'Tsvangirai finally accepts defeat'

Have we not seen and read Tsvangirai's poetic post, that one where he urges his supporters to look beyond "defeat"? He uses the word "defeat" for the first time.

It is such a wonderful addition to oppositional vocabulary, a word routinely unavailable in opposition diction. Again another brave gesture, a real measure of how far we have evolved, whether as rulers or as losers. We must grant losers time to gently bring down the curtains.

After all, during the election the MDC-T leader gave us a wonderful line: Munhu mukuru haasiyi bhachi padare. Roughly translated the saying cautions against humiliating a losing elder. No matter how guilty, the elder must still walk away from the court fully clad, with some modicum of dignity.

Then, few of us knew this was a plea to all of us, a plea from a man already afflicted by a presentiment of defeat. I will never for once believe anyone who says defeat stole on the MDC formations, unawares.

They knew they would lose elections, which is why they sought an indefinite delay to the polls. But only yesterday, in Gweru, Tsvangirai pleaded with the President to leave him alone, to stop abusing him so he has time to lick his weeping wounds.

It has been a real plea for peace, a submission, indeed an unconditional acceptance of defeat.

This society must grant some dignity to defeat so our democracy flourishes. When defeat equates to humiliation, electoral contests become a do-or-die affair, and with such comes gore.

But Tsvangirai has done more. Through his officials and a captive private media, he has been planting the idea of his getting appointed to the post of vice president. Another plea, this time one for accommodation. I am not so sure he quite grasps how the two posts of vice presidency are structured in the Zanu-PF scheme of things. They are already apportioned, historically apportioned, aren't they?

One is for old Zanu, the other for old Zapu. You cannot reallocate this without tearing the Unity Accord apart. No one is about to do that. But grant him that kind of thinking, for it is part of the poetry of defeat, part of the difficult route towards adjustment. The last few weeks have seen his whole world collapse spectacularly.

From prime ministerial glory, he finds himself out of friends, maybe out of pocket. He cannot go golf putting anymore, surrounded by adulating white ambassadors and eager business executives.

From an all-powerful plinth, he now finds himself unsure of where he is destined to stay the morning after. As for the family, well, it is really tragic.