"Chamisa still has potential to be a successful leader." Irrational desperation. Kutsvaka huta mugate! W Mukori

 Zimbabwe is a failed state. After 44 years of gross mismanagement rampant corruption and tyrannical rule and millions now living in abject poverty it is not surprising the nation up is desperate for change. Desperate people do desperate things. “Kutsvaka huta mugate!” (Search for your bow in a pot!) as one would say in Shona.

Looking up to Nelson Chamisa to get Zimbabwe out of the political paralysis and economic mess we are in is searching for the bow and arrows in a pot!

“Failure is always a good thing if we learn from it. Has Chamisa and his indisciplined supporters learnt a thing from defeat?” asked Trevor Ncube is his recent article in Bulawayo 24.

“Only time will tell.

“Granted, Zanu-PF and the State security system played a big role in destroying the opposition, but Chamisa and those around him must take some responsibility.

“That is the first and arguably most important lesson.

“Studying political adversaries is well and good, but introspection is perhaps much more valuable. As things stand, Zimbabwe has no opposition to speak of.

“Chamisa still has potential to be the leader of the first successful opposition, only if he has learnt from the hard knocks of his two failures.

“Understanding the assignment at hand is important for success.”

I am surprised that Mr Trevor Ncube, of all people, would even be bothering to ask the rhetorical question: Is Chamisa capable of learning from the past? If he was, then how come he and his MDC/CCC friends have blundered from pillar to post these last 24 years? 

The number one reason the people of Zimbabwe have risked livelihoods, limbs and over 500 lives were lost in the wanton violence of the 2008 elections alone to elect MDC/CCC leaders was, so they will bring about the democratic changes to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. As the party name implied, Movement for Democratic Change! 

Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections and got away with it precisely because MDC/CCC leaders have not only failed to implement even one token reform in 24 years including the 2008 to 2013 GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so. And, worst of all, they have participated in flawed elections know fully well Zanu PF was rigging and that doing so would give the regime legitimacy. They have soldiered on regardless for the same reasons they failed to implement reforms during the GNU - greed and breathtaking incompetence.

The very fact that Chamisa has continued to enjoy the support of millions of Zimbabweans regardless of his well documented track record as corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent speaks volumes of his supporters’ own intellectual inaptitude. 

Chamisa’s supporters are no different from Boxer, the horse in Animal Farm. Boxer took just as long to learn the first four letters of the alphabet as other animals took to learn all the alphabet. He took just as long again to learn the next four letters and by then he had forgotten the first four. Boxer struggled to follow any argument and could not string together more than two sentences to express his own view. 

Boxer accepted that he was dumb and, not uncommon with dumb people, accepted everything that Napoleon said without question. He adopted “Comrade Napoleon is always right!” as his motto. Blind loyalty is the very antithesis of what is demanded for a healthy and functioning democracy. 

Telling these Chamisa supporters that he sold out by failing to implement even one reform during the GNU, for example, is a waste of time. These men and women have no clue what the reforms are much less that the primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement reforms. They have spend the last 24 years chanting “Chinja! Change!” they still have no clue what these changes are.

The hundreds of man-years spend explaining why we need the democratic changes, reforms, and how this was to be accomplished have all been a waste of time, water off a duck’s back. Chamisa’s supporters, as with the Zanu PF hard core supporters, will never comprehend Chamisa and company will ever deliver democratic change in Zimbabwe no more than Boxer would learn the alphabet!

“Chamisa still has potential to be the leader of the first successful opposition!” Yeah right, after 24 years and not even one token reform implement. It is this intrinsic desperate naivety that not only explains why we are a failed state but, more penitently, why we are seemingly incapable of extracting ourselves out of this hell!