Why the opposition is likely to lose the forthcoming elections

As this year's elections draw near, members of the opposition, especially the MDC-T and its Alliance partners are both excited and frustrated.

This is because, although the crowds that have been attending its campaign rallies are, obviously, cause for joy, its campaign message is standing on thin and shaky legs. Its message is a feel-good kind of communication, which is leaving youths excited but it is not laying down proper policies, programmes and projects to uplift the youth's lives beyond the few bottles of the illicit musombodhiya brew that are doled out at the rallies. Put differently, after sloganeering and singing themselves hoarse at the rallies, the youths return to mother earth of the reality of the challenges they face daily and Chamisa's message does not inspire confidence or hope for any better life.

Although the MDC-T leader and MDC Alliance presidential election candidate puts up an excited face during the rallies, delivering rib-cracking jokes in rich chiShona language, when he closes his bedroom door to retire to bed, he nurses hours of sleeplessness as the party and alliance, which he inherited from the late opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, are set for a sure defeat if the situation on the ground is anything to go by.

Chamisa's insomnia is born of the fact that, while President Emmerson Mnangagwa can point at ZANU PF's track record of empowerment, development and infrastructural development, the opposition has nothing to point to as its achievements. Where President Mnangagwa can point at the results of his re-engagement with the international community and infrastructural developments such as the recent completion of the Ngundu-Tanganda road and the US$533 million Kariba South Hydropower Station, Chamisa has nothing except to hang his head in shame over the embarrassing state of disrepair of his party's Harvest House national headquarters. Many people have been wondering if it would be prudent to entrust Chamisa with the stewardship of the country's economy if he is failing to repair the broken window panes on his office building. An analysis of Chamisa's message also indicates that he has only been good at criticising ZANU PF, Government and President Mnangagwa without offering any practical solutions to the country's challenges except hare-brained and glorious promises such as homestead by homestead airports for the Murewa rural folk. Chamisa and the alliance are all about criticism and no policies of their own.

Chamisa and the alliance, even before Tsvangirai's death, demonstrated that they did not have Zimbabweans at heart when they travelled to America to plead for the extension of the suffering of the ordinary man on the street through sanctions. These are the same people that they claim to be striving to provide the bullet train kind of life for Zimbabweans when they do not even have jobs to fend for their families. The few rallies that Chamisa has held so far have exposed his lack of a credible electoral game plan besides mocking and insulting President Mnangagwa. The electorate is not swayed by insults but by game changing programmes. It does not vote for empty and impractical promises wrapped in sweet chiShona language but for ideas that improve their livelihoods from one level to another.

The alliance's electoral tactlessness was further exposed when it held rallies on 24 and 25 March 2018 in Murewa and Chiweshe respectively. The political grouping bussed supporters from as far afield as Chitungwiza to create an impression of popularity. Even a toddler, pardon the pun, would know that bussed supporters will not vote for the party in the two areas. This was an exercise in self-deception. If the former United African National Council (UANC) leader, the late Bishop Abel Muzorewa was still around, he could advise the alliance that rented crowds do not necessarily translate into votes. He discovered this the hard way during the 1980 polls. In any case, supporters cannot be relied on to vote a political party as would its supporters.

The MDC-T and the alliance are likely to learn that merely sitting in plush city offices and hobnobbing with foreign diplomats instead of coming up with policies and projects to endear themselves with the electorate are a sure recipe for electoral failure. After the elections, they are set to learn the lesson that trying to run the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) by attempting to meddle in its daily businessthrough trying to establish where the Commission keeps its servers does not win one an election. They are likely to come to the realisation that being overly obsessed with fears of non-existent election rigging to the extent of abandoning the electorate is very costly.

If the truth be told, the opposition is ill-prepared for the coming elections and defeat is inevitable. This has been worsened by the entry of a Chamisa who has neither the experience nor the political gravitas to drive a credible and effective election campaign. He is all excitement at landing the MDC-T top post and a well thought campaign strategy is the least priority on his mind.

One cannot even begin to dream of the other alliances such as Dr JoiceMujuru's People's Rainbow Coalition (PRC) and Elton Mangoma's Coalition of Democrats (CODE) winning so much as a rural local authority seat given that they have no meaningful support bases on the ground. This is further compounded by their virtual inactivity on the political arena at such a crucial time as this.

Given the foregoing, the opposition is likely to suffer another heavy and dizzying defeat during the forthcoming elections as its poor preparations, lack political experience and general odds are staked against it. In street lingo, they would describe the opposition's definite electoral fate as kurohwakuserinekuserisengomayeZion (thorough defeat).