Why Tsvangirai must join government

• Africa shows little appetite for Zim sanctions, intervention

• SA tells Zim leaders to put lives before politics

• Mugabe tells supporters to be ready for new elections

• Post Editorial: Tsvangirai pushing his luck too far

• Zambian newspaper lashes Tsvangirai, warns of 'shifting tide of public opinion'

• Document: Tendai Biti's letter to Mbeki

• Negotiators strike agreement on Constitutional Amendment No. 19

• Talks threatened as Mbeki, Tsvangirai trade barbs

• Mbeki letter 'angers' Tsvangirai

• Zanu PF, MDC negotiators meet in SA

• Elders urge MDC to join unity government

• ANC team to press for Zimbabwe deal

• Motlanthe wants Zim rivals to be sworn-in

• Tsvangirai eyes new Zimbabwe government in 2 months

• South Africa withholds aid to Zimbabwe

• Text: statement by South Africa cabinet on Zimbabwe

• Zimbabwe negotiators set to meet over draft Bill

• Constitutional Amendment 19 draft sent to Mbeki

• Tsvangirai seeks EU support for inclusive government

• MDC (Tsvangirai) national council resolutions

• Tsvangirai's MDC to join unity government

• Tsvangirai running out of options - analysts

• Zanu PF asks Mugabe to form new government

• SADC leans heavily on Tsvangirai to share Home Affairs

• Mugabe vows to form new government

• Document: SADC communique on Zimbabwe, DRC

By Alfi Nyoni
Posted to the web: 11/12/2008 00:21:13
TWO things: either Morgan Tsvangirai has a clever short-term strategy to end Robert Mugabe’s reign or he’s just begun work on the last chapter of his memoirs with the perfect title of The Rise (Well, Sort Of) and Fall of Morgan Tsvangirai.

I find the short-termism and narrow-mindedness that dictates Tsvangirai’s stance on a proposed power sharing government astoundingly selfish and ill-advised.

It has become clear Tsvangirai is acting on bad advice that trashes African institutions and seeks to surrender Zimbabwe’s comparatively minor internal dispute to international bodies – opening our country to British and American manipulation.

Having spent the last 10 years fighting Mugabe’s autocratic regime, it should be clear to Tsvangirai by now that removing a deeply embedded system so complex and so obdurate as Zanu PF cannot be an electoral event, nor will it be achieved at international conferences.

The power sharing government presents Tsvangirai with a fresh, risk-free strategy to fight Zanu PF at close quarters, while demonstrating his competence to govern ahead of an election in five years in which Mugabe will NOT be a candidate.

If Tsvangirai somehow imagines that Zanu PF is pleased to share power, he should think again. The power sharing government is the single most powerful threat to Zanu PF’s existence since its formation, but they know it’s necessary to end the suffering which afflicts every Zimbabwean – powerful or weak and rich or poor.

In the next five years, Zanu PF must perform a leadership renewal which it postponed with suicidal intent in December last year. It must do so against the backdrop of diminished power and increased influence by the two MDC factions in the country’s national politics and government.

I should place it on record that I think Zanu PF should have surrendered Home Affairs to the MDC. But that’s assuming things are fair and equal, and we know Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF are all but.

An inch that you get from Zanu PF must be read as a kilometre – because it is a huge concession from a party that can still choose the course of a full-blown dictatorship and brutalise all of us into compliance.

Zimbabweans need to stop obsessing over the badness of Mugabe, and seeing his opponents as angelic creatures from another world. We need a new political education that critically examines decisions taken on our behalf by all politicians; and be able to say NOT IN OUR NAMES if the situation demands.

Think about this for a minute. Should the dispute over the Ministry of Home Affairs be the difference between life and death for many of our relatives who have to deal with a decaying health system? Should that one ministry be used as an excuse when our country’s education system churns out illiterates because there are no teachers and learning materials? Should one more person die of cholera because two grown men are wrangling over who is to be the custodian of handcuffs and sirens?

Tsvangirai’s party has been given authority over the Finance Ministry which means his ministerial appointee will account for the expected foreign aid which the MDC leader assures us his signature can unlock. His minister will again be in charge of disbursing funds to all the ministries in the national budget, and no doubt demanding accountability for how those funds are used. What more, Tsvangirai is the direct boss for all the ministers, and it goes without saying that government policy will be collectively directed by Cabinet.

It is a fact, as well, that Tsvangirai PERSONALLY suggested the co-sharing of the Home Affairs Ministry, with the MDC going in first – perhaps believing his wish would not be granted. Zanu PF has granted that, and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) has endorsed it.

Now he turns around, crying “humanitarian crisis” and begging the United Nations and AU to intervene and cover up for his own refusal to come out of opposition to proposition, to paraphrase Brian Kagoro.

All the critical government departments like Health, Housing, Education, Economic Planning & Investment Promotion, Water Resources, Industry & Commerce, Labour & Social Welfare, Energy & Power and State Enterprises & Parastatals are firmly in opposition control.

