Maravi

Why dither when you can be decisive

Why dither when you can be decisive
By Editor
Wed 21 Oct. 2009, 13:56 CAT

IF one decides to embrace a skunk, one must be prepared to live with the dirt.
Both ZANU-PF and the two MDC factions chose to hug a skunk when they signed an imprecise global political agreement on September 15, 2008, and when they agreed to a similarly incomplete SADC communiqué of January 27, 2009 that approved the inclusive government in Zimbabwe albeit with “outstanding issues”.

The SADC summit of January directed that the inclusive government be formed in Zimbabwe by the swearing in of the prime minister, deputy prime ministers, ministers and deputy ministers by February 13.

But because the three parties to the inclusive government had not yet agreed on the important issues of how the 10 provincial governors, the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor and the Attorney-General would be appointed, the summit directed that these issues be resolved by the parties themselves. By the time the summit was held, President Robert Mugabe had used his constitutional powers to appoint these officers.

Since a few weeks after the establishment of the inclusive government on February 13, ZANU-PF and MDC have accused each other of not having fulfilled the “outstanding issues” that were left hanging by the two documents.

MDC has cried foul about ZANU-PF’s disregard of the provisions of the GPA and about being belittled in the marriage of convenience.

Up until last week when the MDC decided to finally disengage itself from taking part in discharging the executive functions of the inclusive government, the two parties treated each other with immense suspicion.

Last Thursday, MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai shocked the nation when he announced his party’s disengagement from government duties citing ZANU-PF’s “insincere, dishonest and unrepentant” behaviour.

The MDC has cried foul over a number of issues. For example, it argues that key reforms with regard to controversial pieces of legislation have been slow. To MDC, the appointments of Dr Gideon Gono, the Reserve Bank governor, and Johannes Tomana, the Attorney General, should have been reversed.

MDC argues that farm invasions and business property misappropriations are ongoing; and the Joint Operations Command (JOC) - the de-facto sovereign authority in Zimbabwe – is still in charge and functioning outside of the provisions of the constitution. The party argues that it can no longer ignore the lack of real movement on the key issues of democratisation of the media, the constitution reform process, the land audit and the rule of law issues in the GPA.

The party argues that perpetrators of violence and violators of international humanitarian law are still roaming free and further that specifications, arbitrary arrests, torture, and the murder of innocent civilians is prevalent.
The MDC is also riled by the fact that President Mugabe has not appointed any of the 10 provincial governors from it.

However, what exacerbated the situation last week was the indictment and subsequent arrest of MDC treasurer-general Roy Bennett, who is facing criminal charges for planning acts of “insurgency and terrorism”, a charge the party believes is politically motivated.

Only eight of 36 months of the inclusive government’s maximum lifespan have passed and some of these issues are still in the process of being dealt with except perhaps the issues to do with Dr Gono, Tomana and the provincial governors. These are the real issues that the guarantors of the GPA must help to resolve with urgency in the interest of harmony in Zimbabwe.

Interestingly, the appointments of Gono, Tomana and provincial governors are enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe as the President’s sole prerogatives and are not even exclusively dealt with in any of the 25 Articles of the GPA. Although the SADC communiqué of June 27 encourages the parties to “review” these appointments, ZANU-PF argues that the communiqué does not at all override the supreme law of the land.

So, presidential powers remain intact, which is why President Mugabe has insisted that his appointments will not be changed. From the events of last month, it was clear that it was just a matter of time before the MDC could pull out.

At the party’s National Executive Council meeting in Bulawayo last month, Tsvangirai was stunned by the candidness of his fellow council members and their willingness to walk out of the inclusive government having been frustrated by the lack of closure to the “outstanding issues”. Tsvangirai ended up gingerly giving in to the demand for a referendum on the government.

Since then, the party has held several consultative rallies throughout the country where its leadership has been unequivocally told by supporters to remain in government in the interest of economic stability, democracy and peace at the expense of the MDC's ultimate goal - attaining power.

