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(NEWZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai’s politics of self-enrichment

COMMENT - More courage. Neoliberals don't need to be taught graft by anyone. Trying to blame ZANU-PF for the corruption shown by the MDC is a matter of cowardice.

Tsvangirai’s politics of self-enrichment
07/09/2012 00:00:00
by Courage Shumba

WHAT on earth is Morgan Tsvangirai thinking moving into a multi-million dollar mansion, paid by the taxpayer, amid chronic poverty, failing hospitals, ruined railway and road infrastructure, homelessness and acute joblessness in a country in which he is the Prime Minister?

What exactly are Tsvangirai’s priorities as he wakes up and goes to bed each day? What truly are the motivations of this man as he accommodates himself in a grandiose mansion whilst sewers are bursting all around Harare and going for weeks without being repaired? How is he different from the Solomon “Koka Kola” Tavengwa's, that late ex-mayor who built himself a sprawling mansion in a sea of poverty?

What sort of culture is it that allows politicians to use public resources for purposes of making themselves comfortable? What sort of characters would partake in such a culture without challenging it? Are such characters truly the messengers of the depressed, oppressed and deprived majority of our people?

Clearly, Tsvangirai is not a modest man. He is not even a patriot. He is a man obsessed with shallow pleasures demonstrated by his weaknesses for women and wealth. He is a man who loves to treat himself to flashy and expensive nice things. He is not embarrassed to be using millions of taxpayer money on himself in a manner so public when his public responsibilities as a Prime Minister are telling him to watch the purse.

For how long have civil servants been calling for a stipend against hardship caused by low pay? Tsvangirai's slap in the face message to these poor workers is to demand a mansion for himself and his wife. In total, the bill to the taxpayer is said to run into $3.5 million.

It makes no difference that this mansion is taxpayer-owned. What matters is that Tsvangirai, against his better judgement, allowed himself the luxury of a million dollar house at a time most of his countrymen could have better benefited from all that money in a very public way. That tells us something very unpleasant about the Prime Minister and his choices. He is a man who puts himself first before his country and people.

Tsvangirai's actions clearly demonstrate that the MDC-T is not a viable alternative to Zanu PF. If anything, these two are sides of the same coin. His actions are a statement of man who is easily swayed, easily satisfied, easily forgetful and stupidly dishonest if not corruptible.

Does it not concern him that the University of Zimbabwe has no running water and that the thousands of students there would want government to act?

Tsvangirai’s calibre of leadership is worrying in that it seeks from the very onset to display overt self interest without shame or guilt. This is a leadership that seeks luxury and pleasure from offices that must serve. The worst thing that can happen to Zimbabwe is for its people to be handed over from Mugabe's mob to this hungry wolf clan.
traigh
The time has come to call a spade a spade. This man called Tsvangirai is a liability to the struggle for a democratic and equitable Zimbabwe. He acts without thinking, without budgeting, without insight, without foresight making his words and actions all a political boomerang that comes back st for his neck and in the process costing everyone, everywhere very dearly.

There is no evidence that such a leader wants any fundamental change. He wants to be part of the looting, milking lot. Nothing more. He is an empty head. A man like him must never be allowed to be in power for whatever reason.

In Tsvangirai, one can see the likes of Mobutu Seseko and other unsavoury characters that are easily readable who are a high risk liability to the security and well being of a nation because of their gullibility.

The nation and supporters of the MDC-T should have learnt from the Ben Manashe incident that Tsvangirai is unfit for leadership. Today, within a few months of tasting power, he is consumed by it. Yet this is not the power that he holds on any mandate save that two freaky political outfits usurped the authority of the people and formed some shaky administration to accommodate one another.

What a tragedy it would have been had such a character proceeded to become a full executive state president! We would be in trouble.

Because of his own display of self interest as a celebrity politician, Tsvangirai must step down if the MDC-T must stand as an alternative to the politics of self enrichment which he now personifies. His new style adds to his long history as a trade unionist – a dark and ugly mercenary outlook. To save face and the party, Tsvangirai must walk out the door and let someone else takeover.

The people of Zimbabwe are still suffering hence the need for a leadership that continues to focus on the delivery of basic necessities: clinics, drugs, farm inputs, good roads and education. Tsvangirai must remember that the energy ministry which is overseeing the electricity crisis, led by Elton Mangoma (MDC-T) could have done with the US$3,5 million lost to his palatial new residence.

Tsvangirai exhibits a strong Zanu PF naturalisation in many of his ways. He holds on to power within the MDC-T as if only he can topple Mugabe. In the process, he changes rules and orders to weaken the party by dividing it to remain in control. He speaks left and acts right.

[And how does the MDC blame ZANU-PF for this? - MrK]

To simplify it, Tsvangirai has never been really a man of the people has he? He ran away from the liberation struggle and left other cadres to fight for his freedom in the bush whilst he fended for himself and his family. He is at it again now in free independent Zimbabwe, using scarce public resources to build himself a mansion amid suffering and deprivation. What sort of a cowardly, cold-hearted leader is this excuse of a Prime Minister?

Those University of Zimbabwe students, if they had any fight left in them, they would pay the new home a visit and demand clean water from there. To have a man like this as a candidate for president is a kick in the teeth for those who want to see far reaching political and legal changes in how Zimbabwe is governed.

Tsvangirai is completely unelectable. He has no message, no vision, no clear heartfelt driving spirit behind him: all one can see is just the greed of a celebrity politician who wants to get into power to live large.

That is not acceptable. Someone somewhere must know that it will be wrong for this kind of man to end up in a position where the whole country must rely on him. It’s a real, breathing risk our country can’t take.

Labels: MDC, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

posted by MrK @ 2:45 AM