Violet: This coalescing of opposition forces. Do you think there is a struggle for transformation there or it is a scramble for power? You have seen all these opposition political parties joining together and you also mentioned the Tajamuka and This Flag movements. Are they real alternatives?
Brian: No, if you were in ZANU PF you would be very happy with what
#ThisFlag and
#Tajamuka are doing. And what they are doing, although important for citizen agency, direct agency, is good for ZANU PF because what it does, it takes away real support and citizen confidence from the organised political parties that contest for the conquest of political power. And, we have less than 19 months to the next election in 2018 and so in essence, the more you have Tajamuka and This Flag, because these are not going to contest for political power, and the more citizens are aligned to these, I think that if you were the ruling party or the incumbent, you would be happy to have the opposition not commandeering or commanding the collective support and trust of the masses. The fact that the opposition has been reluctant to associate with and reach out to or endorse these movements suggests that there are fault lines . These movements may actually shelter persons who have ambitions for power and thus will oppose the current opposition leadership. So that's fine, there is nothing necessarily wrong with that in and of itself. But, when you bring together opposition political parties you have to be careful that you are not simply bringing together opposition political parties but you are bringing together a collective or collection of strengths, not weaknesses. At the moment, the articulation of what the developmental, or rather, what the economic alternative is, seems to me to be grossly dilated, if not diluted. I have keenly tried to read the substantive relevance or similarities of each opposition economic blue print and how it compares to the other and the obtaining situation on the ground. There is no consensus on economic matters; there is no consensus on the electoral either amongst the motley of opposition political parties. We have to make sure that the minimum programme of action does not represent a false alliance and false hope.
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