Tsvangirai loves it in the opposition

Isn't life easy for opposition politicians, here and elsewhere?

It must be easier for Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the perennial opposition MDC-T.

Get it from us, Tsvangirai would not have it otherwise - and there are a number of reasons for this, which we will seek to illustrate.

First, he doesn't have the capacity to run a country, he that is of scant letters.

The idea of running a country, even small as Zimbabwe is, is too much to ask from a man of Tsvangirai's mould who cannot even run his household.

More to that he is rather notorious for surrounding himself with equally poor fellas.

Ask Christopher Dell, who gave us this damning but honest assessment.

He is also the same guy who told us that Morgan, who is poor on decision-making, would need massive hand-holding.

We cannot have a hand-held president of the Republic, surely?

But that is only the first aspect.

The second, and connected to the above, is that being in the opposition gives one no headaches at all.

You just sit there see how the ruling party trips on its feet and you make your move: issue some statement or two or even plan a march or protest. The ruling party gives you all the ammunition.

But that is a very reductionist analysis of opposition, which the MDC is like, and perhaps less.

Let us probe this further.

Who remembers September 18, 2013, the day Tsvangirai announced his "shadow cabinet"?

The farce was made up of 21 individuals who were given briefs that almost match those in the Government.

This shadow cabinet never met, for all we can guess, and it has never given us any policy alternatives in all the major areas of national concern.

For example, who knows a Dr Matarutse or a Concilia Chinanzvavana, who happen to have been given the portfolios of higher education and basic education respectively?

What papers and presentations, and indeed policy alternatives have been proffered by Morgen Komichi, the Energy and Power Development shadow minister?

Or by Lilian Timveos of Home Affairs? Or by Industry and Commerce's Tapiwa Mashakada?

Yes, the thing was a farce and the farcical nature of this episode rings through the whole organisation.

In other climes an opposition acts like a government-in-waiting and the leaders are actually given access to State secrets.

Not our MDC.

Not with Morgan Tsvangirai.

He is rather comfortable in the opposition corner.

At any rate, if he becomes President, it means two terms and under he will have to leave the scene, which he will not be able to live with.

That is why he tinkered with his party's constitution to the effect that he becomes some sort of life president of the MDC as long as he does not win State power, which he won't, conceivably.

Reforms, what reforms?

A couple of days ago, Tsvangirai launched what he dubbed "No Reforms, No Elections" campaign.

He started in Glen View.

Here is what Luke Tamborinyoka, Tsvangirai's spokesperson, told a local daily:

"The decision not to participate in the fraud disguised as an election was made at our congress where we drew a line in the sand and said all reforms must be implemented before any election . . . We will not participate in these by-elections and any other for that matter unless and until all these so-called elections are properly vaccinated from the periodic zanu-pf mischief which has led to contested and illegal outcomes."

Before we examine what poor Luke said on behalf of his boss, it is important to note that the decision not to participate in elections came less to do with any electoral reforms imagined or real, but because the MDC was ill-prepared to tackle zanu-pf after the brutal loss of July 2013.

Defeat in the by-elections, even when the MDC precipitated them as it did with the Renewals, would send the wrong message to its supporters and funders.

Besides, the party was broke, funds having dried on their Western vines.

Tsvangirai himself was surviving on penury.

The decision was to make a convenient excuse to run away from the battlefield and, for all we know, without any alternative.

Unless one says the rallies are the strategy!

And the decision itself is divisive and that is why the likes of Thokozani Khupe are spoiling to fight Morgan.

A major split is unlikely but the division and disenchantment with Morgan can only get stronger, bigger.

Look here, Luke

We all know that Luke Tamborinyoka loves the sound of his own voice and is given to making hollow sounding platitudes.

Can anyone make sense of what he told the media on the decision to boycott by-elections?

He tells us that the polls are "fraud disguised as an election" and that the "so-called elections" should be "properly vaccinated from the periodic zanu-pf mischief which has led to contested and illegal outcomes".

That is impressive, Luke.

But what has changed from July 2013 when the country held elections that the MDC freely participated in and won a third of parliamentary seats?

The MDC duly sent the winners to Parliament where they are still.

If the elections were a fraud, what becomes of the MPs that the MDC-T sent to Parliament?

Does an election become a fraud only because a certain party has lost the majority, in this case MDC-T?

And would MDC have been whining if it had won July 2013, which it had an equal opportunity to?

Luke tells us elections need to be "properly vaccinated" from zanu-pf "mischief" but tells us nothing substantial - which is the same crime his boss and his acolytes also commit.

The other time they were telling us about the voters' roll as the main object they wanted, and they got it a couple weeks, and just in time for the by-elections.

What else now?

We are tired of the story about the composition of ZEC when we know only too well that parties in the ill-fated inclusive Government nominated personnel to that body with Rita Makarau having the blessing of Tsvangirai himself.

At some point Tsvangirai was the inclusive Government's point man on ZEC.

Take this NewsDay story of March 13, 2013 for example, titled "Tsvangirai now backs ZEC".

Said the story: "Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday exonerated the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) secretariat from the 2008 election fiasco, blaming an 'underhand' force for the "shenanigans" that led to the disputed polls"? Tsvangirai reiterated that he was confident the ZEC secretariat would preside over a credible election."

He was quoted as saying: "It will be credible. I don't know why it should not be . . . an election will be run by a legally-qualified chairperson who is chairperson of ZEC. I don't think we can run an election without a qualified judge, in this case Justice Rita Makarau."

The story explained that President Mugabe and Tsvangirai "agreed on the appointment of acting Judicial Service Commission secretary Justice Makarau as acting chairperson of ZEC".

On February 14, the same publication had told us that Tsvangirai was confident ahead of the election.

He was quoted as saying: "Four years of this GNU have been a torture and I do not wish for another GNU," Tsvangirai said. "I am very bullish about the way towards elections."

All this point to the hypocrisy of the present stance of the MDC regarding its imagined electoral reforms.

Unless it is trying to tell us that it needs specific rules that says MDC-T should win all elections in this country.

Which is nonsense, of course.