Tsvangirai: To think or not think before speaking

ONE telling public stance which has characteristically come to define Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's totally unsatisfactory and in fact deplorable attitude to important national issues is that, when he is given a microphone or when he sees a captive crowd before him, he loses his marbles and invariably approaches critical issues with a wide open mouth and an utterly shut mind.

The latest example of this unacceptable conduct which has consolidated the view that the MDC-T leader is not a fit and proper person to be Head of State and Government and Commander- in-chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces was on full display over the past weekend in Masvingo where Tsvangirai made typically uninformed outbursts which once again left him exposed.

While his latest outbursts were more than a mouthful and therefore too many, three of them stand out to deserve scrutiny because they demonstrate either Tsvangirai's shocking ignorance of the law and the conduct of Government business even after serving as Prime Minister for more than two years with an unfulfilled responsibility to oversee policy implementation through the moribund Council of Ministers which he chairs or his political recklessness as a directionless mouthpiece and instrument of hostile foreign interests that are a threat to Zimbabwe's national security or both. These outbursts include the following:

An unprovoked, indefensible and illegal threat to unleash political violence through his ideologically bankrupt and programmeless party reminiscent of his 2000 challenge to President Mugabe to leave office outside an election or risk being removed violently by the MDC;

An astonishing claim that the Attorney General, Johannes Tomana, should protect and not prosecute Cabinet Ministers; and

A personalised attack on the police and the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

A cursory examination of each of these outbursts made by Tsvangirai at a rally of his MDC faction at Mucheke Stadium should make any fair-minded or rational person understand that there's something irredeemably wrong about the way in which the MDC-T leader always approaches important national issues with an open mouth and a shut mind.

Take his personalised attack on the police. Sections of the media quoted Tsvangirai as having said that he does not "hate police but their deeds" yet he did not disclose what deeds he was talking about besides going personally mad against the Commissioner General of Police by reportedly saying that "if you see an institution with one person who is always at the helm like a headman forever and ever, there's a problem".

Surely, this cannot be about the deeds of police but self-evidently only about Tsvangirai's personal hatred of the Commissioner General of Police who, as the record shows, has not been always at the helm of the police and is serving his position on professional and not political grounds after having been lawfully appointed.

The same goes for Tsvangirai's inciting outburst against the Zimbabwe Defence Forces about which he was quoted as telling his political rally that, "The army needs institutional renewal. Some of the generals have stayed too long in the office and they need to move out and they need to move out and give a chance to the young ones.

"The sergeants and the lieutenants need to be promoted and become generals but how can they become generals when the generals are still in office?"

Does Tsvangirai really know how many generals are in the army and does he know how they and other ranks in the army are in fact appointed? If Tsvangirai and his racist masters who hold his hand in the UK, US and EU to effect illegal regime change in Zimbabwe, and who are known to write his script for such charged political occasions, imagine that the national security implications of this outburst are lost to Zimbabweans then they must think again.

It is obvious from his outburst that Tsvangirai was abusing his political rally to incite lower ranks of the army against their superiors in order to destabilise the Zimbabwe Defence Forces. That is a clear example of how Tsvangirai, whose alleged commitment to Zimbabwe has no evidence to match his well-documented treachery that now stretches over a decade, has become a clear and present threat to our national security.

The fact that Tsvangirai abuses political rallies and related public fora to launch personalised and inciting attacks on the police and to try and destabilise national security institutions as part of his pursuit of the UK, US and EU illegal regime change agenda proves that he cannot be a responsible Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

More specifically, it is totally unacceptable for a Prime Minister who is the chairman of a Council of Ministers that oversees the implementation of Government policies, and who is a member of the National Security Council, to use political rallies to recklessly address very serious and sensitive issues such as the staffing of self-regulating backbone national institutions such as the police and army ranks.

Opposition politicians and their political parties use political rallies irresponsibly almost by definition while ruling parties use the same in a responsible manner that inspires national confidence by, among other things, showing respect for national institutions.

Tsvangirai and his MDC faction cannot be an opposition and a ruling party at the same time. The fact that the MDC-T and its leader continue to use opposition tactics while they are in Government clearly shows that they are inherently subversive and should be treated as such.

A second and quite telling outburst made by Tsvangirai at his Masvingo rally was his astonishing claim that the Attorney General, Johannes Tomana, should protect cabinet ministers and not prosecute them. Tsvangirai is quoted as having ignorantly said " . . . there is this Tomana. He must protect ministers, but he is at the forefront of prosecuting the ministers." This is astonishing because it is ridiculous for Tsvangirai to claim that the Attorney General should protect cabinet ministers when he is clearly a prosecuting authority by dint of his constitutional mandate. The Attorney General is a public prosecutor and not a public protector.

Like everyone else, cabinet ministers are protected by the law in terms of the Constitution and not by the Attorney General who is an independent constitutional authority who must not be directed or influenced by any other authority in the discharge of his responsibility to prosecute and not to protect. If cabinet ministers break the law, as some of them have been won't to do, they must be investigated and arrested by the police and prosecuted by the Attorney General without any protection whatsoever.

The law must not only be done but it must also be seen to be done by ensuring that even cabinet ministers are put to their defence, especially where there are glaring gaps in their cases based on the public record that needs to be explained as demonstrated by some recent high profile ministerial cases whose controversial conclusion have left a lot to be desired.

But perhaps the one outburst made by Tsvangirai which left peace loving and law abiding Zimbabweans dumbfounded on Sunday was his gratuitous threat to unleash political violence. It is now a matter of the public record that Tsvangirai uses the threat of violence as the pillar of his party's manifesto. It is also a matter of the public record that political violence has indeed occurred in our country committed by all parties in ways that are totally unacceptable even though our experiences pale into insignificance when compared to the everyday violence we see in neighbouring countries some of which have institutionalised the gun, knife and xenophobic fire into deadly cultural forms.

The challenge and indeed threat posed by Tsvangirai and his MDC is that they see huge political profits in making threats of violence in the hope of instigating it under their presumption that any talk of political violence corners Zanu-PF. Evidence is now coming out showing how the MDC-T has used this presumption to frame Zanu-PF through pseudo-violence perpetrated by MDC-T hooligans disguised as Zanu-PF members. It is not only a matter of time before all this is exposed beyond rebuttal.

In the meantime, time is running out for Tsvangirai to convince Zimbabweans that he is a fit and proper person to be Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces.

He had an opportunity at Mucheke Stadium in Masvingo last Sunday but he squandered it by approaching important national issues with an open mouth and a shut mind in a way that has now become his political trademark.

The writer is MP for Tsholotsho North constituency, Zanu-PF Politburo member and former Minister of Media, Information and Publicity.