Zimbabwe is like a scattered sheep herd with a hyena playing shepherd
I am one of the people who believe that the 31 July 2013 election in Zimbabwe was stolen. First, by the obvious facts that all the SADC prescribed reforms have not taken place and for a simple reason that the electronic voters’ roll cannot by now be made available to the general public. The MDC-T leadership has taken the fore front in the fight for justice to capture back the looted vote that was taken from the people. People in return have taken a back seat on the issue and therefore continuously ask the question of ‘what is the way forward’. The MDC to my own understanding does not have the answer to that question; on Saturday during their anniversary rally they failed to answer that question. I was listening to ‘Your Talk’ by Temba Hove on 1st TV and the same question today is being asked by people.
On 3 September when Morgan Tsvangirai visited the Glenview 29 at Chikurubi, he failed to answer that question and said, “We will be visiting them, we will be visiting the chairman of the SADC, the chairman of the Troika, the Facilitator. Just to say perhaps you arrived at this conclusion erroneously. Whether they are going to review it that’s neither here nor there but what I want to do is to engage SADC, we can’t avoid engaging SADC about the facts on the ground. Whether that will have an effect, that’s a different matter.” This response to me meant that his party is not sure of what they will be lobbying for with the SADC bodies. In fact he has a conviction that their presentations to the SADC arms will be rather persuasive to alter any position that has so far been endorsed by the head of states.
On the way forward by the people in Zimbabwe, a reporter asked if people could expect an Egypt and he said, “Why should we have an Egypt and why should the MDC craft an Egypt style revolution? I have said it before that you don’t act in emotion, you act with conviction. That’s a more sustainable basis than to act with emotion. I believe further consultation with the people will reveal that the struggle has to continue but it has to continue with more conviction. People want instant coffee; they want instant solution to their plight … But unfortunately in the nature of a struggle where we are fighting a dictator using democratic means is not as instant as they expect. And I’m sure that they have to budget for even for a long haul.” The reporter quickly picked it up that there is no tangible plan that the people of Zimbabwe should anticipate from the MDC-T that can stand as indemnity to their lost cause and asked if the people should now wait for the 2018 elections for his party to bounce back with a plan and h said, ” No, no, no, we don’t plan for 2018, we plan for every eventuality.”
I am personally of the feeling that the people of Zimbabwe are all alone in their battles and there is no other way to take what rightfully belongs to them but to just wait for the hand of God to remember the land. The least thing that the MDC should have done is to organise people in the most peaceful way (not the Egypt) like they did on the 14th anniversary and make public illustrations loud enough to reach all SADC countries to show that the people of Zimbabwe are in great mourning.
Politics is for the people, of course they have got leaders but the biggest conveyors of any kind of message in the movement are the people. If the leadership, like the MDC-T’s says they can go it alone without the people like they did, it’s either that they have to have a concrete and fruitful plan or risk to lose the people.
