(STICKY) (NEWZIMBABWE) COPAC: MDC and the return of the Kariba Draft

COMMENT - The real MDC.

COPAC: MDC and the return of the Kariba Draft
by Nathaniel Manheru
02/10/2010 00:00:00

HARDLY two weeks ago, at a British Economist-sponsored conference on business prospects in Zimbabwe, Prime Minister and leader of MDC-T, Morgan Tsvangirai, confided in his interlocutor that trust between him and the command of the country’s security structures was visibly improving.

I do not know what it is that has happened, or more accurately, what he imagines to have happened, to justify this optimism. Someone else can probe that, if they so wish. Not I.

My point of interest is why, hardly a week and half later, the same mouth that praised the command suddenly denounces the same, with the vehemence of pre-inclusive politicking. Tsvangirai now accuses the same security structures of meddling in constitution-writing matters. He demands a probe, presumably by a B-MATT team he hoped would carry out the so-called security sector reforms? What has gone wrong in so short a period? How does sweet turn so sour so shortly? Is it the sheer unpredictability of the security structures themselves, or the doting and depthless judgment of the man himself? Let us reserve judgment and look elsewhere for clues.

Cheerless comfort

A month ago, Theresa Makone, also a minister from Tsvangirai’s party, declared in front of the hearing world that the Zimbabwe Republic Police had completely transformed, and could now be relied upon for civil-rights conscious policing.

We all rejoiced, wondering whether it was a matter of an open mind changing its condemn-everything party mindset, or the lady’s magic wand which at mere waving, had brought about a miraculous transformation in the less-than-two months she had become a co-minister of Home Affairs. But the horror, the horror!

What followed this “Damascene” claim were brickbats from her own party, with all and sundry pelting the poor woman and her newfound truth. Her party could not understand why truth induces such a senior member to step out of the party line by showering such gratuitous praises to the “enemy”, the Zimbabwe Republic Police. Dutifully, the MDC proceeded to repudiate the minister’s “hasty” judgment, leaving her to lick her wounds in cheerless misery. She had to make amends, and she did just that in Gokwe, at great peril to her own credibility as a politician of sound, honest judgment. The police were bad and more work needed to be done to reorient them from the Zanu (PF) partisan ethos, she told her party’s faithfuls at their 11th anniversary.

The shy flip-flopper

You cannot miss the parallels between the leader and her subalterns, anymore than you can miss the MDC-T leader’s characteristic flip-flopping on sanctions: they are there; they are not; they are there, they are not, they are not, they a-aaah . . . It is a matter of mood and expediency, is it not? The National Security Council met this week, which means the Prime Minister had an opportunity for a face-to-face interface with commanders.

Did he confront them? It is this tergiversation which disenchanted Martin Rupiya, his erstwhile security adviser, now back in South Africa, with little goodwill for his old master. But the one thing I know to have registered on his mind with such insistent force is the sheer depth of the command. This is why the issue of security sector reforms is now only a matter for history to record.

Back to the Kariba document

Security is just one instance of this flip-flop. There is another one even more alarming. This week the Prime Minister was quoted by various websites as saying Zimbabwe’s proposed new constitution will have to be “a compromise document” co-authored by the country’s three ruling parties, namely Zanu (PF), MDC-T and MDC.

Tsvangirai is quoted as saying: “The current constitutional-making (sic) process will be affected by the fact that no party has a two-thirds majority in parliament and because of that, no party will be in a position of imposing its will on constitutional principle (sic). It will have to be ultimately (sic) a negotiated constitution, but the process of public participation was intended to ensure that no Zimbabwean across the political divide should be prevented from airing their views…

"Unfortunately what has happened is that all political parties took a position that they are going to take a partisan view on what the constitution should ultimately look like and that has caused problems. It became not a process of allowing people to speak but a process of contestation between the parties.”

Discovering sunset

I am hard put to grasp what the Prime Minister and MDC-T leader is trying to say, and from which pedestal. Is he posing as an arbiter to a process in which he is a deep player? Has he forgotten he is a leader of one of the parties vying for preponderance in the constitution-making process? How then does he turn around and pontificate on the dos and don’ts of a process towards whose outcome his party is no small player, for better and for worse? He needs to get real, surely. Procedurally, if constitution-making is such a dispassionate, above-party-politics enterprise, why was it a matter for the GPA, itself the magna carter of the present transient political settlement, and the inclusive Government itself? What is more, why is his party linking its own electoral prospects and fortunes to the adoption of a new constitution if the document is so indifferent to daily party politics?

