MDC A spends time spewing insults on social media than strategising

By Tambanavo Chamanyawi

Zimbabwe is on a slippery slope sliding into doom. None of the political players have neither the capacity nor willingness to stop the skidding. So dark and deep is the gulf which Zimbabwe is heading to as Zanu PF and MDC leaders continue to display unmitigated selfish characteristics.

So ugly is the situation that citizens have already given up on everything except breathing. Exasperating poverty is so glaring as one enters Zimbabwe from any port of entry. The level of desperation by locals to squeeze a dollar from people coming from outside serves to confirm that all is not well in the once breadbasket nation. Political leaders from both sides of the divide are not giving the situation the urgency which it deserves. Shockingly leaders from both Zanu PF and MDC are getting rich beyond their imaginations as their followers continue to sink more into poverty.

The Zanu PF government has openly abandoned its duty of care to citizens. The government ’sole fixed goal is to collect tax; charge import duty and retain power through hook and crook. Equally thin in strategy is MDC, whose main pre-occupation is to get Nelson Chamisa to State House. The Party is so thin on how they will get to State House and silent on ways of turning around the fortunes of Zimbabwe.

At the Centre of the malaise is a leadership drought from both sides. The MDC A under the comic Chamisa is getting everything wrong despite the earth-shattering support from Zimbabweans. Instead of using their huge following to muscle their way into corridors of power, the MDC leadership has turned to keyboard activism and verbiage. Lack of courage, bravery and dexterity have sentenced MDC to a permanent opposition status despite all the undisputed tacit support of members of the electorate. Poverty and bad governance have always been a ‘sarajevo spark’ in most revolutions, but such political penalty shoot-outs are not being converted into scores in Zimbabwe because the opposition leaders abandoned the political pitch immediately after elections. The opposition is user-friendly to oppressors in the streets but vicious on social media.  

There is also very little to celebrate where the MDC A is running councils and municipalities. Instead of exhibiting clean governance in Urban councils which MDC A oversees, corruption has equally proliferated in Harare City Council and other municipalities. Chamisa’s name, his brother Starman and their cronies keep on topping the list of MDC A officials fingered in stands scandals. This is an ugly situation. Council employees under the leadership of MDC were not being paid in time. Nurses working for clinics run by Harare City Council are not only unpaid, but lack basic PPEs like gloves, aprons, and masks. Machinja city fathers are even failing to provide basic services like water and refuse collection. Do not tell me about July Moyo’s sabotage MDC run councils. One would expect MDC to have elevated their council operations beyond Moyo’s reach. These chaps cannot be complaining about the same challenge for 20 years. Their level of creativity is pathetic. It does not augur well for people who claim to be a government in waiting to fail to circumvent the same problem for 20 years. In all fairness MDC characters cannot expect Zanu PF local government ministers to make it easy for them to run councils. They cannot be spewing excuses at every turn, corner, and event. We need delivery now, not excuses. Only a stupid striker will not expect trouble from defenders. A striker is expected to dribble through a wall of marauding defenders and a ferocious goalkeeper to net a score for his supporters.

Chamisa’s party which could easily claim the corridors of power in Zimbabwe failed to comprehend the kind of filament which their opponent, Zanu PF, is made of. Instead of investing time and resources in hitting hard on where Zanu PF is strong, the Chamisa Chete Chete (CCC) brigade is busy mobilizing for 2023 elections as if the machinjas ever lacked the public goodwill to win elections. How Zanu PF always end up in power is a public secret. So how is the red brigade missing it? The fist waving ruling elites are not even secretive about it. As to why Chamisa is negating that is just too preposterous to merit even as a passing sneer. The tumultuous crowds which he pulled during campaign period need to be aided by a bit of political calisthenics not slogans and bickering. MDC’s glaring lack of capacity to infiltrate Zanu PF, paralyze the rigging machinery as well as disenabling its apparatus of violence is the only reason why the late Morgan Tsvangirai never slept at the State House. Chamisa is facing the same fate. All these hallucinations of being at the State House in 2023 is opportune fiction being sold to gullible supporters who are desperate for change. Electrifying phrases, eloquent public speeches, tweets, and social media likes are not in any way a currency of power transfer. They must forget it if everything they are doing has no capacity to jam the rigging machinery and dismantle machinery of violence.

For 20 years MDC failed to locate Zanu PF’s pillars of power retention and is seemingly not investing even a second or a cent in coming up with strategies to tackle their opponents where it matters most. This rigging excuse which MDC has been singing for the past 20 years is now sounding like a broken record. MDC A is operating with neither a think-tank to craft strategies nor Intelligence department to gather accurate information. In the absence of strategies and intelligence how on earth can such this briefcase party manage to outsmart a well-oiled opponent with access to government resources and personnel? Demoralised and poverty-stricken party workers whose salaries were last paid many years ago are left with no option except to sell information to Zanu PF goons. Of course, they are selling information because they are hungry and susceptible to manipulation. Only a fool can trust a hungry man with valuable information. One wonders what these chaps would be discussing during their standing committee meeting when they can neither raise money to pay their workers nor come up with strategies. MDC risks exhausting its political capital before making any impact on the political stage and Zimbabweans are running out patience.

