Coalition government is the way to go for Zimbabwe

So here we are with a day to go before the big day! We have all heard the slogans and the faces, from indigenisation to devolution; from juice to actions and everything in between. We are all holding our breaths and anxiously waiting; is it going to be Professor Welshman Ncube the newcomer, President Robert Mugabe the veteran, or the now familiar face of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai?

My gut instinct is that none of these three will get the required 50% plus 1 vote to emerge the outright winner. We are likely to see a repeat of 2008 when none of the participants got at least 50% which means that we are headed for the dreaded run off where there will be fire and thunder as a winner will have to emerge. Even our former rulers Britain are being ruled by a coalition of David Cameron (Conservatives) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats) after voters in 2010 produced a "hung parliament". But what are the advantages and disadvantages of a coalition government in Zimbabwe?

Let us start with the good news: Coalition means all the best brains get together to do the job. Between 2009 and 2013, we saw this in action. People like David Coltart, Walter Muzembi, Tendai Biti, to name but a few, suddenly found themselves working together as a team. They showed us what they are capable of doing. Coltart shined in education while Muzembi did us proud in tourism and Biti tried his best with finances.

Flash backwards and put Stanlius Chigwedere in Coltart's position or Herbert Murerwa in Biti's position and you will see the disaster we had. Chigwedere spoke about one uniform, change of names of schools and teaching history and more history as if education is about uniforms, history and school names. Murerwa was at best clueless and it was literary Gideon Gono who ran the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Ministry of Finance.

The coalition government altered this to a larger extent and suddenly Coltart emphasized the availability of learning materials, refurbishment of classrooms, teaching of marginalised languages like ChiTonga and a host of other positive changes. Muzembi tackled the negative image of our country, won the bid to host the United Nations World Tourism Organisation conference, and saw the tourism related investment in the refurbishment of Victoria Falls as a cohost town of the event together with Livingstone in Zambia.

Biti balanced the strings of our nation's purse, albeit under more challenging conditions. He introduced the legendary "kiya kiya" economics (you hassle things around) and saw the capital investments by government in several major projects. These three gentlemen surely showed us the goodness of working together as a coalition.

What about the negatives of coalition? The period also saw intense quarrels among the main signatures of the coalition as there was obvious clash of egos. Include Professor Arthur Mutambara into the equation and you will realise what a complex situation this was. President Mugabe clashed with Tsvangirai on many occasions and there were times when Tuesday cabinet meetings were reportedly not held.

There was mutual suspicion among the leaders with Mugabe insisting that he must chair all the meetings rather than allow Tsvangirai to do so. Added to this was the elbowing out of Ncube by Mugabe and Tsvangirai, when the latter sided with Mugabe that Mutambara was the leader of the other faction of MDC although Ncube had been elected at the party's congress. It was at this point that Mugabe outfoxed Tsvangirai; he helped ferment the enmity between Ncube and Tsvangirai by shouldering Ncube out. Tsvangirai fell for the bait and argued that he is waiting for the courts to declare Ncube the legitimate leader of the MDC before he could work with him. His words later haunted him when he asked Ncube to form a collation with him as Ncube argued that the courts are yet to decide!

The coalition government also saw a lot of accusations from all sides with Biti arguing that diamond companies were not remitting money to the treasury while Zanu-PF argued that Biti was refusing to release funds for certain projects. There were also reports of sabotage between MDCs of Ncube and Tsvangirai with Biti reportedly refusing to release funds for distressed industries so as to sabotage Ncube's industry ministry. Although the coalition was not entirely dysfunctional, it remained uneasy throughout.

Looking at the two scenarios, the question is coalition or no coalition? The answer is not easy as everyone wants a clean break where one party assumes absolute government control. Tsvangirai's party had control of councils like Chitungwiza and Harare, but the results were corruption and poor service delivery. If given absolute control, are they going to do any different? The answer is maybe not. Zanu-PF's misgovernance is known and for them to assume absolute ownership will be disaster. Ncube's party had limited role in the government and besides Coltart, it is not known whether the other members are as efficient and hardworking.

This leaves us starring the possibility of a corrupt MDC Tsvangirai/ Zanu-PF or inexperienced MDC Ncube government running the. They are all not ready to govern and as Nigerian would say service delivery is "no child play". Coalition is the way to go. We want Coltart at the helm of education, Muzembi at the tourism ministry, Biti doing finances and Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Ncube meeting on Tuesday hopefully this time with less suspicion.

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Phithizela Ngcobo, a product of rural Tsholotsho, is a high school teacher in Washington DC. He holds a BA from the University of Zimbabwe, an MA in Publishing from Oxford Brookes University (UK) and another MA in Education and Human Development from the George Washington University (USA).