Opinion / Columnist
MDC Primaries: Repeating the mistakes of 2013
21 May 2018 at 11:19hrs | Views
Just a few weeks ago, many took to social media to gloat about the chaos in the ZANU-PF primaries, and to suggest that this was evidence of a wider weakness in the party that would have implications come the general election.
However, as a cautious MDC supporter, my answer was simple: Wait and see what happens in our own primaries before getting over-excited.
And this weekend, it seems these words of caution were justified.
We have seen party supporters in Harare preventing people from voting and forcing the closure of the community hall, causing the election to be postponed. We saw a sitting MP's car being stoned by angry party supporters, and violence breaking out when the ballot paper was found to have omitted the name of certain candidates. We saw violence erupt after one candidate was found writing over 20 ballot papers, and we saw Chinoyi grind to a halt as party members blockaded the entrance to the party's provincial offices.
Cutting through the 'noise', it seems the underlying reasons for this violence and unrest is fairly clear. In order to prop up his leadership, Nelson Chamisa has been systematically imposing his own candidates on the party, often at the expense of popular, long-standing grassroots leaders. As one veteran activist who was too fearful of retribution to give his name told NewsDay, "We are sick and tired of provincial leaders who corruptly bring their Johnny-come-lately cronies to represent the party ahead of genuine members because they don't have money to grease their palms."
It's hardly as if the party hadn't been warned that this may happen. On Thursday, ahead of the party primaries, MDC-T Vice President Elias Mudzuri foresaw the impending chaos, tweeting, "We MDC-T are being cruel to ourselves in candidate selection by allowing strangers a free ride at the expense of our long serving loyal committed cadres. Those with money & connections come through the window displacing poor trusted cadres. Recipe for infiltration & destabilization".
Alas, this warning went unheeded.
Unfortunately, Chamisa has a prior history of this, with disastrous results. In 2013, with most expecting a comfortable MDC victory at the polls, Chamisa as MDC Organising Secretary designed the party and campaign structures to increase his personal power within the party, at the expense of the party itself. He brought non-entities and unknown outsiders into the party to contest for parliamentary seats, who ended up losing and disappearing.
In fact, in his excellent and thoroughly researched academic paper on the MDC 2013 election campaign, Dr. Phillan Zamchiya largely blames Chamisa for the party's defeat, claiming he ignored advice from the technical team led by Tendai Biti, and instead took the reins of the campaign himself, assuring Tsvangirai that he would win 65% of the vote. His fostering of his own candidates on the party led to 28 candidates leaving the party at the last minute to contest as independents, which split the vote and cost the party dearly.
As senior party members said soon after the 2013 defeat, "The leadership is baying for Chamisa's blood as he is being largely blamed for failing to put proper structures in place and imposing candidates who had no grassroots support.The organising team made too many mistakes and this demoralised the grassroots who thought we had turned dictatorial, especially by imposing candidates in some constituencies when it was clear they (the candidates) were weaker compared to Zanu PF candidates. The party made suicidal errors judging from the voting patterns and it is time to read the writing on the wall and do some self-introspection if we want to dethrone Zanu PF and Mugabe."
While Mugabe has gone, the ZANU-PF is still in power and the rest of this quote still rings true. But unfortunately, not only does it seem the lessons haven't been learned from the 2013 debacle, but Chamisa seems destined to make exactly the same mistakes again. Unless Chamisa and his advisors urgently learn from their past mistakes, I fear a similar result awaits us in July.
As the philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."
However, as a cautious MDC supporter, my answer was simple: Wait and see what happens in our own primaries before getting over-excited.
And this weekend, it seems these words of caution were justified.
We have seen party supporters in Harare preventing people from voting and forcing the closure of the community hall, causing the election to be postponed. We saw a sitting MP's car being stoned by angry party supporters, and violence breaking out when the ballot paper was found to have omitted the name of certain candidates. We saw violence erupt after one candidate was found writing over 20 ballot papers, and we saw Chinoyi grind to a halt as party members blockaded the entrance to the party's provincial offices.
Cutting through the 'noise', it seems the underlying reasons for this violence and unrest is fairly clear. In order to prop up his leadership, Nelson Chamisa has been systematically imposing his own candidates on the party, often at the expense of popular, long-standing grassroots leaders. As one veteran activist who was too fearful of retribution to give his name told NewsDay, "We are sick and tired of provincial leaders who corruptly bring their Johnny-come-lately cronies to represent the party ahead of genuine members because they don't have money to grease their palms."
It's hardly as if the party hadn't been warned that this may happen. On Thursday, ahead of the party primaries, MDC-T Vice President Elias Mudzuri foresaw the impending chaos, tweeting, "We MDC-T are being cruel to ourselves in candidate selection by allowing strangers a free ride at the expense of our long serving loyal committed cadres. Those with money & connections come through the window displacing poor trusted cadres. Recipe for infiltration & destabilization".
Alas, this warning went unheeded.
Unfortunately, Chamisa has a prior history of this, with disastrous results. In 2013, with most expecting a comfortable MDC victory at the polls, Chamisa as MDC Organising Secretary designed the party and campaign structures to increase his personal power within the party, at the expense of the party itself. He brought non-entities and unknown outsiders into the party to contest for parliamentary seats, who ended up losing and disappearing.
In fact, in his excellent and thoroughly researched academic paper on the MDC 2013 election campaign, Dr. Phillan Zamchiya largely blames Chamisa for the party's defeat, claiming he ignored advice from the technical team led by Tendai Biti, and instead took the reins of the campaign himself, assuring Tsvangirai that he would win 65% of the vote. His fostering of his own candidates on the party led to 28 candidates leaving the party at the last minute to contest as independents, which split the vote and cost the party dearly.
As senior party members said soon after the 2013 defeat, "The leadership is baying for Chamisa's blood as he is being largely blamed for failing to put proper structures in place and imposing candidates who had no grassroots support.The organising team made too many mistakes and this demoralised the grassroots who thought we had turned dictatorial, especially by imposing candidates in some constituencies when it was clear they (the candidates) were weaker compared to Zanu PF candidates. The party made suicidal errors judging from the voting patterns and it is time to read the writing on the wall and do some self-introspection if we want to dethrone Zanu PF and Mugabe."
While Mugabe has gone, the ZANU-PF is still in power and the rest of this quote still rings true. But unfortunately, not only does it seem the lessons haven't been learned from the 2013 debacle, but Chamisa seems destined to make exactly the same mistakes again. Unless Chamisa and his advisors urgently learn from their past mistakes, I fear a similar result awaits us in July.
As the philosopher George Santayana famously wrote, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."
Source - Joice, Harare
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