By Luke Tamborinyoka
After attending last Saturday’s eight-hour meeting of 210 district chairpersons at Harvest House and the rally in Harare’s Glen Norah suburb the following day, it was clear to me that the MDC as a party is very much alive and well.
It has been proven over the years that for Morgan Tsvangirai, it is these interactive meetings with Zimbabweans that have shown that the man remains the only hope for the ordinary people in villages, farms, mines and in the urban townships.
He remains dearly loved by the ordinary people; far away from the coup plotters and schemers in upmarket boardrooms and the doomsayers who have often under-estimated his popularity and his relevance to the national discourse.
Judging by the input from the party’s grassroots leaders from the 210 districts, Tsvangirai remains the repository of national hope and confidence.
Consulting and interacting with the ordinary people is his natural disposition especially when the people’s struggle is under siege from the enemies of the people.
Tsvangirai is simply the people’s man and these public platforms where he interacts with the ordinary citizens of this land have always shown that he is the people’s natural choice for national leadership.
Interacting with ordinary Zimbabweans at these people platforms have become a pastime he relishes every time doomsayers prematurely write his political obituary and that of the party he leads.
After the two meetings, it became apparent that the convoluted media narrative of a party and a leader without grassroots support are nothing more than the archetypal embellishments of the excitable members of the Fourth Estate.
Last Saturday, it was evident the spirits were very high as the 210 district chairpersons set the tone for the meeting, the bellowing music pitching to a crescendo as they sang party songs at the MDC headquarters in Harare that morning.
Those of us who have spent a decade working for this great people’s movement are familiar with the soothing, therapeutic and reassuring capacity of the powerful lyrics of these MDC songs.
Province by province, the district chairpersons described the poverty they were facing in the villages and in the towns as a result of the multi-layered crisis spawned by the stolen election of July 31.
Three district chairpersons named a senior leader calling for leadership renewal as having called for illegal and clandestine meetings at Pangolin Lodge in Gweru and at other named places in Mutare, Harare and Masvingo conspiring to unconstitutionally remove Tsvangirai from office.
The district chairpersons reaffirmed their support for their leader and said as grassroots leaders of the party, they were clear that Tsvangirai was their party leader who could only be removed at a public and democratic forum called a congress.
They expressed their misgivings with the impression being deliberately created on the political market that seemed to depict Tsvangirai as being at the centre of the national crisis; as if he was the single human impediment to the people’s happiness and prosperity.
They said the people they represented across the country were clear that the national problem remained President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party.
Tsvangirai, they said, was the solution to the national crisis and not the problem.
The district leaders said they were proud of Tsvangirai’s record in government and that every Zimbabwean knew this was a stolen election as everyone in the villages was asking what went wrong.
There were no celebrations in the villages and seven months after the poll, the entire nation is still in “mourning”, struggling to come to grips with the reality of yet another pick-pocketed vote.
The chairpersons said if ever Tsvangirai had any weakness, it was that he was too lenient, too tolerant and too democratic even in cases of overt indiscipline and insubordination.
In his response, Tsvangirai spoke about the health of the party and the crisis facing the people of Zimbabwe.
He said true leadership should listen to the people, as he had done by calling the meeting of district leaders.
Tsvangirai said the meeting showed he had taken heed of the input from the grassroots during his outreach programme that he began in Masvingo on September 3, last year.
He said it was while in Bikita, sitting under a tree during that outreach programme on October 11, last year that the Bikita South district chairperson, Simon Ziki had proposed that the party president meets the 210 district chairpersons to appreciate the magnitude of the national crisis and to chart the way forward.
He restated that the debate taking place in the party was testimony to the democratic credentials of the people’s movement.
Tsvangirai said there was a deliberate creation of the impression that he wants to die in office and that he is a dictator.
In Glen Norah, a day later, he was to add that others had sought to portray him as a violent person when in his entire life; he has never been a proponent of violence but in actual fact a victim.
He said by nature and by the values of this movement, he is not a dictator even though others had taken that as a weakness when in fact it was a strength.
He reiterated that he had a plan that will see him leave office, but that plan did not include capitulating to an unconstitutional, hostile take-over.
At the people’s meetings at Harvest House and in Glen Norah, Tsvangirai said the major issue confronting Zimbabweans had nothing to do with the MDC as was being portrayed by the media but had everything to do with a crisis of legitimacy arising out of a stolen election.
The crisis has everything to do with a stolen mandate to which he restated the party’s eight-point plan as the only way the country could return to legitimacy and inspire local and international confidence.
He said notwithstanding the election results and the goings-on in the party, the MDC remained the only credible alternative that would deliver the people’s expectation of a better life for all.
At the two meetings, Tsvangirai walked the people through the party’s proposed plan which involves national dialogue of diverse stakeholders, political and economic reforms, global engagement, enhancing social sector delivery, infrastructure rehabilitation and national cohesion, culminating in a free and fair election underpinned by reforms as the last step on the journey towards returning to legitimacy in the country.
All the leaders of the party’s 210 districts in the country said they had confidence in Tsvangirai and would support him every step of the way.
The thousands that gathered in Glen Norah on Sunday, including eight old men and women who testified at the rally, had stories to tell of how Tsvangirai’s leadership had made a positive impact in their lives.
Tsvangirai restated that he will not die in office.
He said because he was not Mugabe, he will certainly leave office one of these days but certainly not through a hostile take-over.
He also said the debate within the MDC showed the party was a democratic party but restated that the party remained alive to its national mandate to deliver real change and positive transformation in Zimbabwe.
Put him before the people and Tsvangirai will certainly be in his element; his natural habitat.
In the coming weeks he will continue to interact with the ordinary citizens across the country and other stakeholders to deliberate on the poverty afflicting the people of Zimbabwe.
Nothing will divert our attention from our core mandate of rescuing this country from the jaws of penury and starvation.
Especially in the current national circumstances, Tsvangirai remains our best foot forward.
Luke Tamborinyoka is the spokesperson to MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. He writes in his personal capacity.
