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Why even a split MDC must still go to the polls
Eddie Cross
February 06, 2008

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/opinion.aspx?ID=BD4A699636

AFTER nine months of negotiations under the auspices of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was finally forced at the weekend to make decisions about what to do about the electoral process.

Two sets of negotiations had been going on in parallel — talks with Zanu (PF) facilitated by the South African government, and talks between the MDC faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai and the faction led by Arthur Mutambara , in the hope that the party might be reunified to fight the next election.

In the first process we had in fact made huge progress. A comprehensive package of reforms was negotiated, giving us the chance of a free and fair electoral process if they were implemented. President Robert Mugabe was faced with a decision — allow these reforms through and face defeat or tell his South African and SADC colleagues that they were asking too much. He decided on the latter.

President Thabo Mbeki was forced to use his last option — to confront Mugabe’s refusal to implement the deal at a meeting of SADC heads of state. He did so last week on the sidelines of the African Union summit in Addis Ababa, and we understand he pulled no punches. However, in the end, Mugabe was backed by the heads of three other states — Swaziland, Namibia and Angola — and Mbeki came away with no decision.

So when the MDC leadership gathered in Harare this past weekend to consider the question of fighting the next election, now just two months away, it was against the background of Mbeki’s failed mediation effort. In addition to this setback, we faced the reality that despite the reforms already adopted and passed by parliament, the regime in Harare was maintaining its barrage of antidemocratic policies against the MDC.

The debate in the national executive and then the council was short, and when the vote came to participate in the election, it was carried unanimously. In answer to those who claimed that by running we were going to legitimise a rigged election, MDC president Tsvangirai said that, on the contrary, the only way to demonstrate the illegitimate nature of the regime would be to contest every seat and make sure Zanu (PF) had to rig massively to get a result in its favour.

So now we have five days to put up nearly 2000 candidates under the MDC banner. That is no small task and it’s just as well we anticipated this decision and are far down the road on this one. I do not think we will get a candidate into every rural district council seat, but we will contest every urban council seat and every parliamentary and senatorial seat, plus the presidency.

We had been talking to the Mutambara faction for more than a year. Initially, it wanted an "amicable divorce", but insisted on continuing to use the MDC name and symbols. We said that if it wanted to do so, unity was the only route. We have since negotiated a full reunification agreement and when the election was announced, it was decided to translate that into an electoral pact that would take us past the elections and then going on to a congress, where the unification process would be completed. But the devil is always in the detail and when the MDC leadership was presented with the suggested list of allocated seats, the whole deal fell apart.

It is now generally accepted that the group led by Mutambara is the smaller group — the crucial question is how much smaller? Obviously, we feel that it is very much the junior player while they (understandably) do not agree. Had they accepted the selection of candidates by a democratic system, there would have been no real argument — the decision as to who stood where would have been left to the party structures in the electoral districts concerned. But the Mutambara group feared that such a process would decimate its representation and refused.

In the end, failure was inevitable and we resolved to adopt the unity agreement with one or two minor amendments and to go back to the Mutambara group with a revised allocation of seats — one our leadership felt was more realistic. They rejected this out of hand and we mutually decided to go it alone.

So now — for better or for worse — we will fight this election. The Tsvangirai-led MDC, joined by Zanu (Ndonga), will fight all seats and the Mutambara group will put up as many candidates as it can and run against us. There will be other parties in the game. I know of five so far, perhaps with more to come, but, in essence, it will be the three-way scrap between Zanu (PF) and the two MDC groups that will receive most attention.

Only the main wing of the MDC offers the chance of regime change and this puts all others at a severe disadvantage, and they know it. There was a profound sense of gloom at the hotel where the Mutambara group was caucusing yesterday in Harare.

But at least we now know where we stand . Our focus has to be on the campaign — explaining to the voters what we will do if elected. Then we must persuade people to turn out and vote — a steep hill to climb as the past decade has persuaded many that voting is a waste of time.

But our main task will be to stop Zanu (PF) doing a Mwai Kibaki on us — stealing the result when we have done enough to win.

*Cross is a member of the Movement for Democratic Change.

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