Opinion / Columnist
Don't expect Tendai Biti to be such a nice fellow
18 Jun 2014 at 12:03hrs | Views
We don't expect Tendai Biti, a politician, a megalomaniac at that, to be such a nice fellow, do we?
Politicians are generally not very pleasant people. They do not beat us twice only, they beat us innumerable times, we that should be shy.
Politics is such a reviled profession because its practitioners always lie and lie and lie, and we say that again and again and they sometimes resort to playing dirty. They are almost like lawyers, the other lying species of our dark attractions.
And, oh, the one person I had set out to discuss is not only a politician, but a lawyer, too!
His name is Tendai Biti.
Many people know him as a combative opposition politician who likes to use strong language (at some point he went obscene against a journalist) and his strong language is often accompanied by strong bodily exertions that make him froth at the mouth as he speaks.
Tendai Biti, who hailed from yesteryear student activism and went on to be part of the launch of the opposition MDC, until recently supped with Morgan Tsvangirai in the eponymous MDC-T party.
They have fallen out as Biti is now leading a group opposed to Tsvangirai.
The fallout is nasty.
It will no doubt get nastier.
Tendai Biti is an interesting man, being a politician and lawyer.
Three things stand out in studying Biti. He is, like most politicians and lawyers, a liar; he is a hypocrite and he is also petty.
His lies and hypocrisy have been demonstrated lately by his reaction to last year's elections.
When the results came out showing President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party thrashing the MDC parties, Biti was one of the people who came out strongly condemning the outcome as a "monumental fraud".
For his part, Biti had a video allegedly showing bussed-in voters in Mt Pleasant in Harare.
The party, of which he was secretary general, claimed numerous irregularities including a staggering number of people allegedly being assisted to vote, all of which was later to be contained in a voluminous dossier.
The British Embassy in Harare, forever in the hunt for anything that can be used as a stick with which to beat Zimbabwe, latched onto some of these allegations and ran with them.
Only the consequence was not too pleasant.
The British soon realised that they had been sold a lie, and beat a hasty retreat, not without lashing at the MDC-T.
The Herald saw the exchange between the embassy and the MDC-T, through Biti, in which the former expressed unhappiness and the other apologised profusely.
By the way, Biti had been variously quoted in the media telling the world in his high sounding terms, how July 31 had been "an illegitimate and immoral election" and how "this election represented the mother of all rigging and other shenanigans."
Fast-forward to March this year.
At a discussion forum at SAPES Trust, the same Tendai Biti tells us that Zanu-PF won because of the cogency and simplicity of its message.
For the record, he said: "Zanu in the last elections had a very simple message, 'bhora mugedhi' . . . Perhaps we were too sophisticated, but what was our message? Because the message of 2000 is not the message now. When we were selling hope and dreams, ZANU-PF was selling practical reality . . . I don't think we did well in 2013. But a message is just a slogan, it's mascara, it's make-up, what is the substance? What is the substance? And this is where we need to articulate an alternative value system. We failed . . ."
Biti elicited all kinds of reaction for saying this and the opposition was particularly hurt, yet it was a height of a hypocritical and liar Biti.
That is not all.
The way that Tendai Biti and his other Brutuses are treating Tsvangirai now shows hypocrisy of the basest order.
(It is hoped that no one will begrudge my pity for poor and poorly Morgan Tsvangirai. He deserves it in his now well told circumstances.)
We hear Biti is accusing Tsvangirai of unilaterally dragging the MDC-T into the elections last year and the inclusive Government prior to that.
Biti was one of the GPA negotiators that gave us the inclusive Government, whether bad or good.
There was also Elton Mangoma, who is now part of the "Renewal" lobby that is charging Tsvangirai with various sins.
On elections, we all saw how Biti was relieved after winning in his Harare East constituency.
He didn't appear to us like a man who had participated in an illegitimate show.
But as the hypocrisy gets more sickening, Biti even gets petty.
Recently, Biti was quoted by the media laying onto Tsvangirai and telling us that President Mugabe was better than Tsvangirai (which is a fact, though).
He said: "We cannot run away from (President) Mugabe and go to Gumbura (convicted rapist pastor) who chases every woman he sees. We cannot have a Gumbura to lead the party and we cannot put faith in individuals."
He added: "We hear him on a daily basis that he has failed to settle bills and the next day we hear he is chasing after women.
"We are now hearing that he has lost his mind. I feel pity for people who continue following the MDC-T leader because they are following a spent force who has outlived his usefulness."
The Renewal camp has nicknamed Tsvangirai as Gumbura, a disgraced churchman who is serving time for rape and is reported to have had a particular weakness in keeping his zip shut.
While such analogies and name-calling are acceptable for use in bars and kombis, they are hardly salutary to a serious national leader, aspiring or perspiring.
This latest report also serves to highlight Biti's hypocrisy in apparently projecting President Mugabe as a better leader when in January he decried the latter's leadership on the score of his age.
Quite distastefully for Biti, as he now seems to enjoy the affliction of Tsvangirai, he said at that point that the President's 90 years "is illness on its own".
Of course, the un-African, intemperate and regrettable remark invited necessary retorts, advising those with logs in their eyes to attend to the same before seeing specks in other people's eyes.
