Tsvangirai did not save the nation from the precipice but rather sold it for calico cloth

Dlayila Omuhle, you, started well! "The highly compromised elections of the 31st of July 2013, which were meant to produce stability and an election whose outcome is beyond reproach, brought about a huge apprehension in the country," you said. But judging from the title of your piece "Tsvangirai, the best since sliced bread", it was clear the good start was not going to last long; and it did not. (Opinion Bulawayo24)

"But what is more confusing about the whole sorry story of Zimbabwe is the obsession with the personage instead of the ideals of Morgan Tsvangirai," you said a few paragraphs on! The rest of the piece was in fact an expose of what a confused person you are!

You completely failed to address the most important question here: why did the 31 July 2013 fail "to produce stability and an election whose outcome is beyond reproach"?

You go on about Tsvangirai and his deputy, Khupe, "opened those closed schools for millions of Zimbabweans; it is Tsvangirai and Khupe who reversed the rot that had turned our hospitals to morgues, where maggots could be seen from the gates."

Credit where credit is due, it was donors who paid most of the money so those schools could reopen, etc. The Zimbabwe economy never recovered throughout the GNU because the dual whom you hold in such high regard failed to have any of the fundamental problems like lawlessness and corruption addressed. Indeed throughout the GNU there was an average net loss of 1500 jobs every year.

So to say Tsvangirai saved the nation "from the precipice" is nonsense.

But ever if we granted Tsvangirai and his deputy, Khupe, "saved the nation for the precipice" as they themselves and the rest of MDC leadership have claimed countless times; the question still remains, why was nothing done to ensure the elections were free, fair and credible?

When the GNU was formed there was a raft of democratic reforms everyone agreed must be implemented to ensure the next elections were free and fair; so no one in MDC can say they did not know what needed to be done. Throughout the NGU SADC Heads of State and the world at large reminded MDC to implement the reforms countless times but Tsvangirai and his deputy, Khupe, paid no heed.

It was not a question of they were too busy saving the nation from the precipice because Tsvangirai spend a lot of time gallivanting round the world and chasing women of ill repute! Even with all the gallivanting he would have found a few hours with his kitchen cabinet to write the necessary proposed reforms. They had five years to do it, for Pete's sake! Yet not even one reform was even implemented in five years. Not one.

MDC MP Samuel Sipepa Nkomo has since admitted that SADC and the international community literally begged MDC not to take part in the elections without the reforms but once again MDC leaders would not listen.

Tsvangirai and his deputy, Khupe and the rest of the MDC leaders did not implement even one reform because they were too busy enjoying the trappings of power Mugabe so cunningly provided for them. It would have been rude for Tsvangirai to upset Mugabe by bringing up democratic reforms after the tyrant had given him the $ 4 million Highlands mansion bribe – "vhara muromo", as one would say in Shona.


Two weeks ago Zanu PF Youth League members gathered in Harare at a time when unemployment is a nauseating 90% plus and most of those youths are themselves out of work. So the opportunity to take this burning issue up with President Mugabe, who opened their conference, would have been in all their minds. If it was, it was deleted when Mugabe 30 heads of cattle and they had a tasty piece of meat in their mouths!

The Zanu PF Women League members who too must have been angry with Mugabe about Zimbabwe's crippling economic hardship. They too were given plenty of meat and they too promptly forgot they wanted to complain to Mugabe. They even passed a resolution then and there that Mugabe should be Zanu PF presidential candidate for 2018 elections!

When the Zanu PF youths and women were given a piece of meat they were glorious happen and content; they packed all their troubles in an old kitbag and smiled! Similarly when Tsvangirai, his deputy Khupe, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, David Coltart, and the rest of the MDC leaders got their ministerial Mercedes Benz and all the other trappings of power; they too forgot about the democratic reforms and the need to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship.

After the rigged July 2013 elections it was back to using combis for all those MDC MPs who lost their parliamentary seats. Tsvangirai lost the Mercedes Benz and all the gallivanting came to a screeching halt. During the GNU years he had assumed the air of one who had been playing golf all his life. He has not been seen near a golf course since the July 2013 elections; he cannot afford the membership fee on his zero per annum income. He has kept his Highlands mansion bribe but for how long!

If Tsvangirai had "saved the nation from the precipice" as he had claimed then he had not taken the nation very far away because people started tumbling over the edge immediately after the elections. Today 300 000 or 80% children are already out of school because their parents can hardly afford to feed them let alone pay their school fees.

To say the Zanu PF youths and women, Tsvangirai and MDC friends are corrupt in accepting Mugabe's bribes in return for them forgetting what they knew Mugabe did not want to hear will be like talking of one or two dots in a picture of a million dots. The corruption is there but it is insignificant.

The bribe Mugabe them offered with his right hand was a bucket of pig gruel compared to the treasure-chest full gold, diamonds and other world riches the tyrant took away from them with his left hand! Only a pig would go for the gruel and be glorious happy!

These Zanu PF youths and women traded in their chance to end the dehumanising feeling of being out of work and having to beg for everything or end the daily worrying about someone fall ill of the many water borne diseases because there is no clean running water, trade that for a piece of meat! By the time they arrived back to their respective homes they were hungry and the memory of how good the meat had tasted was gone too!

Tsvangirai and his MDC friends went for the trapping of power, the luxury of being introduce "Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe" even if everyone knew it was a hollow title and he gave up the nation's best chance yet to end this Zanu PF autocracy and to move the nation into the green pastures of democracy, freedom, liberty and economic prosperity not just for this generation but for many, many generations to follow.

One has to compare the value of the bribe Mugabe offered to what Mugabe got in return to see the full picture of this transaction. Only a breathtakingly incompetent, a first class village idiot would give up a treasure chest of riches for a bucket of pig gruel!

"Tsvangirai and his deputy Khupe will be recorded in the annals of history, as the duo that pulled Zimbabwe from the precipice," you sad.

No my friend; Tsvangirai and his deputy, Khupe, together with all the other MDC leaders like Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, David Coltart, etc., etc., will go down in the annals of history as the incompetent village idiots who sold the nation's best chance to end the corrupt and murderous reign of Mugabe and Zanu PF for the traditional price whites paid to the blacks who sold their kith and kin as slaves a calico cloth and a handful of shiny beads!