Tsvangirai is 'failing to inspire' says Zindoga - waking up to the reality too little too late

Democracy works best when the ruled take their duty of understanding the big issues of the day and holding the rulers to account very seriously. As a nation, we have been found wanting in this on both counts, understanding the issues and holding the leaders to account.

It took the majority of our people 20 years or so for them to finally accept that Robert Mugabe was a corrupt and murderous tyrant. People have all the evidence they needed long before then, if only they opened their eyes. By 1987, when he signed his unity accord with PF Zapu, for example, the national already knew the economy was in the gutter and Mugabe's hands were dripping with the blood of the over 20 000 murdered innocent Zimbabweans. It was not until the late 1990s, a decade later, that the people accepted Mugabe was a failure and made a concerted effort to remove him from power.

History has the habit of repeating itself because instead of learning from the mistake of ignoring the evidence on Mugabe for 20 years the people are doing the same with Tsvangirai. There is a mountain of evidence to show that Tsvangirai is corrupt and incompetent and will never implement any meaningful democratic reforms he promised but for years now people have ignored this and continued to put their faith in him. It is only now, after 17 years of Tsvangirai at the heart of opposition politics, that a few people are beginning to question his leadership ability.

"Simply, the opposition in Zimbabwe, bearing the face of Tsvangirai's MDC-T, is failing to inspire the people after successive losses and continued fragmentation of the movement," wrote Tichaona Zindoga in Maverick Daily.

The reason why Tsvangirai and his opposition friends have failed to inspire the people is very simple; whilst the people have risked life and limp to elect MDC on the ticket of bringing democratic change. After 17 years, MDC have failed to deliver even one single change. Even when MDC had the majority in GNU parliament and cabinet plus the solid backing of SADC who were the guarantor of the GPA, they still failed to get even one reform implemented in five years.

Zimvigil compare Tsvangirai to a general who marches his army up the hill and then down again without ever doing anything. If anything Tsvangirai is even worse!

Tsvangirai has been trying to get the reforms implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections when Zanu PF has more than two thirds majority in parliament and SADC has lost is supervisory role. Tsvangirai thinks street protests will force the Zanu PF controlled parliament to implement the democratic reforms and thus preside over their own political demise. "La General" Morgan Tsvangirai gave up the high ground and is now attaching uphill and Zanu PF has all the time to pick off their targets!

"Many analysts predict that the opposition will lose elections in 2018, wrapping up what would be Tsvangirai's two decades of fruitless challenge to Mugabe. This, despite Mugabe's party probably being at its weakest and beset by internal squabbles," predicted Zindoga.

The people of Zimbabwe are in this economic and political hell-hole because we took too long to recognise Mugabe for the corrupt and murderous tyrant he is. We have had many opportunities to get out of the hell-hole but these have all been wasted by Tsvangirai, the man we risked life and limp to give the mandate to end the Mugabe dictatorship. We have taken nearly two decades to accept that Tsvangirai is corrupt and incompetent.

Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rig elections next year, the economic and political consequences of another Zanu PF regime are too ghastly to think about.  But unless we do something quick smart about replacing the corrupt and incompetent opposition we are heading that way.