'Tsvangirai's complacency was due to hallucinations of Baba Jukwa'

How the MDC-T got doomed
It is quite clear that MDC-T is still in a state of shock and denial over its shattering loss in the July 31 2013 harmonised elections. This forms the background to their endless shrill bleating about "massive rigging" and the current leadership crisis.

The practical implication is that MDC-T is 'trapped' and would not move forward as a party until they acknowledge firstly, their own short-comings and secondly, that the poll result is now water under the bridge.

Acknowledging their flaws would help them to plan and strategise for 2018, but refusal to do so would mean an even more embarrassing drubbing.

I will look at the main reasons why MDC-T lost the last elections. The first and major fatal flaw was the party's complacency and poor preparedness. The party remained in the "transfiguration cloud" or honeymoodsn of 2008 and foolishly assumed a win was theirs for the taking. Because of this self-delusion, they did not notice that Zanu-PF, stung by the poor 2008 showing, was going back to the drawing board and trying to understand what led to the "bhora musango" madness. After all, Zanu-PF had made the same fatal error of complacency in 2008!

This same complacency explains why MDC-T chose to ignore the opinion polls by Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, The Guardian, Freedom House, Zimbabwe Vigil, Afro-Barometer - all of whom can be deemed as their sympathisers - which all pointed to a Zanu-PF victory.

I remember one of their officials offering the silly explanation: "Those surveys are meant to give Zanu-PF a false sense of security". The feeling of complacency was aided and abetted by the hallucinations, raving and ranting of the phantom figure(s) who went by the name Baba Jukwa.

It is because of the same complacency that MDC-T never bothered to put up a slick and convincing election strategy and manifesto, the so-called JUICE (Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and Ecology), for example, was totally unimaginative, poorly packaged, unoriginal and unconvincing.

Who in their right frame of mind would believe the promise to create "over one million jobs in five years" due to investment by "friends with money"?

The second major fault was the poor leadership offered by Morgan Tsvangirai himself. His careless and thoughtless love scandals with so many women portrayed him as an uncaring, sex-crazed Casanova running for a serious national political office. That he had a go at women of all age groups, sizes, shapes, and colours actually earned him the nickname, Sabhuku Vharazipi.

Some people have tried to justify his actions comparing him to other world leaders such as Bill Clinton,  Silvio Berlusconi  or  Nicolas Sarkozy but they forget that their scandals happened when they were already in power, not before!

Further downsides to Tsvangirai's leadership are his legendary flip-flopping and inconsistency. For those whose scrutiny is not dulled by rose-tinted lenses, it is quite clear that the man has some unmistakable arrogance and dictatorial tendencies. Witness the infamous 2005 split. Also witness how he imposed candidates (something that Zanu-PF painfully learnt after 2008!)

These leadership foibles are what is causing the current leadership crisis, but the harsh reality is that either way, with or without Tsvangirai, the opposition party is doomed!