The 31st July Aftermath: Opposition Parties need Leadership Renewal

In Zimbabwean politics, leadership renewal is a sacred oracle which no one should point out at. It should never be a topic for discussion, now we need to deliberately force this debate to take place because this is the ideal time. We all know that the election was rigged, but allowing rigging to take place under your leadership nose is leadership failure particularly for the MDCs.  

MDCT and Morgan Tsvangirai.

Undoubtedly, Morgan Tsvangirai has been a formidable leader to an extent, however, dangerously naïve and lacked strategic view of the struggle.

Amongst all opposition political parties, the MDCT needs leadership renewal the most, any delay and time wasting will cost them dearly in the 2018 general elections. Tsvangirai needs to pass the baton to a younger and more accommodative leader, whose political prism is not tainted by tribalism. The new leader should lead the party in Court battles; this will enable the new leader to endear himself in the hearts of the people and thereby earning himself some much needed leadership credentials. This will enable what is termed seamless change of leadership.

For the past four years the MDCT and Tsvangirai have been in government, during that time they did not know whether they were an opposition party or a governing party, but surprisingly, they abandoned their supporters and party work and concentrated on government, the work they did not do well either. The monumental failure of Tsvangirai leadership has been to chase after the wind and not focus on the political ball. Tsvangirai spent too much time drinking tea and eating pan-cakes with Robert Mugabe and failing to focus on the bigger picture. The only intelligence that Tsvangirai and his party managed to gather about ZANU PF in the last four years has been that Mugabe sleeps in meetings. Surely, one would have expected better intelligence gathering than that; and intelligence which could have thwarted Mugabe from rigging the elections.

If Tsvangirai remains as the leader of the party, the MDCT is going nowhere, they might as well kiss goodbye to their aspirations of becoming a credible opposition party, let alone ever winning an election. From anecdotal evidence, Tsvangirai is most likely to resist change, however, things have changed.

ZAPU and Dumiso Dabengwa.

Dumiso Dabengwa is neither hot nor cold, this is his greatest downfall of his leadership credentials, undoubtedly, he has shown some glimpses of brilliance. His ZAPU is the only party which forced ZEC to handover the voters roll before the elections. After receiving the voters roll they did not sit on it, they gave a very good analysis of the roll and in the process unearthed irregularities which they shared with the world but were either ignored or vilified for exposing ZANU PF.

Dabengwa has repeatedly stated that he will leave his leadership position to a younger and able leader now is the time to do so. ZAPU does not only need leadership renewal but also name change.  There are some political dinosaurs in ZAPU who view the name ZAPU as sacrosanct and anyone raising an issue with it is labelled all sorts of names. They quickly point to the Cold Comfort Resolution of 50 something years ago, where the nationalists vowed that the name ZAPU will never change, but they fail to read the context of the time.
 
Dabengwa and ZAPU would have fared better in the elections had Dabengwa worked tirelessly since its revival. Dabengwa took the leadership of ZAPU and went to bed only to wake up a few days before the elections. Dabengwa had image problems, people suspected him and ZAPU to be a ZANU PF project and Dabengwa and ZAPU failed to deal with this misperception. ZAPU hounded many good leaders out of its ranks because they were viewed as radical.

The greatest thing that ZAPU needs right now is change, nothing else but change.

MDC and Welshman Ncube.

Surprisingly, the only opposition political party which does not need leadership change is the MDC, however, Welshman Ncube is the one among his counterparts who is most likely to relinquish his leadership. The MDC suffered heavy losses in the election; this can be mistakenly attributed to Ncube's leadership. The heavy losses are as a result of the skewed political environment in Zimbabwe and false perceptions that Tsvangirai stood a better chance of removing Mugabe from power, now it has been proven beyond reasonable doubt that Tsvangirai cannot remove Mugabe from power.

If the MDC decides to sacrifice Ncube at the altar of change politics, they would have made a monumental and grave mistake which will effectively sends the MDC into permanent doldrums. 

During his time in the GNU, Ncube has exhibited some glimpses of rare leadership style, he has proved himself to be shrewd, foresighted, principled, values driven, dependable and someone whose word you can trust and value. His ministers and MPs also proved to be clean whilst the MDCT officials were amassing wealth, his ministers stayed away from corruption.

People may wonder why Ncube and MDC fared so badly in the elections, the answer is simple, Mugabe rigged the elections, Mugabe is predictable, Mugabe is a dangerous tribalist, Mugabe sees Ndebeles as his arch-enemy and for the simple reason that Ncube stood firm for devolution of power, a political concept which Mugabe viewed as meant to equalise relationships between the Ndebele and Shonas, Mugabe thought it wise to hit hard at his perceived perennial enemies.

Written By Veli Mtshali, a political analyst.  Views espoused here are his personal views.