Financial Gazette (Harare)
15 November 2008
editorial
MOVEMENT for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is in an unenviable position and so is his archrival, President Robert Mugabe.
Tsvangirai has pushed hard to get the MDC-T where it is today, and naturally the road was bumpy, with its ups and downs.
But while the MDC has indeed come of age, it made one tactical error in the critical stages of the inter-party negotiations which is now working in ZANU-PF's favour. We refer here to the September 15 power-sharing document, which Tsvangirai signed before the three parties could agree on, among other critical issues, the contentious distribution of the 31 ministries.
By appending his signature on that defective document, Tsvangirai gave his nemesis the legitimacy that had proved to be elusive ever since the disputed 2002 poll, narrowly won by President Mugabe. With President Mugabe firmly in the driving seat, the MDC diminished its chances of securing concessions on all outstanding issues, the allocation of ministries being one of them.
While Tsvangirai has taken the frustrations encountered along the way in his stride, we fear he could be on the threshold of making his difficult situation untenable by pulling the wrong card once again following a week of intriguing political events that all worked against him.
But the same can also be said of President Mugabe who is most likely to press ahead with the formation of a one-legged unity government in the absence of the MDC-T, which declined his offer for ministerial posts this week against the Southern African Development Community (SADC)'s recommendations.
It needs no pointing out that a government that excludes Tsvangirai and his team will fall short of inspiring confidence needed to bring international partners on board. If anything, more hurting sanctions would be on the way.
It follows therefore that President Mugabe should also get real by finding ways to reach out to the MDC-T outside SADC and Thabo Mbeki's intervention if he is to entertain any hope of reviving the country's battered economy.
Should President Mugabe decide to go ahead without Tsvangirai -- seen holding the keys to unlock aid and offshore lines of credit -- the coming months, if not years would be the worst for Zimbabweans, more painful than the 40 or so years the children of Israel spent in the desert before getting to their promised land.
As it is, the 2008/09 agricultural season is a complete write-off before it has even started because of the worst preparations ever. A US$200 million aid plea by the World Food Programme to help the starving families in Zimbabwe has failed to attract favourable responses leading many people to ask the question: Has God deserted Zimbabwe?
No one can begrudge Tsvangirai -- who, by the way, is not desperate to get into government -- for being horrified by SADC's tragic decision to compel ZANU-PF and the two MDCs to form an inclusive government forthwith and to co-manage the Home Affairs Ministry despite the plausible objections from his party.
To all intents and purposes, what is on the negotiating table falls short of achieving a 50-50 power-sharing arrangement, which is what the September 15 agreement is all about. The distribution of ministries remains tilted heavily in favour of ZANU-PF.
What SADC has merely done is to extend ZANU-PF's shelf life by giving President Mugabe more time to close the succession debate, an erstwhile hot potato whose timely conclusion bodes well for the party's revival.
With SADC on his side, all stops have been removed for ZANU-PF to form the unity government with or without the MDC leader. A word of caution though: President Mugabe should be under no illusion that his administration can succeed without Tsvangirai, he simply must find a way to bring the MDC leader on board even if it means going against SADC's resolutions. The two leaders must defy the notion that they can never work together.
It is a fact that SADC cannot impose its will on Zimbabweans. It is therefore up to Zimbabweans themselves to shape their own destiny. With all due respect to SADC, Sunday's decision was a miscarriage of justice.
Tsvangirai and President Mugabe know they have the answers to the country's problems. They are also aware of the limitations of SADC, the African Union (AU) and the United Nations. It does not help matters for the two leaders to bury their heads in sand, ostrich-style, without taking into account the realities on the ground.
The question becomes; what are the options at the MDC disposal? It is quite clear that Arthur Mutambara has no qualms with SADC's determination and might join ZANU-PF in government, which would rob Tsvangirai of the numerical strength that might have worked to his advantage.
Tsvangirai must seriously weigh his options, lest he presses the self-destruct button. He must remember as well that the September 15 agreement was not what President Mugabe wanted, but after carefully weighing his options, the Zimbabwe leader decided to hang in there.
It is being far too short-sighted for the MDC leader to pin his hopes on the AU, one of the guarantors of the power-sharing deal. SADC is a sibling of the AU with the same characteristics and as such unlikely to overturn the decision of the 15-member regional bloc, which will make it even harder for Tsvangirai to seek the UN's intervention.
The area of disagreement between MDC-T and ZANU-PF is also insignificant to warrant the UN's intervention yet extremely important for Zimbabweans who cannot wait a day longer for a solution to end their suffering.
Attempts by the UN to poke its nose into the long-drawn dispute against the flawed wisdom of SADC or the AU would also be seen as acts of racism and interference in the country's and the continent's internal affairs.
Apart from token support from Botswana, the MDC should know that its allies cannot go beyond the rhetoric. While privately, they may not agree with SADC's position, they cannot openly oppose it being members of the same exclusive Club.
The MDC's African allies can also not risk being seen as "selling out their brothers" by echoing sentiments from Europe and the West, which are funding their economic programmes. Their strategy would therefore be to stay away from important fora where the Zimbabwe crisis would be discussed or sending representatives so that they can still appeal to the hand that feeds them while fulfilling the requirements of the SADC or AU Club.
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