Opinion / Columnist
Masses at Tsvangirai's rally proves it is not out of ignorance
10 Mar 2015 at 07:15hrs | Views
.... they learnt naught from past mistakes!
Someone once said a fool is the person who will try the same thing expecting a different result again and again but instead getting the same result again and again.
People of Zimbabwe have given Morgan Tsvangira and his MDC party their political support risking life and limb from the tyrannical Zanu-PF dictatorship to elect them into power because they hungry for change. MDC promised them democratic change and an end to the Zanu-PF tyranny.
MDC has had many chances to end the Zanu-PF dictatorship ever since the party's formation in 1999, the best chance by a long mile was during the GNU when MDC was in cabinet, had the majority in parliament and had SADC encouraging and supporting them to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu-PF dictatorship brick by brick. Sadly MDC failed to implement not even one reform and the chance was wasted.
The country's economic situation is a lot worse now than it was back in 1999 when the nation first turned to MDC for deliverance, as MDC founding member, Job Sikhala rightly pointed out at an MDC rally.
"People came here because they are hungry and suffering and that is why they are here. Most families cannot even budget for a month because the money is not there. They only budget $2 for two weeks and that's how bad the situation is.
"So they came here to see you (MDC-T) president and hear what the way forward is because people cannot continue wallowing in poverty. We are ready to go on the streets and demonstrate peacefully, just like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi did," Sikhala said.
The people are so desperate for change it is only a matter of time before they are forced to take some action, peaceful or otherwise, to show their frustration at the system that has mercilessly crashed their human dignity and souls into the dust. MDC are just opportunistic politician who are taking advantage of so they can claim the people are responding to MDC's call to demand change.
Anyone who genuinely joins the street protest because there are heeding to MDC's call would be doing so out of the same hopelessness trying the same thing again and hoping to get a different result. I can say with certainly that the result will be exactly the same as before – no meaningful change.
Whilst the people will be hoping the street protest will bring the democratic changes the nation has been dying for, literally, for decades now. MDC know they will have no chance of delivering that but will of course promise the people that they will deliver the changes.
MDC is not going to end the Zanu-PF dictatorship now when they failed to do so when they held all the trump cards during the GNU. This time Zanu-PF has the majority in parliament and can used the weak and feeble Copac constitution, which the nation encouraged to approve by MDC in the March 2013 referendum, to resist all meaningful democratic reforms.
MDC's agenda in calling for street protest is to pressure Zanu-PF into going into another form of GNU in which a number of MDC leaders will hold ministerial positions again and thus entitled to all the gravy train spoils of power as before. Since no meaningful democratic reforms would have been implemented during this second GNU Zanu-PF will once again remain the dominant political player with all the baggage of corruption mismanagement and political repression the dictatorship is associated with.
"The surprising massive turnout in Highfield high density suburb put paid to suggestions from the former prime minister's detractors that Tsvangirai was fast fading into political oblivion," commented Lloyd Mbiba in his article "Tsvangirai stages political comeback rally" in The Telescope News.
By right Tsvangirai should have walked into political oblivion just as much as Mugabe before him should have done a lot time ago. The two have out lived their political usefulness because the electorate have never understood what was doing on to see them for the corrupt, incompetent and tyrant or the corrupt and incompetent idiot they are respectively.
As long as the people did not understand they have an incompetent leader they could not blame him for the failed economic policies, for example. So they would vote the same corrupt and incompetent leader back into office time after time expecting economic recovery and prosperity only for the economy to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss.
It took the nation at least 20 years, 1980 to 1999, before the penny finally dropped and a significant number of Zimbabweans accepted that Mugabe was indeed corrupt and incompetent. Even then there are still some people out there gullible enough to believe Zanu-PF propaganda that it is the "illegal sanctions imposed by evil British and their allies" that is to blame for all the country's economic problems.
