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The 'makonifactor- in the Zimbabwe presidential race - seeing into the future
Maggie Makanza
February 07, 2008

I know my vote is my secret that is if ZANU (PF) does not steal it. I am one of those Zimbabweans who was undecided whether to vote in the upcoming elections. I have been pondering on what the March elections mean to an ordinary Zimbabwean suffering from cash shortages, lack of electricity, water, transport, housing, food. An economy that has been taken five centuries back with a collapsed health and education delivery system reducing every Zimbabwean into destitution and sending many into exile. The catalogue of tragedies suffered by Zimbabweans is endless. I had therefore come to the conclusion that, a contest between a split MDC and ZANU PF was an exercise in futility and that the outcome of the elections was predictable. The elections will come and go and the suffering of Zimbabweans will continue unabated. This time stolen votes or not, after hearing that Dr. Simba Makoni has thrown himself into the race, I have decided that I am going to vote. But the decision of who I vote for like any other Zimbabwean has to be a very well considered position based on facts and devoid of the emotional political rhetoric that characterise most discourse on Zimbabwe.

That Zimbabweans do not want ZANU PF or more specifically Mugabe, is not a point of contention or discussion. However, there are mixed emotions on the vote for the MDC which has largely been a vote against ZANU PF. The MDC, largely seen as the party that made the first serious challenge to Mugabe’s power may have many sympathisers and have earned respect for the many gallant fights that they have engaged with the ZANU PF government. They have been bruised and battered and have wounds to show for the struggle for democracy. However, the elections this March will be a test for the MDC’s fitness for governance. We have proof that ZANU PF is not fit to govern and every Zimbabwean can testify to that. I am then going to soberly ask the question ‘Is the MDC fit to govern’. This may be seen as a highly unfair and emotive question. Of cause the MDC has not been tested so how can we know if they are fit to govern. This is not meant to be a tricky examination question by some learned professor but a reality check. It reminds me of a boy-girl relationship, head over heels in love, the girl marries the boy against the better judgement of the elders. While the elders saw it coming, she was too emotionally involved to see. Such is the plight of many of us as Zimbabweans being knee deep into the political saga, are all bruised and battered and emotionally charged to think rationally. Being the ‘scene’, it makes it difficult to be the ‘seer’. But the question is how could the elders have known before the marriage was sanctified? What where the signs and symptoms that allowed the ‘elders’ to see the future and predict it with such accuracy. It will not last, they had warned the girl. But of cause such advice had fallen on deaf ears. If you were the political adviser on Zimbabwe, what would you be advising ordinary Zimbabweans to do with regards to the upcoming elections? Boycott elections or go and make their choices between the incumbent Robert Mugabe, Tsvangirai(MDC1, Mtambara(MDC11), Simba Makoni etal in the mix.

It has been well argued that ZANU PF may have been effective as a liberation movement but did not have the capacity to govern and rule a nation. I think the same may apply to the MDC today. While the MDC may have been at the fore front and championed the fight for democracy, the question must still be asked, are they fit to govern? Are they ready to govern? The harsh reality is that while a grader may be allowed on the road to clear the way, once the path is cleared and the road tarred, it is not allowed to travel on the very same road that it charted. Such may be the plight of the MDC in the upcoming elections.

The issue is not whether the MDC should participate in elections or not as asked elsewhere. They are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t following a comedy of tragic errors in the Mbeki brokered negotiations with ZANU PF and self-centredness shown through its recent failure to unite the splintered Tsvangirai/Mutambara factions over a mere 20 seats in parliament. I also read elsewhere that sitting MPs in the Tsvangirai led faction will retain their seats and not contest primary elections. Perhaps they do not understand the very democracy that they are fighting for. While Zimbabwe is burning, they haggle over 20 seats in parliament and are interested in protecting their positions, so what is the difference with ZANU PF? For a Christian, I am quite unforgiving of behaviour that clearly puts self interests ahead of common good.

