IN an open season where desperate media outlets and political opponents of grass and straw in their anti-ZANU PF project, it was not surprising the Daily News launched a spirited campaign calling for early elections apparently without realising the myth that the Joice Mujuru-led People First can get 100 Members of Parliament from ZANU PF to resign while Morgan Tsvangirai is now a spent force.
Under the campaign, People First and the MDC-T are “ratcheting up their plans to either impeach President Robert Mugabe or force an early general election,” the Daily News reported last week.
All this is premised on their long-held wish of an ungovernable Zimbabwe epitomised by anarchy and civil strife.
To cap it all will be a Transitional Authority made up of officials drawn from opposition parties, hence the frustrations over the failure by the MDC-T and the People First to find common ground on the touted ‘grand coalition’.
The biggest undoing of their doomed affair is the failure by each of the two outfits to go it alone.
If both Mujuru and Tsvangirai believe they can dismantle ZANU PF’s watertight defence of the revolution why can’t each of the two gather courage to take the revolutionary party head on?
Why resort to handholding when they claim ZANU PF is finished?
“Amid all this brouhaha, well-placed sources told the Daily News yesterday that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC and former Vice-President Joice Mujuru’s People First movement could trigger early polls, possibly as early as this year, as the political climate in the country continues to deteriorate,” the Daily News reported.
“Part of the plans being considered, the sources claim, involve on one hand the MDC withdrawing all its MPs from Parliament, while Mujuru’s ‘original’ ZANU PF that uses the slogan People First — and which is actively wooing Mugabe’s post-congress ZANU PF MPs — would denude the ruling party’s National Assembly numbers through this courtship, thereby creating a parliamentary vacuum and forcing an early general election.
Parliament’s Standing Order Number 56 (1) and Section 137 of the Constitution provides that the Senate and the National Assembly must have a minimum number of members present at all times for them to conduct business.
This is a campaign by the Daily News and the increasingly fragmented opposition designed to destabilise ZANU PF and the country through their propping up of the People First and MDC-T alliance.
Towards the end of last year, Stephen Chan, Britain’s chief strategist on the Zimbabwean issue and London’s Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, Philip Hammond, showered Harare and ZANU PF with rare praises on the direction the southern African nation is taking.
Chan, who is a professor of World Politics at the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies had, prior to this shock approbation of ZANU PF and Zimbabwe, been instrumental in Britain’s obliteration of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade.
In an opinion piece published by the New York Times, Chan brought to the fore London’s shift in position with regards to Zimbabwe and ZANU PF.
“Should there be conditions for re-engagement? The West probably won’t be able to resist making calls for less opaque financial and political dealings. But the land issue is settled: There is no politically viable force that would seek to restore farms to ousted whites,” reads part of Chan’s instalment.
“And given the implosion of any viable opposition, the West has little choice but to work with ZANU PF.
“The world will one day soon see the end of Robert Mugabe. But his party will likely live on, and it is within that party that, like it or not, the West must now find people with whom it can work toward some kind of viable future for this unhappy country.”
What is scaring the West, People First and the embattled MDC-T are the great strides made by President Robert Mugabe’s Government in reviving the economy.
2015 set the tone for revival efforts.
And 2016 has started on a good note with the announcement that China has released US$1, 2 billion for the revival of the Hwange Units 7 and 8.
Across the board, every sector is set for massive revival.
Armed with a performing economy, People First and the MDC-T stand no chance against a supercharged ZANU PF in the ballot.
This is why destabilisation looks like an attractive proposition for the People First and the MDC-T.
Unfortunately for them, ZANU PF is here to stay.
With the economy showing signs of recovery, the message to People First and the MDC-T is that theirs is a doomed affair.
Let those with ears listen.