has perfected the ” art ” of totalitarianism. In this moribund party, the supreme leader is the party and the party is the supreme leader.
 
The inclusive government in Zimbabwe was formed in February 2009; a little over one year ago. The formation of this government was, infact, the culmination of the failure by ZANU-PF to accept defeat at the harmonised elections that were held on March 29, 2008.

For the record, let me acknowledge the fact that Morgan Richard Tsvangirai won the presidential elections that were held on March 29, 2008. No amount of propaganda by ZANU-PF and its rabid crew of latter-day apologists can successfully wash away that fact. This fact is, indeed, cast in stone.

Because ZANU-PF literally bludgeoned the voting population into submission through the primitive use of thuggery and violence during the electoral farce held on June 27, 2008, the whole civilised world, including our very own brothers and sisters in SADC, flatly refused to accept the legitimacy of the joke that took place in Zimbabwe on that fateful day.

Because Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC have always been guided by the need to put the interests of Zimbabweans first before their own interests, they reluctantly agreed to enter into an inclusive government with a person who had clearly and emphatically lost the mandate of the people to govern.

To some of us, the  mere idea of accomodating an electoral loser into government was an act of abomination.But because our leaders in the MDC were motivated by the need to take Zimbabwe away from the abyss of becoming a failed state, we were convinced that in life, one may have to make very difficult and painful decisions for the common good of everyone.

At any rate, this is the essence of patriotism and nationalism. It is, therefore, important for readers to understand the background behind the formation of the inclusive government in February 2009. This was a forced marriage and as such, we should not be surprised when the forced marriage goes through regular periods of turbulance.

That is the way it is and sadly, that is the way it shall remain until the people of Zimbabwe are afforded a free and fair opportunity to decide who should be their leader. Put alternatively, it will be folly to expect the inclusive government to function smoothly. More than twelve months after the formation of the inclusive government, the global political agreement is yet to be fully complied with.

For instance,we still have a ZANU-PF controlled print and electronic media that continues to churn out hate messages against Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and senior members of his party, day in, day out. Hardly a day passes without the Herald newspaper and the ZBC radio stations and ZTV carrying out some denigrating hate messages against Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and several other leading MDC members.

Instead of helping to cultivate a culture of tolerance, the ZANU-PF controlled media outlets are loaded with anger, hate, ridicule, contempt and malice.Whilst during the day ZANU-PF functionaries talk of national healing and nation building, they Nicodemously spread messages of hate and intolerance. They preach the ” gospel ” of violence and thuggery. They will talk of so-called ” sanctions ” until their voices are hoarse.

What they dismally fail to appreciate is the fact that the people of Zimbabwe are not stupid.On the surface Zimbabweans might appear docile and disinterested but you can only take them for granted at your own peril. The people of Zimbabwe know exactly what they want and whom they want to govern them. The people of Zimbabwe, from the Zambezi to the Limpopo and from the majestic Eastern Highlands to the mighty Hwange National Park in the west, have repeatedly rejected totalitarianism and tyranny.

They will continue to reject the moribund party called ZANU-PF, a party that is still locked in the nationalistic rhetoric of the 1960s and 1970s; a party that has hopelessly failed to mutate and thus, adapt to the modern principles of politics where the concepts of democracy, the rule of law and good governance reign supreme.
 
The ZANU-PF controlled media, of late, has been awash with numerous reports about the so-called ” illegal” sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by Britain and the her allies. A not so clever ZANU-PF apologist recently wrote an article in the ZANU-PF controlled Sunday Mail, wherein he unintelligently linked the collapse of the Shabanie-Mashava Mines (SMM) to the so-called ” illegal” sanctions.

How the so-called sanctions could have influenced ZANU-PF to loot Mutumwa Mawere’s mining empire clearly boggles the mind! How asset-stripping and downright thievery and looting can be sugar-coated as ” black economic empowerment” again beats me. How someone can possibly see a link between the looting of Mawere’s assets and so-called ” illegal ” sanctions can only be explained by a rocket scientist; I believe.
 
Whilst the inclusive government has scored some modicum of success; particularly in eliminating hyper-inflation by the adoption of the multi-currency system,there is still a lot to be achieved before some of us can give it a definate thumbs-up. For instance, over 85% of the population still live on less than US$2 a day meaning that the majority of the people of Zimbabwe live in abject poverty.

There is an all-pervading liquidity crunch where it is a virtual nightmare for the average person to have US$10 in his/her pocket. The majority of the people live from hand to mouth. Delivery of basic services such as water and electricity remains erratic and unacceptable. Civil servants’ salaries, including the salaries of legislators, are still pathetically low.

Corruption remains endemic and it is literally threatening to tear the inclusive government apart.Perhaps more importantly, the failure to fully comply with all the provisions of the GPA is the biggest letdown of the inclusive government. I hold no brief for Roy Bennett but in all fairness, I honestly wonder why he still hasn’t been sworn in as a deputy minister of agriculture more than twelve months after the formation of the inclusive government.

For God’s sake; the man has not been convicted by any competent court of law. And so why hasn’t Roy Bennett been sworn in as a deputy minister? In all civilised communities, everyone is presumed innocent until proven guilty by a lawful and competent court of law. If the contracting parties to the inclusive government cannot even trust one another, how do they hope to have the rest of the world trust them? Isn’t it said that charity begins at home?
 
One of the biggest deliverables of the inclusive government should be the making of a new, people-driven constitution. Already, the constitution-making process is running about seven months or so behind schedule. It would appear that there are some people within the inclusive government who would like the constitution-making process to take forever.

We know that some folks are veteran electoral losers and the last thing they would want to have is an early election. But then it is such selfish and myopic interests that will spell doom and gloom for the inclusive government. Surely, if the inclusive government fails to deliver a new people-driven constitution to the people of Zimbabwe, it would have dismally failed the litmus test for its success.

Going forward, we should see a more focused and concerted effort to drive the agenda of constitution-making. This start-stop kind of laid back approach to constitution making will spell disaster for the country. The constitution should be the bedrock of any democratic dispensation in Zimbabwe. An autocratic and undemocratic constitution will ensure that Zimbabwe shall remain mired in political conflict and socio-economic misery.
 
It is also important for the inclusive government to realise that they are a transitional arrangement.It would be dangerous for members of the inclusive government to lose focus and think that we have now reached the biblical land of Canaan. The journey to a truly democratic and progressive nation state of Zimbabwe is still long and arduous. Whilst some of us have clearly developed signs of weariness and fatigue, the majority of the people should never lose focus regarding where exactly we are going.

The inclusive government is some form of difficult pregnancy that needs to be carefully cared for and managed to ensure that the baby is not aborted. But, at the end of the day, Zimbabwe should be governed by someone who wins the people’s mandate  during free and fair elections. Anything short of this will be a mockery of democracry, good governance and the rule of law.

Obert Gutu is the MDC-T senator for Chisipite in Harare and a practising lawyer.

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