The arrogance of African politicians is legendary, and one can only point to the powerlessness of “we the people” to do anything to determine the course of national politics. The ballot has already proven to be a useless vehicle for change anyway as unelected men and woman still find their way into the corridors of power, perhaps that’s what has bred this unmitigated arrogance. Perhaps.

These politicians open their loud mouths, say whatever they want when criticised and get away with it, with “we the people” only cursing why and how the hell we allowed ourselves to have these arrogant men as government officials. Examples are too numerous to mention, but it got me thinking the other day when I read about Welshman Ncube calling his coalition partners from the MDC-T idiots or something to that effect, at least according to a SW Radio interview with Violet Gonda.

The issues bordered on what others in the coalition and indeed in the public arena perceive as deliberate stalling and endless postponements of meetings of GPA negotiations. Justifiably, the MDC-T felt the frustration of having meetings postponed and with Ncube and his MDC-M colleagues endlessly engaged in “national business” visiting “world capitals” thereby forcing the postponements. And then Ncube says as far as he is concerned, SADC did not put a deadline on the resolution of outstanding issues but rather provided a framework (according to his dictionary, he said) for the negotiators. All these allegations being levelled against the MDC-M are “nonsensical and idiotic,” Ncube suggests. “That is a creation of those who grandstand and who are masters of deception. There never was a SADC deadline. Those who want to believe there was, is their problem not mine. SADC provided a framework.”

It says a million things about what is wrong with this marriage of inconvenience where a coalition partner addresses his counterparts –primarily the PM who has raised some of the issues – as such and get away with it. It paints a graphic – and horrific – picture about the progress or the lack thereof with this albatross around our neck when we all know that all this gamesmanship – or feeble attempt at it – is only being perpetuated at the miserable expense of the ordinary man, woman and child who at the turn of the century had imagined a Zimbabwe with one political party to steer it to the prosperity we all deserve.

It is interesting that during one of the delays, the MDC-M negotiators were out of town on government business with one of Zanu PF negotiators at Chirundu border post. Cynics will argue that there you already had a meeting of negotiators though not official! Does it then come as a surprise then that we have a guy like Ncube simply dismissing with an epithet-filled tirade that which would only be expected from Zanu PF?

It would increasingly appear that MDC-T is waging a battle for a better and new Zimbabwe with both Zanu PF and MDC-M on the opposite corner, otherwise how else would we read such disturbing attitudes to the coalition from the same people who we expect to make this beast (GNU) work?  It takes us back to the arrogance of African politicians. A guy thinks because he is minister he is above reproach, forgetting that he has no claim over representing any constituency. Yet if there remains an absence of sincerity and nation-centric rapport among these coalition partners then we can bet Jacob Zuma will just be winking in the dark with these latest efforts to resolve the so-called outstanding issues and rescue the coalition from what the doomsayers say is an inevitable…well doom.

It is also interesting however that Zuma would be expected to read the riot act to Ncube and others despite the family ties that bind Mr. Ncube and Mr. Zuma. Is it not all a travesty? In a court of law no doubt Zuma would be called to recuse himself as mediator as he cannot be expected to objectively preside over this circus because of the Ncube factor. But then, “we the people” apparently have once again resigned ourselves to a situation where we leave our fate to the gods only because the men who should be steering this ship to placid waters render it a waste of time putting the “we the people” first.

- When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle – edmund burke, political philosopher – 1770.

This entry was posted on December 2nd, 2009 at 9:55 am by Marko Phiri and is filed under Governance, transitional justice, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.