The truth shall set the MDC free

By Tinomudaishe Chinyoka

Sometimes, it is possible for people to tell a lie so well that not only do they get the people listening fooled, but that the liars themselves start to believe it as fact.

When that happens, reality becomes blurred and fact and fiction mesh together into a web that creates its own reality, so much that when the truth eventually emerges, it runs the risk of being mistaken for the lie.

This, in any case, is what seems to have happened to that lie about NIKUV. If you are a Zimbabwean, you will know that there is an Israeli company called Nikuv, that apparently helped the Zanu PF party to win the last elections through systematic vote rigging and the use of some strangely mutating ballots from China. Apparently, the Israelis have no qualms doing business with the Chinese.

Which is why it must have come as a surprise to many when Tendai Biti, the MDC’s Secretary General, gave a speech in which he stated:

“Zanu in the last election had a very simple message, bhora mugedhi, Even a little woman in Chendambuya or Dotito just knew one thing, bhora mugedhi. Perhaps we were too sophisticated, but what was our message because the message of change of 2000 is not the message for now. We were selling hopes and dreams when Zanu PF was selling practical realities. We (Zanu PF) are going to give you a farm, it’s there. We are going to give you $5 000 through (Saviour) Kasukuwere’s ministry. The MDC needed to marry the message of hope and immediate delivery if it is going to win an election. How do we transit and balance the message of hope with the message of immediate delivery? I think we didn’t do well in 2013 (elections). A message is a slogan, it’s mascara and it’s a makeup. What is the substance? This is where we need to articulate an alternative value system. What was our position on indigenisation? We had JUICE, yes, it was good but trying to explain it to Mai Ezra in Chendambuya, you understand what I am saying? So the issue of articulating an alternative discourse which is walked and lived is very important.”

Of course, I seem to recall saying, on 6 August 2013, less than a week after those elections, exactly the same thing:

The MDC went into this election without a plan, without a slogan, without a prayer in hell of winning. Flashing stupid cards with a 90 on them, in a country where our culture reveres age because it is a sign of wisdom, just shows that your campaign is being planned from Whitehall in London and the State Department in Washington DC.

The President, uncounted degrees and copious knowledge intact, humbles himself and goes to attend an Apostolic church service, and you mock him? Because he did not seek to make himself bigger than these people but chose instead to respect them? Then you complain when they vote for him? Please, somebody pinch me that I might stop laughing.

Your opponent comes up with a 51-49 plan, which seeks to restore our wealth to the people, and you denigrate it because you don’t want to lose the support of your donors and the friendship of the Selous Scouts and Rhodies in your party, even though the policy would enrich your own supporters?

You don’t answer that argument by saying hee-e, we will not follow this indigenisation action or whatnot. Because hee-e, we have Juice and CoSEZ. Juice will give you jobs, Juice will give you human rights, CoSEZ will give you better elections.

Yeah, right.

Someone comes around and says I am taking resources from foreigners and giving them to you, and your answer is some foolish childish slogan that sounds like you are selling lollipops?

That’s just telling people that you don’t care. Hee-e, we will do a land audit, hee-e, “The MDC’s jobs plan entitled Jobs, Upliftment Investment Capital and the Environment (Juice) is a comprehensive plan for the generation of decent jobs that will not only end poverty but also empower citizens. Juice advocates for a Broad Based Economic (BBE) upliftment of citizens by expanding people’s choices in attaining sustainable livelihoods not through asset striping and looting. “Zimbabweans who are committed to sustainable development know that our soceity can do better if we can combine job creation with durable human upliftment, sustained investment capital and respect for our environment.”

Well, so we know you can’t spell the word “society”, but please! People want food on their table. They want to send their children to school, and see those children make money. They want clinics that work. The other guy just promised them a way out, a tangible solution, and you start waffling about comprehensive plan this and sustainable livelihoods that? Save that for your donors, when you go to those swanky hotels that you like to go to and get little girls pregnant, but please, tell us how the other guy giving people land or a mine is not such a good idea, will you?

