MDC strategy, Mugabe's legitimacy and unity government

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By Prof. Jonathan Moyo

1. INTRODUCTION

• After I received an invitation to today’s discussion, a media friend of mine who is one of the administrators of this club and who is also very active in the MDC Tsvangirai party told me that the reason for the invitation was to enable me to clarify some remarks I made recently at the Bulawayo Press Club which my friend said were too critical of Tsvangirai and about which he said I needed to be roasted.

• In addition, my media and MDC friend said I needed to explain myself in the light of what he claimed were growing reports within both the MDC Tsvangirai and the media fraternity in general that I am on the verge of rejoining Zanu PF as these reports were of major concern to him and many others in the media and opposition politics.

• Well, I shall address the first point in some detail as a substantive issue in a little while because I think it raises fundamental questions about the state of tolerance in our national politics and the future thereof.

• Regarding the second issue, I do not see any reason why I should come here and justify or defend my political affiliation as if I don’t know that freedom of association is a constitutionally protected fundamental right to which each and every one of us is entitled.

• The record will show that I have not and will never delegate my right to freedom of association to anybody whether in the media, opposition politics, Zanu PF or the so-called international community. The right is mine and mine alone. The only people who matter in terms of how I exercise that right are members of my family.

• Otherwise, for the avoidance of any doubt, I don’t mind reminding those who want to know that I am happily the duly elected Independent Member of the House of Assembly for Tsholotsho North yet to be sworn in. Nothing is about to change in that regard.

2. TSVANGIRAI & HIS MDC NOT IMMUNE FROM CRITICISM

• But the one question that requires some substantive reflection is about the alleged concern about my criticism of Tsvangirai.

• I must say with all respect to those concerned that I am quite alarmed by the suggestion that Tsvangirai is or should be above criticism and that somehow criticizing him constitutes a political crime.

• The fact is that Tsvangirai is clearly part of the national leadership in this country and all leaders, especially those who aspire to hold the highest office of the land and who, like Tsvangirai, style themselves as democratic and for democratic change, must be subject to serious and enlightened public criticism.

• I do not and will never subscribe to the underdeveloped notion that any criticism of President Mugabe is by definition tantamount to endorsement of Tsvangirai nor do I subscribe to the converse that any criticism of Tsvangirai is ipso facto an endorsement of President Mugabe. There is more to life than that.

• Contrary to emotive claims that the presidential election in Zimbabwe ended up as a sham of a one man race, we all know that the Presidential election that started on March 29 and ended on June 27 had four candidates. I for one have had opportunity to publicly criticize three of those: namely President Mugabe, Simba Makoni and Morgan Tsvangirai in their capacities as acknowledged national leaders.

• I have not had time nor desire to even bother about the other candidate whose name I cannot even remember simply because he is not a national leader and must have been a front of some unknown shadowy force out there.

• Those in opposition politics or in the media who think that public criticism of national leaders should only be restricted to criticising Makoni, Mugabe and other Zanu PF politicians are either naïve or stupid.

• I have criticized Tsvangirai’s withdrawal and his manner of withdrawal from the Presidential Runoff election not only because there was a rational basis for believing he could win that runoff but also because his withdrawal was an unfortunate vote of no confidence in the electorate.

• In fact, the withdrawal was a betrayal of the electorate and an attack on the democratic process which amplified serious leadership failure on Tsvangirai’s part.

• I shall further explain these considerations shortly.

3. CLARIFYING THE QUESTION OF VIOLENCE

• I am aware that the one reason given for Tsvangirai’s withdrawal was that political violence, intimidation and harassment had gotten out of hand and that the withdrawal was necessary to stop that violence and the attendant intimidation and harassment.

• Yes, there is no doubt or debate about the fact that there was indeed deplorable political violence and intimidation in some parts of the country notably in the provinces of Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Manicaland and parts of Masvingo province but certainly not though out the country.

• That violence which should be condemned in the strongest possible terms resulted in the murder of scores of people and injury to many more while some had their houses burnt down leading to the displacement of a number of families.

• And while most of the reported cases of the violence were inter-party, pitting Zanu PF against MDC Tsvangirai and vice versa, there are many unreported cases of intra-party violence and intimidation which took place within Zanu PF during pungwes in Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Masvingo and Manicaland.

• I have been shocked and disappointed by the claim made by Tsvangirai and others in his party, the media, in the UK and the US who have claimed that the political violence and intimidation seen between last April and June 25 has never been seen in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980.

• Even more shocking, this patently false and self-serving claim features prominently in black and white in Tsvangirai’s formal 25 June letter to ZEC withdrawing from the runoff.

