On Thursday, Zimbabwe Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai came close to admitting that the unity government is a failure and that a new approach is indeed needed if Zimbabwe is to escape the sad state in which it finds itself.
Tsvangirai and his partner in government, Robert Mugabe, have spent more time squabbling than in running the country or formulating and implementing policies for the resuscitation of Zimbabwe.
The two find themselves in a very twisted and dangerous situation in which the loser of the last elections wields more power and is in total control of the government and the nation while the winner finds himself as leader of the ruling party with almost no authority to match.
From the day the unity government was formed, the two have always bickered over issues that are on the periphery of what Zimbabwe urgently needs done and both have, at one point or other, threatened to abandon the unity government.
They disagree on just about everything yet Mugabe always does as he pleases, reducing Tsvangirai to a powerless, complaining partner who is hardly an equal.
Last year, Tsvangirai invited a United Nations human rights expert, Manfred Nowak, to Zimbabwe to study the human rights situation in the country and Mugabe simply instructed that the man be sent back.
Nowak was not even allowed to leave the airport terminal building.
This act highlighted the tug of war between the two leaders.
This year, Mugabe invited Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Zimbabwe to open the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, the first time a leader outside Africa has been invited to do so.
The MDC cried foul and described Mugabe’s invitation of Ahmadinejad as “a colossal political scandal”.
“As a party,” said the MDC, “we feel that a country is defined by its friends. We want to place it on record that judging by his record, Ahmadinejad is coming not as a friend of Zimbabwe, but an ally of those that unilaterally invited him.
“Choice of friends,” the MDC continued, “defines character and inviting the Iranian strongman to an investment forum is like inviting a mosquito to cure malaria.”
Tsvangirai’s party said that “hobnobbing with dubious political leaders confirms stereotypes that we are a banana republic”.
To drive their point home, Tsvangirai not only snubbed Ahmadinejad’s welcoming ceremony at Harare International Airport, he left Harare altogether, embarking on what his party said was a regional trip to South Africa and Botswana.
Such are the disagreements the two leaders have traded for over a year since they agreed to a power-sharing deal.
But this lack of cooperation has taken its toll on the nation and most government work would grind to a halt as the two protagonists went after each other, standing their ground and not conceding an inch to the other.
Last Thursday, Tsvangirai felt compelled to say something about it.
“As a government we acknowledge that we have not been able to implement policies that ensure predictability for investment in our economy,” Tsvangirai told a business leaders’ conference on the sidelines of the ongoing Zimbabwe International Trade Fair, which Ahmadinejad had come to officially open.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe also differ not only over the continuing farm invasions but on Mugabe’s recently announced indigenisation policy.
Early last week, Tsvangirai, wanting to force broad revision of Mugabe’s unilateral indigenization regulations, told cabinet that the indigenization program should be put on hold until consultations are completed, forcing Zimbabwe’s Attorney General, Johhanes Tomana, himself another bone of contention, sparking friction and disagreement between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, to step into the controversy over corporate indigenisation, “drafting new regulations that will limit the exercise to relatively large companies and specify that shareholdings obtained by Zimbabwean blacks will have to be purchased rather than ceded as now worded”.
Tsvangirai took his message to a business leaders’ conference.
“Conflicting messages and lack of consultation have created an air of uncertainty in our investment climate . . . incidents of violence, farm disruptions and other illegal practices (continue) to mar our image,” said Tsvangirai, vowing he was going “to act to bring coherence in government policy key to attracting investment capital”.
He received support from the Zimbabwe Stock Exchange.
“Last year, our market was being driven by foreigners, upwards of 40 percent were foreigners and net buyers,” ZSE chief executive, Emmanuel Munyukwi, told reporters. “But from the end of January with the gazetting of the indigenisation regulations, there has been a lot of uncertainty and foreigners have put a hold on their transactions.”
Apart from bitterly disagreeing over Attorney General Tomana’s unilateral appointment, Mugabe and Tsvangirai are also locked in an acrimonious battle over Reserve bank Governor Gideon Gono, an appointee that the MDC does not even want to hear about.
Then there is the issue of the constitution.
Mugabe wants the adoption of the Kariba Draft, a draft constitution that was hammered by both ZANU-PF and MDC principals several years ago and to which the MDC carelessly put their signatures without thinking.
The Kariba Draft is more favourable to Mugabe and does not harass him over several issues.
But the MDC has now changed its mind and wants an outreach consultation, to afford the people the opportunity to contribute to the new constitution.
Mugabe and his people don’t want that.
They have brought out their vicious youth brigades, accompanied by army personnel in full military fatigues. They are beating up people, ordering them to vote for the adoption of the Kariba Draft and promising them death if they do not do so.
AS the two parties and their leaders are locked in political battle, the nation’s polarization deepens and their supporters are picking up rocks, boulders and sticks.
Zimbabwe Democracy Now, a pressure group, on Thursday issued a statement detailing how a ZANU-PF district chairman, named as Mike Chiwodza, has been going around the province, telling MDC supporters in the villages, “We will kill you after the World Cup.”
They said the man was backed by thugs armed with machetes and barbed wire clubs.
The intimidation and mugging of the population is steadily picking up as the constitutional outreach exercise starts to move.
This, obviously, is a training exercise in preparation for the mooted forthcoming elections.
People are not going to be safe from their own government.
But Mugabe behaves this way because Tsvangirai is standing next to him. There is absolutely no reason why the MDC should not take drastic action to protect the people at the same time it maintains its pro people stand.
But curiously, the MDC appears to now be caught in a trance of sorts. They know the right thing to do yet they are not doing it.
They scream, squeal and complain to anyone who will listen about Mugabe’s excesses, yet they remain rooted in the very same quagmire that is making them complicit in these shenanigans.
The MDC has a clear choice: it’s either it stands with the people or it continues to stand with Mugabe.
With where we are now headed, they cannot afford to try to remain neutral while all the wrong things are happening to the people. There is just no middle ground. They must take a stand.
It is either they disengage and return to the people to seek a fresh mandate or they burn their MDC cards and buy ZANU-PF cards.
Referendum and elections are looming. The MDC is going to get people killed.
The MDC is now playing more dangerous games than ZANU-PF yet this is just the right time for them to take a stand.
We notice what they are trying to do.
They want to have it both ways. And it will not work.
The people have repeatedly warned them but, apparently, the food on their tables is too inviting to abandon.
I see a bad moon rising, for both the people and the MDC.
