Opinion / Columnist
Tsvangirai must only call for sanctions-removal conference
12 Jan 2015 at 10:47hrs | Views
For some reasons, I found it quite unsettling for the MDC-T to announce that it is planning to convene a 'National Convergence Conference' that will supposedly deal with the alleged "leadership failure" in the country.
The party's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced at a Press conference on Thursday, January 8, 2015, that his party will organise the conference in two to three months' time.
Part of his statement read: "This is not an MDC-T platform; everyone is invited including ZANU-PF. This is a very serious challenge as the country is in a very serious crisis written and authored by ZANU-PF. The signs of national leadership failure are now even more glaring for everyone to see, with Government now literally lurching from one crisis to the other."
By all indications, it appears the MDC-T is once again putting in motion plans to dethrone Government through unconstitutional interventions such as the so-called National Convergence Conference.
This is not the first time the opposition political outfit has come up with extra-judicial measures to try and sneak into Government.
From its inception, the party has vainly tried to railroad its way into Government through stayaways, boycotts, creation of Democratic Resistance Committees (DRCs) and the ignominious Final Push.
Tsvangirai is also on record calling on Zimbabweans to emulate Syrians and North Africans who toppled their Governments through the subversive and destabilising wave of the so-called Arab Springs.
Only once did Tsvangirai's extra-judicial methods paid dividends, when he, together with his acolytes, managed to stole their way into Government through a SADC-brokered settlement in 2009.
With a sordid background of perennially losing elections and rabidly disparaging the electoral process, it is not surprising that Tsvangirai and his partners are opposed to elections and are thus constantly engrossed in efforts to come up with non-constitutional measures to get into power.
MDC-T and its allies have realised that they patently have no chance of getting into power through elections hence their frenzied attempts to foist "national conferences or dialogues" and other non-constitutional measures into the national discourse.
It is even hilarious to read that Tsvangirai and his regime-change partners are now fighting over the patents of the so-called "National Convergence Conference".
Reports that the likes of Bishop Sebastian Bakare, Ibbo Mandaza and other anti-elections lackeys are lividly blaming Tsvangirai for stealing their "National Convergence Conference" idea are more enlightening.
What is so special about the conference that grown up men ranging from men of the cloth, partisan intellectuals and clueless political dwarfs, are publicly wrangling over it?
Surely, if the conference is of national importance, does it matter who pitches it, whether Tsvangirai or Bakare?
If it is really the panacea to our supposed challenges, it must not matter whether the conference idea was stolen and presented by the intellectually-despised Tsvangirai.
I guess there is more to it than meets the eye.
Perhaps, the battle is hinged more on the money-spinning potential of the conference than on promoting national interests. It has more to do with the donor-money.
That aside, I understand it would be devoid of any constitutional sense, and a recipe for instability, to give any section of society the right to arrange kangaroo conferences designed to create a parallel Government or plot the removal of incumbent Government on whimsical claims of leadership failure.
If any Tom and Dick or Farai and Farisai, are allowed to call for conferences that usurp power from an elected Government, aren't we implying that it is permissible for the military to stage coups in case of supposed national crisis?
What will be the purpose of elections, as guaranteed by the Constitution, if anyone can wake up and call for the removal of the incumbent Government on grounds of some dubious claims?
Dear reader, there is a poignant reason why the constitution has a provision for the holding of regular elections in the country. It gives disgruntled people and political parties the opportunity to challenge the current Government for power.
It is an opportunity for them to present their alternative policies to the electorate for possible election into Government.
In this sense, it would be sheer mischief for the MDC-T and its disgruntled partners to call for a "National Convergence Conference", in a bid to push their own policies through unconstitutional means.
It will be akin to undermining the electoral choice of millions of Zimbabweans who voted ZANU-PF into power on the strength of its people-centred policies.
At this juncture, it is only ZANU-PF that has the uninterrupted constitutional leverage and electoral mandate to govern the country till such a time when the next elections are due.
On this basis, it is the only party that has the unassailable legitimacy to call and invite other stakeholders to a national conference to resolve any arising national challenges not vice-versa.
Allowing the MDC-T and other pretenders to call for such a gathering would not only be amiss but would leave the country easily sliding into a banana republic.
If the MDC-T can convene such a vital conference, then all burial societies and Whatsapp groups are also entitled to call for similar gatherings, as they all do not have the constitutional or political legitimacy to call for such strategic conferences.
Still, I wonder why the MDC-T would want to take Zimbabweans for fools. Surely, how does it expect Zimbabweans to believe the hogwash that it is capable of resolving our national challenges?
It ironic that the same MDC-T that is neck-deep into both leadership and administrative crises could claim it has solutions for the country.
The same MDC-T is also bankrupt, begging for support and ridden with divisions that have seen it splinter into irredeemable and politically irrelevant smithereens.
How such a porous and crisis-ridden political party could pretend to have answers to much-bigger national challenges is beyond comprehension.
Above all, why would the MDC-T try to create a decoy when the genesis of the country's economic morass is well-known to have originated from illegal sanctions it authored and lobbied for?
The solution to the country's challenges lies in the lifting of sanctions.
The MDC-T should simply call for the instantaneous removal of the sanctions since it is the only entity that has the uncontested mandate and diplomatic access to cajole the West into lifting the illegal embargoes imposed on Zimbabwe.
