Maravi

(TALKZIMBABWE) Wake up call for MDC-T leadership

Wake up call for MDC-T leadership
By: By Nancy Lovedale
Posted: Wednesday, August 18, 2010 2:43 am

THERE is no doubt that the leadership of the MDC-T party has gone through a political education programme that has helped them experience the gagantuan task of running a country.

When they signed the Global Politcal Agreement with Zanu-PF, MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa said, "We are joining government to take over from Zanu-PF". This was the naivety that gripped that party, or the immaturity, at the time. That shrill voice of young Chamisa has completely disappeared.

It is no secret that MDC-T Secretary General Tendai Biti, whom some dodgy western organisation shamelessly cared to call "The Best Finance Minister in Africa" has somewhat toned down his rhetoric and somewhat modified his brusque manner of doing politics.

The onerous task of running a country requires sober-mindedness and the endless demands of the public need sober people to deal with; and Biti is facing the rude awakening.

Running a finance ministry of a country under evil, racist, illegal and ruinous sanctions is no walk-in-the-park.

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is also learning on the job. If he thought he could wake up one day running a country with a chequered history like Zimbabwe on some peculiar and dodgy agenda, he now has a different view.

Zimbabweans are no gullible lot. They might look meek and timid, but they have deep introspection; having endured years of racist rule under the far Right Wing Government of Ian Smith; and having gone through a bloody and protracted armed conflict.

They are not about to go through that again; especially on an MDC-T agenda. This is why the MDC-T's "Winter of Discontent" or "Final Push" calls fell on deaf ears.

Zimbabweans simply don't fight their brothers and sisters. They know better.

Zimbabweans know very well that the MDC-T's mantra of human rights and democracy; supported by the West which failed to censure Smith and his Rhodesian Front cabal; is mere hot air.

Such politicking does work with a populace that has been declared the most literate in Africa.

The lesson learnt by the MDC-T should be a wake-up call to other political parties that mushroom in Zimbabwe. They can challenge a party like Zanu-PF, but they have to do it on principle, not some whimsical idea.

They cannot call for sanctions against their own people and destroy their economy; and expect to be rewarded with an outright electoral victory. Voters are not all gullible. Some are, but not all.


The fanciful and capricious manner in which the MDC-T has behaved over the last ten years has rendered it a joke in the country, the region and internationally.

That party and its leadership does not amount to much in the African region; no wonder it is always seen as a discomforting bogey each time there is a Sadc meeting.

With a gullible and illiterate media supporting it, the MDC-T is a perfect example of how not to run a political party on the African continent -- a continent that has endured the ultimate suffering in the hands of a series of racist and evil white minority regimes.

Some of us secretly hope that the next move of the MDC-T is guided by a nationalistic agenda; not some neo-liberal philosophy that does not resonate with the African people.

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Nancy Lovedale writes from Beijing (China). She can be reached via nancy_lovedale@yahoo.com

Labels: MDC, NANCY LOVEDALE, NEOCOLONIALISM

posted by MrK @ 5:15 PM