Mugabe death is not a solution: Biti

By Richard Chidza

Zimbabweans need to unite and find solutions to the country’s political and socio-economic crisis and not hope that President Robert Mugabe’s death will be a panacea to their woes, a leading opposition figure, Tendai Biti, said last week.

Biti, a former Finance minister told a Southern African Political and Economic Series (SAPES) discussion in the capital that the fractured nature of the opposition was a reflection of the society it operates in.

“President Mugabe’s death, whenever it will come, will be no solution to the problems that Zimbabweans are facing. The fixation we saw with his unfortunate fall at the Harare International Airport shows you how hopeless we have become, that we even have faith in a piece of carpet.

“We need to begin to organise ourselves in a smart manner and come up with definitive programmes that will bring lasting solutions to this crisis,” Biti told the discussion, also attended by his erstwhile comrade-in-arms and MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai.

“We cannot put our collective fate in the survival or otherwise of an individual”.

Mugabe missed a step and fell as he made his way to his official car after addressing hundreds of supporters who had braved the baking sun to welcome him as he returned home from the African Union summit in Ethiopia where he was elected chairperson.

Following the incident, many people took to social and other media to make fun of his tripping which they linked to his old age, adding that he must now step down as he longer had the capacity to lead.

Now secretary-general of a faction of the original opposition MDC, known as the renewal team under the leadership of Sekai Holland, Biti and others broke ranks with Tsvangirai in April last year following the party’s humiliating loss in the 2013 harmonised elections.

The veteran legislator and legal practitioner said Zimbabweans needed to “stop obsessing” with the “Zanu PF has failed mantra” and added that the divisions rocking the opposition movement in the country are a reflection of the divided nature that Zimbabweans find themselves in.

“Let us stop pointing fingers at Zanu PF, the party and its leaders are tired, they have failed and that discourse is not news anymore. We could write books and thesis on their failure but that would not provide a solution to our troubles,” said Biti.

“We need to find a new way of dealing with the social crisis, water, energy and other facets of life. Elections are only 30 months away and if we are not careful this country will again troop to the polls under the same conditions and using the same discredited voters’ roll. That Zanu PF has failed is a tired story and will not get us anywhere,” said Biti.

“We can differ as human beings because we do not necessarily have to be friends in order to have a common vision, but unity is vital in our situation.

“Part of our problem is that we have reduced Zimbabwe’s politics to a binary construct, that of the opposition versus Zanu PF, the MDC and its various manifestations against Zanu PF. I refuse to accept that construct”.

The former treasury chief said the continued splits in the country’s opposition parties are a mirror image of how divided Zimbabweans are.

“If you are a Zimbabwean who think they can outsource the struggle to another group of Zimbabweans you are wrong (sic). You accuse the opposition of being weak and divided but it is the citizen who is weak and divided. We are a mirror reflection of the people’s cowardice, we are a mirror reflection of the divisions among Zimbabweans,” Biti added.

In the past decade and a half since its formation, the MDC has split into various formations over leadership squabbles, while indications are that the ruling Zanu PF party might soon see the formation of a splinter party following its divisive congress late last year.

A faction of the former guerrilla movement led by axed former Vice-President Joice Mujuru is allegedly planning a court application to reverse the congress decisions including the appointment of two vice-presidents, in a move that could signal the birth of a new party.

Source: The Zimbabwe Mail