HomeOld_PostsThe Gambia and the bane of coalitions

The Gambia and the bane of coalitions

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IT is very unusual for the ‘independent’ media to agree with The Patriot like they did in their postmortems of Joice Mujuru’s disastrous outing in London last week. But even as they agreed with us, they conveniently ignored the spectacular collapse of The Gambia’s coalition.
Widely held as a breath of political fresh air in Zimbabwe, Joice became the new darling of the independent media in the aftermath of her embarrassing expulsion from the ruling ZANU PF in 2015.
Even as we continuously pointed out her fault lines, her seething incompetence and her besmirched record during her tenure in Government, many chose to ignore those warnings as they frantically sought to build another Morgan Tsvangirai in her.
We pointed out the appalling lethargy, the outlandish limitations and the dreadful dishonesty that make up her politics, but still we were alone in this battle of conviction.
We were consistent in our allusion to the fact that beyond the immense efforts of the ruling ZANU PF in masking her failures, there was nothing to write home about her outside the ruling Party.
We hammered home the point that before the opposition opened its arms to her, there was need to look at the real Joice, a Joice who now stood on her own, without ZANU PF cushioning her from scrutiny, without ZANU PF giving her both political outlook and cover.
We highlighted the point that the reason Mujuru and Morgan Tsvangirai were forming a coalition was because of their lack of political stamina and gravitas to take on the turbo-charged ZANU PF in elections.
The fate of that coalition is that it will first be annihilated by ZANU PF before crumbling into part of the failed political debris that litters the history of Zimbabwe.
While we will desist from saying we were right, we are, however, very disappointed not in Joice, but by the reason those who tried but failed to give her political life joined the party late.
We are disappointed by the persuasive force behind the late coming show by the so-called independent media.
That it took the BBC’s HARDTalk programme anchor, Stephen Sackur, to convince those who fell in love with Joice to find convergence with us speaks volumes about the British’s influence on some Zimbabweans.
Below we give voice to one of the local publications that was stunned by Mujuru’s inconsistency (NewsDay of March 14 2017):
Sackur confronted Mujuru with allegations of corruption, including claims she was a major beneficiary of diamond looting from the Marange-Chiadzwa diamond fields.
The BBC news anchor said he had evidence of diamond miners working in mines allegedly owned by the former VP, including a report that her daughter had approached First Star, a company dealing in diamonds, about a major deal.
“You think if I had all that richness I would be suffering like I am right now? … It was a joke, these people never saw me there and I have never been a miner. I have never been a miner,” Mujuru retorted, adding: “She (referring to herself) is poor and struggling to eke out a living from the farm which she grabbed from a white farmer.”
On the economy, Mujuru said she would immediately repeal the Indigenisation Act, a law crafted while she was Mugabe’s second-in-command compelling multinational companies operating in Zimbabwe to cede 51 percent of their shareholding to locals.
“That law we have already spoken about it as a party that we are going to repeal it, we are going to repeal it, because we are for investment, so they (investors) can come and help us as we rebuild,” she said.
Mujuru served under Mugabe for 34 years, 10 of them as VP.
While Joice was going on about her dishonesty, in the Gambia another political comedy was unravelling.
Adama Barrow, also given the same royal treatment like Mujuru when he brought an end Yahya Jammeh’s 22-year-old reign in January this year, was battling to contain a nasty collapse of the coaltion that brought him to power.
When it was announced that Barrow had defeated Jammeh, we were inundated with nauseating reports that Barrow was God’s gift to Africa.
There were many attempts by the Western media to create a place for Barrow among the ‘esteemed’ grouping of what they call ‘democrats’.
Experience has taught us in Zimbabwe that when the West gives you a kiss on the mouth, the immediate thing to do is to count your teeth, a lesson so lost on Tsvangirai who was hired, used and dumped.
We give voice to The Guardian of March 10 2017:
Gambian coalition parties that united last year to deliver the first new president in 22 years are unlikely to run together for legislative elections next month, a senior Government source told AFP.
President Adama Barrow said in January his coalition Government would ‘continue as a family’ in selecting candidates for the national assembly poll on April 6, a declaration now thrown into doubt.
“We cannot reach an agreement on how to contest the parliamentary election,” a senior figure within Barrow’s administration told AFP late Thursday.
Barrow was formerly a member of the United Democratic Party (UDP), the largest opposition grouping in the Jammeh era, but resigned to run as the coalition flagbearer.
His cabinet is made up of the heads of the seven parties and single independent candidate who formed the coalition, and he had barely finished putting his Government together before the disagreements began.
On Thursday, six new Ministers were sworn in, just hours before talks broke down between the coalition parties.
We leave it at that as we wait to see how the coalition in the country (Zimbabwe) will suffer the Barrow coalition fate — as it surely will!
Let those with ears listen.

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