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Tendai Biti

Nicole Hondo Correspondent
A study of political developments over the past few months has revealed that opposition parties are fond of blaming ZANU-PF and even dramatically, State security agents, for every political misfortune that befalls them yet it is obvious that they are the architects of their own stunted political careers.

The reality that they refuse to acknowledge is that their lack of a sound and solid ideological footing and the flip flopping tendencies of their leadership are their major downfall. Politics is a highly demanding field that requires one to have an unshakeable conviction and ideology that resonates with the populace.

At worst, it is a dirty game that is only survived by the fittest, not perennial hallucinatory cry-babies.

It is for this reason that opposition parties in Zimbabwe from the MDC in 1999 to all its numerous offshoots, as well as ZAPU, MKD and other inconsequential parties, have failed to find favour with the electorate and hence continue to play second fiddle to ZANU-PF.

For who in his right mind would throw his weight and bank his money on a leadership that proclaims that the sky is blue today and wakes up the following day stating that the sky is yellow instead?

Although MDC leaders have tried time and time again to lay the blame on ZANU-PF, coming up with conspiracy theories fit to be the script of a James Bond movie, opposition parties ultimately expose themselves for the confused and politically challenged entities that they are.

Only recently, the supposedly major opposition party in the country, the MDC-T, made an about turn concerning the issue of whether or not to participate in by-elections.

Having stated time and time again that they would not take part in any elections until the political field was manicured and laid with a feather mattress or perhaps, an imported artificial turf for their benefit, it was no great surprise that the country woke up on 19 March 2015 to the news that the MDC-T had backtracked and were now going to “revisit” the issue.

This was nothing more than a face-saving way of saying they now want to take part in the by-elections, electoral reforms or not.

Excitable MDC-T spokesperson, Obert Gutu tried to downplay the decision, disguising the knee-jerk reaction as democracy at play. He was quoted in the press saying “the top leadership will meet soon after such a significant development to reflect.

The national council is the highest decision making organ of the party in between congresses. It is only the national council that can alter, amend and or set aside resolutions of the congress.”

What boggles the mind is this, when the MDC-T congress came up with the resolution not to partake in any elections until the reforms they are calling for are met, they were well aware that there was a probability that those who had crossed over to the Renewal Team would be recalled from Parliament. Indeed, they made a resolution to that effect.

If democracy was truly so highly-valued in the MDC-T, then the wishes of the MDC-T general membership who came up with the resolution not to partake in any further elections should be upheld regardless of any “significant developments”.

After all, any politician worth their salt should have foreseen such “significant developments” at the time the resolution was passed and endorsed. For the MDC-T national council to now amend a resolution that was made by the majority is akin to trampling on the opinions and wishes of their membership.

What it points to is a national executive, the highest decision making body of the MDC-T, that is made up of people who lack foresight and make emotional and impulsive decisions much to the detriment and future embarrassment of the supporters who blindly follow them.

Had they been politically astute, they would have anticipated the expulsion of the 17 legislators and therefore not declared that they would not take part in any elections.

What is obvious is that although they were the ones who led the call and endorsed the recalling from Parliament of 17 legislators aligned to the Renewal team, they were ill-prepared and did not even consider the obvious results — that there would be 14 vacant parliamentary seats that needed to be contested.

All they were concerned about was cutting their nose to spite their face.

Such confusion and visionary deficiency on the part of any leadership, worse still one that aspires to govern the country one day, does not bode well for Zimbabwe’s politics.

Typical of the opposition movements’ tendency to blame ZANU-PF for their shortcomings, MDC Renewal Team’s secretary-general, Tendai Biti came out guns blazing following the expulsion of the legislators, bizarrely accusing ZANU-PF of “colluding” with MDC-T to destroy the aspirations of the people.

Interestingly, only a few weeks ago, when the UMDC was formally launched, MDC-T themselves accused MDC Renewal Team of being ZANU-PF agents.

MDC-T deputy provincial spokesperson Felix Mafa Sibanda was quoted in the media saying: “It is a well-known secret that Welshman Ncube’s MDC and MDC Renewal are appendages of ZANU-PF.

We know they have been sent. They deliberately chose Bulawayo because they know that this is our stronghold but I should state that this is not home to dubious formations.”

It is bereft of any semblance of sense that all the opposition parties accuse each other of working with ZANU-PF and blame the ruling party for everything that goes wrong in their midget-like political life.

Any legitimate member who dares to criticize the leadership in the opposition parties is labelled a ZANU-PF spy, chickens that die from Newcastle disease are alleged to have been poisoned by the “dreaded State spies” and an opposition party that scores a legal victory over the other is said to have partnered with ZANU-PF.

Given these wild accusations and fixation that opposition parties seem to have with conspiracy theories involving ZANU-PF, the party would be justified in believing that its game plan scares the living daylights out of opposition parties hence they hallucinate about ZANU-PF’s involvement in their affairs at every turn.

By daily accusing ZANU-PF of being the architects of their failures, opposition parties are unwittingly admitting that the ruling party greatly outsmarts them.

For the good of all Zimbabweans, the MDC-T and all the other opposition parties, would be better advised to go back to the drawing board and admit that their “oppose anything and everything” strategy has dismally failed to yield any results or benefits for them or the general populace.

What is needed in these parties is sincere soul-searching instead of vilifying ZANU-PF at every turn.