Opinion / Columnist
Tsvangirai's centralisation of power suppresses democracy
02 Sep 2017 at 19:47hrs | Views
A NEW report has claimed that the centralisation of power in MDC-T is one of the reasons the party has failed to win power.
The Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) report questions the centralisation of power in the presidency of MDC-T and draws parallels with the ruling party, Zanu-PF, where the mantra is "one centre of power".
We will not dictate to MDC-T how it should run its affairs, but the idea of all the power being vested in one person is problematic and leads to unnecessary fissures in future, as being experienced in the party right now.
The idea of one centre of power is an affront to democracy and the sooner the MDC-T realises this the better.
Zimbabwe is in social, economic and political turmoil because the liberation generation made the mighty mistake of investing all executive powers.
A leader may be the most capable at a given time, but their abilities wane with time and this is worsened by a situation where only one person has all the executive powers.
Thus, political parties should allow for regeneration by not investing all their power in one person.
As the adage goes; power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is imperative that MDC-T and every other party looks at their models and questions whether they are viable and if these benefit the country or they take it backwards.
It is also important that parties that preach democracy stay away from mimicking that which they detest in Zanu-PF, because when elections come, the electorate would question whether there is a difference between the ruling and opposition parties.
We have seen the fissures in MDC-T and Zanu-PF in the past few years and all of them have one genesis — which is the centralisation of power in one person.
In the end, the decisions that person takes are not necessarily for the good of the country, but rather his or her political survival, much to the detriment of the nation.
Leaders then forget to serve the people, but are paranoid and obsessed with knowing who could be plotting against them.
Thus, power should be spread across the executive leaders, with emphasis being on bringing competent people, who want to serve the nation.
This is the very essence of devolution of power, where authority is delegated and does not only reside with one person.
We hope MDC-T goes through the RAU report objectively, so that it can work on this obvious flaw.
The Research and Advocacy Unit (RAU) report questions the centralisation of power in the presidency of MDC-T and draws parallels with the ruling party, Zanu-PF, where the mantra is "one centre of power".
We will not dictate to MDC-T how it should run its affairs, but the idea of all the power being vested in one person is problematic and leads to unnecessary fissures in future, as being experienced in the party right now.
The idea of one centre of power is an affront to democracy and the sooner the MDC-T realises this the better.
Zimbabwe is in social, economic and political turmoil because the liberation generation made the mighty mistake of investing all executive powers.
A leader may be the most capable at a given time, but their abilities wane with time and this is worsened by a situation where only one person has all the executive powers.
Thus, political parties should allow for regeneration by not investing all their power in one person.
As the adage goes; power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
It is imperative that MDC-T and every other party looks at their models and questions whether they are viable and if these benefit the country or they take it backwards.
It is also important that parties that preach democracy stay away from mimicking that which they detest in Zanu-PF, because when elections come, the electorate would question whether there is a difference between the ruling and opposition parties.
We have seen the fissures in MDC-T and Zanu-PF in the past few years and all of them have one genesis — which is the centralisation of power in one person.
In the end, the decisions that person takes are not necessarily for the good of the country, but rather his or her political survival, much to the detriment of the nation.
Leaders then forget to serve the people, but are paranoid and obsessed with knowing who could be plotting against them.
Thus, power should be spread across the executive leaders, with emphasis being on bringing competent people, who want to serve the nation.
This is the very essence of devolution of power, where authority is delegated and does not only reside with one person.
We hope MDC-T goes through the RAU report objectively, so that it can work on this obvious flaw.
Source - newsday
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