We must ask: Are those not the issues that concern the grandmother in Nkayi who has to wake up in the morning to meet the expectations of her orphaned grandchildren whose parents died of AIDS? Or the teacher in Kuwadzana who has seen his salary wiped out by inflation, and has spent the better part of the last school term on strike? Or the newly graduated 24-year-old who has no chance under the sun of ever owning a house?

The SADC leaders’ proposal that the Home Affairs Ministry should be shared between Zanu PF and the MDC is one that should not be taken lightly. It is the position of Zimbabwe’s most immediate community with whom Tsvangirai must build a strong relationship if he still hopes to be President one day.

Tsvangirai now calls SADC leaders spineless. They are not. They care about where Zimbabwe goes from here, and understand their limitations as well as the dynamics of the politics far better than Tsvangirai’s trusted friends in the West who approach Zimbabwe with open mouths and shut minds.

South African President Kgalema Motlanthe is right that power-sharing "remains the only vehicle to help extricate Zimbabwe from her socio-economic challenges". Zimbabweans have waited for far too long for this, and they simply have no stomach for new conferences and sanctions.

Then you have Botswana, whose President Ian Khama advised Tsvangirai to boycott the June 27 presidential election run-off, now calling for new elections. Tsvangirai has been spending a fair amount of time in the company of this man – no doubt getting doses of skewed desert logic.

History has a long memory, and it will record that Tsvangirai betrayed the 100 odd men and women who laid down their lives for him when he took the decision to boycott the presidential election run-off. The advice from his handlers, who no doubt need familiarisation with Zimbabwe’s constitution, was that he could fall back on the results of the March 29 election which was inconclusive because no-one got the number of votes required to win outright.

We are now treated to this mantra about “the will of Zimbabweans as expressed on March 29” – including by the Americans who should know better because Al Gore had more votes than George Bush but still lost the election because of rules governing those elections.

Boycotting June 27 was a terrible mistake by Tsvangirai -- because I believe he would have won if he had built a strong coalition and not selfishly chosen to go it alone -- and so will be boycotting this power sharing government.

Tsvangirai’s biggest mistake now is desiring to grab power from Mugabe, when the long term vision should be to kick-start the rebuilding of the country and making ordinary people’s lives better in the next 5 years and demonstrating he deserves to be President in 2013.

There is also the World Cup in South Africa coming up in 2010 which Zimbabwe – the country Tsvangirai tells the world he loves -- can richly benefit from, if we organise ourselves now.

Nelson Chamisa is right that “the people want genuine change in their lives. They want food and jobs. They want drugs, nurses and doctors back in our hospitals. They want teachers back in our schools. They want fuel in the country. They want clean water and electricity back in our homes.”

But he is wrong to say “the MDC will not be able to bring back these basic things if it is given responsibility without authority” – AUTHORITY meaning controlling the Home Affairs Ministry exclusively.

Those issues Chamisa listed have no connection whatsoever with a ministry which is in charge of the police. Even if the connection existed, the MDC will have partial control of the same ministry under the SADC proposal. So what authority are they after?

The MDC should choose whether it’s with the people, or against the people. Refusing to accept a deal that clearly saves their faces for the June 27 omission surely cannot be a demonstration of caring for the suffering masses.

There is of course the danger that Mugabe will plough ahead with an unpopular cabinet and a failing government, convinced that everything that could have gone wrong has already gone wrong and nothing can be worse. Or he can dissolve parliament, and call new elections under a June 27 political climate. Are we sure that’s what we want our country to go through again?

Tsvangirai, of course, looks likely to choose exile if his strategy fails. An open challenge to his leadership from within his own party cannot be ruled out. If power sharing fails, he would have been at the helm for a decade and no closer to getting the MDC into power. That’s failure, is it not?

MDC Tsvangirai: 13

1. Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs
2. Economic Planning and Investment Promotion
3. Energy and Power Development
4. Health and Child Welfare
5. Labour and Social Welfare
6. Water Resources Development and Management
7. Public Service
8. Sport, Arts and Culture
9. State Enterprise and Parastatals
10. Science and Technology Development
11. Information Communication Technology
12. Public Works
13. National Housing and Social Amenities
14. Home Affairs (co-shared with Zanu PF)

MDC Mutambara: 3

1. Regional Integration and International Cooperation
2. Education
3. Industry and Commerce

Zanu PF: 15

1. Defence
2. Home Affairs (co-shared with MDC-T)
3. Foreign Affairs
4. Transport
5. Local Government and Urban Development
6. Mines and Mining Development
7. Lands, Agriculture and Resettlement
8. Environment, Natural Resources and Tourism
9. Higher and Tertiary Education
10. Small and Medium Enterprises and Cooperative Development
11. Justice and Legal Affairs
12. Media, Information and Publicity
13. Women’s Affairs, Gender and Community Development
14. Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment
15. Finance

Alfi Nyoni is a Zimbabwean and writes from South Africa
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