• This claim is a very cheap, most unfortunate and utterly scandalous attempt to falsify Zimbabwe’s political and electoral history.

• The fact that is still crying out loud in our country waiting for resolution is that the period leading to and after the 1985 general election was the darkest in the political and electoral history of this country. The political violence, intimidation and harassment against the membership, supporters and leadership of PF Zapu that preceded and followed that election has not been equalled by anything since then.

• There is nothing to be gained in political terms by counting dead bodies in order to turn that into a political manifesto. This is what the MDC Tsvangirai and its British and American supporters have been doing with the political violence that took place in Zimbabwe between April 4 and June 25.

• But it is a well known fact that for some 24 months before the 1985 general election, the Matabeleland and Midlands provinces had the Fifth Brigade deployed there during which some 20,000 people were massacred while many more were tortured, maimed, had their homes destroyed or their livelihood lost. All this happened when the whole country was still under the brutal Rhodesian state of emergency and communities in Matabeleland and the Midlands provinces were under a dehumanising dusk to dawn curfew from 6pm to 6am.

• Victims of these atrocities feel insulted and demeaned by Tsvangirai’s false and politically insensitive claim that the violence that happened in the run up to the runoff is unprecedented in Zimbabwe’s political and electoral history.

• I just cannot bring myself to supporting Tsvangirai’s political falsification of history for his own political gains, as someone who represents a constituency that bore the brunt of the Gukurahundi atrocities when the Fifth Brigade was first deployed in Tsholotsho in January 1983 and continued to suffer those atrocities beyond the 1985 general election.

• Those who cannot understand this fundamental concern have a problem and they should not expect me to solve their problem.

4. TSVANGIRAI’S WITHDRAWAL FROM THE RUNOFF WAS ILL-ADVISED

• Against this backdrop, I believe Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the runoff on the basis that there was unprecedented violence and political intimidation against the electorate is not historically justified.

• Whether intended or not, the impact of Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the runoff was (a) to deny the electorate an opportunity to demonstrate its maturity by expressing itself even under the most difficult circumstances and (b) to hold the electorate in contempt on grounds that it is not mature or strong willed enough to withstand political violence and intimidation and therefore could be trusted to vote its own conscience against all odds.

• What was even more disturbing about Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from the runoff is that there was no consultation over the decision with other democratic forces in the country whose support Tsvangirai, his fundraisers and political surrogates apparently want to take for granted. Their futile expectation was that the MDC cabal would make the decision and everyone else would simply fall in line and support that decision because anything that Tsvangirai does or says must be supported by all progressive and democratic forces without any question or criticism.

• That kind of approach, which really smacks of the same old stuff, cannot foster the development of a new or alternative democratic culture and process in Zimbabwe.

• It did not matter that the decision to withdraw from the runoff four days before the fact sharply contradicted Tsvangirai’s widely publicised position that he believed he did not have to campaign at all and that he could just stay at home and wait for June 27 as no amount of violence, intimidation or harassment would sway the electorate against him because in his view it had already made up its mind in his favour.

5. THE CAUSE OF THE POOR DECISION TO WITHDRAW FROM THE RUNOFF

• A question that follows from the foregoing is this: what caused Tsvangirai to make what I believe was a wrong decision to withdraw from the runoff at the eleventh hour without any consultation with other democratic forces and against his own public position in support of the runoff and to the detriment of the growth and development of the democratic process in the country?

• Although this issue remains unexamined in the media, I believe the real reason behind that decision and indeed other poor decisions taken recently by Tsvangirai is because he and his MDC have become victims of their near success on March 29, 2008.

• In particular, since March 29, the decision making process in Tsvangirai and the MDC has been hijacked by some dangerously ambitious outsiders and is now firmly in the reckless hands of the party’s leading fundraisers, namely Strive Masiyiwa and Roy Bennett.

• This is now creating very serious but untold problems for Tsvangirai, creating problems for his so-called kitchen cabinet and creating more problems for the now disempowered MDC structures which can no longer make head or tail of what is happening within the party.

• For example, Masiyiwa has seconded to Tsvangirai Wellington Chadeumbe and George Sibotshiwe who are now at the centre of the MDC’s decision making and communication virtually from nowhere in political terms as far as the MDC structures are concerned.

• As a result, Tsvangirai’s so-called kitchen cabinet and the party structures have been successfully marginalised and sidelined by Masiyiwa and Bennett as they are no longer consulted on key party decisions.

