New confusion to wreck Mujuru's sympathisers

Recalling my elementary teacher, Mrs Choto in front of the blackboard in Grade One explaining how zero plus zero will always sum up to zero, her imagery is more vivid than ever if one takes a glimpse at the opposition today.  The opposition political parties in Zimbabwe have become desperate and are now grasping at straws even when it's an open secret that they are standing on quicksand.

If mere elementary school pupils can easily grasp this context, certainly the erudite Zimbabwean electorate can tell that the union between Mujuru and Tsvangirai will sum up to nothing.

The two fatigued politicians are merely toying around with the electorate, promising them hot air and equally hoping for a miracle to justify their existence. No matter how many more zeros we keep adding to the MDC, the sum will still come up to one answer, another zero taking it from the dictum of President Robert Mugabe.

This best describes the case of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed by Mujuru and Tsvangirai, which is nothing other than a piece of paper without clear-cut structures, or objectives on what it is they intend to achieve.

Clearly new confusion is set to wreck Mujuru's sympathisers as well as democrats who have always considered Mujuru and or Tsvangirai as sell-outs, indeed yesterday marked their first day of despair.

While some may ululate at this as a dawn of a new era in opposition politics, Mujuru's war veteran sympathisers have already started growling as they feel that they have been brought to the slaughter on the altar of affluence to former colonisers, Tsvangirai's masters.

This is just but the beginning of confusion and political bickering in this new grand coalition whose doom is already written in the stars.

In an effort to sell the electorate a dummy and cling on to their support, Mujuru has maintained that her party has not been swallowed by the MDC-T and remains true to its objectives and ideologies. The truth of the matter is that the captain-less NPP has been shipwrecked in MDC mucky waters.

During the press conference of the MoU, Mujuru said that during their consultative meetings, they had agreed that Tsvangirai would lead the diplomatic committee, Tendai Biti, the legal committee, while she leads the political committee; all in an effort to justify and portray an image that her power has not been neutralized but instead was still at par with Tsvangirai, and Biti.

Pitiably, Tsvangirai seems to be calling the shots, clearly evidenced by his consistent summoning of ‘leaders' to his place of residence. Yesterday it was Mujuru, today its Welshman Ncube, while others humbly wait in the queue on bended knees with hats in their armpits.

Commenting on Mujuru's split from ZimPF, Tsvangirai was quoted saying, "The question of their infighting will not in any way affect coalition talks because it is the MDC which will choose who to work with or not. We will not ignore the national sentiment for a coalition."

Is there, therefore a coalition of opposition parties in Zimbabwe or its formalization of MDC as the Godfather to reign over the fragmented lot?

All the same if this coalition is to see the light of day, compromising from all political parties stands as the greatest hindrance.

Gift Nyandoro,  Mujuru's spokesperson recently said that, "As a party, we are still deciding on the best way forward. We cannot work with the same people whom we expelled." In this instance, he was referring to their expelled ZimPF counterparts; a contradiction to what Tsvangirai intends to do, uniting all opposition political parties to form one grand coalition.

Coalition of Democrats (Code)  chairperson, Farai Mbira is also on record saying, " We have not settled on the presidential  candidate but we will do so when we have completed our engagements with all partners and potentials…..Code has accepted that someone else could be chosen and none has been given any conditionality." How far true is this statement based on Mujuru and Tsvangirai's already premeditated quest for power?

Mujuru says she won't settle for anything less than the vice president, after being in government for 34 years, while Tsvangirai has also proclaimed himself for the presidency.

At the same time, Tsvangirai has divided opinion among opposition political parties coalescing to form a pact ahead of next year's watershed elections.

While most leaders from Code and the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) have openly endorsed Tsvangirai as the torch bearer, some within Code still argue otherwise.

Maxwell Shumba-led Zimbabwe People First (ZimFirst) seemed incensed by the idea of having the MDC at the forefront. "MDC has always held the belief it can go it alone, since 1999. They failed to push for reforms despite commanding majority in Parliament at some stage."

Critics argue however that this is just a MoU with nothing to write home about apart from being a mere fragile pact which can be broken any time. Already the two are pulling in different directions. People want a coalition and not a MoU and if this MoU took half a year to be reached according to Mujuru's statement then they would need two more years to forge the desired coalition.

This MoU is nothing other than a piece of paper, in Tsvangirai's own words, "It is an understanding- there will of course be substantive negotiations later. This is just an outline for our commitment to work together."

Hence, Zimbabweans shouldn't be fooled. It is another one of the opposition grandstanding maneuvers to appease their donors and keep the funds coming. Lest we forget, Tsvangirai wanted an extension of the GNU by another 5 years, after achieving zilch in his 5 year reign as prime minister.