IT is not a secret that MDC President Welshman Ncube is the formidable candidate in this election because of the great campaign that he has run and with the large number of supporters he has recruited for his party.
Kuthula Njokweni
He is formidable because he is eating away at the base of Zanu PF and MDC-T supporters, especially in Matabeleland, thus reducing or diluting the number of supporters of either one or both of the parties.
The reduction or dilution of the numbers has huge implications for the outcome of the elections because Ncube’s MDC support-base will likely tilt the balance of power.
It further diminishes the chances of the MDC-T winning majority parliamentary seats or the presidential contest.
While in the past it was generally believed that the Matabeleland vote was not important, the emergence of Ncube has made it vital.
If Zanu PF beats MDC-T by a wide margin, which is less than two thirds majority, they will need Ncube’s support to change the Constitution. It is an open secret that all the political parties are keen to rewrite the recently adopted Constitution.
A disclaimer: My characterisation of Ncube’s MDC party in this article should not, in any way, be construed that it is a Matabeleland party, but a national party whose power base is primarily in Matabeleland.
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This is the same fact with the other two parties, Zanu PF and MDC-T whose power-bases are in Mashonaland. That doesn’t make them Mashonaland parties.
MDC-T has much more to lose from the rise of Ncube’s MDC in Matabeleland because it had traditionally benefited from the protest vote against Zanu PF.
With the significant rise of Ncube’s political capital in Matabeleland, more MDC-T supporters have gravitated towards MDC.
The political capital that Ncube earned has seen MDC-T president Morgan Tsvangirai inviting him to join the so-called grand coalition. Ncube has resisted and he should continue to resist it.
The main reasons Ncube should resist joining the grand coalition are obvious, and well documented, starting with Tsvangirai’s violence against Ncube, his entrenched undemocratic tendencies which led to the break-up of the united MDC, calling Ncube and his comrades, a tribal clique perpetuating the demeaning expectation that Ncube should always come second after Tsvangirai and be his subordinate and sidelining him in the meetings of Principals during the Global Political Agreement period.
While Ncube is on an aggressive democratic party building path, Tsvangirai is on an aggressive path to grab power by whatever means, even sleeping with the enemy, Ncube!
It is up to Ncube and the MDC to weigh, all factors taken into consideration, whether the coalition, which will make him, once again, subordinate to Tsvangirai, the right thing for him.
It is likely that the coalition of convenience will not achieve anything significant other than putting Tsvangirai into power and undermining Ncube’s effort in building his party.
This opinion is based on public statements by both Ncube and Tsvangirai that clearly show that they do not share any common democratic ideals. The popular bait used by Tsvangirai to back him in his bid to capture power is by exploiting the “Mugabe Must Go” mantra.
The plan is presented as a coalition of progressives that will gang up against Zanu PF and President Mugabe to remove them from power and establish a so-called new Zimbabwe, which is progressive.
Well, according to what Ncube told us of Tsvangirai, whom he had the chance to work with closely for a long time, he certainly is not a progressive.
The fact that Tsvangirai and the coalition want to establish the so-called new Zimbabwe calls into question what a new Zimbabwe is. Is the so-called new Zimbabwe a Zimbabwe without Mugabe and Zanu PF, but with Tsvangirai as leader of the coalition?
Does what Tsvangirai portray as a vision of the so-called new Zimbabwe the same as what Ncube envisions? Is the coalition to put Tsvangirai into power worth the effort for Ncube and MDC to suspend party building efforts?
Will Ncube be able to manage the MDC intraparty fallouts that will arise after some cadres who have toiled for the party are overlooked for positions dished out by Tsvangirai?
These are questions Ncube has to grapple with. I cannot pretend to be wise enough to answer them. It is Ncube and the MDC who can answer them to their satisfaction.
If they believe they can suspend their party building and prop up Tsvangirai, so be it. Not supporting Tsvangirai does not necessarily mean propping up Mugabe.
Each person has to earn the votes they deserve based on their invested democratic efforts! If Ncube decides to prop up Tsvangirai, he will have to face the even more difficult task of continuing to build his party, let alone holding it together.
For Tsvangirai, he would have hit two birds with one stone: He gets into power and destabilises, if not obliterate, Ncube’s party building effort. And with that, Tsvangirai would have achieved his triple objectives: Remove Mugabe and Zanu PF, grab power and obliterate the Ncube party building project.
The problem with this scenario is that the ends are achieved not for progressive purposes, but to accumulate personal power and destroy democratic competition as a precursor to undermine indigenisation and empowerment, and promote foreign interests.
