Morgan Tsvangirai is a power junkie

Can we liken power to hard drugs like cocaine and heroin? I think we should: Both hard drugs and power are highly addictive and you start off using just a little and your intake increases gradually until you are an addict who will do anything to support his/her habit. Power is worse than hard drugs actually: Power comes with an attachment called EGO and that's a very underrated and destructive thing. 

            Drug addicts are known to sell very valuable belongings for a tiny fraction of their worth just for a quick fix. When a drug addict has sold off all of his/her possessions he/she resorts to stealing other people’s possessions to support his/her drug habit. If a drug addict sells me his 32” LCD television for $20 does the deal not stand? It is not fair deal admittedly, but it is a valid deal. The fact that the television was sold by a drug addict who was desperate for a quick fix and failed to see that he was conducting a business transaction that was not fair to him/her is neither here nor there.

            Morgan Tsvangirai sold the entire country to support his power addiction and now he wants to reverse the deal. The situation a drug addict is in when he sells his possessions for a song is exactly the same situation Morgan Tsvangirai was in during the period leading up to the elections. Didn’t Morgan Tsvangirai say, “We need discipline. Imi mbuya imi kana musina discipline sudurukai. Tinoda vanhu vanoteerera kana vakuru vachitaura,” (Old woman move aside if you don’t have discipline, we want people who listen when elders are speaking) in response to a challenge regarding the imposition of Dr Simba Makoni to stand on the party’s ticket in Makoni Central. And on being asked what he would do if he lost the elections, Morgan Tsvangirai said it was impossible for him to lose.

            Morgan Tsvangirai is a power junkie and he failed to negotiate a good deal for himself and the country in his moments of desperation to get a quick power fix. In his desperation for power Morgan Tsvangirai accepted a deal without media reforms, adequate time for voter registration and inspection of the voters’ roll, he accepted a deal without the controversial security sector reforms. Morgan Tsvangirai accepted a deal without provision of an electronic copy of the voters’ roll. He thought only of himself and how powerful he was going to be when he became the president of the republic of Zimbabwe; just like a cocaine addict who sells a house for a thousand dollars to buy a day’s worth of drugs. And unfortunately for Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDCs, the deal stands because he signed off on it and he should stop being a cry baby and check himself into a rehabilitation center – in the form of a luxury cruise with a 20 year-old woman.

            In his desperation for power, Morgan Tsvangirai forgot that he was not only selling out himself but the entire country and now he wants us to help him wiggle out of a deal he signed off on. Unless there is compelling evidence of the poll being ‘rigged’ on the 31^st of July, anything that happened before then does not count because Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to it and with the inflated ego of a power junkie he walked into a trap that Robert Mugabe had elaborately set for him. May he please step aside so that we can move on?

Twitter: @MgciniNyoni       Email: mgcininyoni@gmail.com  

Elections will produce outright winner

In the 2008 presidential election, Morgan Tsvangirai beat Robert Mugabe. If it wasn’t for the requirement for the winning candidate to have an absolute majority, Morgan Tsvangirai would be the president of the republic of Zimbabwe right now. Do we perhaps curse that piece of legislation that denied him a chance to get to state house or do we celebrate it? A lot of people are of the opinion that the absolute majority requirement did us a huge favour as a lot of Morgan Tsvangirai weaknesses have been exposed since then and his lack of discipline when it comes to women is the least of Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters' worries. Elections are due this year and the question on many people’s lips is; are we headed for another GNU?

            I don’t think we are headed for another Government of National Unity: Robert Gabriel Mugabe of ZANU-PF has got the most realistic chances of winning the 2013 presidential elections. My preferred candidate is Welshman Ncube of the MDC, but I feel now is not his time, mainly because voting patterns are still along tribal lines in Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans still vote for their ‘heroes’ instead of voting for the right candidate for the good of the country. Welshman Ncube will get his moment in the sun, but not now. Morgan Tsvangirai is sure he will topple Robert Mugabe from the presidency and no matter how unpalatable the truth is; he will fail dismally and here is why:

·         When Simba Makoni  announced his intention to run for presidency, Morgan Tsvangirai was sharply critical of him, saying that Makoni had "been part of the establishment for the last 30 years" and therefore shared responsibility with Mugabe for Zimbabwe's situation. The same can be used against Morgan Tsvangirai himself; he has been part of government for the past five years and therefore responsible for what has happened to our country within the past five years. The GNU has been a curse to Morgan Tsvangirai as his presence in government has stripped him of the magical aura that many thought he would take with him to cabinet and somehow miraculously solve our myriad of problems. Instead, his presence in government has just shown the Zimbabwean people that his appetite for looting and self-enrichment is the same if not bigger than that of the ZANU-PF crowd. A lot of us are now sure that voting for Morgan Tsvangirai will be a change of government in name only: Giving a different set of thieves a chance to steal.

·         In Zimbabwe takes back its land Joseph Hanlon, Jeanette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart conclude: “In the biggest land reform in Africa, 6,000 white farmers have been replaced by 245,000 Zimbabwean farmers. These are primarily ordinary poor people who have become more productive farmers. The change was inevitably disruptive at first, but production is increasing rapidly. Agricultural production is now returning to the 1990s level, and resettled farmers already grow 40% of the country’s tobacco and 49% of its maize. (page 209). The book is obviously not balanced, but there are some truths in it. The New York Times, The Guardian UK amongst other publications have written positively about the land reform. The issue of the land reform was one of the main reasons why there was so much negativity about Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF. Now, if there is no consensus that the land reform was a bad thing, what chances does Morgan Tsvangirai have in a presidential election: Outside of the protest vote against Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai does not have a support base that believes in what he stands for; if he stands for anything at all.

·         On 2 May 2008 Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced that Tsvangirai won 47.9%, Mugabe won 43.2% and Simba Makoni 8.3% thereby necessitating a run-off, which was held on 27 June 2008. 47.9% was a pathetic share of the vote for Morgan Tsvangirai considering the ‘overwhelming’ support the man had. Supermarket shelves were empty, there was hyperinflation and there was a general onslaught on the person of Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF from local and international media: If Morgan Tsvangirai failed to get 51% of the vote under those conditions, thinking he can do so when Zimbabwe has more or less stabilized is delusional. The fact that Simba Makoni managed to get 8.3% of the vote shows us that the people were craving for a better alternative to Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. And the 2013 presidential elections have Welshman Ncube; who will put to rest the scramble for the Matabeleland vote and has a wider support base than Simba Makoni and the many voters who are going to vote for Welshman Ncube will not come from ZANU-PF, but from MDC-T and that spells doom for Morgan Tsvangirai.

We hope that Morgan Tsvangirai will respect his party’s constitution and step down from the party’s presidency after he loses the forthcoming presidential elections; he has already served more than two terms. With a more credible leadership the MDC-T will then become a much needed opposition alongside Welshman Ncube’s MDC and then maybe we can talk of dislodging ZANU-PF from power. But as things stand, Robert Mugabe will cruise to victory and we have ourselves to blame as we wasted more than a decade of our lives backing an obviously self-serving Morgan Tsvangirai.

This article originally published here: http://www.misazim.com/beyond.pdf

Twitter: @MgciniNyoni - Email: mgcininyoni@gmail.com