MDC squanders golden opportunity

The Movement for Democratic Change's obsession with scoring points against the ruling ZANU-PF could have cost it a unique opportunity when it poured all its resources into local government elections instead of exploiting the cash crisis which was the burning issue for its core urban constituency at the time. The elections were described by one international journalist as nothing more than "village elections".

Lack of timing has dogged the opposition party since it lost the presidential elections in 2002. The party had banked on winning the election and seems to have been thrown into disarray when it lost. Local and international pressure that it had hoped would bring ZANU-PF down to its knees if it stole the elections has fizzled out, leaving the party groping in the dark.

Though local polls have consistently shown that President Robert Mugabe's popularity is waning, he seems to have weathered the storm and is now so comfortable that he even quipped that the opposition should recognise him as the country's leader and elder statesman and should seek an internal settlement.

Ironically leaders of the MDC are aware that "elections alone, do not always guarantee freedom and change". MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai acknowledged after his party's election victory that when the MDC was formed, most people thought that their struggle would be "sharp and swift", but the struggle for a better life is dragging on and most people are worse off than they were in 1999 when the MDC was formed.

He said that the local government elections, in which only 30 percent of the electorate had turned up, with a paltry 11 percent turning up for the Harare Central parliamentary by-election which was won by the MDC, showed that the majority of the people had begun to lose faith in elections.

Party spokesman, Paul Themba Nyathi concurred when he said the low voter turnout reflected a sense of hopelessness and a feeling that politics was unable to solve the problems of the ordinary Zimbabwean.

"When the MDC entered the political stage three years ago, many weary and drained people in this country, then suffering from 19 years of violent misrule and lost opportunities, thought their struggle was going to be sharp and swift," Tsvangirai said in his message to the nation following the local government elections.

"Now that the struggle for a better life for all is dragging on, and given the worsening poverty at all levels, we are witnessing points of desperation among some sections of our community. The people's welfare and basic needs have been sacrificed for personal greed and ambition. If anything, the condition of the majority has worsened since 1999- thus making the call for change even more urgent.

"Our feelings depended on the electoral system as a vehicle for achieving change. We have since realised over the years that elections, and elections alone, do not always guarantee freedom and change," he said.

But despite this acknowledgement Tsvangirai went on to wallow in the party's victory, even telling newly elected mayors that the party was no longer in opposition, but was effectively the governing party. The party had indeed scored a major victory, winning 136 of the contested council seats against ZANU-PF's 100. It also won six of the seven mayoral seats.

"Our towns and cities generate about 60 percent of the country's Gross Domestic Product, thus making the MDC the main driver of the political and economic agenda in Zimbabwe today," he told a meeting of the National Constitutional Assembly. " We are no longer an ordinary opposition party. We are, in effect, in government. Our biggest challenge remains the existence of a ZANU- PF bureaucracy and a ZANU-PF central government, which is bent on frustrating our development agenda."

He told the newly elected mayors: " We set the agenda. We consolidate our gains. We manage the ZANU-PF bureaucracy against all odds. We serve all. We are ready to assume power at national level. Our policies are people-driven. We consult at all levels. We focus on the problem, not personalities."

It is probably this complacency that is costing the MDC because despite their claims, ZANU-PF is still in the driving seat and is setting the agenda. Though the MDC has repeatedly said that the path ZANU-PF is pursuing is unsustainable, the party is still limping on and general elections are less than two years away.

Observers believe it that it is the MDC that is losing momentum. They are beginning to question the calibre of the party's leadership. An observer, who was at one time a staunch supporter of the party, said that the MDC did not have any go-getters, people who could really stand-up to Mugabe and give him a headache.

He said what the MDC needed were people like Chenjerai Hunzvi who rose from nowhere to become a national icon, someone Mugabe was forced to recognise and accommodate to ensure his continued stay in office. Hunzvi rose from nowhere to become one of the most feared men in Zimbabwe when he took over leadership of the war veterans association though most people doubted his war credentials.

He spearheaded the threatened march to State House forcing Mugabe to grant war veterans packages that had not been budgeted for, and went on to deliver the 2000 Parliamentary elections and the subsequent by-elections to Mugabe.

The MDC does not have anyone who can seriously challenge Mugabe or even party leader Morgan Tsvangirai. The only person who tried to be outspoken, Munyaradzi Gwisai, was kicked out of the party.

There are also fears that having failed to oust the Mugabe administration some of the top leaders of the MDC are now all out to make money while the hay lasts. "Who among the blacks in the MDC has got money, really money?" the observer asked.

He said even those who had gone into politics genuinely seeking change had now realised they were hitting against a brick wall. They were now capitalising on funds that were pouring into the party to organise mass actions, stay-aways and trips to lobby against the Mugabe administration.

But as Tsvangirai rightly put it, ZANU-PF is a tough nut. Though describing the Mugabe administration as " a regime that is completely frozen in its tracks ...(with) no cash, no food, no friends, no fuel and no idea of how to get out of the mess it created for itself," Tsvangirai admitted that only dialogue could provide the intransigent regime with a window for redemption.

That dialogue could only be brought about by pressure from the people. "The majority have their strength in numbers. Use that power. Continue to extent pressure on this regime to listen to you. Fight for your rights and push ZANU-PF to the negotiating table. And make sure that the party remains on that table until the issues haunting this country are ironed out," he said.

This is precisely what his party failed to tell the people prior to the elections, when the country was facing the cash crunch, the fuel, and food crisis. ZANU-PF has since resolved the cash crisis. To some extent the food crisis is not as severe as the media and donor agencies imply. People have forgotten about the fuel crisis and are no longer looking to government for a solution.

But apparently while calling on the people to exert pressure on the government to force it to the negotiating table, Tsvangirai insisted that the MDC was not prepared to recognise the electoral fraud that took place in the March 2002 presidential elections. "We are not withdrawing legal challenge. We will fight to the bitter end until we realise our goals. We need change." But apparently he seemed to be contradicting this by insisting that the MDC has. "never sought to take over power for the sake of merely replacing ZANU-PF. We need to put a stop, once and for all, to the practice of personalising a nation and a people in order to suit a selfish agenda".

The cards are on the table. While Mugabe has no friends, even the Commonwealth secretary general Don McKinnon has admitted that sanctions imposed by the club have not worked. He now says dialogue between the ruling ZANU-PF and the MDC is the only solution to the country's problems. South African president Thabo Mbeki who has been accused of having a soft spot for ZANU-PF has always insisted that dialogue is the answer and that Zimbabweans must solve their own problems without outside interference.

© Insider Publications 2003. This story is available for syndication. Contact the publisher at insider@ecoweb.co.zw or charlesrukuni@yahoo.com