IN his ‘honest assessment of the party (MDC-T),’ Elton Mangoma has come out and boldly recommended embattled MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai to give up party presidency and retire into perhaps a founder president position specifically to be created for his appeasement.
The reasons are that leadership renewal is the best option to salvage the puppet party from the damage suffered in the July 31 2013 elections which he (Mangoma) still sadly thinks was a ZANU PF fraud.
And, one is actually tempted to applaud this as a sign of long-hoped-for maturity among people sponsored to restore white interests that exclude those of black Zimbabweans, a closer look reveals a more ominous mind-set.  
The head on Mangoma’s shoulders has not grown older and wiser, as one would expect, but quite simply older and nothing more.
He is still loyal and respectful to Tsvangirai and the movement, regardless of the unforgivable sins he goes on to enumerate justifying his desire that the shameless man should leave.
And, he claims that his ‘honest assessment of the party’ is ‘in the name of transparency and honesty, for preservation of (our) collective integrity and (my) love for this party and this country as well as (my) utmost respect for the leadership of the party’. 
In the (same) name of transparency, honesty, for preservation of collective integrity and love for the party and this country as well as utmost respect for the leadership of the party (MDC-T), he feels that if Tsvangirai chooses to remain in what he calls ‘questioned leadership’ there are some questions that are now part of the general talk that he needs to answer.
The questions are given as follows:
How will you be able to undertake the reform agenda that we failed to do when we were in government and you had executive power?
How will you answer the questions that we failed to care enough for our people and that we used our time in Government for personal aggrandisement, personal wealth accumulation as symbolised by the current impasse on Highlands residence?
How will you put closure to the issue of women in your life and ensure that these will not continue to erode your and the party’s brand?
How will we put closure to the question of misuse of funds, and ensure that our friends regain confidence that donations will be channelled to the people’s project going forward?
How will we make sure that trust, team spirit and mutual confidence, currently eroded through the misconduct of the primary elections, violence visited on staff and myself, lack of constitutionalism and failure to follow procedure on appointment of officers to the National Executive and key public offices including diplomatic posts is restored?
It is extremely sad that a man who strongly believes that all these misdemeanors call for leadership renewal in the MDC leadership refuses to accept that the same party lost the July 31 elections for the same reasons.
It is also very sad Mangoma does not see that the foregoing misdemeanors cannot be the credentials of ‘a democrat and a brave fighter against dictatorship and one-man-rule,’ as he describes Tsvangirai in the same breath.
Mangoma gives the MDC-T objective as acquiring state power in order to govern democratically and bring about real transformation in Zimbabwe.
Then ‘in the name of transparency, honesty, for preservation of (our) collective integrity and (my) love for this party and this country as well as (my) utmost respect for the leadership of the party,’ he asks:  “How will you be able to undertake the reform agenda that we failed to do when we were in government and you had executive power?”
It is sad that Elton Mangoma thinks that the electorate is not intelligent enough to intelligently read the same issues the same way he does and then vote accordingly.
He is not accepting that the electorate was far more intelligent and way ahead of him that they wanted Tsvangirai out of power long before he (Mangoma) wanted, and for the same reasons he now wants him to give up party presidency.
And perhaps, the saddest part of Mangoma’s reasoning is that even as he lays out the questions Tsvangirai has an obligation to answer to the electorate, he is not aware that the questions collectively define the crisis the MDC-T has always denied it brought upon the people of Zimbabwe.
The questions Mangoma enumerates are an ‘honest and transparent’ admission of guilt that belies his claims that:  “There is also no denial that he (Tsvangirai) has played a pivotal role in Zimbabwe’s quest for democracy and socio-economic transformation.”
Is it also not ironic that after enumerating all the sins which the MDC committed against the people of Zimbabwe, Mangoma must believe that, “As Zimbabwe seems to plunge deeper into crisis following the July 31 election, the relevance of the MDC cannot be overstressed?”
How is it possible to talk about betrayal and relevance in the same breath?
It is absurd that while Mangoma’s questions literally define the MDC (T)’s irrelevance to Zimbabwe’s future, he should go on to say: “… the relevance of the MDC cannot be overstressed,” notwithstanding that the July 31 election result was unambiguously definitive of that irrelevance.
What crisis (after all) could go deeper than the crisis brought upon the nation by the MDC-T- authored illegal sanctions that violated international protocol to interfere with Zimbabwe’s economy?