SADC and the African Union should stop entertaining dissatisfied minor political parties from member countries. Otherwise before you know it Renamo's Alfonso Dlakama will be demanding to meet SADC and the AU. If she were politically immature, Helen Zille might also demand to meet SADC and the AU.
These organisations should also be mindful that the most noisome of these minor parties are the products neo-colonial experiments by former colonial masters, not genuine people driven movements. Who doesn't know that RENAMO was founded by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa to destabilize Mozambique for supporting people driven liberation movements like the ANC, ZAPU and ZANU. Who doesn't know that the MDC was financed to the hilt by former colonial masters to try and starve off the definite loss of wealth and control of the economy, that is going to come with policies like indigenisation, restoration of land and resources to the colonially dispossessed black people.
Such organisations seem to have inherited the sense of entitlement and priviledge that was the hallmark of colonial behaviour. RENAMO have been threatening to go to war because they feel they are entitled to win elections in Mozambique. Similarly the MDC seem to think that they are entitled to win elections in Zimbabwe.
In 2008 there was an evenly split election in Zimbabwe which needed a coalition. According to reports, Zanu-PF was the first to approach the MDC to form a coalition. Largely because Tsvangirai had already skipped the country and was refusing to return to negotiate, Zimbabwe had to approach the country hosting him to facilitate negotiation, with the blessing of SADC.
An agreement was signed which was supposed to subsist for two years. Subsequently a number of afterthought demands, which were not part of the original Global Political Agreement, were made. Already it is an anomaly that SADC took these afterthought demands and treated them as if they were part of the original agreement.
SADC is a voluntary group of equal countries. None among them is the headboy of the group, upon whom there is a duty to foist instructions upon others. None, also, should allow themselves to be the conduit through which former colonial masters can continue to try and assert dominance over former colonies.
Remember the SADC grouping was born out of mainly the former Frontline States, which were at the forefront of dismantling that last bastion of colonialism, apartheid South Africa. The founder nations of this group, among which is Zimbabwe, fiercely and jealously guard against restoration of colonial edifices in what ever form.
The MDC claims that they were cheated. Yet nobody is able to specify where and how the cheating happened. When asked to provide evidence of rigging at a news conference, all Morgan Tsvangirai could say was that he didn't believe the MDC could loose Manicaland because they were so strong there in the past. By the same logic Zanu-PF could claim rigging stating that they don't believe they could loose any election in Zimbabwe because they used to have 117 out of 120 seats in the past.
Based on the facts available now, not speculation and conjecture, it is the MDC which tried to tamper with the voting process. Their elections director Komichi has a pending case right now resulting from special vote ballots which had been tampered with and marked in favour of Tsvangirai. That case did not even arise from Zanu-PF complaints. The MDC were caught out by ZEC on their own.
The entire MDC political doctrine was based on mere hatred of one man. 'Let's get rid of Mugabe' that is all their message was about. In you asked them 'Then what?' there would be no clear answers. There was no clear vision of what they wanted to achieve for Zimbabweans. They had no core principles and values.
They effectively reduced themselves to a single use tool, like a hypodermic needle. If it works, fine, but you throw it away. If it doesn't work you still throw it away. They know they are a cannula which failed to find the vein and are on their way to the disposables bin.
Unlike Kenya, Zimbabwe's politics are not ethnicity based. They do not have an ethnic support base like Raila Odinga in Kenya which might have given them a chance to remain relevant. For one to remain relevant in Zimbabwe, one needs core principles and values in resonance with those of the people.
Coupled with the tendency of their leader to try and please whoever he is facing for the moment, the MDC's message has been confused and confusing. One moment Tsvangirai would be championing gay rights on BBC, the next he would saying he doesn't really support them.
I would also like to politely ask the MDC and their backers, to stop insulting the intelligence of Zimbabweans. They knew about Tsvangirai's weaknesses. They wrote about it in diplomatic cables. Thanks to Wikileaks we know about it. They witnessed the drama surrounding his womanising. They watched as Tsvangirai prevaricated and mumbled incoherent messages on major issues such as land reform and gay rights.
Yet if you go by the claims of unfairness now, it is clear they believe that every Zimbabwean is so dumb and stupid that they would ALL still vote for Tsvangirai despite these glaring faults. That is an insult upon the intelligence of a people who are the most educated in sub-Saharan Africa.
Would the Labour party go to election with a leader who had impregnated a young woman. A leader who would have tried to marry another, changed his mind and jumped into the arms of a third woman, all within six months. On top of it, all these women would be the daughters of prominent Tory peers. The leader would also have cavorted with a sexy French woman in the Bahamas, who would also be claiming she was promised marriage.
If going to election with such a leader would not work in the UK, why would the British government think it would work in Zimbabwe. That is unless they hold a condescendingly insulting view of the intelligence of the black people of Zimbabwe.
Going by some claims the MDC took Zimbabweans for granted so much that one official is said to have boasted that even if Tsvangirai was caught committing murder, he would still win elections in Zimbabwe.
I would also ask the MDC's backers stop making all Zimbabweans pay for their misjudgement of Tsvangirai's character. They should accept Tsvangirai's obvious loss, and stop dishing out negative twaddle about Zimbabwe over it.
The MDC have always been a bunch of disparate opportunists either without, or with ultimately divergent core values. They were only united by their common belief that Mugabe was the only obstacle to their intentions. They forgot that the people of Zimbabwe themselves are the ones favouring the values Mugabe stands for.
Their defeat at free and fair election, unencumbered by economic sabotage, was always a given.
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