• Tsvangirai himself now typically makes contradictory statements by the day such that in any given week he makes at least seven internally contradictory statements about one and the same thing.

• There have also been glaringly contradictory statements coming from Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and Nelson Chamisa.

• All these developments have been particularly pronounced since the MDC’s near success on March 29 and following the rise of the MDC Tsvangirai’s fundraisers to the centre of the party’s decision making.

• One of the consequences of this development which has cost the MDC politically was the decision for Tsvangirai and Biti to leave Zimbabwe in early April, just a few days after the March 29 election, and to remain in self-imposed exile for some six weeks during which the internal structures of the party lost cohesion as all decisions were now being made not only by the party’s fundraisers but they were also being literally made outside the country where Tsvangirai and Biti were.

• Foreign interests that influence things in the MDC, especially the British government, have taken advantage of this situation as they are finding it much easier to work through Roy Bennett and Strive Masiyiwa than through the so-called kitchen cabinet or the more complicated MDC’s structures.

• This has given the British and American governments false confidence to make Zimbabwe’s national politics their business.

• Even the United Nations has, through this window, allowed itself to be used to concern itself with a disputed presidential election as if unaware that most of its membership is well known for holding the funniest elections that are too comical to even worry about.

• I know that there are some or even many in the MDC Tsvangirai who would deny this with red faces until the cows come home but I can tell you that I am not making anything up because this is factual and there is more to it than I have said.

6. WHO IS THE PRESIDENT OF ZIMBABWE: Contrasting legal legitimacy with political legitimacy

• With this background in mind, who is the President of Zimbabwe?

• In terms of legal legitimacy, it is clear that Mugabe is the President of Zimbabwe. One does not need to hold a brief from him to appreciate this point.

• I have heard and read media references to the June 27 runoff as a one horse race or one man election.

• That is not the legally correct position. We all know that there were initially four candidates, then there were two and then there was one who was legally the winner after the other one withdrew.

• There was no legal need to have the formality of an election on June 27 after Tsvangirai formally withdrew on June 25. At the point of that withdrawal, ZEC could and should have declared the winner and spared us from the political formality of an election that was no longer legally necessary.

• In fact, and strictly speaking, Tsvangirai elected Mugabe alone through his ill-advised withdrawal. It is ludicrous for any to unilaterally withdraw from an election four days before it takes place and legally expect to be declared the winner of the same election.

• The ZEC argument that Tsvangirai should have withdrawn 21 days before March 29 to avoid a runoff is nonsensical. The fact of the matter is that ZEC failed to publish regulations specifically dealing with the runoff not least because of its inexplicable and unfortunate delay in announcing the March 29 presidential outcome.

• However, while President Mugabe does have legal legitimacy as President, his political legitimacy is under serious contestation.

• He clearly has a political problem and that is partly why he has committed himself to a government of national unity and that is indeed also why there must be negotiations to achieve a political settlement outside the election process.

7. THE INEVITABILITY OF A GNU

• The major reason that makes negotiations on a government of national unity necessary is because there is no single party in the House of Assembly that has the required minimum number of seats to either control Parliament or form a government.

• While it has been common to find claims in the media that the MDC Tsvangirai has a majority in Parliament, the reality is contrary to that.

• For any party to have the required majority in the House of Assembly, it must have at least 106 seats. The MDC Tsvangirai has 100, Zanu PF had 99 and now it has 98 following the death of one of its elected candidates from Gokwe, the MDC Mutambara has 10 with one Independent.

• One clearest failure of the MDC Tsvangirai is that to this day it does not have a binding or functional agreement with the MDC Mutambara to cooperate in Parliament.

• In fact, the MDC Mutambara formation is continuing to participate in the Sadc dialogue as a fully fledged opposition party with all of its rights still reserved.

• Tsvangirai would have been strategic had he succeeded in ensuring that the two MDCs participated in the dialogue as one voice. He has lost that opportunity and with it he may have lost the opportunity to control Parliament, having already lost the presidency.

CONCLUSION

• Notwithstanding the grandstanding in the media, it is now obvious that there is no way forward for Zimbabwe outside a government of national unity.

• As I have already mentioned, at the very least the composition of the House of Assembly dictates that.

• I believe that the Sadc mediation process will succeed because there’s no better alternative.

• Indeed, this is the position that has now been taken by everyone who matters in the country, Sadc, African Union, EU and the United Nations.

• What remains to be seen is who will be what in the government of national unity. Some of that will be determined by Mugabe in terms of his legal legitimacy and some of it will be a result of the Sadc dialogue because of challenges to Mugabe’s political legitimacy.