The Congress that produced a despot

The MDC faction led by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai held its elective congress this weekend. Considering that, violence is in its DNA, the party should be highly praised for holding an incident free congress. Although there were incidents of electoral fraud, at least there was a stunning absence of physical electoral violence that has become synonymous with MDC-T gatherings of this magnitude and nature.

Hopefully other political parties which are to hold their congresses will do so peacefully and improve on their electoral processes. The essence of elections is to let citizens exercise their democratic rights to express their choice of candidates to take up a political office. Thus, this democratic right must not be undermined if any electoral process is to produce credible outcome.

The major highlights of the MDC-T congress include the abrogation of democratic tenets of the party's constitution and a myriad of electoral irregularities. The abrogation and the irregularities worked both to the benefit and to detriment of some candidates.

Morgan Tsvangirai-a despot in the making

The MDC-T 2014 4th Congress will be remembered in history for manufacturing a despotic ruler who will never have a match from both the past and future generations. After suffering two major crippling splits engineered by Secretary Generals, Mr Tsvangirai decided to centralise power around himself. He demanded the amendment of the party's constitution to allow him to be the custodian of the party name, finances, assets and even to fire anyone willy-nilly.

He is now the one with the sole responsibility to supervise all in party leadership. He literally stripped off the powers of the Secretary General. Tsvangirai will become a great emperor with unchecked powers. The development is a real travesty of democracy he purports to fight for.  It is at cross purpose with the democratic principles that dictate the separation of powers. With this arrangement, it becomes a misnomer to call his party a democratic movement.

Mr Tsvangirai has all along been trying to allocate himself these sweeping powers. The attempts have been blocked by the likes of Tendai Biti who held the then powerful portfolio for Secretary General. Readers may remember how he attempted to impose his face and name on every party symbol and logo. It took the bravery of Biti, Mangoma and the others who later broke ranks with Mr Tsvangirai, to stand against the personalisation of the party.

The man reduced himself to a village politician when he personally accredited delegates at provincial congresses. His demeaning involvement was not motivated by the need to see a transparent election but he rather wanted to secure strategic positions for his cronies.

Douglas Mwonzora-the Secretary General without portfolio

Congratulations to Mr Mwonzora on being the beneficiary of the sham election. It is an early Christmas present for him. Joining the MDC much later, though his claims are to the contrary, Mwonzora never dreamt of landing this second most powerful and converted position. Unfortunately, Mwonzora will be a Secretary General without portfolio. He is more of a ceremonial secretary general.

Ironically, it was Mwonzora himself who superintended over the stripping off of the Secretary General's powers. Little did he know that he would one day occupy the same office, powerless as it is now. Is Mr Mwonzora really happy with his new position that has been reduced to a mere clerk. He is tasting the sour medicine he concocted.

Mwonzora always see the shadow of Zanu-PF in every misfortune that befalls him and his party. When the nominations favoured Mr Nelson Chamisa, he alleged that Zanu-PF was working with his rival to stall his ascendancy. Now that he received a shock victory, only God knows what account he is going to give.

He tells us that he won because he had a very good message to the people. The new SG now knows that a good message can romp you to victory. This is exactly what his predecessor, Biti meant when he admitted that Zanu-PF resoundingly won the July 31 election because it had a message that appealed to the ordinary electorate in Chendambuya and Dotito. Probably Mr Mwonzora was not so loud with his message for everybody to hear it. Which good message helped you to win Mr Mwonzora?

Zimbabwe will never cease to have miracles. There was miracle baby, miracle money and now there is a miracle electoral victory in the household of Mr Mwonzora. Nobody can really explain how the man, who went into the race with only one nomination against 11 for his rival, ended up being the victor. It's a mystery!

Bill Sweeney, the president of International Foundation Electoral System (IFES) once remarked that, "one of the issues is that people went to bed the last time thinking one side had won and they woke up the next day and the other side had won."  He was referring to the bloody Kenyan election of 2007 where Mwai Kibaki was declared a winner ahead of his closest rival, Raila Odinga.

Mwonzora himself had withdrawn his candidature after it had become apparent that he was set for a hiding. All of a sudden, Mwonzora bounced back with a renewed confidence. It does not need a clever person to see that somebody whispered a victory assurance to him. He told us that he focused and knew what was important in the campaign when his rival thought nominations were sort of an end. If he knew that nominations were not an end, why then did he quit after he received one nomination against 11 that his rival got. Mr Mwonzora knows what transpired.

Nevertheless, we are looking forward to an MDC-Mwonzora party soonest.

Nelson Chamisa-the victim of a sham election

The youthful politician went into the race leading the pack with 11 nominations against one for his rival. It was a foregone conclusion that Chamisa would win. However, the young man was punished for his overweening ambitions. Tsvangirai does not need a powerful lieutenant close to him.

The young man is a promising leader with a rogue ideology though. Even President Mugabe described Chamisa as a supersonic minister during the inclusive government. The benefactors of the MDC-T pin their hopes on him and they are grooming him for future takeover of their regime change project.

There are great lessons to be learnt from what transpired in this election. Those who live by the sword will perish by the same. Chamisa used his influence as the party's organising secretary to place his cronies in provincial strategic positions. He connived with his allies to slate some of the provincial congresses during the time when his rival was attending a court case. He did that to his electoral advantage over his rival and also to secure the nominations that he eventually got.

The dirty tricks he used to get these nominations are the same tricks that were employed to reduce him into an ordinary card carrying member of the party. What goes around comes around. What happened between Mwonzora and Chamisa is a replica of what transpired between the later and Elias Mudzuri in 2011 congress. Chamisa defeated Mudzuri when he entered the race with a single endorsement from Masvingo province.

Nominations or endorsements by provincial executives do not always depict popular decision. Such nominations do not always translate into votes. The buck stops with the electorate.

The general MDC-T membership will never forgive Chamisa for his poor organisation during the 2013 elections.  The party received its worst thrashing when the organising department was under the stewardship of Chamisa. He elbowed out popular candidates and imposed his cronies including Charlton Hwende.

As he told Mudzuri then that ndizvo zvinoita democracy, he should know that as well. As Mwonzora advised, he must not be disheartened. That's what the MDC-T democracy entails.

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Tafara Shumba can be contacted at tafieshumbaz@gmail.com