From what obtains on the streets of Zimbabwe, many are still shocked by the MDC’s decision to back out of the government they have over the months described as “working”. The MDC’s own opinion poll on their website clearly tells what most supporters want. As at yesterday, 53 per cent of MDC supporters and Zimbabweans at large want this inclusive government to continue in operation despite the hurdles it is facing. This is so because of the many overt positives it has yielded over the past eight months.

Peace has returned after the violence of last year. There is now food on supermarket shelves. The health and education situation has improved to a large extent. The economy is largely stable and general standards of living have improved. International financial institutions have re-engaged the country, foreign investors have started heading back to the country they have detested over the years and jobs have been created. These are the tangible results that the common man is interested in.

It is for this reason that the plan by the MDC has struggled to win favour among Zimbabweans over the past few days. People are now more concerned about bread and butter issues and are of the opinion that the inclusive government has thus far delivered.

They are not so concerned about how Tsvangirai is relating with President Mugabe in it. It is quite evident that most Zimbabweans do not want to relive the suffering they endured in the past decade, especially the past two years, when the economy almost ground to a halt. They went for days on end without money or food and bore the brunt of political violence.
Perhaps what is more difficult to understand is the nature of the MDC’s pull-out.

Tsvangirai insists that the MDC has disengaged from the marriage with ZANU-PF but not from the unity government. From our point of view, there is a very thin line between dis-engaging from ZANU-PF and ditching the inclusive government. It is because of each other that the two parties are in an inclusive government and therefore no one party can dump another and claim to still be in the unity government. To us the MDC has performed a half pull-out.

There is no room for half-baked decisions. Why dither when you can be decisive? It is either they pull out fully, or they don’t at all. For sure, a battered and habitually abused spouse in any unhappy or forced marriage will, at some point in time, cry foul and seek to assert his/her rights vis-a-vis the abusive partner.

But when he/she chooses to do so, the decision must be clear and binding. There is no way this spouse can claim to assert his/her rights and at the same time say: “I’m divorcing you because of your abusiveness but I’ll stay in the house because of our children.” Fundamentals are fundamentals. True leaders must be able to make bold decisions regardless of consequences.

That is why, good decisions are carefully thought through and once they are made, they should stand firm, without any dithering. Indecision is not a good quality. No one can win if they are undecided. Indecision is like a stepchild: if he does not wash his hands, he is called dirty; if he does, he is wasting water.

Whatever decision MDC makes, the party must well know that it is in the unity government that Zimbabweans are banking their hopes on. We can only call on MDC to stay on and attempt to sort out their problems as part of the government.
We say so because we feel it will not be nice for the MDC to one day learn that they dis-engaged from nothing after all.

One thing MDC should know for sure is that their action will not pause the cabinet meetings. Nowhere have cabinet meetings been abandoned simply by the absence of a minister or a number of ministers as long as the head of state is in control. Cabinet does not function through a quorum.

From what we saw yesterday, President Mugabe went ahead with the cabinet meetings as usual, without any minister from the MDC who have since vacated their offices, and binding decisions were made.

The issue is that ZANU-PF, without a check from MDC, is capable of making its own decisions that may be viewed as outrageous by the MDC. And it will be such decisions that will be the basis of new confrontations because the MDC will now start crying foul, arguing that they were not part of such contemptible decisions. So, instead of dealing with the current few disagreements there will be even more points of disagreement as the MDC will seek to reverse those decisions. The result will be total chaos.

At present, it is evident that no one political party in Zimbabwe can run the affairs of the country successfully. This inclusive government is the only way out for the country. And when there’s such an imperfect marriage in an attempt to raise the country out of the doldrums, concessions among the partner parties are very important. All parties involved must be prepared to give painful concessions.

For now, chance must be given to the guarantors of the inclusive government in Zimbabwe – SADC and the AU – to help resolve any sticking issues. A full-scale emergency SADC summit appears unlikely in the next few weeks because the regional body has already tasked its organ on politics, defence and security to handle the Zimbabwe dispute.

We, therefore call on the three-member panel of Mozambique, Zambia and Congo-DR to convene an urgent meeting to discuss and resolve the current situation in Zimbabwe.

Labels: CABINET, MDC, MUGABE, ZANU-PF

posted by MrK @ 4:39 PM