Will Matabeleland get its pound of flesh?

Will Matabeleland get its pound of flesh?

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By Bekithemba Mhlanga

EVERY picture tells a story. Pictures of President Robert Mugabe and opposition MDC faction leaders Arthur Mutambara and Morgan Tsvangirai soon after signing a power-sharing deal portrayed a bitter six-term leader having to stand next to his “despicable” nemesis. Mutambara, meanwhile, looked like a young boy who could not wait any longer before running to the school grounds to show off his new prized possession.

For the people of Matabeleland, the pictures told a different story. For the first time in a very long period, no leader from that part of the world was part of the cast.

There was no Joshua Nkomo, and no Dumiso Dabengwa – there was nobody. To think it’s this very part of the country that by default will decide the sway of discussions and decisions in parliament!

It would not be out of place to contemplate how the three leaders will recognise the significant contribution that Matabeleland holds in the corridors of power. When they have their own little discussions – and there will be many – who among them will truly and honestly take up the mantle for Filabusi, Nkayi, Kezi and Mawabeni?

For MDC-Mutambara the question should be fairly simple to answer. All his cabinet posts must be made up of MPs and or senators from this part of the country. There is no point in Mutambara or any of his Executive Council kidding themselves that they are a national party – they are not. He is only Deputy Prime Minister as a result of the elections of those MPs and senators.

The challenge for MDC Tsvangirai is no different. The message will not be lost to Tsvangirai that the people of Matabeleleland have provided the party’s oxygen without fail since its formation and it is only proper that their role and contribution is acknowledged accordingly. There will be an expectation of proportional representation in Tsvangirai’s picks for Cabinet posts. The leverage that Thokozani Khuphe, Lovemore Moyo and others have or do not have in the MDC-Tsvangirai will be reflected in the Cabinet.

Let there be no mistake, the four cabinet posts for Mutambara’s MDC should have no bearing on Tsvangirai’s appointments.

It is easy to dismiss this as tribal politics, but I’m arguing for an acceptance and acknowledgement of the facts that have given birth to the structures of political power that are in place now.

Others will argue that since the Speaker of Parliament is from Matabeleland that should be sufficient. It is not.

Zanu PF faces no such problem. If the rumblings from disgruntled ex-Zapu members about the process and the outcome of the inclusive government are anything to go by, they have realised that they are at their weakest and most irrelevant point. They can be dispensed with, quite easily, without any electoral problems for Zanu PF.

A more than proportionate allocation of posts to the Zanu PF losers from Matabeleland will provoke anger up and down the corridors of Zanu PF headquarters. People will have done their numbers and quickly realised that this time round, there is simply not enough jobs to parcel out.

But why should this issue be cropping up now, drowning the euphoria of the ‘deal’? The truth is that this is a difficult conversation that people do not like to have, but must be had.

The issue of who holds which and how many cabinet posts has a strong bearing on appointments to various positions of influence in government and the public sector. It is these Ministers, if they do their jobs effectively, who will decide who sits on which Board, the budgets allocated to different projects, the postings to the diplomatic missions, and other such appointments.

People from Matabeleland have shown before that they can burn down any political party’s perceived firewall and deny them the space they foolishly think is theirs. Mugabe, perhaps, has felt this more sharply than the rest. For that reason, Tsvangirai and Mutambara should not take Matabeleland’s support for granted.

All the people of Matabeleland should ask for now is their pound of flesh. Matabeleland will not and must not be the wretched of the earth in perpetuity, playing second fiddle all the time. They deserve more and better.

Bekithemba Mhlanga is a Zimbabwean writer based in England. He can be contacted on e-mail: bekithemba68@yahoo.com

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