MDC A ‘s emphasis on sloganeering and centralizing power on one individual are sources of Machinja’s demise. The CCC euphoria, which suggests that Chamisa has monopoly over the leadership of MDC is the source of divisions that are rocking Tsvangirai’s once formidable party. It is an archaic and warped approach to leadership which should not be condoned in these pre-modern periods.   It is unMDC to attach an individual’s name to a position, a practice which MDC came to fight to fight against. Even the late Tsvangirai refused to have his name in the same line with the Chete Chete. The party has been limping from one disaster after another as Chamisa’s colleagues prefer to throw their tacit support over whatever he moots for fear of retribution. The leaders are more passionate about displaying their loyalty to the leader than formulating strategies to get power. To pick this, one must just follow the social media posts of MDC A leaders where they all parade their dear leader as the only panacea in town. The posts are thin in rallying the masses around their cause but thick in bootlicking. Have you guys ever realized how they compete in posting pictures posing with their brother leader?

What happened to the democratic practice of electing party leaders? Most MDC are appointed by the Party President, a practice copied from Zanu PF. Such leaders are not accountable to party structures but the leader who equally has the powers to disappoint them whenever he deems it fit. This is compromising the quality of decision-making processes. Some of the appointments are clearly against the Party constitution which clearly makes it mandatory for someone to be a member of the party for five years before being considered for any position. Shockingly the Spokesperson of the party, Fadzai Mahere, who Chamisa appointed represents everything that MDC is fight against. Mahere comes from a privileged Zanu PF elitist background apart from contesting the 2018 elections as an independent candidate against the MDC A nominee. No-one can raise such a legitimate complaint with the boss for fear of being labelled a CIO. Some fear being subjected to the vanguard for antagonizing the Führer. Chamisa’s rabid proclivity to disregard the Party constitution to suit his personal tastes is so scandalous.

If MDC A could translate their biting strength on twitter and facebook to the streets, their leader would be in State House the following morning. There is no political party in Zimbabwe, which is so boisterous, bullying and insulting on social media like MDC A. Legions of MDC keyboard warriors spends all their time surfing the nets for any post which might not be praising their leader. Instead of investing in insulting independent minded Zimbabweans, why not using such resources to create strategies to take power? No one has ever gone into power nekusvibisa vamwe through the services of varakashi. This team of varakashi which include some members of the National Executive, is operating with a template of hitting out at anyone who might not be hailing their leader enough. They care less if one attacks the Party but will fall on anyone like a ton of bricks for touching Nero. Even the Tsvangirai family is not spared from the vituperative tongues of Nero’s Varakashi. One would have expected MDC A to articulate their road map more on social media than kutuka vanhu. Vane muromo sevana vekwaSabhuku. Their favorite statement yekusvibisa is accusing internal critics of being members of Zanu PF as if it is illegal to support the ruling party. If leaders invest their time vachituka vanhu and bootlicking their boss on social media, zvidavado zvekuti mutore simba munozvifunga nguvai?

Chamisa legitimized Mnangagwa by losing an election court challenge. It was clear that such a route was not the best option to make. A judiciary that had just legalized ED’s coup would not have nullified his election victory. Show me of any fool who could have missed such an obvious scenario. Chamisa should have denied ED a court victory confirmation by not taking the matter to the judiciary leaving a doubt of legitimacy hanging over his presidency.

 He was even outsmarted by Thokozani Khupe. Yes, he was out done in broad day light. Never mind about the assistance she got from Zanu PF. Chamisa treated Khupe with reckless abandon which created room for Zanu PF to capitalize on.  If he was a political master actor as his social media supporters want everyone to believe, how did he miss such a foreseeable possibility? No amount of pretense could obliterate the naked fact that Chamisa usurped power from Khupe through unconstitutional means. He went on to recall her from parliament apart from exposing her to the humiliation of dismissing Khupe from the party. I am not in any way suggesting that Khupe could have been MDC’s best foot forward. Chamisa should have treated Khupe the same way Douglas Mwonzora handled her. Nero could have easily waited before accompanying her to the political slaughterhouse (congress).

Chamisa might not even be allowed to contest 2023 elections on an MDC A ticket if the court rulings about the legitimacy of his Party Presidency is anything to go by. Douglas Mwonzora, MDC T President is likely to claim that space using the court judgment as a weapon to achieve his political means. So Mwonzora might elbow him out again. As to why no strategy is not yet in place to deal with his legal status in MDC A shows clear lack of subtlety.

Chamisa might proceed to form his party, but his new outfit will not be spared from Zanu PF’s sting operations. His party risks being nipped from the bud. Name changing will not do much to keep Zanu PF at bay. There is also a possibility that such a political grouping will come into life heavily fractured as some of his lieutenants in his current political home might hesitate to follow him. The diminutive former student leader has a tendency of tongue lashing or publicly dressing down his subordinates who he treats as his garden boys. He gagged his deputy Tendai Biti and Vice Chairman Job Sikhala from granting media interviews. Biti and Sikhala were threatened with dismissal on several occasions for not hailing him enough. A directive has also been issued to other Party structures to stop praising Uganda opposition leader Bobby White and Julius Malema of South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) on social media. They were instead instructed to heap praises on their dear leader.

The MDC A needs to reap political gains now before the extinction of the political capital.

–Tambanavo Chamanyawi is a Zimbabwean based in Johannesburg. His views do not necessarily represent the stance of Zimbabwe Observer

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