The MDC, the senate and boycott politics

The MDC, the senate and boycott politics

• Morgan Tsvangirai: The senate, what's in it for the people?

• Grace Kwinjeh: No to senate elections!

• Kwinjeh attacks MDC senate poll participation

• MDC to contest for senate seats

• Prof Jonathan Moyo: New amendments should face battle royal

• New constitutional moves 'will not fly'

• Chinamasa slammed over 'exit visa' threat

• Innocent C Sithole: The MDC and culture of prevarication

• MDC wants to give senate a miss

• Prof Welshman Ncube: Constitutional reforms recipe for disaster

• Zim denies plot to curtail critics' travel

• Dr Alex Magaisa: Constitution without Constitutionalism

• Lucas Nkomo: The right to revolt against tyranny

• Tawanda Hove: Constitutional reforms and MDC mess

• US says Zim moves 'a sad step backwards'

• Rights groups condemn constitutional moves

• Paul Themba Nyathi: Dark day for democracy

• Parliament passes amendment bill

• Prof Jonathan Moyo: Constitutional madness will not save Zanu PF

• MDC ambush Zanu PF with draft constitution

• Zim tables bill to amend constitution

• Lawyers condemn constitutional amendment

• Aspiring Zanu PF senator dies of poisoning

• Alex Magaisa: Constitutional amendment spells doom for economy

• Chinamasa admits Zanu PF has no two thirds

• Zimbabwe opposition snubs Mugabe

• Zimbabwe senate will last only 5 years

• Moyo fights constitutional amendment

• Mugabe recalls Zimbabwe parliament

• Zanu PF accelerates Senate plans

• Mugabe appoints nephew to new Cabinet

• Mugabe to extend term

• Moyo on opposition benches as MPs sworn in

• Mugabe appoints governors, Cabinet expected

• Mugabe vows to rule for a century

By Msekiwa Makwanya

THE coming senate elections have presented us with yet another interesting debate about Zimbabwean political processes.

There are very powerful views for and against participation and I support both views but the problem is for the party’s strategists and tacticians who have to go beyond either boycott or participation and even our support.

The Biblical Moses had to be content with the hazards of leading the Israelis to freedom even with God’s support. Morgan Tsvangirai ought to be careful with his selection of words because, to call people who want to be in the senate “sell outs” is to presume that he will not work with the Movement for Democratic Change members who believe that the senate is a battle front created.

Of course, there are those of us who get involved on emotional basis desperate for quick solutions and confuse tactics with strategy. A strategy is a long term plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal.

A tactic is a limited plan of action based on a conception of how, in a restricted phase of a conflict, to use effectively the available means of action to achieve a specific limited objective. Tactics are intended for use in implementing a wider strategy in a phase of the overall conflict. Tactics can be very small things too, like posturing, leafleting, showing a movie, or sending a letter to the school paper.

It is always very important to appreciate that this dithering by the MDC could be interpreted by the electorate as lack of confidence and like many commentators have said, it might cost them should they decide to participate. How do you participate when your leader is calling you a sell out? Meanwhile the electorate is already unsure about the party’s position.

Grace Kwinjeh the MDC representative in Europe supports the Youth Assembly for what she calls “a very bold statement against the party’s participation in the forthcoming Senatorial elections”.

Indeed it was a bold statement but it is one thing to make a bold statement and it is another thing for the statement to be inspired by wisdom. It is like the perennial student demonstrations in colleges in Zimbabwe which never brought any tangible results apart from making names for certain individuals. So if participation does not change anything why then participate? The problem with this approach is that it is the same thing as sundering because you are saying that your participation is not helpful.

The point is that, whether we like it or not the senate elections are coming, and whether the MDC participates or not there shall be senators in Zimbabwe. A wise person maximises on his/her gains and minimises his losses. To say 41 MPs are not changing anything therefore they should leave parliament is to miss the wisdom that half a loaf is better than nothing in cases where you find it hard to get a loaf. To say that the MDC should not participate in the senate elections is to suggest the MDC should pull out of parliament altogether.

A lesson has to be learnt about the highly controversial independent MP for Tsholotsho Professor Jonathan Moyo. He is doing single-handedly what the MDC as a party struggles to do with its machinery. Like him or not, what Moyo says and does is what the opposition is there for. It is not only about numbers but active presence as well. Dzikamai Mavhaire, Margaret Dongo and Nzarayebani, and Sydney Malunga did a lot during their days in parliament as a vocal and critical minority and they went down in style fighting.

The MDC should be prepared to contest where ever the battle lines are drawn, that is why they are a political party and not an NGO. The MDC leadership should not use combative language against it membership, internal democracy should be given more room. Publicity driven statements like the one issued by Nelson Chamisa and Morgan Tsvangirai will expose them should the party decide to participate.

Msekiwa Makwanya is a social commentator based in England. Contact Makwanya: makwanya@yahoo.com
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