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Poisonous political culture
John Makumbe
November 05, 2007

Recent developments in both the MDC and the rotten Zanu (PF) make this wonderful country a joy to live in. There is no boredom in this exciting country. Practically every day is packed with all sorts of surprises on all fronts. At the economic level, we wake up one day to be informed that our nation is so bankrupt that we can no longer afford to import certain raw materials to enable us to process timber into paper that can be used to make exercise books for our school-children. The next day we are informed that, in fact we have hired an Israeli computer company, possibly Nikuv Computers, which I suspect is a front for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence organisation suspected of rigging elections on behalf of the local dictator.

One day you wake up and some six guys are arrested for allegedly plotting to blow the dictator's brains out and set us all free. Who are the idiots that arrested these brave men? The following day the dictator is begging Lisbon to invite him to the EU/Africa summit in December. A week later Joice Mujuru boycotts virtually all the dictator's graduation ceremonies in disgust at the continuing production of half-baked graduates and semi-literate medical doctors.

In the same week Morgan Tsvangirai, president of the MDC, dissolves that party's women's assembly, and gets Matibenga replaced by Theresa Makone. The fast pace at which all these things happen in one small country of only a dozen million people is absolutely amazing. We must have very powerful brains to keep track of all these intriguing events and still remain sane.

But this week's contribution is not about all of the above. Rather, it is about the most baffling of all the issues mentioned above, namely Matibenga's unceremonious "retirement" from leading the MDC's women's assembly. Numerous scribes have asked me what is really happening in the MDC? Or what has happened to Morgan?

My answer to them constitutes the essence of this contribution, and all my readers are at liberty to disagree with me. No prizes, though. There is clearly a degree to which we have underestimated the damage done to us all by the dictatorial Mugabe regime since the attainment of our national independence.

For the past quarter century we have all been immersed into the political culture of intolerance and selfish ambition. We have almost entirely been stripped of the democratic ethic, however defined. Indeed, without realising it, we have all been turned into little dictators within our little spheres. The ideology of chefs and peasants has been strongly promoted by the disgusting Zanu (PF) to the extent that it has effectively damaged every one of us to some degree.

Political patronage is no longer the preserve of Zanu (PF) alone. In fact, it is impossible to find a single political formation in Zimbabwe where the leadership operates along strictly constitutional provisions. Even civil society organisations find themselves engaging in crude patronage of one kind or other.
What is currently happening in the MDC is obviously a result of this pervasive political culture of cronyism. We are aware that several Zanu (PF) leaders who became members of parliament eventually brought into the same chamber their wives and their children.

We already begin to see little Miss Mugabe going round the country donating computers and addressing gullible recipients who almost treat her like she is the "second lady". Disgusting! Fortunately for the MDC, the damage can quickly be corrected and in accordance with that party's constitution. The MDC should strive to be the complete antithesis of the ruining Zanu (PF).

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