But it would be a lie to suggest that the armed forces and youth militias are the only ones that have kept Mugabe in the president’s office, despite his appalling record of economic mismanagement and his clearly irreversible loss of support and popularity among Zimbabweans, including many members of Zanu (PF).
If the truth be told, the two MDC formations have done their bit to keep Mugabe in power by refusing to work together. The Zanu (PF) leader must surely thank his lucky stars that the egos in the two MDCs have prevented the oppositions from forming an alliance to defeat him once and for all.
They have repeatedly failed, or rather refused, to see the need to unite – or at least to form a grand electoral alliance to confront Mugabe and Zanu (PF) in the next elections.
For more than two years they have squandered the priceless opportunity of pushing through a democratic legislative agenda in Parliament where, together, they have a majority.
One would have thought that, after the regrettable experiences of 2008, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Industry Minister Welshman Ncube and their followers would put unity at the top of their priority list. Keeping the unity government floating would even have had to come second to the need to join forces to end tyranny.
And now what do we get? First we hear that Ncube was tweeting to his followers asking whether it would make sense to form an opposition alliance with MDC-T. It is alarming that a man aspiring to be our president one day thinks Facebook is the right platform to discuss such an important and sensitive issue.
A few days before this Ncube had been quoted in the newspapers calling Tsvangirai names about his lack of academic education – as if there is any school or university in the world that confers the talent of leadership on people.
For its part, the MDC-T rushed to the newspapers expressing dismay at Ncube’s suggestion for unity given what he had said about Tsvangirai.
It was an understandable reaction by the MDC-T, but unfortunate – given the fact that, as the more powerful of the two, Tsvangirai’s party needs to be magnanimous towards their smaller, petulant colleagues in order to make unity possible.
It is a price worth paying if we are to correct the horrid mistake of 2008 when, because of petty jealousies, personality clashes and an unforgivable lack of foresight the two MDCs went into battle divided – only for Mugabe to reap the rewards of a split opposition vote.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga
I could to agree with you more! There is really nothing that parliament has achieved in the last three years, for all intents and purposes the current parliament may just as well be a Zanu PF controlled.
What I find really infuriating is MDC’s failure to use its parliamentary majority to stop curse of political violence sweeping the nation. If parliament is so powerless that it can not even get the police to do their work then why are we risking Zimbabwean lives voting for powerless MPs.