THE recent mission to the UK by the MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa was not as successful as he had hoped, if his public pronouncements are anything to go by.
He has since accused the British Government of backing President Emmerson Mnangagwa because he promises a stable government as opposed to what he termed ‘good governance’.
This is where the legacy Chamisa inherited from the late Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC was bound to fail him.
Like his predecessor, Chamisa believes that the best way to get into power is to badmouth ZANU PF whenever an opportunity arises on the international fora.
Choking the economy would eventually see the electorate ‘scream’ and abandon the revolutionary Party, argued Chester Crocker, the then US Assistant Secretary of State.
This was in response to MDC’s incessant pleas to the US to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe so that the ZANU PF Government would fall.
Curiously enough, there wasn’t any audible alternative programme that they offered.
“ZANU PF must go,” became their mantra.
And this is sweet music to the US whose nightmarish dislike of former liberation movements, sees ZANU PF as a hostile custodian of the strategic minerals Zimbabwe is endowed with.
But for some time it looked like ZANU PF would fall.
The so-called Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act has had a devastating effect on our economy.
And when Chamisa recently went to the US with Tendai Biti handholding him, it looked easy for them to persuade the Americans not to relax sanctions despite the emergence of a new dispensation.
The difference is the same, they argued.
The unrealistic conditions offered to President Mnangagwa for the US to lift sanctions easily betrayed their source.
They were a replica of those announced by Chamisa who had recently been to the US.
Emboldened by this success, Chamisa and his mentor Biti embarked on a trip to the UK, apparently to persuade the Brits to maintain sanctions until MDC came to power.
Here, a rude awakening was in store for them.
It seemed Tsvangirai’s trump card had failed to survive its author.
They found the tired war cry ‘ZANU PF must go’ no longer had any takers.
This time, the Brits were interested in the nature and amount of business they could do with Zimbabwe.
Perhaps, the MDC team’s argument on why they thought they were a better political party than ZANU PF would be best suited for submission to the Zimbabwean electorate.
The British knew Mugabe was gone and there was a new dispensation determined to resuscitate the economy.
That is why Chamisa’s attempt to persuade the British that President Mnangagwa was a mere clone of Mugabe proved to be a futile exercise.
Already, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Dr Sibusiso Moyo had been there where he articulated this message: ‘Zimbabwe is open for business’.
It is unlikely he ever mentioned MDC or any other rival political party throughout his talks.
It is unethical for a national leader, or one aspiring to be, to curry favour from a foreign government by wishing ill his country.
Chamisa must have learned his lesson well during his trip to the UK.
Meanwhile, his lies, his make-believe utopian ideas, his overly eagerness to get into power and absence of leadership ideas were exposed to the marrow in the UK.
Maybe he has to restrategise and move away from the belief that everything still revolves around the anachronistic Mugabe era.
That no longer sells both at home and abroad.