Tsvangirai admit "leadership crisis" - he sits at the apex of change matrix. By Wilbert Mukori

Tsvangirai admits to the students that the nation is facing a “crisis of leadership”.

 

“I want to start by saying the country is currently facing a huge crisis; a crisis of the economy; a crisis of expectation due to the many unfulfilled promises but most importantly, a crisis of leadership,” said Tsvangirai.

 

The economic crisis, crisis if expectation, etc. are all a by-product of the crisis of leadership.

 

Zimbabwe is by all accounts a blessed country with a great bounty of diamonds and other minerals and yet the country is so impoverished it cannot afford to up keep of something as essential as clean running water in this day and age because $ 15 billion worth of diamonds are looted by the ruling elite. The country is the Garden of Eden and ever since the ruling elite seized the farms the nation has failed to produce enough to feed its own people let alone have surplus for export as happened before the farms were seized.

 

Zimbabwe’s problem is not one of material resources, lack of opportunities, etc. we have all we could ever wish for expect for one thing poor leadership! We have been cursed; we have the leaders from hell everywhere you look!

 

“Where there is no vision, the people perish:” Proverbs 29:18.

 

“The current leadership of government has chosen to ignore the multi-layered crisis facing the people; it is choosing instead to focus on the issue of the succession issue of our 92-year old President, whose age is a crisis unto itself,” continued Tsvangirai.

 

True there is a crisis of leadership in Zanu PF and government but we have known of this for years now and, indeed, was that not the reason why the students, the workers and the nation at large have rallied behind Tsvangirai and MDC these last 16 years giving MDC for the singular purpose of MDC delivering meaningful democratic change to end President Mugabe’s reign of corruption and terror. A task Tsvangirai readily acknowledged in his address to the students.

 

“The only credible way forward for all of us as a collective is to ensure that we usher in a legitimate government at the next election. Any government must be a product of a free, fair, peaceful and credible election,” admitted Tsvangirai.

“We must all join hands in demanding not only the implementation of the Constitution, but also the institution of far-reaching reforms to ensure that the next election does not breed yet another uncontested outcome.”

 

Hold your horses, Mr Tsvangirai; do not rush from one subject to the next like an excited monkey jumping from one branch to the next.

 

MDC had the best opportunity ever to implement the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA which would have dismantled the Zanu PF dictatorship and deliver free, fair and credible elections. SADC Heads of State have reminded MDC leaders on numerous occasions during the GNU to implement the reforms but were ignored. At the end of the GNU, not even one democratic reform has been implemented.

 

President Mugabe was able to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections because no democratic reform was implemented in the five years of the GNU.

 

Just as the economic crisis is a consequence of the leadership crisis so too is the post 2013 Zanu PF leadership crisis; the fact that Mugabe is still in power today is a consequence of Tsvangirai and MDC leaders’ failure to implement the democratic reforms.

 

Since the rigged July 2013 elections Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have promised to have electoral reforms implemented to ensure the next elections are free and fair. How MDC would accomplish this feat given that the GPA expired and SADC could not pressure President Mugabe to revisit the GPA. MDC would not give any details but promised to force Zanu PF “kicking and screaming to implement the reforms by the end of the year (meaning end of 2015)!” Mr Douglas Mwonzora, MDC-T Secretary General, said.

 

As is clear from Tsvangirai’s statement about MDC has clearly failed to force Zanu PF to implement any reforms by the end of 2015. Worse still Tsvangirai and his MDC friends do not have a clue what reforms they wanted implemented. The initially asked for electoral reforms as stated in their National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) which all serious analysts dismissed as inadequate for free and fair elections. Judging from his statement above it is clear this message has finally sunk home because, although he is still calling for electoral reforms he is now also calling for “but also the institution of far-reaching reforms”. What these are he has not said. How he is going to have them implemented, again he does not say.

 

Tsvangirai will string the nation along assuring the nation that MDC will implement the reforms necessary for free and fair elections, just as he did during the GNU, but will never deliver free and fair elections.

 

Mai Mujuru and her ZimPF friends are not interested in implementing any reforms; as far as they are concerned they are hoping to defeat Zanu PF not by ensuring the elections are free and fair but by having “moles” in Zanu PF who will expose and stop the vote rigging shenanigans. The best electoral result will therefore be the removal of the corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF and only to replacing it with the equally corrupt and incompetent ZimPF.  

 

Joice Mujuru is corrupt and incompetent changing the name of the party will not change her in anyway; if she is elected back into office she will continue where she left off when she was kicked out of Zanu PF. All those who say she has had her Damascene moment are self-indulgent day-dreamers.

 

All hope of any meaningful economic and political change in Zimbabwe today has to start with removing the corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai from leadership; he is the one who blocked all meaningful change during the GNU and he continues to block change now.

 

If we are serious at removing Mugabe then we must look at getting an opposition leader competent enough to do so and not stick with the corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai or Joice Mujuru whom the cunning Mugabe has already outwitted repeatedly in the past.

 

We are in this economic and political hell because as a nation we have developed a knack for following leaders blindly like sheep, it is no surprise that they have, more often than not, turned out to be corrupt and incompetent, like Tsvangirai, and, worse still, murderous tyrants like Mugabe. To get rid of Mugabe we need a competent opposition leader and not the corrupt and incompetent Mujuru and/or Tsvangirai whom the tyrant has already outwitted repeatedly in the past.

 

There is no point in wishing to remove Mugabe and then get someone incompetent to do it, especially one who has already proven beyond doubt that they are incompetent! If we are serious about bring about any meaningful change in Zimbabwe then that change must start with removing Tsvangirai as opposition leader. We do have a leadership crisis in Zimbabwe but it is Tsvangirai himself who is sitting at the apex of the change matrix! He is the one who block change during the GNU and he is the one blocking change today!

 

Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged election because the consequences are the economic meltdown will get worse and so too will the political chaos; Zimbabwe is already on a knife-edge of and any more of this chaos can destabilize the country with far reaching tragic consequences for the nation and the whole region.