The Herald
By Prof jonathan Moyo
IF there is one thing that is going to seal the fate of the MDC-T, it is its apparent fatal preoccupation with personalities and their positions.
This preoccupation has now taken the form of an incurable "pp syndrome" most recently dramatised by the embattled party's rather crazy reaction to the appointment of Justice George Chiweshe as Judge President of the High Court of Zimbabwe and its continuing subservience to Roy Bennett and his sickening antics.
Just think about it.
Ever since its formation in 1999, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai's party has never pushed for clear and implementable policy programmes to benefit ordinary people, the masses, based on a coherent and homegrown ideological framework.
Instead, and prior to joining the Government in February 2009, MDC-T's ideological and policy mantra was simply and only that "Mugabe must go".
MDC-T has now dropped that thoughtless mantra, which was all about President Mugabe as a person, following the discovery by its stalwarts in Cabinet that Mugabe, in Tsvangirai's words, "is not the problem but the solution" to Zimbabwe's challenges.
In fact, the majority of MDC-T cabinet ministers now openly admit that it is a privilege that history has been kind to give them the rare opportunity to work under an iconic African leader with a towering global stature such as Mugabe whom they used to routinely demonise at every turn.
After the formation of the coalition Government last year, MDC-T's negative politics of personalities and positions shifted away from President Mugabe and focussed on the positions of the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe and the Attorney-General respectively with cacophonic calls that "(Gideon0 Gono must go" which the party alternated with "(Johannes) Tomana must go".
These individualised calls targeting Gono and Tomana were occasionally interspersed with yet some more personalised demands to share the positions of provincial governors despite the fact that these positions are part of the President's office in terms of our Constitution, relevant laws and practice.
Against this backdrop, the whole saga of the so-called outstanding GPA issues, which in fact are half-baked MDC-T afterthoughts since September 15, 2008 when the GPA was signed, has essentially been a pathetic discourse about personalities and positions with nothing in it for the struggling masses elements of which now regret that they squandered their vote on Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his foreign founded and funded party on March 29, 2008.
Given that for the MDC-T, politics is not about ideologies and policies but only about personalities and their positions, it is no wonder that the party has reacted in a scandalous manner to President Mugabe's constitutional appointment of Justice Chiweshe to the position of Judge President of the High Court on the recommendation of the Judicial Services Commission which is required by law to discharge its functions without any influence from any authority.
What is revealing about MDC-T's appalling reaction to Justice Chiweshe's appointment is that, although he was appointed together with four other justices three of whom were elevated to the High Court and one to the Supreme Court, Tsvangirai and his cronies have been concerned only about Chiweshe and his office and not about any of the other justices, procedure, policy, process or principle.
It's just personal about Chiweshe in the typical fashion of MDC-T politics of personalities and positions.
The unacceptably ridiculous message from MDC-T is that Justice Chiweshe should not be Judge President because he is a former Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
In other words, the issue is not about Justice Chiweshe's qualification as a judge, which is all that should matter, but the mere fact that he is a former Chairperson of ZEC disliked by MDC-T's founders and funders.
It is common cause that before serving as Chairperson of ZEC, Justice Chiweshe was a judge of the High Court of Zimbabwe based in Bulawayo and that he served in that capacity with distinction. This means he is a qualified and experienced judge with no blemish on the bench. Full stop.
The record will also show that it is Justice Chiweshe who presided over the March 29, 2008 general election, which arguably stands as the freest and fairest election ever held in Zimbabwe.
There is no serious minded person who can challenge this fact in terms of what happened in the run up, the organisation and the conduct of that election and still hope to be taken seriously.
Yes, there were problems after the March 29, 2008 election but they had nothing to do with ZEC or Justice Chiweshe.
In the main, the post March 29, 2008 election problems emanated from the fact that the founders and funders of the MDC-T wanted ZEC under Justice Chiweshe to unlawfully declare Tsvangirai as the winner of the presidential election when everyone, including idiots, who observed knew only too well that there was no outright winner in terms of the law requiring the victor to have 50 percent plus one; meaning that a runoff election had to be held by law.
The idea that Tsvangirai should have won an election that he did not contest is so absurd that it is better left without any comment.
As such Justice Chiweshe is without doubt an eminently deserving appointment to head the High Court of Zimbabwe to manage its work. Only dunces think that a judge president of the High Court is there to order other judges to make particular judgements in particular cases.
So what then is the MDC-T's fuss over Justice Chiweshe's appointment all about?
Well, you do not have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.