(Why Zanu PF won 2013 election: Tino Chinyoka)

Of course, not being one to say ‘I told you so,’ I will just say is, I told you so!

But, as refreshing as it is to see others come to your point of view, this statement from Tendai Biti follows the now infamous letters from Elton Mangoma, who, like Biti in all likelihood, is soon to be expelled from the MDC. In those statements, he points to leadership failure and other internal issues as the reason why the election was lost.

The MDC, obviously intent on preserving face and keeping the Nikuv lie going, identifies these statements for what they really are: a threat to the lie. So, instead of dealing with the issues raised, instead of looking to get guidance from these opinions, the party machinery is aimed at those that dare to voice a dissenting voice.

The reason for this is simple: the lie needs to be preserved. Their statement after Mangoma was suspended (pending dismissal from the party obviously) is right on the money:

“The actions by Mangoma have seriously undermined our relationship with strategic partners. It is also further noticed that his behaviour and attitude undermines the party position that the July 31 elections were stolen.”

So, you get suspended if you depart from the obviously false line that the July 31 election was stolen.

Having failed to bring a single successful case in Court to prove the alleged rigging, and hemorrhaging supporters due to ineffectual leadership, wasting time holding rallies in safe constituencies, the MDC appears to have zeroed in on a winning plan: keep talking about the July 31 2013 election as having been stolen so that come next election time, the people will look to …. Do what exactly?

Forget that this is a party that claims to be a broad based movement (which entails many people with differing views), or that it claims to be democratic (which suggest more than lip service to different opinions) and for change (which means something different from Rhodesia Front tactics of expelling members that think differently from the leader).

Forget that this is a party that claims to be a party of excellence, yet seems to excel only in confounding reason with half thought-out plans and a seriously large capacity to breed sycophants and bootlickers.

How else do you explain the penchant for hounding people like Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma  and keeping Nelson Chamisa unless you factor in that the latter thinks Tsvangirai is God anointed while Biti and Mangoma clearly do not?

How else to understand the expulsion of Munyaradzi Gwisai and the elevation of Theresa Makone?

How else to explain Tsvangirai going to London and saying “Let me tell you that Zimbabweans must come home” and then being comfortable with his relative and former girlfriend in Germany and Australia respectively claiming that they cannot go back home for fear of persecution by the government that they have been serving. Are we to believe that they took these decisions without first talking to him?

The sad truth is that the MDC under Morgan Tsvangirai has become a personality cult. The sad truth is that because of it’s cultish status, the MDC has long since stopped working in the interests of Zimbabwe, but for Tsvangirai and his coterie of relatives, sycophants, girlfriends, bootlickers and other hangers-on, at the expense of our nation.

Why does this matter to non-MDC supporters? The cynic will think that it does not, but it does. The Nikuv lies are the reason that the West uses to refuse to accept the legitimacy of our validly elected government.

The lies about electoral rigging are the reason why we still have sanctions. (Let’s not get into that inane debate about sanctions being a small issue: if they were, why have them?) The lie about rigging is the reason why our country continues to be regarded as a pariah. It is the reason why we cannot accept international capital, why we are forced to run a cash first economy at great cost to our resource base.

The MDC owes it to our nation to come clean on the elections. It is clear from the statements coming out of their inner circle that they never did believe the Nikuv lie anyway. They know that they lost the election because of a flawed leadership and a flawed agenda.

They sold the Nikuv lie to save face, but now that the wheels are coming off their vehicle of expediency, they are happy to throw the truth around in their personal battles. Their official statement about Mangoma, confirming that they fear that his statements undermine their official line, shows the cynical manipulation of facts for party policy.

That needs to change. The people of Zimbabwe are owed the truth, and it comes in the form of a simple admission: The MDC lost the election to a better organised and better led party.

That truth will not only free our country from the cloud of illegitimacy that the MDC lies have consigned us to, but will set the MDC free on a path to try and win the election in 2018. If they can find a leader that is, which clearly they have no hope of doing anytime this century.

The truth, shall at least set them free to try.