He is the only candidate who has beaten Mugabe fairly and squarely in an election and the only candidate who can stand against him in a run-off. If they kill him after that, at least the leadership would have passed away from the dictatorship – the one thing that we believe all Zimbabweans are agreed on.So what is the argument for him to come home? People say that he needs to lead and inspire the party supporters, especially at this time when there is a backlash against voters.
We beg to differ. Tsvangirai has finished his part. He has led, encouraged and emboldened even rural strongholds of Zanu (PF) to become machinja.He has engaged Zanu (PF) in delicate and often acrimonious negotiations, and came out the better – at least it allowed us 80 percent of the necessary transparency, which was sufficient for us to win a majority in the Parliament and beat Mugabe in the Presidential.He has out-manoeuvred our erstwhile comrades who thought they could ride on his back into Parliament in the name of unity, then dump him. They are now facing political relegation.
He has built a formidable party machinery which saw 20 000 attending the Victory Rally in Bulawayo and can mobilize such a crowd again anywhere in Zimbabwe, anytime. And he has done so without resort to arms or violence of any sort.And most of all he has turned the voters, with the help of Robert Mugabe, away from Zanu (PF) forever – after Mavhotera Papi which has caused unnecessary deaths and displacements.These voters no longer need anybody’s hand to show them how to vote. They know where to put their X, and they know that nobody can see how they voted. So for all intents and purposes Tsvangirai has finished the greater part of the job.
What we want now is for him to stay alive and transfer the power away from Zanu (PF), then build a strong, accountable, transparent and responsive government that will steer Zimbabwe into prosperity and peace.If he has to stay out of Zimbabwe until the international community has ascertained that the conditions are right for him to safely come home, then let it be. The shame at the moment is with SADC and AU.They have seen the brutality of the regime. President Mbeki’s violence monitors have reported back. His Organ on Politics and Security Cooperation generals have reported back. So what are they waiting for?
These are the limits of quiet diplomacy. If they decide that they really don’t want to do anything about it, they will not make a statement about that either.So the only diplomacy that works is loud diplomacy which says, justifiably, we are going to do the following; we have advised Mugabe the following, and he has refused; and now we are now going to do the following. Otherwise SADC should not lead us up a garden path. – changezimbabwe.com
Post published in: Opinions