We know this to be true because both programmes are intended to fool voters into thinking that the former revolutionary party has the interests of the ordinary Zimbabwean at heart.
But this desperate move is unlikely to fool the electorate in any significant manner. The people of this country are sick and tired of Mugabe and his faction-ridden political party. They want change, and change they will get at the next polls.
Most people are aware that the majority of the beneficiaries of the indigenisation and empowerment programme are the few elites in Zanu (PF) as well as some selected traditional leaders.
They also know that under the Mugabe regime, there is going to be nothing particularly different to their way of living; their material well-being is not going to suddenly change for the better.
The poverty they have endured for the past 33 years is very likely to intensify. The distribution of the agricultural inputs was deliberately targeted at imagined Zanu (PF) card-holders.
We say imagined because we are aware that over the past months, the beleaguered political party was unable to sell most of the party cards it had distributed to the provinces.
We also know that in most rural areas people have become very clever; they now buy party cards from both the MDC and Zanu (PF). The cards are then presented to whoever is dishing out any goodies.
What is even more interesting is that the majority of people now know that their vote is secret; no one will be able to tell how they will have voted in the election. They know because, in its vicious attacks on people in June 2008, Zanu (PF) was largely indiscriminate. It ended up beating both those who had voted for Tsvangirai and the MDC, as well as those that had voted for Zanu (PF). This was a classic demonstration of the truth about the secret ballot.
It therefore follows that in the forthcoming elections, the former ruling party will also be unable to tell how people will have voted.
The reasoning is that there is no valid reason for not holding a Zanu (PF) card and getting into danger, or missing out on some cheap benefit. The holding of the detested card will not dictate how the card holder will vote once they are in the cubicle.
This high level of literacy among Zimbabweans is now coming back to haunt Mugabe and his desperate comrades.
How should the MDC formations handle this rather difficult (and expensive) situation? The political damage that has been inflicted by Zanu (PF) is so severe that it will take many years to remedy. The politics of patronage, the hallmark of the former revolutionary party, will not be eliminated from the minds and expectations of people overnight. Yet a start has to be made right away.
The MDC formations cannot afford to imitate Mugabe and his corrupt fellow party members. Efforts have to be made to make the people understand that vote buying is a criminal offence in a democratic society. It is my considered view that eventually the people will understand and accept this truth.
Sadly, the grinding poverty to which have been subjected for so long militates against this noble approach. – makumbe60@gmail.com
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis