United coalition suffers stillbirth

The idea of a united coalition, or front, against the Zanu PF government can’t, and shouldn’t, even be debated. However, the whole issue and subject has been poisoned by blatantly stupid strategies, mannerisms and machinations by particular individuals and groupings that have sought to claim a leading role in forging the “grand” coalition.

As if by some mysterious design, the current players chanting the grand coalition slogan are commonly sworn arch-rivals, or even political enemies, of Morgan Tsvangirai.

Then, in their lack of wisdom, they have tried to ride on that attitude and public position.

In doing so, they have plunged into the disaster of trying to fight and dismantle the Tsvangirai brand, before they start making any progress of their own.

That fight has been debilitating and taxing the Tendai Biti and Welshman Ncube camps.

The simple logic and reason behind the point here is that, evidence is clear that Tsvangirai still commands massive grassroots support.

Trying to just wake up and dismantle that brand not only requires a very strong alternative, but also timely, effective strategies.

There has always been a lurking danger for anyone wanting to pull down the Tsvangirai brand, to be seen as conscientiously working on destroying “the people’s project”.

Bizarrely, and disastrously, the Ncube and Biti camps have jumped head-on into that risk, inevitably at very huge cost.

Emotional utterances by Ncube, Biti and their colleagues, venting out their loathe and dislike for Tsvangirai have overshadowed whatever sensible and justifiable points behind their positions in the eyes of the people they want to turn away from supporting Tsvangirai.

By and large, talk in the townships and villages has drifted towards, and become rooted in, the interpretation of the Ncube-Biti agenda as, yet again, another hired and sponsored vehicle to destroy the Tsvangirai brand and “the people’s project”.

Everything lies in the tragic trait by the rivals of Tsvangirai to misread and misjudge the situations and circumstances.

I got the sense that the Biti and Ncube camps misconceived the political developments and came to the conclusion that circumstances provided for a real opportunity to dismantle the Tsvangirai brand.

It appears they thought a combination of electoral failure and Tsvangirai’s personal scandals — both real and imagined — would trigger the magic.

My assessment shows that the Biti and Ncube camps miscalculated terribly, and spelled disaster for their project.

The popular support for Tsvangirai remains intact, and may even grow, through the boomerang effect.

The attempt to dismantle it by his rivals and failure thereof, can become to be viewed as justification for him, which can turn into sympathy, and, subsequently more support.

Secondly, again in very bizarre and self-destructive ways, the Biti and Ncube camps have the penchant for setting themselves up for both ridicule and failure.

This is most relevant in the current circumstances to the Biti camp of MDC rebels.

I have repeatedly said the group is staging a huge farce underlined by deception, false claims and delusional thinking.

They have paraded naivety before the same people they want to convince into dumping Tsvangirai. Biti and his colleagues have virtually been written off as a bunch of charlatans, crooked plotters and agents hired to destroy “the people’s project”.

I have no doubt there is no way out of the pit for the Biti group.

Given that the Biti group has even failed to find its own feet and continued to postpone moving out or forward, becomes a precursor for any prospects or chances of the claimed coalition coming through.

The fact that, despite all the backing and obviously funding the Biti group had obtained, they still have found it hard even to launch themselves, speaks volumes about the resilience of the Tsvangirai brand against the MDC rebels.

In one breath, the Biti gang is announcing a date for what they purport to be hearings for Tsvangirai and other MDC leaders, while in another, Biti himself seems to be hallucinating about ‘forming our party’.

The Biti group has struggled even to find an identity for itself.

On the other end, and in his own world, Ncube seems just waiting for some miracle to happen, because, after recently coming out of his hiding and huffing and puffing about his loathe for Tsvangirai, nothing else seems to be happening.