Whilst most Zimbabweans would agree that Tsvangirai and MDC were elected on the ticket of bringing democratic change, the overwhelming majority of the hordes of voters who voted for him did not have a clue what these changes were they wanted back then in 1999 when the joined MDC. Many of them still do not have a clue to this day.
If the truth be told, and it must, Tsvangirai and many of his fellow MDC leaders themselves do not have a clue that these democratic changes are they are supposed to deliver to the people let alone how they are to be achieved. The way they have blundered from pillar to post when it comes to democratic change shows that they really do not have a clue what the changes are.
Whilst it was easier to judge Mugabe's economic performance on the basis of do we have enough to eat now compared to 1980, even then it too the soaring unemployment and cost of living at the tail end of the failed Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes of the late 1990s to drive the message home.
This time the people are judging Tsvangirai's competence on his ability to deliver democratic changes which they do not understand and which will have an indirect economic impact if delivered. So far Tsvangirai has never had any pressure to explain why he has failed to deliver any democratic changes because the electorate have not even noticed that – who can they ask something they do not know about!
Until the Zimbabwe electorate have at least an idea what the democratic changes are about they will continue to vote for Tsvangirai hoping against hope that he will deliver these changes, whatever they are. They will never know that Tsvangirai does not have what the changes are and therefore will never deliver any. Since the Zimbabwe electorate has not made any tentative effort to learn for themselves what the democratic changes are it is clear that they will be voting for Tsvangirai or some such equally corrupt and incompetent leader hope they will deliver the democratic changes without ever getting any change delivered.
One would like to say that the Zimbabwe electorate are not doing the same thing again and again hoping for a different outcome but always getting the same result out foolishness but rather out of ignorance. The latter is curable by enlightenment and reason whereas the former is impermeable to reason and enlightenment. But after one and half years in which the people should have spent reflecting on why the GNU failed to delivery any changes and for reason on the need understand what the changes are and so vote for someone competent to deliver them. It is disappointing to note that most people have not taken time off to reflect.
Lloyd, the massive turnout at Tsvangirai's rally was not so much a surprise but more a great disappointment because it confirm that Zimbabweans are not supporting the same corrupt and incompetent leader who have already failed to delivery democratic change three times hoping against hope that he will do so next time out of ignorance but rather out of foolishness!
--------------
Wilbert Mukori can be contacted at zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com
Someone once said a fool is the person who will try the same thing expecting a different result again and again but instead getting the same result again and again.
People of Zimbabwe have given Morgan Tsvangira and his MDC party their political support risking life and limb from the tyrannical Zanu-PF dictatorship to elect them into power because they hungry for change. MDC promised them democratic change and an end to the Zanu-PF tyranny.
MDC has had many chances to end the Zanu-PF dictatorship ever since the party's formation in 1999, the best chance by a long mile was during the GNU when MDC was in cabinet, had the majority in parliament and had SADC encouraging and supporting them to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu-PF dictatorship brick by brick. Sadly MDC failed to implement not even one reform and the chance was wasted.
The country's economic situation is a lot worse now than it was back in 1999 when the nation first turned to MDC for deliverance, as MDC founding member, Job Sikhala rightly pointed out at an MDC rally.
"People came here because they are hungry and suffering and that is why they are here. Most families cannot even budget for a month because the money is not there. They only budget $2 for two weeks and that's how bad the situation is.
"So they came here to see you (MDC-T) president and hear what the way forward is because people cannot continue wallowing in poverty. We are ready to go on the streets and demonstrate peacefully, just like Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi did," Sikhala said.
The people are so desperate for change it is only a matter of time before they are forced to take some action, peaceful or otherwise, to show their frustration at the system that has mercilessly crashed their human dignity and souls into the dust. MDC are just opportunistic politician who are taking advantage of so they can claim the people are responding to MDC's call to demand change.
Anyone who genuinely joins the street protest because there are heeding to MDC's call would be doing so out of the same hopelessness trying the same thing again and hoping to get a different result. I can say with certainly that the result will be exactly the same as before – no meaningful change.
