3 January 2008
Posted to the web 3 January 2008

Reason Wafawarova
Sydney

IS the opposition in Zimbabwe, the MDC in the collective sense of its splinters, on the threshold of unity or on the brink of a disastrous ending?

The MDC leadership, mostly those from the faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai, have of late been speaking with striking confidence of uniting with the rival Mutambara camp - apparently because the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Human history records that rivalry and prejudice have always been the greatest enemies of unity and wherever the two exist there is no hope for unity. From the beginning the problems in the MDC have been cemented in rivalry created by prejudices as evidenced by Tsvangirai's mistrust and suspicions towards the constituency of "intellectuals" and other perceived power centres.

That the MDC was formed as a coalition of diverse interest groups, many of them with conflicting orientations is now common knowledge as the groups have been openly fighting for space and supremacy for the duration of the MDC lifespan. While Tsvangirai has had to resort to the so-called kitchen cabinet and his hoodlums to protect and reinforce his prejudices against the likes of Welshman Ncube, Job Sikhala and the vocal Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga the other side has also cemented their prejudices against Tsvangirai's political acumen and capacity to handle complex political matters given his apparent academic shortcomings.

As journalist James A. Haught once wrote, "anything that divides people can spawn hostility." In the case of the MDC the concept of democracy, which many in the MDC interpret to mean doing as one may wish, has been the strongest divider. There simply has been no rallying point in the MDC outside a shared hatred for President Mugabe and his Government and party.

There is still no rallying point and the limited understanding of the term democracy by the generality of the MDC leadership, together with the majority of its supporters has put to naught the general belief that democracy makes people "good" as evidenced by some of the heinous acts that have so far been committed by known MDC activists on known MDC members. These acts of violence have been inter-faction for both splinters and intra-faction for the Tsvangirai group as evidenced by the October 30 2007 skirmishes in Bulawayo as well as the November clashes at Harvest House in Harare.

The MDC now gives this awkward view that for good people to do evil it takes democracy. How else can one explain the assaults, attempted murders and the wanton destruction of public and private property by MDC activists in the name of exercising democratic rights? By defining the avoidance of fielding candidates from both factions of the MDC for one political post as unity we now get a new lexicon of the term by MDC standards. To some the term unity simply means the absence of friction or strife.

Although this simplistic way of looking at unity can be somewhat ludicrous the MDC still will fail the test since friction and strife have been synonymous with the party the way the name Tsvangirai has. There has been no absence of strife and friction in the MDC since September 11 1999 when the party was launched.

It has always been example after example, Welshman Ncube versus Tsvangirai, Tapiwa Mashakada reported as burning down Sikhala's house, Sikhala threatening to leave the party, Munyaradzi Gwisai expelled for exercising his right to free speech, Peter Guhu escaping murder, Misihairabwi-Mushonga assaulted for opposing Tsvangirai, Tsvangirai splitting the party, Trudy Stevenson assaulted and left for dead again for daring to challenge Tsvangirai, one guy losing an eye in Bulawayo, Lucia Matibenga and her colleagues set upon and assaulted by Tsvangirai's youths for daring to question why the women's assembly was dissolved.

The fact that the MDC may agree to field a single candidate against President Mugabe in March 2008 does not mean that the MDC can unite in peace. Neither does it mean that they will win the election. They will have the strategy not to divide votes in place but they won't have the unity of purpose to attract the votes in the first place. Really, are two men with pistols pointed at each other considered to be in unity simply because they are not pulling the trigger for fear of pleasing a third party with a victory they mutually feel is unwarranted? Absurd as such a view may sound, that is exactly what Nelson Chamisa has been assigned to tell the people of Zimbabwe by his "president", Tsvangirai who is clearly scared to go on his marks for the March 2008 presidential race.

Tsvangirai is pleading with Mutambara that while it might suit both of them to keep their pistols pointed at each other they must make sure that they do not fire at each other because that will leave President Mugabe with no competitor. That is not unity, and the people of Zimbabwe are a fairly academically enlightened lot and it is naturally impossible to hoodwink them with such uncalculated manoeuvres.

