MDC Shirking Responsibility For Peace

In just over a month's time, 23 presidential candidates will be asking us, the people of Zimbabwe, for a mandate to serve us and rule our country.

There are many aspects that we will look at when deciding who to vote for, leadership, vision, accountability and, for me at least, above all, responsibility.

I want and need a leadership and a government that will take responsibility for itself and its actions.

I cannot abide by a leadership that passes the buck.

That is why it was so disappointing to read that after 20 of the 23 presidential candidates contesting next month's general elections, yesterday signed a peace pledge, binding themselves to a code of conduct compelling them to campaign peacefully, the MDC-T national chairperson was so dismissive of his party's responsibility to ensure peace.

"We as the opposition have no responsibility to make or break peace," Morgen Komichi said of his party.

When I read comments like this I become enraged and then despondent with the MDC. I first become extremely angry because they have basically said that the ability to act peacefully and spread amity and harmony in a nation that is badly in need is not their responsibility.

 They will not call on their millions of supporters to act peacefully and join what has become a national movement to stop the violence which has started bubbling up before the July polls. While Komichi and his MDC-T leadership may not want to call for peace, the dog whistling that is coming from them is being picked up by members of his party.

According to the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP), an organisation founded in 2000 by church-based and human rights organisations with the objective of monitoring, documenting and building peace and promoting the peaceful resolution of disputes and conflicts, the MDC has now become the more violent political party. While for many years, violence was far more synonymous with the Zanu PF that has now changed under Nelson Chamisa.

In May, according to the ZPP, there were 24 cases of intraparty political violence. 22 cases were from within the MDC while only two from the Zanu PF. This means that the MDC was over ten times more violent than its opposite party. So if the MDC has no responsibility to curb the rising violence within their own party, how can they be trusted to lead?

Simply put, the attitude of the MDC leadership of late has demonstrated that they cannot, and this is making me despondent.

I cannot trust a party, regardless of how long I may have admired them, with leadership, because with leadership comes accountability and responsibility, neither of which are being currently demonstrated by the MDC.

If you are not responsible for those who act in your name, or even on your orders, then democratic representative governance is certainly not for you.

Over the next few weeks, the MDC must step up and act far more responsibly and show it is ready to govern, because at the moment this looks a very far and dangerous stretch.

Only then, can people like me consider returning to the fold.

Mike