Once in a while you have a bunch of politicians who come out and comment that the inclusive Government is not functioning well, yet they have spent the last three years that government, meeting weekly in Cabinet and working together across the political divide, enjoying the niceties of incumbency.
The Zimbabwe Guardian
By Tendai Midzi
As 2012 creeped in, I could not help flash back to the past three years. The process of growth is an inevitable one and certain truths unfold as each day passes. For me it was sort of an epiphany.
I have had time to travel the length and breadth of Zimbabwe to see “the situation on the ground” as many would say.
There is a particular tragedy in our politics.
While the leadership has changed – an oft abused term – and started working together for better or worse in the inclusive Government, their followers have become more divided, the media outlets more unreasonable and the political commentators sound more ridiculous as they misfire on almost every issue.
The reason is that many of these outlets and commentators do not know what is taking place in the political offices. They do not know what I would call the “poisoned politics” of Zimbabwe.
Once in a while you have a bunch of politicians who come out and comment that the inclusive Government is not functioning well, yet they have spent the last three years that government, meeting weekly in Cabinet and working together across the political divide, enjoying the niceties of incumbency.
Anyone who endures something that is dysfunctional for three years, must be dysfunctional themselves.
They pay lip service and fool the people once in a while that “change is coming”, that elections will be held “next year”.
Change is inevitable. It happens daily. It cannot be a policy agenda. No one day is the same as the other, so this change mantra is outdated and outmoded.
This is a slow-burn process aimed at managing the chaos they (politicians) created in the first place.
They give people false hope that things will change “next year” and elections are coming. Its been “next year since 2008.
In the meantime, they get hefty perks and luxuries brought by their offices.
The ever-so-gullible public is told many never-ending stories, and they still believe them.
The Zanu-PF – MDC-T and MDC divide is now just an illusion. There’s one government led by President Mugabe with everyone else coming next in whatever power order.
There are politicians who make up that government and peddle many stories about divisions – divisions that exist only in the media and in commentators’ heads, not in the hotels, restaurants and beer-drinking places that politicians meet away from the glare of the public.
I refer to politicians from all political parties that make the inclusive Government.
One would ask what unelected Arthur Mutambara and his MDC-M are doing in office today. Nelson Chamisa frets about iPads and national security issues. The iPad is the most insecure gadget as it backs up on iTunes anyway and it is a tragedy that he does not know this – as minister of information technology.
The promised Zanu-PF indigenisation has become a mirage and a tool that is often dangled to either shut critics up about the direction the country is taking. It has become Zanu-PF’s major embarrassment now – not knowing whether to go forward with it, or abandon it.
I met one mining investor in Zimbabwe who told me that a “certain minister from Zanu-PF” had told him that “we have to proceed with indigenisation because we have legislated for it”. What a tragedy!
Meanwhile, prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai has been wielding his manhood at various young women in the country and not owning up, has become confused about which policies to support or not support within government and spends time managing personal problems.
No-one really understands what he does on a daily basis, or what the MDC-T stands for anymore, besides opposing government policies of which it is part of.
Finance Minister Biti pays legislators $2 million, but fails to bail out Air Zimbabwe. He now seems deflated and has lost his mojo and is not the fiery idealist we saw in 2000-8.
Unelected Welshman Ncube and his MDC-N no longer speak directly to the people, except for flash appearances by Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga once in a while, refuting media stories.
The elusive and illusive Job Sikhala of the so-called MDC99 is in the media for the wrong reasons accused of immigration-related money-making scams.
Various politicians in Zanu-PF who are on Western sanctions are worried about their future and would rather maintain the status quo than make major changes that would move the country forward.
In the meantime, media organisations and political commentators still think they have the clue.
How can you have an answer for such chaos? Commentators and media organisations can only have an answer if they are being paid to push a particular line of thinking, otherwise who would maintain sanity in this political chaos?
The only people who are making Zimbabwe function are those hard-working people who have created the informal economy that keeps that country afloat.
The government has failed to create an enabling environment for anything sensible to function.
The politicians on each political divide know what the score is. Politics is business in Zimbabwe. It is a money-making scheme and politicians worry about which next scheme they can pull using their power and which car they can buy this year.
Those who defend them stand to lose ultimately, like the thousands who died in vain during the 2008 elections defending various politicians’ beliefs.
This is the tragedy of Zimbabwe and politics has become the opium of the masses.
The country needs a “complete overhaul”, a complete change of leadership, if it is to survive in the 21st century, otherwise it will just remain as that country that had a lot of potential and learned people, that all came to naught at the end.
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