Is Zimbabwe ready for a non-liberation war leader

As the country gears up for harmonised elections this year, Zimbabweans are faced with the choice of either electing to remain on the path of the nationalistic project of national empowerment and anti-imperialism espoused by Zanu-PF or the fuzzy economic liberalism of job creation peddled by MDC-T.

Much focus will be on the election manifestos of Zanu-PF and MDC-T. Besides election manifestos, it is also important that we examine the contrasting personalities and the belief systems governing the two main protagonists â€" President Mugabe of Zanu-PF and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of MDC-T.

To better understand the two, it is crucial that we premise our focus on their personal histories, their views on foreign affairs or international relations, ideological orientation and what they think is a suitable economic model for Zimbabwe.

President Mugabe's history as an avowed socialist and Pan-Africanist, who believes in broad based economic empowerment as a remedy to historical colonial injustices is well documented.

A teacher by profession, the President was educated at Kutama Mission and later went to Fort Hare where he got in contact with other African luminaries who in turn broadened his worldview.

He experienced what freedom meant under an independent African country in Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah during a teaching stint there. Inspired by Nkrumah's experience Cde Mugabe actively participated in the formation of both Zapu and Zanu, two of the earliest nationalistic parties formed to dislodge the colonial repressive regime.

At the formation of both Zapu and later Zanu the ideological thrust was less defined as the common denominator was simply the need to dislodge a colonial repressive white regime.

However, when the armed struggle began in earnest it became important for Zapu and Zanu to establish and embrace an ideological thrust that galvanised everyone into fighting for one common good with the hope of establishing a modern egalitarian set up deriving its foundation from socialism.

It also became impossible for both Zapu and Zanu to wriggle out of the influence of the then Soviet Socialist Republic and China, which were at that time socialist governed. The affinity to China and Russia was contagious in that socialism was anti-imperialist and found a suitable home in Africa where the majority of African countries were fighting imperialism under colonial rule.

President Mugabe just like most nationalist figures of the time was also influenced by the Chinese Revolution under Mao Tse Tung and saw the possibility of establishing a similar set inclusive of local dynamics in a new independent Zimbabwe. In 1980, under Cde Mugabe's stewardship, the new Government inherited a mixed economy, with all its historical anomalies.

The Government seized itself with the task of correcting historical injustices and established a local brand of socialism that saw the establishment of some co-operatives and the education for all policy.

The introduction of the IMF induced Economic Structural Adjustment Programme (ESAP) resulted in job losses and company closures much to the chagrin of the Government which had embraced the Bretton Woods prescriptions as the panacea to economic growth and stability.

Once beaten twice shy, Cde Mugabe saw the folly of purely capitalistic Western oriented economic remedies and now embraced the Look East policy which sought re-engagement with rising Eastern countries like China, Malaysia, Singapore, Brazil and India.

The land reform programme, reforms in the mining sector, the community share ownership scheme and the general indigenisation drive are all efforts being made by President Mugabe to correct historical injustice and broadly empower Zimbabwe.

Once ardent critics of President Mugabe, some foreign scribes have now acknowledged the impetus that has gripped the nation through the indigenisation drive and how the MDC has failed to enunciate any meaningful policies.

Thus in an article titled: How Mugabe won over a nation, Alex Duval Smith of the British Independent newspaper writes: "Zanu-PF's recent surge has wrong-footed the MDC. Mr Tsvangirai, who recently visited the Marange diamond field, welcomed it as a boost for the country, even though his supporters are critical of the army's heavy hand in the extraction process. To Zimbabweans, the Prime Minister is seen as speaking with one voice when he addressed investors, and with another- more Zanu-PF friendly â€" when at home."

President Mugabe's credentials as a liberation icon further legitimise his continued aspirations to fulfil the nationalistic project that should see Zimbabweans being the owners of their own resources.

Morgan Tsvangirai's rise to a political national leader was short and very uneventful.

He left secondary school to become a textile weaver, and then worked at a mine in Bindura, north-east of Harare, becoming involved in union work and in late 1980s became the secretary general of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

He claims in his self-serving book â€" At the Deep End â€" that he decided not to join the liberation struggle because he wanted to fend for his siblings as if those who joined had none to fend for. Tsvangirai is therefore an inheritor of the fruits of independence and not its progenitor.

We must therefore not dismiss statements by service chiefs in 2002 that they would never serve a leader without liberation credentials as hollow?