As a foreign founded and funded political party, the MDC-T does not want an independent minded judge who is wholly grounded in the Zimbabwean national experience and who is above brown-envelope justice to administer the High Court.
The truth of the matter based on his professional experience is that Justice Chiweshe, whose qualification as a judge is beyond question, is incorruptible and the MDC-T does not like people like that because its British and American founders and funders foolishly believe that their dirty money can buy anything, everything and everyone in Zimbabwe, especially in the judiciary, the media and security organs of the state which have been targeted as brick walls against regime-change.
The fact that Tsvangirai took the advice of the founders and funders of his party to violate our electoral law by "boycotting" the June 27, 2008 presidential runoff election cannot rationally be blamed on Justice Chiweshe or ZEC. There comes a time when we must all carry our own crosses and that applies to Tsvangirai, his MDC-T and its founders and funders.
In the meantime life must go on.
The irreversible reality done without prejudice is that Justice Chiweshe is the Judge President of the High Court of Zimbabwe as an expression of a selection by the Judicial Service Commission, which President Mugabe has accepted and implemented. That is the end of that story, the rest is the future.
But there is another different but related story about Roy Bennett and his endless legal and political troubles.
Bennett's ongoing case has more than anything else demonstrated the MDC-T's policy paralysis and ideological bankruptcy on the altar of its negative politics of personalities and their positions.
Zimbabweans still remember that in October 2009, MDC-T disengaged from the coalition Government in a desperately illegal and unconstitutional move to pressure the AG not to indict Bennett and to force President Mugabe to swear him in as deputy minister of agriculture despite the very serious terrorism charges he faced.
That ploy remains the most blatant and most outrageous attack on the rule of law in general and the independence of the AG ever witnessed in this country since 1980.
Thank God the ploy failed and the MDC-T went back into the coalition government with its shameful tails in between its treacherous legs.
But all hell broke loose and the negative MDC-T politics of personalities and their positions were on full display yet again after Bennett's recent acquittal in the High Court.
Tsvangirai and his cronies abused the acquittal to demand that Bennett should be sworn-in as deputy minister of agriculture when they knew that he has never been appointed to that office and when they were aware of the State's appeal.
Nelson Chamisa, the MDC-T's weak link in information went further amok by interpreting Bennett's acquittal to mean that the well known Rhodie with Selous Scouts credentials was "an angel" as if he did not know that this would be the ultimate insult to the majority of Zimbabweans who know about Bennett's association with Rhodesian atrocities and his unrepentant disposition over the matter.
Encouraged by MDC-T's view of him as a satanic angel, Bennett and his apparently unthinking and arguably unZimbabwean lawyers now say they will sue everyone, including this writer, The Sunday Mail, The Herald and its news editor, who has reminded MDC-T, its founders and funders of Bennett's unacceptability because of his indubitable links with some murderous Rhodesian outfits.
Well, let Bennett and his lawyers go ahead and make our day in court.
That will be a moment to savour: appearing in an open court of law to face defamation charges from an unrepentant rogue Rhodie that has been masquerading as a champion of democracy and human rights asking the court to banish freedom of speech and fair comment about his dirty and brutal past!
Bennett represents everything that is wrong with the MDC-T. Nobody should be left with any doubt that many of us in Zanu-PF shall use every ounce of our energies and our total imagination to oppose Bennett everywhere and at every tic and toc until the end of time.
We cannot wait for Bennett to take us to court so we can use that opportunity not only to tell the world about his unacceptable Rhodesian past and his rogue and violent present but also to teach him and his MDC-T important lessons about fair comment in a constitutional democracy such as we have in Zimbabwe.
We are eager to show that apart from his unacceptable Rhodesian past about which he has remained unrepentant it is common cause that Roy Bennett is a crude and brutal Rhodie who has done jail time because of violent acts of common assault inside the chambers of the Parliament of Zimbabwe.
Just before his recent acquittal, which is now on appeal, he lambasted the judge in the case and called him all sorts of unprintable things. \
After his acquittal he boasted that his swearing in should be done so that he can take up office to cause confusion in the coalition government.
Now, anybody who thinks such a person deserves to be part of the Cabinet in any government in a free Zimbabwe is just mad and that madness will not be entertained by the majority of Zimbabweans who are all Zanu-PF at heart.
In the meantime Bennett's acquittal now stands suspended by the appeal lodged by the State whose representatives include the MDC-T which is part of the coalition government.
His legal case is so serious and so controversial that it should be settled by more than one judge in the national interest and that can only happen in the Supreme Court. As for his political case, Bennett should just forget it.
We don't want him in the people's government and we are not going to be forced by anyone to have him.
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