Interestingly, since the fallout in the MDC, rumours about Biti's own health have been told in hushed tones and in other circles it has been observed that some young people who have a pathological interest in President Mugabe's health may actually have more pressing health concerns themselves.
Politicians are generally not very pleasant people. They do not beat us twice only, they beat us innumerable times, we that should be shy.
Politics is such a reviled profession because its practitioners always lie and lie and lie, and we say that again and again and they sometimes resort to playing dirty. They are almost like lawyers, the other lying species of our dark attractions.
And, oh, the one person I had set out to discuss is not only a politician, but a lawyer, too!
His name is Tendai Biti.
Many people know him as a combative opposition politician who likes to use strong language (at some point he went obscene against a journalist) and his strong language is often accompanied by strong bodily exertions that make him froth at the mouth as he speaks.
Tendai Biti, who hailed from yesteryear student activism and went on to be part of the launch of the opposition MDC, until recently supped with Morgan Tsvangirai in the eponymous MDC-T party.
They have fallen out as Biti is now leading a group opposed to Tsvangirai.
The fallout is nasty.
It will no doubt get nastier.
Tendai Biti is an interesting man, being a politician and lawyer.
Three things stand out in studying Biti. He is, like most politicians and lawyers, a liar; he is a hypocrite and he is also petty.
His lies and hypocrisy have been demonstrated lately by his reaction to last year's elections.
When the results came out showing President Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party thrashing the MDC parties, Biti was one of the people who came out strongly condemning the outcome as a "monumental fraud".
For his part, Biti had a video allegedly showing bussed-in voters in Mt Pleasant in Harare.
The party, of which he was secretary general, claimed numerous irregularities including a staggering number of people allegedly being assisted to vote, all of which was later to be contained in a voluminous dossier.
The British Embassy in Harare, forever in the hunt for anything that can be used as a stick with which to beat Zimbabwe, latched onto some of these allegations and ran with them.
Only the consequence was not too pleasant.
The British soon realised that they had been sold a lie, and beat a hasty retreat, not without lashing at the MDC-T.
The Herald saw the exchange between the embassy and the MDC-T, through Biti, in which the former expressed unhappiness and the other apologised profusely.
By the way, Biti had been variously quoted in the media telling the world in his high sounding terms, how July 31 had been "an illegitimate and immoral election" and how "this election represented the mother of all rigging and other shenanigans."
Fast-forward to March this year.
At a discussion forum at SAPES Trust, the same Tendai Biti tells us that Zanu-PF won because of the cogency and simplicity of its message.
For the record, he said: "Zanu in the last elections had a very simple message, 'bhora mugedhi' . . . Perhaps we were too sophisticated, but what was our message? Because the message of 2000 is not the message now. When we were selling hope and dreams, ZANU-PF was selling practical reality . . . I don't think we did well in 2013. But a message is just a slogan, it's mascara, it's make-up, what is the substance? What is the substance? And this is where we need to articulate an alternative value system. We failed . . ."
Biti elicited all kinds of reaction for saying this and the opposition was particularly hurt, yet it was a height of a hypocritical and liar Biti.
That is not all.
The way that Tendai Biti and his other Brutuses are treating Tsvangirai now shows hypocrisy of the basest order.
(It is hoped that no one will begrudge my pity for poor and poorly Morgan Tsvangirai. He deserves it in his now well told circumstances.)
We hear Biti is accusing Tsvangirai of unilaterally dragging the MDC-T into the elections last year and the inclusive Government prior to that.
Biti was one of the GPA negotiators that gave us the inclusive Government, whether bad or good.
There was also Elton Mangoma, who is now part of the "Renewal" lobby that is charging Tsvangirai with various sins.
On elections, we all saw how Biti was relieved after winning in his Harare East constituency.
He didn't appear to us like a man who had participated in an illegitimate show.
But as the hypocrisy gets more sickening, Biti even gets petty.
Recently, Biti was quoted by the media laying onto Tsvangirai and telling us that President Mugabe was better than Tsvangirai (which is a fact, though).
He said: "We cannot run away from (President) Mugabe and go to Gumbura (convicted rapist pastor) who chases every woman he sees. We cannot have a Gumbura to lead the party and we cannot put faith in individuals."
He added: "We hear him on a daily basis that he has failed to settle bills and the next day we hear he is chasing after women.
"We are now hearing that he has lost his mind. I feel pity for people who continue following the MDC-T leader because they are following a spent force who has outlived his usefulness."
The Renewal camp has nicknamed Tsvangirai as Gumbura, a disgraced churchman who is serving time for rape and is reported to have had a particular weakness in keeping his zip shut.
While such analogies and name-calling are acceptable for use in bars and kombis, they are hardly salutary to a serious national leader, aspiring or perspiring.
This latest report also serves to highlight Biti's hypocrisy in apparently projecting President Mugabe as a better leader when in January he decried the latter's leadership on the score of his age.
Quite distastefully for Biti, as he now seems to enjoy the affliction of Tsvangirai, he said at that point that the President's 90 years "is illness on its own".
Of course, the un-African, intemperate and regrettable remark invited necessary retorts, advising those with logs in their eyes to attend to the same before seeing specks in other people's eyes.
Interestingly, since the fallout in the MDC, rumours about Biti's own health have been told in hushed tones and in other circles it has been observed that some young people who have a pathological interest in President Mugabe's health may actually have more pressing health concerns themselves.
Source - The Herald
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