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Tsvangirai has strayed from vision of MDC
As the debate on the MDC split continues, MDC MP Trudy Stevenson writes to offer her views on where the party strayed, and says most of Morgan Tsvangirai's supporters "cannot even begin to imagine that he is not the God-like figure they have hero-worshipped for six years"
By Trudy Stevenson, MP
THE Movement for Democratic Chnage (MDC) is a social democratic party. Our core values include freedom, democracy and justice. It therefore follows that debate within the party should be free, democratic and fair. Members should be free to put their point of view without fear of being labeled a “sellout” if they don’t hold the president’s view.
Regrettably, because the president came out in the media early on – even before the National Executive meeting at which the matter was first debated – against participation, many members felt obliged to support that view: he is, after all, the leader of the party, so the argument goes that we must support our leader. It is natural, both in traditional culture and in most political parties, for junior members of a group to respect their elders and seniors and not to challenge them, at least openly. So when the president addressed rallies calling on members to boycott the senate, it was difficult, if not impossible, for anyone to speak with an alternative view.
This resulted in many members not even knowing there was an alternative view, and what its arguments were. The case for participation was never made public, probably out of fear of being labeled “sellout”. There was also fear of being politically incorrect, daring to differ from the noisy NGOs who had already threatened they would actively de-campaign anyone thinking of going for the Senate. Did I not hear somewhere that tolerance is an MDC value?
This is where the departure from our party values comes in – long before the Senate vote on 12 October. But non-democrats among us departed from our values much further back than the senate issue. Sadly, because undemocratic behaviour – violence, vote-buying, intimidation, corruption - was never effectively dealt with early on, members got the message that they could get away with it, and even that it was condoned.
Our values and principles dimmed into the background, and some members began to behave more and more like ZanuPF. Violations of the constitution increased incrementally until we have the situation we find ourselves in today, where there is virtually no difference between some groups in MDC and our ZanuPF opponents!
Back to the heart of the matter. I am a founder member of the MDC. I was there at the Working People's Convention in February 1999 when we resolved to form a political party to contest power in order to meet the aspirations of the people, who had been badly let down by ZanuPF after independence. We agreed on the core values of our new party at that time, and drew up a constitution to enshrine those values and ensure that the party would always uphold the same values and principles which bound us together at our inception.
So now, 6 years down the road, when we find that at least part of the party is straying from those values and principles, it is not surprising that members start to blow the whistle. In my view this is healthy. This is what democracy is all about. The problem is that those "in the know" have watched the sad shift away from our values and principles over several years, so that this crisis is no surprise at all, whereas for most of our members and the general public, this is like a bolt out of the blue.
Most members and supporters cannot even begin to imagine that Morgan Tsvangirai or any other leader is not the god-like figure they have hero-worshipped for six years or more. They refuse to believe that these people could have actually done some of the things they are hearing about for the first time. It is simply not possible, in their mind - so this must be a conspiracy by someone eager to remove him in order to take his place - Welshman Ncube, to be precise.
Tragically, Morgan Tsvangirai is as human as the rest of us, and is subject to the basic weaknesses of the rest of mankind. It is in fact our fault, as his colleagues, that we have allowed him to stray from the vision of the MDC, which is not so much about removing Robert Mugabe and taking over government, but about the kind of society we want to build in Zimbabwe. Removing ZanuPF is merely a necessary step in achieving that society. There is no point whatsoever in removing Robert Mugabe and ZanuPF and replacing them with a leader and party who behave just like them! What improvement will that bring to the lives of the people who have placed their trust in the MDC to lead them out of their misery?
Many of us have tried, over the years, to warn our president against surrounding himself with sycophants, and we have tried to pull him back onto the right path. But all this has been spliced with the cultural necessity of respect and refusal to challenge him openly as he allowed himself to become a virtual prisoner of his closest employees and advisors. Some of those employees and advisors were undoubtedly working for the other side all along - and so our hero gradually mutated into a Morgan Tsvangirai we refuse to believe is the real person.
But indeed, it appears that this man is no longer the Morgan Tsvangirai we hero-worshipped in 1999, the man who led the ZCTU protests against government, who led the “food riots”, who founded and led NCA towards the “No” vote in February 2000, just a few days after the MDC’s inaugural congress. How can this same man allow his colleagues to be called “sellouts” because they went to South Africa for a meeting planned two months ago? How can he sit quietly while party members sing songs in front of him denouncing other senior officials, including the vice-president – unless he himself condones such activities? If indeed these allegations are true, is this the person to lead this nation to a new Zimbabwe where freedom, democracy, justice, equality and solidarity will prevail?
So the Senate is only a very small part of what this struggle is about. It is unfortunate - but cleverly calculated by ZanuPF - that for most of the general public, the Senate is the only issue. This is why there is such confusion and such anger against the MDC as a whole that "the party is destroying itself" or as the Zimbabwe Independent put it last week "committing hara kiri" "self-destruct" etc, etc. "How dare you!" people shout.
I can only answer that some members of the MDC dare because we are determined that this party will not become another ZanuPF. We insist that this party must survive and continue the struggle until we do take over government in a free, democratic election under a new people-driven constitution. But this does not mean we should allow our president or anyone else to mutate into just another ZanuPF-style demagogue. That is all we have been fighting against these past 6 years and more.
Hero-worship is a great danger, in a young political party. In reality, the whole is greater than its parts – and MDC is greater than any one of its members, even its president. All the one million-plus members of MDC are determined that our party will survive this crisis and emerge stronger and more united to bring change for a better life for all Zimbabweans.
Did someone say
Senate?
Trudy Stevenson is an MDC MP and the party's director of policy
and research
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