And has he forgotten that one matter before the people in the constitution-making process is that of presidency versus premiership, themselves posts occupied by him and his political rival, Robert Mugabe? How does one disaggregate the transient from the eternal? Is it not a fact that we have used the vaunted claim of timelessness in respect of constitution-making to in fact settle immediate party political interests, including bidding for power?

Why play righteous? It was as clear as a full moon on a savannah evening that constitution-making, a mere year into inclusive politics, would be a partisan affair, more so bracketed as it was between the bitterness of 2008 and the immediate prospect of another general election soon after. How could the beautiful ones have been born between September 2008 and October 2010 to be able to think and think dispassionately and then author a permanent document indifferent to the cutting and stabbing of current politics? Not even national healing has taken root, itself a precondition for clearing people’s minds for such an assignment.

Election call and Mai Musodzi

I lay an even more specific charge. Hardly three weeks back, Tsvangirai himself and his secretary general, Tendai Biti, broached the subject of elections, falsely laying it all on Mugabe’s doorstep. Today, the one has retracted, while the other one is mum in a confirmatory way. Could there be a link between these comments and what happened last week at Mai Musodzi Hall in Mbare? Who stoked the otherwise dying embers of party rivalry and party conflict? And now that those responsible have emerged worse off, they seek to speak from on high, oozing moral precepts which their own reckless conduct or misconduct provoked?

The truth about Kariba draft

But all of the above are flesh and blood issues. Let us venture into the terrain of abstracts. At what point did it occur to the Prime Minister of this country that neither party in the Inclusive Government has the parliamentary means to impose its will on constitution-making? Is it not precisely this reckoning which necessitated the compromise political inclusivity we grapple with to this day?

What is more, was such a recognition not the basis for writing into the GPA the need for all the three parties to cooperate both in the drafting process and, ultimately, in the referendum? And why is the Prime Minister proposing the negotiation of “a new charter” [constitution, I suppose] when he very well knows we have one already by way of the Kariba Document which his party likes so much that it would have wanted it imposed on Zimbabweans on grounds of a tripartite agreement, without going to a referendum?

Was it not Zanu PF which studiously resisted this undemocratic move? Was this not the basis of the conflict between MDC-T and Madhuku’s NCA? And of course the moment Tsvangirai realised imposing Kariba was fundamentally flawed and deeply resented, Kariba became a Zanu (PF) document the same way that early elections are Robert Mugabe’s idea; the same way that an “unwholesome” police and defence force are Mugabe’s. Indeed the same way that the sanctions were invited by Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF!

Between Lancaster and Zanu PF

Our uxorial press was too smitten to know what was happening to signorita MDC in the run-up to Mai Musodzi. Before then, Chamisa, no doubt speaking on behalf of his MDC formation, had threatened to withdraw his party’s support for the draft constitution, whenever that was going to be. This column reminded him that it was the MDC-T itself, not Zanu (PF), which agitated for a new constitution. A no-vote for the new draft would, quite naturally, mean a return to the Lancaster-born constitution we have today. That stung him and his party. What had happened?

Well, MDC-T had lost control of the process in most of the centres throughout rural Zimbabwe.

Secondly, its supporters expected a pen and a ballot paper with which and on which to put a mere cross (as in voting), not the highly cerebral exercise of discussing and debating the draft constitution as faced them. Between the drafting of major areas of the constitution and consultation which the MDC-T badly needed to have done with its sponsors, time was too short.

MDC-T never even got a chance for drilling its politically sub-conscious membership for a rote performance. MDC-T membership mainstream was never made up of zon politikon, political animals.

It comprises hooligans whose strength in moving the party’s violent agenda became evident with certain ministerial appointments that later shamed the party, leading to a rather hasty reshuffle. It needed a lot of time which it never got to ripen its constituency for the process. What is worse, the party’s preferred position did not relate to the practicalities of the life confronting lumpens, themselves in the majority in its membership. Commonsense could not be summoned. The party’s position was largely abstract, much to do with democracy, the rule of law, good governance, etc, etc.

By contrast, Zanu (PF) sought to defend real gains, palpable matters to do with land, independence, empowerment, culture and others. Even the notoriously difficult notion of sovereignty had been sufficiently unpacked through intense use that it had become real to Zanu (PF) supporters by then. Today MDC-T’s dilemma is choosing between Lancaster and a Zanu (PF) draft.

Stretched out, stressed

Much worse, the MDC-T did not have structures in far-flung rural areas where the exercise began. By contrast, Zanu (PF) had, and relied on its organic structures to mobilise participation and to consolidate submissions. Not helped by white farmers who have become a sulking lot following MDC-T’s failure to secure their interests. They could not mobilise what remains of their farm labourers.

