WHILE political soothsaying is a dodgy art at the best of times, it appears safe to say Zimbabweans will be going to the polls in March 2008 and MDC will pretty much face the ultimate political calumny: losing the poll. A disheartening development to a party gone awry.
'Do Zimbabweans really want to give Tsvangirai and the MDC a majority?' I think that's a very salient ballot question for the opposition.
While the MDC has been on the slippery slope, trying to garner support, and thereby win an election using Zanu PF weaknesses; the ruling party has been steadily re-organising and working through their weaknesses and promises.
Although Zanu PF is no stronger now than at the last election; it’s politically dangerous for the opposition to underestimate the ruling party's capacity to win a free and fair election, if the opposition remains policy-less and weak.
By comparison, Zanu PF is still a united party. They have a lot of policies, unpopular ones sometimes, that people in rural Zimbabwe may identify with. People may say, 'You know what: We feel more comfortable with Zanu PF'. That will ring the political death knell for the MDC.
Falling into previous opposition parties’ political lockstep, the MDC has recently witnessed drooping fortunes with catastrophic consequences due to a lack of highly intelligent and strategic thinkers. To win the 2008 election they would have to mount one hell of a fight.
The major disease afflicting the MDC is ‘much-a-say-about-nothing’.
Take, for instance, Nelson Chamisa, the MDC spokesman, who seems to be on the defensive all the time, responding to what Zanu PF says or does. While he has mastered the art of public speaking, he has disingenuously ignored the most crucial aspect of opposition politics: policy articulation.
Apart from his calls for an end to violence, torture, intimidation, poverty; we have pretty much nothing else to remember about the MDC front man.
His silence was almost deafening on allegations of nepotism and sexism in the MDC which led to the dissolution of the Women’s Assembly led by Lucia Matibenga, or the dissolution of the MDC UK executive led by Ephraim Tapa.
The fissures in the MDC Party are forming across the Diaspora and in Zimbabwe, and the divisions portend imminent political fallout of seismic proportions.
Political implosions aren't a pretty sight and watching the MDC unwittingly at work on a ballistic device that will effectively hoist them on their own petard is no exception.
The trick is for the MDC to simply get their message across. For now, they are sending mixed signals and some of their members have given up their anti-Mugabe missions out of frustration.
Take this message for instance (July 2005): “There will be mass arrests, injuries and agony. But that is the price we should be prepared to pay for our freedom because next year we are going to be as confrontational as we have never been before,” only to undercut his own statement six months later; “You cannot use confrontation to face evil.”
The scholarly use of abstract words and extremely vague content has become synonymous with MDC’s undependable and sometimes erroneous spin-doctor who has a tendency to engage in wild speculation daily.
The childlike simplicity that his comments conjure reflects the epitome of the MDC's utter incapacity to look Zanu PF in the eye.
Indeed, they don't stare down Zanu PF they look past it, because for them it matters not to talk policy -- until Zanu wins the next election and shocks them to a fully awakened state.
At that point, they cry foul and register disbelief at what they would want to call ‘rigging’. Concurrently, they cast a deep, self-indicting inward glance, convinced as they are that Zimbabweans voted for them and that provoked the ‘rigging’.
The MDC argument has been reduced to "there-is-something-we-can-do-rhetoric," with no precise policy alternatives, or pre scri ption for that matter.
For the MDC to salvage their respectability and support, prior to the 2008 elections, and to counter Zanu PF’s cajolery and political baiting, they should venture into a new terrain: The New Terrain of Policy Articulation.
But is it too late for the 2008 election? Maybe not.
What is clear is that if they had drawn a line in the sand a few years ago they might not be having to put up a breakwater now.
They have spent the best part of the last seven years telling Zanu PF in great detail what is wrong with their policies; but not articulating their own. Their policies, if any, have failed to make the headlines of newspapers. Their internal differences have.
The MDC crystal-ballers should start organising the heavens, dust down their cosmic calendars and hone their star-reading skills to help their leadership decide their fate in the forthcoming general election. Only these celestial minders, and not the people of Zimbabwe, will declare the moment propitious for the MDC, if they do not articulate their policies well, and start walking the talk.
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