THE centre can no longer hold at Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC), following the crushing defeat of their bosom regime change ally, the MDC-T, in the harmonised elections of July 31 2013.
The deceivingly robust CiZC sounded very confident and that its affiliates would jointly help bring about the change in governance desired by their Western donors.
Elsewhere in this edition we carry a story where 10 non governmental organisations (NGOs) have pulled out of this unwieldy coalition.
It looks like things are now falling apart.
But this was predictable.
It is obvious that the CiZC is just an amalgam of unprincipled groups that sprouted in an attempt to get easy money from naive Western donors.
They have no common ideology binding them together.
Like their financiers, they have a misguided idea about the environment in which they are operating.
The donors’ ignorance of the mental strength of the Zimbabwean polity makes them believe anything they are told by their puppets.
Leading up to the July 31 harmonised elections, civil society organisations sounded vibrant enough to convince their donors that regime change was on the horizon in Zimbabwe.
After all their donors were from the same society that once believed Bishop Muzorewa’s UANC would defeat the liberation parties in the 1980 watershed poll.
They believed then that because the liberation parties were ‘communists’, black Zimbabweans, given a chance to vote secretly, would do what the British expected.
They were wrong.
Bishop Muzorewa’s UANC ended up with only three seats, the same number as the helicopters he had used during his election campaign.
The West doesn’t seem to ever learn.
However, the ‘shocking’ outcome of the July 31 harmonised poll must have jerked them into coming to grips with reality.
The immediate response of the Western donors was to touch on where it hurt the civil society groups most, the CiZC in particular.
Funds were either severely reduced and in some cases suspended altogether.
But then it was these very funds that had acted as the glue that kept these disparate money-seeking organisations together.
It is not surprising that the reasons submitted by the 10 groups for deserting the ‘crisis’ coalition are all to do with mismanagement of cash.
Without a steady flow of cash, there is otherwise no justification of their sticking together, so they are convinced.
Before the July 31 2013 tsunami, CiZC appeared to be a united regime change pressure group as meetings and statements flowed on a regular basis.
They had to convince their gullible donors that they were doing a good job.
Then everyone hoped more easy money would continue flowing from the Western donors.
And now since Zimbabwe’s fate has now been decided by the Zimbabweans themselves, CiZC has to devise another strategy to woo donor funds.
And with the way things are going on in this country it looks like it won’t be easy to persuade affiliates to stick together and hope.
What with mega deals with China and Russia and the West increasingly showing interest to do business with Zimbabwe!
The pulling out of these 10 NGOs from Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition should be seen as an example that any organisation united by the love of easy money won’t last.
It looks like this desertion is the beginning of the end of CiZC.
And if there is life after death CiZC are likely to find their regime change partner, the MDC-T, in the same graveyard.