We did see in the 1990s some opposition parties "uniting" under some funny emblem made up of symbols of three hands each carrying its own racial colour and they sang "Manya manya nemvura tinoda kuundura jongwe" but the people of Zimbabwe saw them for what they were -- pretenders who mistook the absence of fighting for unity.

The MDC is trying to repeat this cosmetic unity and they hope Zimbabweans will be hoodwinked into voting for them. The MDC leadership may want to ask the likes of Edgar Tekere, Abel Muzorewa, Wurayayi Zembe and Isaac Manyemba and they will be advised that the pseudo-unity they want to sell simply won't sell. There is evident monolithic unity in Zanu-PF especially when one looks at how old the party is and how they have been conducting their party business throughout the years, not least the way the party endorsed its presidential candidate for March 2008.

When the electorate look at an institution like Zanu-PF in comparison to the patching business that the opposition MDC is they clearly know who is better positioned to govern them. The electorate is not as dump as to fail to see the ludicrousness of a party that only preaches unity because it fears to lose an election.

Zimbabweans clearly know what to make of a party that keeps threatening to boycott elections only to jump into the ring at the instructions of its foreign handlers. The people are quite clear on political contenders and political jokers given that many of them have lived through the eras of the Magotshes, the Dumbutshenas, the Muzorewas and the Paul Siwelas of this world.

The people may not have been vigilant enough to stop jokers like Sikhala from going to Parliament but they still know better than being fooled into a unity that never was. Here are other reasons why the MDC cannot possibly unite in the true sense of the word. The vested interests in the various power centres are largely too diverse for any possible compromises, for example the change wanted by the white element of the MDC is not exactly the change wanted by ZCTU, ZINASU or the ordinary urban resident. The only common change so far shared is the aspired absence of President Mugabe and nothing more.

Secondly, the MDC leaders are clearly more concerned with their own supremacy and personal interests than they are with unity. For Tsvangirai, any talk of unity must come after confirmation that his aspiration of becoming the supreme leader is secured. For others like the sitting MPs, talks of unity must come in the context of them securing new terms of office unopposed. For others, unity must be on conditions of them securing powerful positions within the MDC itself. All this cannot pass for unity but plain amateurish political play.

Thirdly, the rift created by the MDC fallout is so big that the fear of losing to the mighty Cde Mugabe alone cannot mend the gap. Any unity between Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube, Chamisa and Paul Themba Nyathi, Sikhala and Mashakada and so on and so forth -- would require such a level of friendship and trust between the feuding parties that it is very difficult to believe that this can ever happen.

I assert that the only unity the MDC factions can successfully sell to the people of Zimbabwe is a unity around good alternative policies -- policies centred right on the Zimbabwe national interest. It is a unity beyond mere loathing and hatred of President Mugabe. It is unity in hope -- a hope for positive social development and outside that framework the gospel of unity as synoptically preached by the feuding factions of the MDC for the purposes of amassing votes from assumed gullible voters will just not convert anyone.

The MDC must stop imagining the existence of these "powerful and popular democratic forces" somewhere around the Zimbabwean air and start doing serious policy work if they are serious about forming a government one day. There is simply nothing good enough to unite in order to win election 2008 and the sooner those who are placing their hopes on this unity talk realise it the better for real democracy.

Zimbabwe is not going to be ready for another group of crybabies blaming chiefs and food for election losses. There is a crying nation to run and there is just no time to keep an uncooperative opposition in the stride of the developmental revolution needed for the country, especially the fruition of the agricultural mechanisation scheme.

If the MDC factions want to unite they have to do so outside this unconvincing framework of uniting against President Mugabe or Zanu-PF. The nation wants to see them uniting under an alternative policy and please "chinja" is a slogan and not a policy. The land reform programme is a policy, the indigenisation drive is a policy and so is the national youth policy.

Criticising each of these Government policies does not constitute an alternative policy at all and these are some of the lessons the MDC might want to learn after their impending defeat in 2008.