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Call for a grand coalition to defeat ZANU-PF
Psychology Maziwisa
October 10, 2010

Fellow citizens make no mistake: now is a time for great vision not petty political point-scoring. The MDC formations, ZAPU, Mavambo-Kusile-Dawn, and MDC 99 must come together in a coalition determined to redeem our country from the rapacious jaws of ZANU-PF. The ideals that unite us incomparably outweigh the petty squabbles that divide us.Imagine the consternation in ZANU PF when they are faced with the grand coalition. Imagine the rejoicing of the people when they hear about it and know that this time their voice cannot be denied.

Our hunger for change, our craving for innovative leadership and our conviction that we need and are ready to chart a new path forward derives in no small measure from the despotic and uninspiring leadership of President Robert Mugabe. Was the war of liberation fought so that its leaders could bathe in cream while the people starve? Did anyone tell the soldiers they were fighting and dying not for liberation but libation? Not for freedom but for fiefdom? The leadership has betrayed not only the country it was supposed to liberate but the very soldiers that fired the bullets.

Not that Mugabe and his backslappers need to be reminded of this reality. The outcome of the 2008 election told the story. Despite the intimidation and the constant lies told, Zimbabweans kicked out the government and opted for Tsvangirai and the MDC. But the government refused to go. The one-time champion of the people refused to accept the people-s verdict. Nor has defeat taught them anything about moving the country in the right direction. Instead they remain more interested in filling their pockets with diamonds and they turn their back on all progressive thinking. They are not interested in charting a course forward - merely on watching their backs. Zimbabwe has been undone by ZANU-PF-s lust for power and money.

In contrast, Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC regard politics not as a self-serving career but an opportunity to serve the people. Tsvangirai is manifestly a charismatic leader who puts nation ahead of self. All the more reason that we should be angry when Mugabe treats him with cold scorn. All the more reason to be furious when Mugabe resists every political reform. All the more reason to be outraged when Mugabe refuses to honour commitments made on 15 September 2008. That was a day of hope that Zimbabweans might be able to move forward together.

Time and again, Morgan Tsvangirai has demonstrated that he is ready to move us from a politics that stopped inspiring a generation ago to one rooted in nationhood. He seeks to express our values and tries to instill positive change to restore hope and self-belief. This is the change we need. However, it is the change Mugabe is determined to block. Zimbabwe needs leadership for 2010 not a party locked into a 1980 mindset.

Zimbabwe needs a leadership that will prioritize the building of a five star nation - a nation in which extraordinarily talented citizens like Gamu Nhengu can find the opportunities they so desperately yearn for and unquestionably deserve. Certainly, the lovely Gamu did not deserve to be humiliated in London.

When teachers earn less in a year than Mugabe loyalists can loot in a day - and it is the same loyalists that caused our economic and political turmoil - it is a sad state of affairs, it is unjust, it is detrimental to our nation and we should all rise up and shout 'enough-. We have been dragged into the gutter by a party that has been in power for 30 years and still says nothing is its fault.

When Nelson Chamisa telephones me and speaks about how he has given everything for the advancement of democracy in Zimbabwe my heart aches. Tears come to my eyes when I juxtapose the sacrifices he has made and the selfishness displayed by his ZANU-PF counterparts and, to be fair, some within his own party. Instead of bringing something to the table they take, take and take again.

Yet what matters, and what is so encouraging, is that even in the face of adversity and overwhelming odds, Tsvangirai , Biti, Chamisa and Khupe - to name but a few - have remained resolute and unshaken. Unlike ZANU-PF, the MDC has several politicians of integrity and determination. Nor is it in their nature to be intimidated. They appreciate that African politics and Zimbabwean politics in particular was never going to be an easy road. Africans know that their soil is red with blood. All the more reason for every Zimbabwean to rally behind Tsvangirai and so the Zimbabwean cause in these trying times.

Mugabe does not seem keen to switch from regression to progression. He remains unequivocal about retaining authority over the courts, the military, police as well as the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization. He has made meaningful political reform conditional on the lifting of sanctions. Human rights abuses continue and just last week he appointed governors in clear defiance of GPA protocols.

Of course Jonathan Moyo seems to think that those appointments were above board because President Mugabe derives his powers from the constitution. But then Moyo is nothing more than a contemptible mouthpiece, a man utterly without principle, devoid of anything except a craving for attention. If he is the future of Zimbabwe then God help us all.

Why was the GPA signed at all if our constitution was working? What does that same constitution say about the principle of legality? What does it say about the rights to free speech, expression, association and assembly? Indeed about dignity, responsiveness, accountability, transparency and separation of powers?

Who do these people think they are? Do they think we are fools? We recognize that Mugabe and ZANU PF have overstayed their welcome by a generation and must just go. The United Nations and the nations of this world must offer their support in supervising our next election. Alas that is still necessary- ZANU PF trickery knows no limits.

In the meantime Tsvangirai needs to harness the burning desire of the people into a single unified force in preparation for that election. More than that, he must draw together opposition parties into a cohesive coalition. I will be foremost among those who vote for democratic change - and so will members of the Union for Sustainable Democracy.

We are in the majority. Zimbabwe is much larger than ZANU-PF. Let us not be intimidated into shying away from seizing that which is rightfully ours.

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