{UAH} MR OLARA OTUNNU YOU HAVE MAIL BUDDY

Morgan is his own mistakes

1

Wednesday, 17 July 2013 00:00

Tichaona Zindoga MORGAN TSVANGIRAI is a sunset man. This has been the fear that has been slowly crystalising in the minds of the MDC-T leader’s supporters, especially his cheerleaders abroad, as Zimbabwe approaches elections on July 31. Little wonder then that some Western governments, particularly the United States of America, have come up stating that they are prepared to work with any government that emerges from these critical elections that are now merely days away. It is a grudging, if fatalistic, admission of cheerleaders seeing the soles of their fighter’s boots as he lies floored on the ring. Yet, lately, for many readers of the Zimbabwe story, there has been an interesting subtext to the mounting woes of Tsvangirai. Take, for example, a woman called Lydia Pollgreen, a journalist with the New York Times, itself an authoritative voice in the behemoth of the US status quo. In April she wrote a piece entitled, “Tasting good life, MDC-T slips off pedestal”. She was damning in her assessment of both MDC-T as an organisation to wrestle power from Zanu-PF and Tsvangirai as some crown prince of Zimbabwe’s politics. Wrote she: “Tsvangirai’s underdog movement has long been the vessel of millions of Zimbabweans hopes for a more democratic, peaceful and prosperous future . . . But four years of governing alongside Mugabe — and in some ways, analysts say, being co-opted by him and his allies — has taken a toll on his reputation.” And: “Mr Tsvangirai (has) traded his trade-unionist leather jacket for tailored suits. His personal life has been a source of embarrassment as well.” Pollgreen’s damning assessment of MDC-T and Tsvangirai has been so authoritative that it has been cited hundreds of times in the past few months by interests that are seeing Tsvangirai losing in the forthcoming elections. Not least, by the Guardian newspaper which saw the prospect of Mugabe being “a democratically-elected president once again”. The narrative is one that blames Tsvangirai’s weaknesses and waning chances on his rival, President Mugabe. This is a reflex that, in seeking comfort from the imperfections of the person called Morgan Tsvangirai; his cheerleaders have sought to locate the same mistakes outside him. They call it rationalisation — creating false but plausible excuses to justify unacceptable behaviour. The well-worn propaganda tool of “Transfer” has thus been deployed so the world sees Tsvangirai’s failings not as products of his own coinage or as intrinsic to him, but failings he has acquired through the association with President Mugabe and his “bad guys”. Oh, please! Tsvangirai is his own mistakes. First, and foremost, he is an adult endowed with all the cognitive faculties of a human being; and as a leader he has a glut of advisors, some of whom it is understood come from lands afar, across seas. In this regard, why should anyone be blamed, least of all President Mugabe, for Tsvangirai’s adulterous behavior in impregnating women young enough to be his grand-daughters, as in Loreta Nyathi of Bulawayo; or romping legendarily in high seas with foreign girls like Regina Nosipho Shilubane of South Africa? Surely, no one would force him to engage in such carnalities? While President Mugabe on his foreign trips saves money and buys computers for impoverished rural communities, Tsvangirai has been a spendthrift on his junkets, behaving like a kid in a candy shop or a spoiled brat, lusting after women from airport lobbies to hotels, some of whom he can’t even remember afterwards. Is it not a coincidence then that while President Mugabe wears the green and gold of his party, representing life and wealth, Tsvangirai drapes himself in the carnal and dangerous colour red, as noted by one columnist recently? Tsvangirai has fallen out of favour with the electorate partly because of the fatuity of his promises. Where is the US$10 billion that Tsvangirai promised would be brought by his donor “friends”? In 2008 he was claiming he had the keys to unlock foreign aid; so what became of the same? And when he repeats that thoroughly discredited mantra — essentially a lie — as he is currently doing, who is to blame when people abandon him? It is to be given Tsvangirai, as many other people, that he is not noted for letters, but should anyone take the stick when Tsvangirai puts his foot in his mouth as often as he does, which has an effect of diminishing his standing? Like when he called for sanctions against Zimbabwe or when he insensitively told people at the memorial service for his late wife (May her soul rest in peace) that he is the “main actor” that must not die. He has been known to have an “open mouth and shut mind”, which fallibility has led him even to impugn the Courts. None but himself should take the blame for that. As should the MDC-T as a party with respect for what its councilors and MPs have been doing since they were elected into office in 2008. No-one forced them to steal widows and orphans’ houses and convert them to their own use, or their friends’. They cannot be said to have copied from Zanu-PF in carving out football fields into residential stands for sale at exorbitant prices when it was Zanu-PF that had been the custodians of the same for the previous three decades. People saw the culprits with their eyes. As indeed they saw folks who had not held a single eight-hour job grow filthy rich the moment they became councilors, in which positions they suddenly morphed from pedestrians to drivers of expensive vehicles. Lydia Pollgreen’s quote above – relating to Tsvangirai dumping his trade-union days’ leather jacket for designer suits – is significant. One could also be familiar with this jacket if they have read his autobiography entitled, “At the Deep End”: it has so humble roots of being turned from raw hide from the village. The MDC-T is responsible for its leadership choices – including on the flawed figure of Tsvangirai himself as a man, we are told, who remembers the advice of the person he speaks to last. When they elect leadership paying scant regard to a person’s moral, social and even economic standing, this is what they get. They should not blame anyone. And the west, too, should not cry over Tsvangirai. When they decided to poach Tsvangirai from his trade-union activities they did so seeking to ride the high tide of discontent of the era, and aid him to national leadership. They did not conceive the crest would fall, compensating which, character; personality and intellect would shine like the sun. It has been all grey for Tsvangirai, even after the national pain of 2008. Now, predictably, the sun sets on him. Don’t blame anyone: he goes down in, and of, his own fallibilities.

           Thé Mulindwas Communication Group
"With Yoweri Museveni and Dr. Kiiza Besigye Uganda is in anarchy"
           Kuungana Mulindwa Mawasiliano Kikundi
"Pamoja na Yoweri Museveni na Dk. Kiiza Besigye Uganda ni katika machafuko"