Way back in “the good old days”, an agreement between two people or clans was followed by a simple handshake, which became known as “the Gentlemen’s Agreement”.
That was all that was needed for any transaction – monetary, social or political.
Until the advent of politicians ÔÇô complete with lies, empty promises and sleaze!
Today, we bring the Bible out and force politicians to swear on it that they will be honest with us and we force them to promise, before God, that they will try no shenanigans we don’t approve of.
Indeed, when Presidents and Members of Parliament are elected into office, it is mandatory that they take the Oath of Office in which they pledge allegiance to the Constitution, in addition to protecting and defending it.
The Oath is a statement of purpose made not to a political party, not to a leader or to an individual but to the people and, therefore, to the nation.
“So help me, God,” they lip sync absent-mindedly. Even the British, who pledge their allegiance to their Queen, in the end have to concede God’s supremacy by pleading “God save the Queen.”
The Oath of Office, which is a statement of loyalty, is a serious thing. So, yes, politicians need God’s help because violating this oath may actually lead to charges of treason, which might carry a death penalty.
The Oath of Office entices me, particularly this week, when I see events unfolding in Harare and Washington.
First, Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change threatened to expel its elected councillors in some towns where they were the majority because they went into council chamber to elect a mayor and came out with a ZANU-PF mayor. Councillors, as their civic imperative demands, must vote for that particular councillor they believe would serve the city in a way beneficial to the citizens.
Think of the cardinals in a Vatican enclave to elect a pope.
It is not party politics; it is recognition of ability to give promised and expected services. They must pick the best person to deliver.
But the MDC had instructed its elected officials to vote in a certain way…a way that might not have been in step with the councillors or citizens in the elected officials’ constituencies.
The MDC is castrating its officials, turning them into puppets, not people’s representatives or serious lawmakers.
It imposed its own will on the people, a practice we have deplored over and over again in Mugabe and his ZANU-PF.
It is so sad that the highly regarded democrat, Tendai Biti, allows himself to be used, as his party’s Secretary General, in such a manner. They have suspended their own mayors, councillors and officials because they allegedly voted for ZANU-PF councillors as mayors.
Before that, the party had denied those few elected MDC Members of Parliament the chance to carry out their parliamentary duties by instructing them to boycott the opening of Parliament because the MDC did not want to appear to endorse Mugabe’s election as President.
In the end, those constituencies that voted for the MDC candidates were just as worse off as those whose constituencies did not deliver an MDC parliamentarian.
The MDC says it does not recognise Mugabe as president because Mugabe rigged elections, hence the boycott of Mugabe’s speech in Parliament, but leader Tsvangirai wants to meet “President Mugabe” to negotiate issues pertaining to Tsvangirai’s terminal benefits as Prime Minister and to discuss about the official residence that Tsvangirai used but from which he is being evicted.
Tsvangirai wants to buy the house.
MDC, therefore, recognises Mugabe in certain quarters but not in others.
The heart of the matter is that political parties must understand that, once elected and sworn into office, those men and women are servants of the people, of the nation and not of any political party or any party leader.
The Oath of Office is made to the nation, not to Mugabe, not to Tsvangirai or any party leader.
Both the MDC and ZANU-PF are wrong in penalising their MPs and Councillors because those people bring the voice of their constituencies to Parliament, to City Hall.
The people’s voice is more important than the party’s voice because the people are the party. The people are the nation.
I reject the idea that if one campaigns to represent his constituency on a BDP or BCP ticket it means the elected official should put his party before the nation or before his constituency.
I remain amazed by the current US government shutdown orchestrated by the Republicans against President Barack Obama. Some Republican Senators and Representatives publicly rebelled against their party, taking a cue from their constituencies and that was the right thing to do.
Their purpose was well pronounced. They were representing the views of the people who sent them to the Senate, not necessarily the voice of their party leaders.
While an elected official might wear his party’s colours even into Parliament, he is a voice of his constituency and constituencies form the national preference.
When the MDC instructed its elected MPs not to participate in the duties for which they were elected, the MDC was short-changing the people.
They were not punishing Mugabe but were penalising and rebuking those of their supporters who had voted for their candidates.
By the same token, Zanu-PF must accept that the people of Bikita West voted for Munyaradzi Kereke, who was loyal enough to ZANU-PF to run on their party ticket instead of as an independent.
Serial flip-flopper Jonathan Moyo, like Kereke, had qualms with ZANU-PF and chose to run as an independent and lost.
Is it not stupidity of cosmic proportions that Kereke stood against a favoured ZANU-PF candidate but still ran on a ZANU-PF party ticket and won the seat for his party but has now been expelled from ZANU-PF but Jonathan Moyo, who ran as an Independent and lost, has now been rewarded with a cabinet post?
Typical ZANU-PF; the morons think in reverse.
It is appalling.
Political parties must respect the vote of the people. They must let elected officials serve those who voted for them.
Zimbabwe’s late Vice President Simon Muzenda once told ZANU-PF followers to vote for even a baboon if ZANU-PF put one up as a candidate.
This is the real world.
Political parties must leave their elected officials to perform the duties they were elected for. Once elected, the nation comes first, not the party or the party leader.
People elect their representatives with the hope of being properly represented.
Let elected officials deliver services to the nation; political parties must not fight their wars at the expense of the people.
Elected officials are there to serve the nation and the people, regardless of the constituents’ political affiliation.
If ZANU-PF and the MDC cannot give even their own elected officials the leeway and independence to serve the people who elected them into office, what chance do we, the voters, have?
My point is that political parties must leave elected officials to perform the duties for which they were elected to do for the nation. Parties must not come between elected officials and the people who elected them.
The process is far more important than the outcome, for theirs are not personal or party crusades but must be efforts to payback the trust their constituents put in them as individual members of a political party or other.