The result was that in well over 98 percent of rural centres, Zanu (PF)’s position prevailed, forcing MDC-T into the desperation of bussing supporters between hearings. That raised temperatures, but also stretched and stressed the proxy party. Cleverly Zanu (PF) forced MDC-T to dismantle its structures in urban areas, themselves the party’s supposed forte, in order to cope with the sprawling rural process.

By the time the action came back to towns and cities, MDC-T’s structures and personnel were too committed in rural Zimbabwe to have done much groundwork in urban areas.

Again by contrast, Zanu (PF) had already mobilised, which is why from Seke right up to Mufakose, the initial gatherings were dominated by Zanu (PF) crowds. In any case, Zanu (PF)’s rural leadership was now free to concentrate on urban areas, as indeed happened, and will happen.

A few hours into the exercise, MDC-T, which had counted on spontaneous self-mobilisation of its own membership, realised it had misjudged the preparedness of its own constituency, and was headed for a complete blackwash.

Buying time the MDC way

The so-called violence in Harare was engineered by MDC-T members desperate to delay a process in which clearly they were on the receiving end. They needed more time to reorganise and mobilise. Secondly, it was meant to extricate Johnnie Carson and his American delegation from finding an excuse for rebuffing the inclusive Government’s re-engagement mission. Not surprisingly, Carson wasted no time in remonstrating with the team on what he termed resurging political violence in Zimbabwe, itself the good reason America would not be in a hurry to remove sanctions. But those talks – if talks they were – are over and what remains is the constitution-making process, and of course MDC-T’s disorganised state.

The MDC-T’s present strategy is to find an excuse for overwriting what has been gathered so far, which is predominantly Zanu (PF). In fact the strategy started a long time ago, only hitting successive brick-walls. Not so far back, there was pressure on the national broadcaster to launch debate on the constitution, well before any draft was in place. How this would be possible and even desirable, no one in MDC-T ever paused to think. Clearly ZBC as a national broadcaster will only begin to present discussions once the present process has yielded a draft document. Why should mediated communication seek to rival, displace or influence a process which is people-centred and thus face-to-face? Why use surrogate voices where real ones exist? The idea was to overwhelm the rural voices through this elite medium, and use this elite medium as the new and overarching site for gathering views on the constitution. Again, the strategy was repulsed.

Enter John Makumbe

That lost, the next strategy was to create drama in cities, something which, as we have just seen, has now come to grief. It is not coincidental that Mwonzora claims well over 1000 centres have to be redone. The idea is a re-run, something the MDC-T is so used to asking, but which must be resisted. And in resisting such self-serving fastidiousness, Zanu (PF) must do no more than quote John Makumbe, himself MDC-T’s unofficial mind.

Writing on September 27, 2010, following the so-called clashes, he had this to say: “Zimbabweans have been aware that the political environment has not yet become conducive for the proper conduct of constitutional outreach meetings. People and organisations that have been opposed to the Copac process are now gloating and rightly saying, 'We told you so.'

"But the truth of the matter is that Copac successfully held outreach meetings in something like three-quarters of this country, and the people’s views were successfully gathered and recorded. It is from these views that a new, democratic and people-driven constitution will be drafted.”

Hear, hear! John only forgot to remind his ever small readers that even in Harare, a mere six out of more than 24 sites were affected by the so-called disruptions, which really were MDC-T’s own way and style for asking for more time.

Makumbe’s regime change declaration

And interestingly, while denouncing the Kariba draft, Makumbe adds: “It is obvious that the final outcome of the Copac process is going to be a compromise constitution ... What we as a nation must hope for is that the forthcoming elections will result in the emergence of a government of the people’s choice. It is that government that will accord the nation an opportunity to rewrite the constitution and make it truly democratic. For the time being, and as a means to facilitate effective regime change, we need to stay the course and write that constitution. Long live Zimbabwe.”

Facilitating “regime change”, the only time Makumbe has loudly owned up to his status as an instrument of the West in its endeavour to reverse the gains of Independence. Whereto Zimbabwe with such a sellout literati? Of course for him elections must yield this one outcome: regime change. How that is likely to happen through the instrumentality of a party which cannot impose its constitutional will on Zimbabweans, only he and he alone knows. In the meantime someone must remind him that the compromise document is already there. Did we have to spend so much, lose so much, for MDC-T to turn around and embrace Kariba? Maybe this is their sense of regime change.

Next week I will deal with the proliferating investment initiatives as a way of helping Makumbe and his MDC-T ilk achieve the same change. Vanyangira yaona.

Icho!

Nathaniel Manheru is a columnist for the Saturday Herald. He can be contacted on e-mail: nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw