Alliances do not have room for egos, greed

When politicians plan for and agree to form coalitions, the implication is they have been able to subdue personal egos.

It is the culmination of an embrace of diversity and tolerance. They have agreed to iron out their differences while thriving on their areas of agreement.

Their success rides on the wealth of ideas from across the different parties, brought about by a convergence of their worldviews, perspectives on life as well as ideologies formulated with the focus of defeating one common enemy.

There is no room for avarice and selfish subjectivity. The ultimate goal is the common good which may hitherto have been elusive.

Over the years, Zanu-PF - which has been at the centre of Zimbabwe's political conundrum for over 37 years - has proven very difficult to beat at elections.

So many political outfits emerged and went under during Zimbabwe's rather bumpy political history.-PF Zapu - which had jointly waged the war of liberation with Zanu-PF, Ndabaningi Sithole's Zanu Ndonga, Enock Dumbutshena's Forum Party of Zimbabwe and Edgar Tekere's Zimbabwe Unity Movement among many others came into being but never managed to steal the thunder away from the ruling party. So did Margaret Dongo's Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (Zud). Zud appeared on the scene with pomp but unceremoniously sank into oblivion.

The opposition's major undoing has been their failure to come together.

There is no doubt that the biggest opposition Zanu-PF has had to deal with over the years came from the Morgan Tsvangirai-led Movement for Democratic Change - a political outfit that came into being in 1999.

Tsvangirai became the first person - and possibly the last - to beat Mugabe in an election, clobbering the former president in the March 2008 elections, albeit without the required 50 percent plus one vote that would have enabled him to form a government.

When Zimbabwe's opposition political parties mooted the idea of coming together in 2016, progressive-minded Zimbabweans felt the chance to deal with Zanu-PF had finally come.

However, there emerged a contestation of egos with Joice Mujuru - who had been ejected from Zanu-PF in the run-up to the party's congress in 2014 - declaring that Tsvangirai could not be leader of the envisaged coalition. Then Tsvangirai had been endorsed as the MDC Alliance's presidential candidate for the 2018 elections.

Mujuru and her Zimbabwe People First, which later split, leaving Mugabe's former vice president to form the National People's Party (NPP) had just come from a heavy by-election defeat in Bikita West.

Today, there is talk of another alliance seeking to bring together Mujuru's People's Rainbow Coalition, Elton Mangoma's Coalition of Democrats (Code) and the Tsvangirai-led MDC Alliance. Mujuru has to date rejected coalition talk, and clearly she is not prepared to enter an entente in which she is not a leader.

For her, the opportunity has been presented by Tsvangirai's illness - a development which has not been good for the MDC Alliance.

Mujuru's is a clear manifestation of greed and self-centredness which must never be allowed to prevail. When such politicians visit the electorate and declare they are doing it for the people, there is need to interrogate these overtures further.

Clearly, theirs are self-aggrandisement projects, which they get into after guarantees of leadership positions.

Alliances that are built on such pretentious foundations are easily penetrated by adversaries and are prone to splits and divisions usually fomented by the love for positions.

History has taught Zimbabweans very tough lessons about opposition political parties and all due respect, the MDC has been the strongest opposition political party to date.