MDC Squabbles – History versus the End of History

BY way of introduction I should say I have always procrastinated in creating a blog and contributing to the national discourse. It is something several colleagues have requested me to do without much success.

After five years of occasional writing of newspaper columns and opinions, in August 2013, I took a stand to hang the boots on column and opinion writing and started pursuing other publishing avenues – writing journal papers, text books, book chapters and modules. An exciting venture, given the wider audience and to some of us living on writing, more lucrative indeed.

Being addicted you of course here and there come from the cocoon and throw a reminder that you still exist by making contributions in the body politic through churning ideas that are constructive.

I must therefore give credit to Takura Zhangazha – a long time brother, friend and mentor who in an irritating way told me at some time that for as long as all presentations I made where not captured for memorification and memorialisation purposes, they would come to naught.

In June 2015, I gave a presentation at Ambassador Hotel’s Quill Club – the famous place where journalists in Harare convene. The Voluntary Media of Council (VMCZ) had organised a discussion to deliberate on the ethical compliance and consequences of door-stepping in journalism. The late former President, Robert Mugabe had been door-stepped in seemingly more uncomfortable and ‘unethical’ ways by the much famed Sahara Reporters’ Adeola Fayehun.

After the deliberation which was received by a thunderous applause that brought the whole of Ambassador Hotel down, Takura came to me and as usual said “Cde, imagine this presentation being captured in a blog?” As usual, I promised him I would make time for that. So here it goes – I have finally made time.

In those circumstances, I find it only appropriate to enter straight in the topical issue of the day – the current squabbles within the MDC Alliance.

A day is surely long in politics, only recently MDC Alliance Secretary General Charlton Hwende, National Chairperson Tabitha Khumalo, Chief Whip Prosper Mutseyami and Senator Lilian Timveous were honourable Members of Parliament, this is no longer the case now.

The parliamentarian stripping has been necessitated by the recall instituted by MDC T acting president Thokozani Khupe following the April Supreme Court judgment which placed her as the bonafide leader of the MDC ahead of Advocate Nelson Chamisa.

Political temperatures have risen and partisan debates have manifested with the one that the tripartite combination of Khupe, Douglas Mwonzora and Morgan Komichi are a conspiracy project of ZANU PF aimed at neutralising and weakening the ‘real’ MDC led by Chamisa.

The debates have gone as far as labelling these political protagonists as the contemporary version of the ‘well accomplished sell-outs’, Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Chief Chirau who in defiance of the national collective went to bed with the racist colonial regime of Ian Smith and formed the short-lived Rhodesia-Zimbabwe. I personally disagree with such narrow parochial views polished with biases, self-hate and cheap propaganda which cloud genuine motives to go deeper to the core of the current troubles rocking the party.

The ongoing narrative has a tendency of over exaggerating ZANU PF capabilities to destabilise other political parties. If truth be told, ZANU PF has its own squabbles and deep-rooted divisions that may come with greater proportions typical of the unceremonial military ouster of Mugabe in 2017.

The manifestations of the current squabbles within the MDC can best be characterised as history versus the end of history. In the circumstances, the two camps have invoked history to their defense. In 2001, Oxford University Emeritus Professor and accomplished academic Terrence Ranger gave a farewell lecture at the University of Zimbabwe where he was visiting professor, entitled History Matters. Surely events that have been unfolding in the MDC formations show and validate Ranger’s claims on the centrality of history. As has become the case in the MDC formations, history has fast become the last resort and defense shield.

This approach by the MDC is rather strange because ZANU PF is known for its notoriety to propagate a historical monologue of Chimurenga at which it is the sole party claiming historical proprietorship of the country. It is through this approach that has manifested in the compulsory teaching of National Strategic Studies, rebranded National Studies in polytechnics and teachers’ colleges.

It is through the same logic that the moribund 1978 National Youth Service Programme was reactivated with much vigor with the coming of the new millennium. All these were a deliberate ploy towards the Zanufication of history – a cynical endeavor to edit the nation’s collective memory in order to rewrite the history of the struggle for independence and the role of ZANU PF onwards.

For the MDC Alliance, the competing historical narrative being pushed is that much of the membership in its rank and file are founding leaders of the MDC of 1999 which the late firebrand trade unionist Morgan Tsvangirai tirelessly led up to the point of nearly wrestling power from Mugabe and ZANU PF in 2008, triggering a SADC-brokered power sharing arrangement for the next five years.

As such, this historical reference is reflective of party members on the correct side of history. This a mischievous claim as I shall briefly ponder. Similarly, the other group that has fallen out favour with the MDC Alliance and now armed with a Supreme Court judgement as the authentic party leadership with representation in Parliament also invokes MDC’ sheer endurance and journey in the fight for constitutionalism in Zimbabwe.

We are daily reminded of the critical roles Mwonzora and Morgan Komichi played during the Constitution Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) which authored the much-hailed new constitution of Zimbabwe. Again this is a mischievous invocation of history to buttress cheap propaganda.

