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(TALKZIMBABWE) An ode to the MDC-T reshuffle fog

An ode to the MDC-T reshuffle fog
By: By Yours In War, Razorman
Posted: Monday, August 23, 2010 4:27 pm

CALL it a reshuffle at your own peril! The MDC-T cookie is crumbling and Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, whose term of office as party leader is coming to a close, is getting jittery and paranoid. Welcome to politics, Sir. Power is sweet. MDC-T supporters tell me, "We're not mad at Morgan, we're mad with him." I believe them.

The MDC-T loose ends are unravelling and those pesky characters in the MDC-T are turning against Mr Tsvangirai over the issue of leadership renewal. It is about democracy afterall, and Mr Tsvangirai will sooner or later pass, or fail, the democracy test.

The party is called the "Movement for Democratic Change" and the "democrats" in the MDC-T expect the PM to make that "democratic move"; and open up for, say Mr Biti -- the caustic character the PM smiles at in public, but loathes in his private space.

The centre simply cannot hold in that party, and the PM's attempts at masking the hiring and firing as some form of best practice is laughable, complete malarkey.

Best practice under the sanctions regime is a big joke. No post-mortem is necessary here. As they say, "Figures don't lie." The PM's own record on civil service salaries, on employment generation, on industrial productivity, speaks for itself.

Over a quiet pint, as the British would say, an avowed, staunch supporter of the MDC-T quipped, "Mr T," referring to the PM, "thinks we are stupid. How can he say that he is reshuffling his side of Cabinet inorder to improve the efficiency of the inclusive Government?"

I listened. He went on: "Which inclusive Government is he referring to? The one he denounces at the most opportune moment, and devours when the tide turns?"

I didn't respond about my own take on the PM's claim, but it was clear this lost MDC-T soul felt the PM's speech was balderdash or just plain hog wash meant to mask the divisions in that formation.

And that move, the reshuffle that is, was "smart".

Mr Tsvangirai now looks and acts presidential; and somehow wishes he could relegate the Head of State and Government to a rubberstamper, at least for now.

The MDC-T lies on its website that Mr Tsvangirai is the "Head of Government", yet fails to distinguish between government and state or government and party.

Apart from helping appease the funders, who want him to exercise his portion of "executive authority", this claim is insignificant. He cannot act as president (even in the absence of the real president), or sign treaties or declare wars or call an election or appoint judges, etc.

Infact, the claim instils fear in his critics; within and without Cabinet. It helps the PM project that he can hold his guns, and can hire and fire willynilly those who express dissent, or question his leadership.

For a man gearing up for "next year's presidential elections" the "reshuffle" was unnecessary and of no consequence.

What's the point of reshuffling anyway? In any case, why didn't he reshuffle the ministry that is still vacant: the post of deputy agricultural minister, which he has reserved for a white commercial farmer?

To MDC-T supporters and a gullible media, the PM was indeed not playing. He wasn't the usual cranky or peevish or bullish man that we have now known him to be. He was stunningly "presidential" -- a clear sign to critics in the MDC-T that come the next Congress, know where your bread is buttered; support the Decider Himself, or face the chop, like 'musekwa', sorry Mutsekwa, or 'mudzurwa' sorry Mudzuri.

And where are the usual "voiceful"?

Personally, I miss Chamisa. In one local diaspora beerhall called Yates, we miss his one-of-a-kind political commentaries, punctuated by mispronunciations and vivid, yet misplaced, imagery.

His Harare Polytechnic and UZ-barbecued aphorisms and expressions are classic and smark of brilliant comic relief.

When asked on SW, "Mr Chamisa do you think the MDC-T will win the next election?" he answered, "The Zanu-PF locomotive has derailed itself and we are on its track continuing the battle!" Classic. Continuing Zanu-PF's battle, on its own track? That's brilliant opposition.

But I have real affinity for some of Mr Tsvangirai's supporters and critics, despite their genuine demand for him to pass the baton to another leader.

I also particularly like them because they would never answer the question they are asked if it has anything to do with policy, but instead the one they would like to have been asked.

Mr Biti, for example, gets interesting. He is a genius at this, because he learned to not only answer the question he would have liked to have been asked, but is master at posing a follow-up question he would have liked to have been asked, and then answer that question.

Biti, in one interview with caustic and rough-on-the-edges Gonda, was a one man perpetual news conference. Gonda wound him up and we heard him go-o-o-o. It was mesmerizing.

He was asked: "How do you propose to make change when you don't have control of Defence?" Biti retorted: "How do we trust and how do we guarantee that the interim government is a basic ruse to get pressure off a regime that is bent and intent on proceeding and working on its own terms? How do we ensure that you are not just junior partners that are being used to sanitise a regime? And those are genuine questions. You have to understand that." Incomparable!

Unfortunately, both Chamisa and Biti are now silenced as the Tsvangirai juggernaut is set in motion.

With the elevation of Gorden "I don't care about Statecraft" Moyo and Senator Obert "By the way I'm a lawyer" Gutu, a new season of "The Zimbabwe Political Jeffersons" begins; full of soundbites and fury.

Brace yourselves political commentators.

Yours in War, Razorman.

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Razorman is a new Zimbabwe Guardian commentator. He writes whenever he sees something funny in the Zimbabwean political theatre.

Labels: MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

posted by MrK @ 4:51 PM