Painful recognition
He had been a member of Zanu (PF) all his working life and owed his position to the party, which had engineered his rapid ascension to the position of Secretary General, thinking him a loyal and competent pair of hands. Now he painfully recognised that his party and its leadership had to be challenged. Civil society and the unions had to have more say in how the country was being administered.
What happened then is now part of our history. The man, of course, is Morgan Tsvangirai. He started by calling for consultation and consensus on all policy issues. When that was denied, he decided that it was the constitution that was at fault and called for a new supreme law that would reduce the power of the party and the President and create a more democratic state.
He called for and then established and led an organisation called the National Constitutional Assembly to promote this ideal. Initially the new organisation was ignored by the government; however it slowly built momentum until it could no longer be ignored. The President established a commission to canvas views and draft a new constitution and then subverted the whole thing and forced through changes that the NCA felt would not only negate what they wanted, but further entrench state and Presidential power.
People wanted change
This was too much. Tsvangirai decided that the ruling party had to be challenged. He began quietly canvassing the views of ordinary people across the country. Eventually, convinced that the people wanted change, he announced the holding of a “Working People’s Convention” where the basis of a new party was crafted and agreed. The MDC was born.
In September 1999 he launched the party and declared that they would fight the February 2000 referendum on the new constitution, followed by the election. Sitting at his desk in the ZCTU headquarters, he was visited by a peasant farmer who told him that he had a vision where God had told him that the new party should use as its slogan “Real Change” accompanied by an open hand salute.
Tsvangirai took this seriously and when the party took to the streets at the end of the year, he was appointed President and adopted both the slogan and the symbol for the subsequent electoral struggle.
Zanu (PF) at first made a joke of the new boys on the block “what can a train driver (Sibanda) and a textile worker (Tsvangirai) do for this country”, the President remarked. To which Tsvangirai responded “at least train drivers keep their train on the tracks.” However when the new boys, won the NO vote in the referendum by a wide margin, Zanu (PF) were forced to review their views and the gloves came off.
First defeat
In the subsequent Parliamentary election, for the first time in 20 years, Mugabe’s party faced defeat – scraping home with a majority of three seats.
In 2002, Tsvangirai squared off against Mugabe in the first presidential election since the MDC was formed. He won hands down but the machinery of the state and the influence of South Africa came to Mugabe’s rescue and he was declared (falsely) the winner. Zanu knew how close the election had been and the next three years were characterised by violence and intimidation as well as restricted political and human rights. In the 2005 elections they dealt the MDC a substantial defeat.
By now South Africa recognised that the ruling elite in Harare had become a regional problem. By systematically destroying commercial agriculture, because they held the balance of power between the towns and the rural electorate, Mugabe was in fact destroying the economy. Economic collapse was forcing millions into the Diaspora, most of them into South Africa where they were starting to destabilise the society and a fragile job market.
In response then president Thabo Mbeki sponsored two attempts to force Mugabe into retirement – in the first the main casualty was the Moyo/Mnangagwa duo we see under renewed attack today. In the second the main casualty was the leadership of the MDC where a split was engineered and for the first time, Tsvangirai’s leadership was challenged – by then Secretary General Welshman Ncube.
In the subsequent parallel Congresses held by the MDC in early 2006, he re-established his control and in the next three years his challengers were consigned to the electoral wilderness. At its 2006 Congress, attended by 18,500 delegates from all 12 party provinces, a road map was adopted which subsequently led to the negotiations with Zanu (PF) in 2007 and 2008 and then the March 2008 elections, where the MDC won a signal victory over Zanu (PF), securing a majority in the House of Assembly. Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the presidential poll for the second time.
Wilderness
But the MDC was again forced to accept second place by a combination of military and political power at home and a hostile region outside the country. The GNU gave the country a brief (4 year) respite from the failed leadership of Zanu (PF) and saw a rapid recovery in the economy. However the GNU also gave Zanu (PF) the time and the resources (Marange diamonds worth $10 billion dollars) to prepare for the next election and this time they put the campaign into the hands of a secretive Israeli company and the Joint Operations Command (JOC).
The MDC ran a superb campaign, but were out-gunned by 20 to 1 in financial terms and completely out-manoeuvred on the ground and in the region. The MDC, like 2005, was heavily defeated.
Elements in the MDC again tried to take control and eventually, in a weird rerun of October 2005, the Secretary General Tendai Biti led a walk out of senior leadership. This time not as devastating as in 2005 when five out of the “Top Six” went with the SG; this time only a small minority joined the dissidents in their call for leadership renewal outside the rules laid down in the part’s constitution.
Support & loyalty
We are now well down that road and again Tsvangirai has retained the support and loyalty of the great majority of MDC supporters nationwide. This support is reflected in all structures – the Standing Committee, the National Executive, the National Council and all Provincial and District Assemblies. The most recent meeting of MDC Councillors in Harare, that attracted well over 90 per cent of all elected officials nationwide, was just another example of this ascendency.
What I find difficult to understand is how such capable and intelligent people like Biti and Mangoma, both good friends of mine, can talk of leadership renewal via a route that is totally outside the provisions of the very constitution that they crafted. We are now preparing for our National Congress, likely to be held later this year and when we do come together I have no doubt at all that Tsvangirai will be re-elected President of the MDC and charged with the responsibility of carrying the flag of real change into the electoral battles that lie ahead.
And if Zanu (PF) continue to carry on in the manner that they are doing at this moment, then I for one would not be surprised at all to see them beaten, soundly this time, by a resurgent MDC under Tsvangirai’s leadership.
Post published in: Analysis