I have warned you already about the need to be brutal with facts and not be guided by emotions. An analysis of the MDC’s comedy of errors reveals a party leadership that is naïve, politically immature and obsessed with getting to state house as an end in itself. Lack of clear leadership and capacity to take advantage of the many opportunities presenting in Zimbabwe for change have left me doubting the MDC’s capacity not only to dislodge the ZANU PF regime from power but also to govern. MDC has earned itself the description of ‘a popular but largely ineffective opposition in Zimbabwe’. The strategies employed to date to oust the Mugabe regime has left many wondering when they will deliver the change promised two parliamentary elections ago. Ineffectiveness suggests use of inappropriate approaches, irrelevant tools and methods (that may have worked in the past but are no longer effective) coupled with poor analysis of the situation and lack of clear direction. As the saying goes, if you continue to do the same thing, you will always get what you have always gotten-in this case defeat. This requires changes in tactics and approaches (zvinoda kuchinja maitiro) as the MDC saying goes. The MDC and ZANU (PF) have failed to move the country beyond their differences and judging by how conflicts have gone elsewhere in Africa, the stalemate can last for decades while people on the ground are suffering.

In an earlier article, in August, 2006, titled’ The Anatomy of Zimbabwe’s Problems’ I described Zimbabweans as a people caught between a rock and a hard place; a brutal dictatorial regime and an ineffectual opposition’. So the makonifactor as I call it, unlike any other third-force factors in the form of small political parties, MDC2, will give Zimbabweans something to think about in the polling booth.. It is no longer an either MDC or ZANU PF situation in the presidential choices. If we had to make an unemotional decision, who would you vote for on the basis of capacity and potential to bring about real change. Remembering my boy-girl scenario, if your life depended on it (of course it depends on it), and you were asked to advise the people of Zimbabwe at these crucial elections, what would you say? If you are alone in bed (maybe with your spouse), without influence from anyone, as things stand, who would you vote for to bring about a lasting change to the political crisis in Zimbabwe. What reasons would you advance for such as choice?

Most would vote with their hearts and not their minds in this instance and choose to reward Tsvangirai for the long battle against Mugabe. Much as we emotionally voted for ZANU PF for several years following independence justifying to ourselves that since they had fought the war to liberate us, they deserved our vote irrespective of clear signs of dictatorship. We have arrived 27 years later, and realise the gravity of our mistake. The same romantic relationship that the people had at independence with ZANU/ZAPU PF has also been established between the people and the MDC. Where we are justifying a vote for them because we believe they owe us the vote by virtue of the fact that they struggled for democracy. ZANU Pf monopolised the struggle for independence and held the nation at ransom and made us feel that we owed them for having liberated us. And that it was their privilege to rule us. Are we going to be repeating the same mistake despite clear signs of dictatorship in the midst of the MDC? Shouldn’t we say no to dictatorship now whether it is in ZANU PF or the MDC? I think we are in danger of being trapped by the very nature of the relationship that is developing within the MDC were the struggle for democracy is being personalised and monopolised. Will the MDC hold us to ransom and claim the right to rule? Dr. Simba Makoni is offering himself to the people of Zimbabwe. Are we going to simply reject him on the basis that he has no scar to show for the struggle against Mugabe? Are scars from the liberation war and now the struggle for democracy the real and only qualification to rule? As the famous saying by Chinotimba ’I died for this country’.

I am tired of playing the ZANU (PF)/MDC game in which all of us emerge as losers. They have had their chance and now it is time for a new game, with new actors. I am off to check my name in the voters roll. Dr Simba Makoni will have my vote. He has taken a calculated risk and has the courage to oppose Mugabe. But more importantly, simply because of the person that he is. For him to have remained ‘clean’ so to speak under a party that thrives on patronage and initiation by corruption is for me something to marvel about. He has national, regional and international experience in governance. I urge you to pause and think soberly about the forthcoming elections and ask yourself, as things stand, who has the qualification to rule. History will judge us harshly should we miss this opportunity to usher to Zimbabwe a new political era.

So, Beware the Ides of March.

*Maggie Makanza is a social commentator and writes from Cape Town, South Africa. She would like your feedback on this article and can be contacted by email on maggiemakanza@yahoo.com

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