Whilst the people will be hoping the street protest will bring the democratic changes the nation has been dying for, literally, for decades now. MDC know they will have no chance of delivering that but will of course promise the people that they will deliver the changes.
MDC is not going to end the Zanu-PF dictatorship now when they failed to do so when they held all the trump cards during the GNU. This time Zanu-PF has the majority in parliament and can used the weak and feeble Copac constitution, which the nation encouraged to approve by MDC in the March 2013 referendum, to resist all meaningful democratic reforms.
"The surprising massive turnout in Highfield high density suburb put paid to suggestions from the former prime minister's detractors that Tsvangirai was fast fading into political oblivion," commented Lloyd Mbiba in his article "Tsvangirai stages political comeback rally" in The Telescope News.
By right Tsvangirai should have walked into political oblivion just as much as Mugabe before him should have done a lot time ago. The two have out lived their political usefulness because the electorate have never understood what was doing on to see them for the corrupt, incompetent and tyrant or the corrupt and incompetent idiot they are respectively.
As long as the people did not understand they have an incompetent leader they could not blame him for the failed economic policies, for example. So they would vote the same corrupt and incompetent leader back into office time after time expecting economic recovery and prosperity only for the economy to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss.
It took the nation at least 20 years, 1980 to 1999, before the penny finally dropped and a significant number of Zimbabweans accepted that Mugabe was indeed corrupt and incompetent. Even then there are still some people out there gullible enough to believe Zanu-PF propaganda that it is the "illegal sanctions imposed by evil British and their allies" that is to blame for all the country's economic problems.
Whilst most Zimbabweans would agree that Tsvangirai and MDC were elected on the ticket of bringing democratic change, the overwhelming majority of the hordes of voters who voted for him did not have a clue what these changes were they wanted back then in 1999 when the joined MDC. Many of them still do not have a clue to this day.
If the truth be told, and it must, Tsvangirai and many of his fellow MDC leaders themselves do not have a clue that these democratic changes are they are supposed to deliver to the people let alone how they are to be achieved. The way they have blundered from pillar to post when it comes to democratic change shows that they really do not have a clue what the changes are.
Whilst it was easier to judge Mugabe's economic performance on the basis of do we have enough to eat now compared to 1980, even then it too the soaring unemployment and cost of living at the tail end of the failed Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes of the late 1990s to drive the message home.
This time the people are judging Tsvangirai's competence on his ability to deliver democratic changes which they do not understand and which will have an indirect economic impact if delivered. So far Tsvangirai has never had any pressure to explain why he has failed to deliver any democratic changes because the electorate have not even noticed that – who can they ask something they do not know about!
Until the Zimbabwe electorate have at least an idea what the democratic changes are about they will continue to vote for Tsvangirai hoping against hope that he will deliver these changes, whatever they are. They will never know that Tsvangirai does not have what the changes are and therefore will never deliver any. Since the Zimbabwe electorate has not made any tentative effort to learn for themselves what the democratic changes are it is clear that they will be voting for Tsvangirai or some such equally corrupt and incompetent leader hope they will deliver the democratic changes without ever getting any change delivered.
One would like to say that the Zimbabwe electorate are not doing the same thing again and again hoping for a different outcome but always getting the same result out foolishness but rather out of ignorance. The latter is curable by enlightenment and reason whereas the former is impermeable to reason and enlightenment. But after one and half years in which the people should have spent reflecting on why the GNU failed to delivery any changes and for reason on the need understand what the changes are and so vote for someone competent to deliver them. It is disappointing to note that most people have not taken time off to reflect.
Lloyd, the massive turnout at Tsvangirai's rally was not so much a surprise but more a great disappointment because it confirm that Zimbabweans are not supporting the same corrupt and incompetent leader who have already failed to delivery democratic change three times hoping against hope that he will do so next time out of ignorance but rather out of foolishness!
--------------
Wilbert Mukori can be contacted at zimbabwesocialdemocrats@gmail.com
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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