Friday, December 10, 2010

Inclusive Government: the marriage we could do without

For the mere reason that the MDC is incorrigible in Sadc’s sense of expecting African babies, the inclusive Government justifiably passes for a sick and disgusting arrangement.
The Herald

Reflections with Tichaona Zindoga

Yesterday, we woke up to a screaming announcement that the inclusive Government’s life would be extended by six months.

The reason was to give the administration more time to stick around.

Zanu-PF, we were told, was hoping "to influence the passage of cosmetic electoral reforms during the six months" to win over the regional bloc, Sadc.

MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, at his other home in Brussels, is reported to have hinted on the extension of the life of the GPA on the same grounds, although, in the paper’s view Tsvangirai’s call was more magnanimous (after all he is by and large a democrat, is he not?).

And has Arthur Mutambara not been derided before for saying that the inclusive Government’s life should be extended, for five years even?

The GPA, after all, did not cast in stone the life of the inclusive Government except for some timelines, which in all pragmatism can or cannot be met.

But then the GPA is paradox itself.

For all the modest good it has achieved so far, it is one that has been derided for the whole of its obviously-short lifetime.

And when it should be given a coup de grace, it would seem it gets some cruel sympathy for longevity, one way or the other.

The question of elections in 2011 has aptly demonstrated this.

We then see extraordinary common resolve among our politicians to halt any mercy-blow to the wobbly "inclusive" Government.

Just recently, there was unison that it was either hefty payouts or no election term-enders for parliamentarians.

This institution since its formation via the agreement among Zimbabwe’s top political parties — Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations — in September 2008, has earned — or suffered — a lot of descriptions.

Call it the creativity of Zimbabwean people, for which we are famed, but many people have come up with adjectives and names relating to this institution that one can never be sure of what kind of a grotesque creature it is.

Suffice to say we do not much recall the previous Zanu-PF administrations being as labelled or qualified as the present one.

One can ask the question: does the fact that Zanu-PF came together with the other parties in Government make the administration any less — or more — a government warranting the prefix "inclusive" all the time?

Does leaving out the same prefix at some point have any bearing on the nature and operations of the unitary being of the Government, though made up of oft-contradictory forces it might be?

This brings the one important point that has been the "inclusive" Government’s idiosyncrasy.

The idiosyncrasy of being named, and derided; never of course, to name and shame in reply.

Just recently, the man from our very own area now in the lofty heights of the Prime Minister’s Office who, last time I checked this week was in Brussels and later updated us that he was in Dubai, and yet further in Jo’burg, personally confided to me just one more description.

"To tell you," he confided in me, "the inclusive Government is akin to a forced gay marriage of two heterosexual partners. Both partners are sleeping at the edges of the bed after being forced into this bedroom, but Sadc is patiently expecting a child."

(He later put that on his Facebook wall, which confirmed my very observation at the time that he was quite pleased with his new-found philosophy and loving the very sound of his voice, just like the other motor-mouth one.)

It will be interesting to visit the import of this new-found construct.

The first dimension will be that of a "forced gay marriage".

We thought all along that the GPA was not signed at gunpoint, as Chamisa would put it?

Was the GPA not some kind of sensible arrangement, which would bring goodwill for the parties after gruelling encounters that sometimes treaded on the poor grass in the ordinary man and woman?

The breather could even give the MDCs, in particular that one led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the chance to muscle out Zanu-PF and get power on behalf of the masters in the West.

Zanu-PF, in turn, could be trusted to use this arrangement to regain lost ground and eventually bury the quisling MDCs.

Given such strong undercurrents, and the high stakes, surely the parties entered into the "marriage" with some kind of bliss, if not of the evil, scheming kind.

And necessarily for some outcome or the other, uncharacteristic of gay consorting.

An important point though, for all that is known, the "heterosexual" MDC-T is married to America and its allies, while Zanu-PF is reposed on its people and on the continent.

(And thanks to WikiLeaks, we know just what a despicable and despised mistress the MDC is in the eyes of its "partners").

That is strictly the reason why the partners could sleep on the edges of the Sadc-brokered GPA bed.

Remember Thabo Mbeki having to remind Tsvangirai and co. in a strong-worded letter that their fate lay in the African neighbourhood rather than far away in America or Europe?

In that context Sadc always thought and hoped that the MDC would reform and bring forth African babies.

For the mere reason that the MDC is incorrigible in Sadc’s sense of expecting African babies, the inclusive Government justifiably passes for a sick and disgusting arrangement.

President Mugabe recently revealed that he felt "awkward" being in the coalition government.

The frustration is understandable.

He revealed to The Sunday Mail: "I told President Zuma I am a lawyer and I am unhappy to be in a thing which is semi-legal. We have to be in a thing which is proper; which is constitutional. I feel awkward in a thing like that (the GPA), absolutely awkward.

"Our authority as a Government does not derive from a properly constituted constitutional position but from a makeshift arrangement and Zimbabwe should never be governed on such a makeshift arrangement for too long."

He must also have added that it feels awkward to work with the mistresses of the West parading as political parties.

These are the very same forces that asked for hurtful sanctions to be imposed on the country by the West and when the treason faced up to them disowned them in public while urging the West to maintain the sanctions.

Even when the very West has clearly bared the soul that they are out to use, condom-like, the MDC for their selfish ends Tsvangirai, my village boy in tow, goes there and pretends he is a statesman.

That is disgusting stuff.

The makeshift MDC with a makeshift leadership in Tsvangirai in a makeshift "inclusive" Government are not made to inspire much confidence.

The better the revolutionary Zanu-PF comes to continue with its liberating mandate, which had suffered the Western-made setback the better.

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