Instead of planning a "National Convergence Conference", the party should only call for sanctions-removal conference, where invitation would strictly be for the likes of the United States, other western nations and some civil society organisations.
This is the cartel that is fomenting the social and economic upheavals gripping the country and therein lies the solution to our challenges.
The party's leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, announced at a Press conference on Thursday, January 8, 2015, that his party will organise the conference in two to three months' time.
Part of his statement read: "This is not an MDC-T platform; everyone is invited including ZANU-PF. This is a very serious challenge as the country is in a very serious crisis written and authored by ZANU-PF. The signs of national leadership failure are now even more glaring for everyone to see, with Government now literally lurching from one crisis to the other."
By all indications, it appears the MDC-T is once again putting in motion plans to dethrone Government through unconstitutional interventions such as the so-called National Convergence Conference.
This is not the first time the opposition political outfit has come up with extra-judicial measures to try and sneak into Government.
From its inception, the party has vainly tried to railroad its way into Government through stayaways, boycotts, creation of Democratic Resistance Committees (DRCs) and the ignominious Final Push.
Tsvangirai is also on record calling on Zimbabweans to emulate Syrians and North Africans who toppled their Governments through the subversive and destabilising wave of the so-called Arab Springs.
Only once did Tsvangirai's extra-judicial methods paid dividends, when he, together with his acolytes, managed to stole their way into Government through a SADC-brokered settlement in 2009.
With a sordid background of perennially losing elections and rabidly disparaging the electoral process, it is not surprising that Tsvangirai and his partners are opposed to elections and are thus constantly engrossed in efforts to come up with non-constitutional measures to get into power.
MDC-T and its allies have realised that they patently have no chance of getting into power through elections hence their frenzied attempts to foist "national conferences or dialogues" and other non-constitutional measures into the national discourse.
It is even hilarious to read that Tsvangirai and his regime-change partners are now fighting over the patents of the so-called "National Convergence Conference".
Reports that the likes of Bishop Sebastian Bakare, Ibbo Mandaza and other anti-elections lackeys are lividly blaming Tsvangirai for stealing their "National Convergence Conference" idea are more enlightening.
What is so special about the conference that grown up men ranging from men of the cloth, partisan intellectuals and clueless political dwarfs, are publicly wrangling over it?
Surely, if the conference is of national importance, does it matter who pitches it, whether Tsvangirai or Bakare?
If it is really the panacea to our supposed challenges, it must not matter whether the conference idea was stolen and presented by the intellectually-despised Tsvangirai.
I guess there is more to it than meets the eye.
Perhaps, the battle is hinged more on the money-spinning potential of the conference than on promoting national interests. It has more to do with the donor-money.
That aside, I understand it would be devoid of any constitutional sense, and a recipe for instability, to give any section of society the right to arrange kangaroo conferences designed to create a parallel Government or plot the removal of incumbent Government on whimsical claims of leadership failure.
What will be the purpose of elections, as guaranteed by the Constitution, if anyone can wake up and call for the removal of the incumbent Government on grounds of some dubious claims?
Dear reader, there is a poignant reason why the constitution has a provision for the holding of regular elections in the country. It gives disgruntled people and political parties the opportunity to challenge the current Government for power.
It is an opportunity for them to present their alternative policies to the electorate for possible election into Government.
In this sense, it would be sheer mischief for the MDC-T and its disgruntled partners to call for a "National Convergence Conference", in a bid to push their own policies through unconstitutional means.
It will be akin to undermining the electoral choice of millions of Zimbabweans who voted ZANU-PF into power on the strength of its people-centred policies.
At this juncture, it is only ZANU-PF that has the uninterrupted constitutional leverage and electoral mandate to govern the country till such a time when the next elections are due.
On this basis, it is the only party that has the unassailable legitimacy to call and invite other stakeholders to a national conference to resolve any arising national challenges not vice-versa.
Allowing the MDC-T and other pretenders to call for such a gathering would not only be amiss but would leave the country easily sliding into a banana republic.
If the MDC-T can convene such a vital conference, then all burial societies and Whatsapp groups are also entitled to call for similar gatherings, as they all do not have the constitutional or political legitimacy to call for such strategic conferences.
Still, I wonder why the MDC-T would want to take Zimbabweans for fools. Surely, how does it expect Zimbabweans to believe the hogwash that it is capable of resolving our national challenges?
It ironic that the same MDC-T that is neck-deep into both leadership and administrative crises could claim it has solutions for the country.
The same MDC-T is also bankrupt, begging for support and ridden with divisions that have seen it splinter into irredeemable and politically irrelevant smithereens.
How such a porous and crisis-ridden political party could pretend to have answers to much-bigger national challenges is beyond comprehension.
Above all, why would the MDC-T try to create a decoy when the genesis of the country's economic morass is well-known to have originated from illegal sanctions it authored and lobbied for?
The solution to the country's challenges lies in the lifting of sanctions.
The MDC-T should simply call for the instantaneous removal of the sanctions since it is the only entity that has the uncontested mandate and diplomatic access to cajole the West into lifting the illegal embargoes imposed on Zimbabwe.
Instead of planning a "National Convergence Conference", the party should only call for sanctions-removal conference, where invitation would strictly be for the likes of the United States, other western nations and some civil society organisations.
This is the cartel that is fomenting the social and economic upheavals gripping the country and therein lies the solution to our challenges.
Source - the herald
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