At the 11th hourthe Zanu(pf)/MDC talks broke down; at the 11th hour the MDC/MDC talks broke down and now at the 11th hour Makoni announces he will run for the Presidency as an Independent? Very sneaky indeed! What then can we expect at the 12th hour? We have the following candidates in the ring; Makoni (Independent), Mugabe (Zanu(pf)), Mutambara (MDC) and Tsvangirayi (MDC) in alphabetic order. I will hazard the following;
1) Mutambara: an outstanding academic with meager political skills. His situation is made worse by the fact that he was parachuted onto the Zimbabwean political scene and has yet to find his orientation. He has no
grassroots support and his biggest constituency is likely to be the CIO.
2) Makoni: a good academic and technocrat whose grasp of politics is commonsensical and sound. In my opinion he is overrated. He has no grassroots support and it is curious that he chooses to run as an
Independent?? Whilst independent minded, Makoni is a political coward and he has supped with the devil for too long. His backers are likely to compromise
any genuine reconstruction of the country.
3) Tsvangirayi: a very good politician with a sound grasp of Zimbabwean politics and perhaps most importantly a very courageous individual. His support base straddles the urban/rural divide and he can
communicate to both groups eloquently.
4) Mugabe: a master politician who has confounded his opponents for the longest of time. He is devious and dangerous and has thoroughly destroyed the socio-economic fabric of the Zimbabwean society during the
course of the last 27 years. He has so palpably pauperized the majority of Zimbabweans it is hard to imagine any of these voting for more of the same?
In my opinion, Zimbabweans maybe soft and slow to anger but they are also insightful, unforgetful, unforgiving and vengeful! And yet, Mugabe’s plan is to win these elections at any cost!
To start with, I think its good that the two MDC’s have not united and that for the first time we have a split though belated in Zanu(pf). I say so because Zimbabweans should not be afraid to differ and we deserve genuine
options. Also, I think it makes no sense for Makoni to run as an Independent? What exactly would that mean? He should form a party of sorts for his candidature to make sense. In terms of the spread of votes, if the
elections were free and fair the most likely ranking would be as follows: Tsvangirayi, Makoni, Mugabe and Mutambara. But since the elections will be rigged, we are likely to have the following ranking: Mugabe, Tsvangirayi,
Makoni and Mutambara. The question however is; how easy will it be to rig these elections given that Makoni’s group will have insiders as riggers?
Makoni in my opinion is likely to be the spanner in the works. He will get votes from both the MDC and Zanu(pf), but mostly from Zanu(pf).
In parliament, we could therefore end up with four voting blocks as follows: MDC (Tsvangirayi), Zanu(pf) (Makoni), Zanu(pf) (Mugabe) and MDC (Mutambara)
in that order. Mutambara may however be kicked out of his MDC and Mugabe if he manages to win through rigging will end up presiding over an independent
parliament. – Dr. Temba Shonhiwa