The statements were and are still neither rhetoric nor ostentatious. In contrast, President Mugabe has had an arduous journey, which involved being a degreed teacher, joining the National Democratic Party, Zapu and later Zanu, incarceration and joining the guerillas in the bush until the Lancaster negotiations that ushered in independence.

Zanu-PF led by Cde Mugabe has a lot of affinity with regional ruling parties including former liberation movements whereas MDC-T finds comfort in Botswana's BDP whose leader's disdain of Cde Mugabe is legendary.

Khama's attitude towards Cde Mugabe is understandable in light of him being a direct cousin of the British through his mother who came from England.

This is the sort of people that Tsvangirai finds comfort in which casts a further dent on his credibility as an African leader whose philosophy and thinking process is guided by the African experience of subjugation and racial discrimination.

Stephen Chan, a British scholar and Tsvangirai sympathiser makes this point clear when he writes: "However, given the immense scar that colonialism and minority rule has left in Africa, the organisation required and the pride secured have meant, at the very least, that someone like Morgan Tsvangirai has come to politics without pedigree," according to Conversations with Morgan Tsvangirai, Citizen of Zimbabwe.

The most unconvincing statement by the MDC-T leader could not have come at a more convenient time than his inaugural speech at the launch of his party.

He made no secret that his party was not founded on foundational principles of correcting the historical wrongs wrought about by colonialism.

Rather, he focused on euphemistical issues that seem to resonate well in the corridors of civil society and many Western funded NGOS. In his inaugural speech Tsvangirai made three points. The first was that the MDC stood for an end to the internal plunder of Zimbabwe by a few. The second was that it stood for an end to plunder in the DRC and the third was that it stood for a rejection of the constitution commission's proposed reforms at the national referendum that the government had called for 12-13 February 2000.

But there was no mention in his speech of rural inequalities, of land ownership or reform, or any of racial fault-lines in the old or projected new Zimbabwe.

The referendum that ensued shocked Zanu-PF as it tilted in favour of the MDC, which campaigned for a no vote ostensibly because it called among other things the nationalisation of farms without compensation.

At its inception, most white commercial farmers and whites in general publicly supported MDC as indicated by one farmer who boldly told an MDC gathering filmed by BBC that he was "investing his future and that of his family in the MDC." Battle lines where thus drawn and became clearer.

The then Constitutional Commission spokesperson Professor Jonathan Moyo said: "Preliminary figures show there were 100 000 white people voting. We have never seen anything like that in this country. They were all over town. Everyone who observed will tell you there were long queues of whites. The difference between the 'yes' and 'no' votes would not have been what it was had it not been for this vote."

MDC through Tsvangirai has no rural policy as its focus is mainly on urban areas and yet even with a ferocious rural to urban migration in the early years of independence, the demography favours the rural areas where Zanu-PF enjoys majority support.

The other weakness of Tsvangirai besides his intellectual ineptness is that he seems to prevaricate from one standpoint to another on various issues â€" scoring own goals in the process much to the detriment of his party. His apparent disdain of African intellectuals as a force striving for Africa to go to the basics and derive inspiration from our shared experience of subjugation is clear testimony of his denial that Africa has a rich history worth goading from in order to interpret and face the present.

In fact, he fervently believes that Africa simply needs to catch up with the West. So condescending and demeaning of the African capacity to determine his destiny and chart a new path just as what happened when Kwame Nkrumah and others started fighting for the independence of Africa.

Tsvangirai was one of those who actually believed that it was not possible for the African to reclaim his freedom and autonomy over his resources and the irony is that he has become a direct beneficiary of that selfless sacrifice of Africans who defied odds to achieve majority rule.

"I mean, it is once again . . . it is trying to say that in an age of globalisation the African alone must go back to the African concept. And yet the world is not going to wait for the African. It is the African who must catch up. To me, that's the challenge the African must catch up," Tsvangirai is quoted by Chan.

Is the challenge of an African simply to catch up in a globalised environment? Is the world the West, and if so is it impossible for the African to devise his own survival strategies instead of just catching up?

The lack of depth in the MDC's front bench is apparent especially now having been ministers in the inclusive government.

Even Tsvangirai himself admits to this intellectual bankruptcy when he says; "I don't think we have had sufficient clout within this movement, people of that intellectual depth or what you call 'political heavyweight."

Its policy on rural areas is marginal and focuses more on job creation instead of empowering the rural farmer, small scale and large scale as way for the agric-industry to contribute to the Gross Domestic Product.