‘MDC a pack of crazy ambitious idiots’

By Chris Veremu

Reports doing the circles and evidenced on the TV interview by the MDC Secretary General Tendai Biti show beyond all reasonable doubt how untidy the MDC circus has turned itself into.

For those families who lost life and limb for the party this is not funny at all. If anything it is a shipload of insults and 24 carat nonsense to boot.

To have an SG or custodian of all party business bare his soul like this would be the stuff that nobility, courage and good practice would be expected to look like if it were not for the fact that the gross malice attached to it were not so breathtaking.

To borrow from one Gutter Poet writing in the letters column of the Daily News, treachery has been with us since God was a boy!

What makes this even more untidy and dirty is that to score points in a quarrel between himself and his boss Biti is willing to throw the millions of Zimbabweans who sacrificed everything including their sanity for the party.

This is unforgivable in its pettiness. It is misplaced vanity writ large. Let this also be a lesson to us all that all that glistens is not gold. Who in their wildest dreams would have dreamt they would see this much ugliness in their lifetime?

Granted Mr. Tsvangirayi is still punch drunk and smarting from the shellacking or walloping he received from Mugabe he could have handled the post election scenario better. The beating of Mangoma was hardly necessary if the president of the party still had his senses about him.

What was needed and practiced world wide is after a loss at the National poll whether fair or unfair, (remember Al Gore) is to seek a fresh pair of boots. If the MDC can not handle ‘light’ discord between themselves why are they still pretending that they are a serious political outfit who deserve another chance amongst many lost so far to govern?

A witch hunt is not what the party needs but a careful analysis of what hit them. It was the same Biti who led the charge and told all Zimbabweans that elections were four months away when they were only two weeks away.

Thus people both inside and outside the party believed him because he was the Finance Minister. The issue with so-called confirmations which young Chamisa initially dismissed was later endorsed at the eleventh hour caused more despondency and confusion within the ranks.

This says the MDC party was not as well oiled a machine as that one led by the three musketeers in the form of Gumbo, Mutasa and Khaya Moyo. These fellows shed government jobs to concentrate on party business while those in the MDC were busy chasing cars and other trappings of power.

Biti could see himself as having arrived spending half his productive time in Washington brushing shoulders with the elite. In fact Chamisa, Moyo and Biti were too busy doing everything else but ensuring that their party ran on greased grooves.

That there is a likelihood that they were cheated was never in doubt but then this is Africa, don’t they say the end justifies the means…some say all is well that ends well. Those really crude say all is fair in love and war! This is even more applicable for ZANU.

While the MDC was content to let events take care of themselves, ZANU learnt a lesson of taking voters for granted the hard way in 2008 when they lost the vote outright..They were damned if they were going to repeat the same mistake and were not afraid to use everything they could lay their hands on and damn the Marquis of Queensbury rules!

The only rules they were willing to listen to were ‘no rules.’

Now after telling all and sundry including the birds in the trees the election was rigged the MDC is turning on itself chewing itself to bits in the process. What exactly is the reason for this? That they were caught flat-footed and some people holding senior office did not measure up is hardly the reason why they find themselves at sixes and sevens.

The reason lies in the intransigence of Tsvangirai himself. He is the leader of the team and the buck stops with him.

Why does he appear to be so determined to destroy a mass project to ensure that he stays boss when he could still get back on the horse once the MDC is back in office? One would expect him to be smart enough to realize that if the MDC is dead he becomes boss of a dead duck.

Russia’s Putin came back after a term sabbatical, William Hague of the conservatives came back as Foreign Minister (there is nothing that says he can not try again but he was content to let Cameroon kick Labour out).

Hilary Clinton stepped down from the most powerful post as first woman Secretary of State in the US to prepare herself fully for a shot at the presidency. What this simply says about the MDC is that they are a pack of crazy ambitious idiots who have conned Zimbabweans that they are the best available alternative when they are anything but.

The GNU is the best thing that ever happened to Zimbabweans as it gave the public a sample of what the MDC guys would do in government. Their performance contrary to the collective narcissistic tripe they believe about their performance was a huge disappointment.

Now the people who invested so much are lost as to what the national executive have been smoking. Even those at ZANU have no clue what to do with this madness that has assailed their opponents. All they can do is look and shake their hands in wonder.

The solution for this malaise is everywhere written in bold letters which the party leadership refuses to see. The party needs a purgation or catharsis. Nothing short of this will clean the malaise. Tsvangirai’s idea of inviting other parties to team up with him sounds hollow when he is kicking those inside outside.

My final take is simply this: Tsvangirayi and his executive, the whole sorry bunch inclusive of Biti, Mangoma and other joy riders to nowhere must make way for a fresh pair of horses to lead the party into tomorrow or they can forever stay the party of yesterday!