Invocation of history by MDC Alliance protagonists that they were there in the beginning and thus remain on the correct side of history blindly and dangerously attempt to bury certain ‘accidents of history’ in which some were also chief culprits prior to the formation of the MDC Alliance.

On 12 October 2005 the MDC split after a faction led by Tsvangirai insisted the party should not take part in senatorial polls that year. Professor Welshman Ncube, then secretary general of the party, together with his backers insisted participation.

The development which both Tsvangirai and Ncube later regretted reversed Zimbabwe’s democratic gains consolidated in 1999 such that in 2008 Mugabe could have been defeated in the elections outright in typical fashion that the party lost majority in parliament in the same election.

For Ncube to invoke historical correctness and alleging a ZANU PF hand in what is happening in the MDC now will be sheer historic mischief if he remains silent on the same on what transpired in 2005, whether he also went to bed with ZANU PF. Paradoxically, Ncube acquired a 99-year farm lease from ZANU PF in December 2006 – a feat his adversaries for long continued to use as ‘evidence’ that he was a Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) operative as if unlike any Zimbabwean he did not deserve such.

Senator David Coltart and the late Trudy Stevenson parted ways with Tsvangirai and went with Ncube. Stevenson was barbarically assaulted by youths affiliated to the Tsvangirai formation and left for the dead. It is on record that she dismissed the feasibility of a ZANU PF conspiracy in the whole saga. Good thing is the two leaders, Tsvangirai and Ncube closed ranks and reunited in 2017 – a progressive democratic development, but sad episodes of history cannot be wished away and only cherry-pick favorable historical unfolds – that will be absurd amnesia!

In April 2014, then secretary general of MDC T Tendi Biti and his group convened their own National Council at Mandel Training Centre in Harare and resolved to suspend Tsvangirai and the top leadership of the party backing him.

The Biti group at that time calling themselves the Renewal resolved to suspend Tsvangirai, deputy party president Thokozani Khupe, national chairman Lovemore Moyo and his deputy Morgen Komichi, organising secretary Nelson Chamisa and his deputy Abednico Bhebhe, and party spokesman Douglas Mwonzora. Unlike the Ncube-led camp, the Renewal went berserk in calling Tsvangirai all sorts of names issuing a statement that in the Tsvangirai-led MDC “There is a culture of malice, rumours and gossip, the abuse and disrespect of the constitution, the personalisation and privatisation of the party, the suppression of free speech and internal democracy in the party and the tyranny of impunity in the party and the selective application of rules.” Tsvangirai’s MDC was characterised as a fascist organisation far worse than ZANU PF, with Tsvangirai himself labelled an ‘Idi Amin’ or a ‘Mobuto Seseseko’.

Likewise, Biti and many in the MDC cannot invoke history when apportioning blame on Mwonzora, Komichi and the rest without reminiscing on this sad episode of history – that will be duplicity and double standards on the part of the ever-meticulous honourable. Does it come as a surprise that the current setbacks have claimed the scalp of Hwende first? In August 2017, Hwende was suspended by Tsvangirai over allegations of attacking Tsvangirai’s Khupe, Moyo and Bhebhe by party youths in Bulawayo.

The tiff was on allegations of sabotaging Tsvangirai’s bid to form an opposition alliance to fight Mugabe in the historic 2018 elections.

All these sad episodes rocking the MDC point to some constitutional flaws that have always been dodging the party for the umpteenth time. Blame cannot solely be levelled on MDC functionaries who choose to be indifferent without necessarily pointing the same to the founding constituting document of the party – its own constitution.

In a similar fashion, the paragons of constitutional virtue – the likes of Mwonzora and Komichi cannot convince us on the need to adhere to the same constitution now. When all the sad episodes of constitutional violations occurred back then, it was under their watch; the entire legal meritocracy Mwonzora is exhibiting now of constitutionalism could have been more useful at that critical hour of need when the constitution of the party was brazenly being violated.

For them to invoke history of constitutional compliance and being silent on the salience of constitutionalism when violations were occurring under their watch is hypocritical, crookedness and sheer dishonest.

What we are painfully witnessing within the MDC is no longer just a matter of history but could spell ‘the end of history’ itself. The setbacks will not necessarily spell the end of MDC per se, far from it; but it could the nadir of an end of the MDC as a formidable movement with prospects of tackling ZANU PF from power anytime soon.

Democratic dividends have been slow to realise ever since the party started with these splits. It has become apparently fashionable for the party to splinter each time they vehemently disagree. Levelling blame without self-introspection is not only misleading but hypocritical on protagonists genuine in acquiring power. ZANU PF is not a political saint in all this – it has traceable foot prints of causing destabilisation in the opposition.

However, on its part, the MDC is not a pietistic movement. It is a grouping full of power hungry political mongers with absolutely little sense of political virtue other than their self-importance.

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