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Views on Dr Simba Makoni
Precious Shumba, Harare
March 03, 2008

Since Presidential hopeful Simba Makoni announced his intentions to run against his mentor Robert Gabriel Mugabe on Tuesday 5 February 2008, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) under Morgan Tsvangirai and some civic leaders have issued insincere statements, driven by political jealousy and fear of the future.

Opposition to Mugabe did not start in 1999 at the formation of the MDC but there are Zanu PF officials who have openly opposed Mugabe's corrupt dictatorship. We need to recall that Edgar Tekere stopped Mugabe's one-party state; Margaret Dongo exposed electoral irregularities in the nation's voting system, Nkosana Moyo resigned after failing to agree with Mugabe's rogue politics, Jonathan Moyo and Emmerson Mnangagwa attempted to change the Zanu PF presidium ahead of a Zanu PF congress, and several others highlighted in the media.

It is my considered view that Morgan Tsvangirai has been inconsistent in his bid to oust Mugabe since the decision to split the main MDC along tribal and minute issues ahead of the senate poll in October 2005. He has demonstrated absolute failure to reconcile divergent interests and gel them into one formidable unit that can fight against an opposition of Mugabe's character.

As a registered voter, l am not interested to know who has been in the trenches for long against Mugabe but who can possibly revive this ailing economy and serve the nation in a transparent and accountable manner. I have witnessed and experienced how some of Tsvangirai's lieutenants hate opinions different from theirs and how they want to be the only voice against tyranny.

Zimbabweans are a mature citizenry; capable of deciding who they want to vote for without anyone trying to manipulate how they must behave in public or what they must say to the media, for fear of being labelled. They have gone past the stage of accepting any information that portrays Zanu PF as the only source of our national problems. There are some corrupt officials in the MDC and civil society just like in Zanu PF but there are also others who are real, genuine and honest in both parties. Citizens want to know how the MDC and the rest of civil society benefit or suffer in the current situation of guided democracy' under Mugabe's dictatorship. Whose mandate is the civil society serving if it starts to decide which political party citizens must mistrust or endorse?

It is public knowledge that the nation is experiencing a national water crisis; the Zimbabwe economy has collapsed, 80 percent of the population is unemployed, declining life expectancy due to entrenched poverty, and declining health standards, corruption, political manipulation and the breakdown in the rule of law. More so, Zimbabweans have witnessed how some officials in the opposition and the civil society have grown richer, drive state-of-the-art vehicles, live like kings yet all over in the high-density suburbs, the levels of poverty have intensified. The difference between them and Mugabe's ruling elite is invisible.

The electorate must demand accountability and audit the performances of all legislators since they were elected in 2005 before giving them new terms.

The open hostility to Makoni's latest bid for the presidency has the potential to end their democracy projects that only benefit a few while the majority of Zimbabweans languish in abject poverty. Initiatives must benefit the majority citizenry and not only bring to us matters already decided for our procedural endorsement, disguised as consultations.

The electorate will decide who best represents them without coercion. No amount of deception by the State-controlled media and or panicking leaders will deter the electorate.

Simba Makoni, like the MDC and some civic society leaders have a democratic right to challenge Mugabe for the presidency. There is no single organization, party or individual with the sole preserve to oppose Mugabe. You never know what the electorate will do; maybe they will endorse Makoni ahead of Tsvangirai and Mugabe.

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