Obama won mostly on the basis of his campaign being issue-based. That makes a lot of sense because the electorate should naturally determine the worth of a person on the basis of his or her articulation of matters that directly or indirectly relate to their welfare.
Citizens are mainly concerned about whether they will keep their jobs and whether their relatives, friends and children will have a good chance of employment. They want to know if their social safety nets will be sustained or improved, and whether the money they pay by way of taxes will be put to good use. It is extremely disturbing that our own political leaders show hardly a shred of evidence that they have been following how campaigning in other countries noted for democratic government have been conducted over the years.
As we move towards elections, there is hardly any evidence that our leaders have learnt a single thing from how progressive candidates like Obama win the hearts and minds of voters.
We are particularly disturbed by the fact that all the leaders of the three main parties—MDC-T, Zanu (PF) and MDC-N—seem to be fixated with taking aim at each other’s personality, while paying lip service to real issues.
We became disheartened when MDC-T leader, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, recently referred to Welshman Ncube as a village politician during a campaign trail in southern Zimbabwe. It is disturbing that Tsvangirai chose to denigrate Ncube, instead of concentrating on and limiting himself to essential issues such as water supply, mitigating perennial aridity and building more schools in the region.
Ncube himself is not without blame, as he has repeatedly called Tsvangirai an illiterate trade unionist without credentials to lead the nation. As the two haggle, Zanu (PF)’s Robert Mugabe is having a party, throwing in his own derogatory remarks now and then – against both of themS.
This tendency to build campaigns around character smearing is bound to increase as we inch towards the election. The main danger is that it tends to divert everyone from the real issues at stake. So, instead of people hearing from the candidates how they will ensure food on the table and money in their pockets, they spend most of their time debating how bad this or that candidate is as an individual.
The other problem with this is that it perpetuates a culture of personality politics. People become obsessed with individuals, rather than their significance at a global level.
We therefore urge our leaders, going beyond the three parties already named, to respect issues and create a culture of seriousness in their campaigns.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga