Instead of working earnestly to find sustainable solutions to their own internal problems and the crisis that Zimbabweans face, our political leaders have decided to weaken the discourse on the myriad problems we face by focusing on bedroom scandals involving their rivals. Not only is this diversionary; it shows how trivial and selfish they are. It feeds the leadership crisis that has reduced us to a population of hapless and tearful beggars in a land of plenty.
President Robert Mugabe, mysteriously, got the blame game going when, during a speech at the Heroes’ Acre where he was burying one of his lieutenants, he said he pitied Morgan Tsvangirai for his multiple relationships following the death of his wife, Susan, in 2009.
It would always be hard to understand Mugabe’s motive for going off the rails at an austere occasion like that burial to launch a personal attack on Tsvangirai’s shenanigans. Tsvangirai, through Luke Tamborinyoka, his spokesperson, hit back. He said it was surprising that Mugabe had decided to focus on his personal life while Zimbabwe was being reduced to ashes by a raging economic crisis.
But he didn’t leave it there. Tsvangirai brazenly reminded Mugabe that he had done worse things, by romping with his then secretary and now First Lady, Grace, while the president’s first wife, Sally, was agonising on her death bed. Mugabe’s statement had opened a Pandora’s Box.
But Tsvangirai was not finished with this type of rant. A few days later, he went to Bulawayo where he sensationally accused his former secretary general, Tendai Biti, of extra-marital affairs. He also revealed that a former top ally, Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, was a wife snatcher. Biti and Sipepa Nkomo are now his bitter rivals, after breaking ranks to form the Renewal Team that wants Tsvangirai out of office.
The two have on several occasions played to the gallery by accusing Tsvangirai of being a bed-hopper. That was, in fact, one of the reasons why they wanted him to step down as leader of the party. It boggles the mind, of course, what they actually wanted to achieve by repeating well-known facts about Tsvangirai. Now that they have also been exposed, are they fit to a lead a political party?
But the point is that Tsvangirai contradicted himself. He had earlier attacked Mugabe for concentrating on his personal life but, there he was, firing broadsides at his political foes just as the President had done to him. Just like Mugabe, he was abusing a public platform to settle personal scores with Biti and Nkomo.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Biti and Nkomo take to the podium soon to say more about Tsvangirai’s bedroom gaffes. Just as the sun will rise, I bet my last dime that these two will do that. As the MDC congress approaches, we are also likely to see more of this soiled linen in public.
Yes, character assassination has always been the hallmark of Zimbabwe’s dirty politics, but that does not make it an acceptable strategy. I would readily listen to the rants by the brawling politicians if any of them were clean.
The truth, of course, is that all are as dirty as the dirtiest kettle and should not be singing about the badness in others. Since they all have big logs in their eyes, they better not waste our time by engaging in futile, puerile and vulgar talk about each other as they seek to settle personal scores.
Instead, they should be talking about Zimbabwe and how to get it out of the current mess. We have had enough of this cheap type of politics based on self-aggrandisement. What we need are philanthropist-politicians who are concerned with the people. – To comment on this article, please contact majonitt@gmail.com
Post published in: Analysis
@ Tawanda Majoni
You are right Tawanda, our political leaders have trivialised the many national problems by dwelling on their bed-room stories. In a way it is to be expected since chasing women of ill repute is all they have ever done!
Seriously, what else has Tsvangirai ever done, other than chase women. Mugabe saw to it that as PM Tsvangirai had no real power in the GNU as all Zanu PF ministers and civil servants were under strict instructions to ignore him! The man has so much free time you would think he would have at least one reform implemented. He did not; he was simply too busy chasing women.
Mugabe has spent the last decades planning and scheming one evil after another, I will bet you he has had a hand in all the looting and murders that have been going on in Zimbabwe for the last 34 years. The only man who has taken on the cunning old fox and beat him at his scheming in Minister Jonathan Moyo. He hatched some really dirty vote rigging plans for the tyrant which have help him stay in power but at a price – Moyo is now using the detailed knowledge of the vote rigging plans to blackmail Mugabe.
With so much dirty against Mugabe only Luke Tamborenyoka would be so stupid to dwell on the tyrant’s love affair with his then secretary. But it is to be expected of MDC.
What I find disappointing here is that so many Zimbabweans should trust Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to get the nation out of this mess. Zanu PF has outwitted MDC again and again yet the people still believe the incompetent MDC leaders will deliver change. Some people are slow learners but at least they learn; the facts on the ground show that many Zimbabweans are, sadly, incapable of learning!