THIS column will this week start by wishing MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai a speedy recovery following his ‘sudden’ illness that saw him airlifted to South Africa in the early hours of Friday last week – 2am to be precise.
Our prayers are with you Save as you go through the much-needed recovery.
But to the serious issues, which is politics, this is where we need you to be at your best so that come 2018 when the ZANU PF roller-coaster steamrolls past you, there will not be any lamentations of fraud.
This issue, which is the core of this week’s instalment, will be dealt with later in this column.
But it will also give one or two hints to Luke Tamborinyoka, Tsvangirai’s spokesperson, on how to handle the media, especially in times like these.
Tamborinyoka, there was nothing ‘morbidly speculative’ about a person who is ferried in an ambulance, at the witching hour, to be airlifted for treatment.
It is called an emergency and we will hasten to say that illness can befall anyone, anytime.
Second, Tamborinyoka, there is nothing ‘routine’ when ambulances are involved.
So I ask the question: What is it that you are hiding about your boss’ illness?
These things, as one senior Government official once warned a former MDC-T spokesperson, ‘come with a little bit of sophistication and experience’.
The announcement a fortnight ago by President Robert Mugabe of the voter registration dates has not, surprisingly, evoked the usual response from the MDC-T.
Their fears are founded on solid grounds.
Elections are always a dreadful period for the MDC-T.
This is when they are exposed for the fraud and inept gathering of useless people masquerading as a formidable political party that they are.
They are a sorry coalition of little men and women hoping, by some stroke of luck, to join the big boys’ club.
That is not going to happen and here is why:
When on September 8 2017 President Mugabe proclaimed, through Proclamation No.6 of 2017, that voter registration will commence on September 14 and end on January 15 2018, the dye was cast.
True to their wretched form, the MDC-T, which has been lurching from one excuse to another to delay the inevitable, cried foul.
They claimed the biometric voter registration, which has begun in earnest, was ‘not properly done and in accordance with the law’.
The MDC-T has been ‘arguing’ there is inadequate time to have the new voter registration system in operation.
In its application, the MDC-T says President Mugabe should not have proclaimed voter registration dates before the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) procured BVR servers to store data.
But President Mugabe has since said that he made the proclamation based on advice from ZEC and that as Government, they were guided by the Constitution and the electoral mother body on how elections are run in the country.
It is interesting that the Constitution which the President is alluding to is the clearest sign yet that democracy, which the MDC-T claims to represent, is very much alive in the country.
If anything, it is the opposition which is trying to do another Raila Odinga in Zimbabwe by denying the people the right to choose their leaders.
The MDC-T’s treachery, which the party has never hidden, is now once more coming to the fore through their flagrant abuse of the Constitution which they want everyone to believe they respect and have an appreciation of, when the opposite is true.
From the discerning political eye, it is very clear that its panic station within the MDC-T, hence their futile attempt to derail the electoral process.
They are worried the ZANU PF juggernaut will once more wallop them at the polls.
They have every reason to tremble in their boots.
ZANU PF has already proven that the 2018 harmonised elections are going to be a one-sided contest if the huge numbers attending the on-going Presidential Youth Interface rallies are anything to go by.
In the eight rallies held so far, ZANU PF has been attracting an average 100 000 people.
The remaining rallies in Harare and Bulawayo will further stamp the ruling party’s authority on the country’s political scene.
In the meantime, the opposition has been struggling to cobble up the much-touted grand coalition with serious disagreements playing out in the public.
Recently, MDC-T co-vice-president Thokozani Khupe was thumped by marauding party youths who are alleged to have been acting on the instructions of Tsvangirai.
Khupe has been threatening to split from the MDC-T.
The other factor eating into what remains of the MDC-T base is the bumper harvest that the country is currently enjoying courtesy of the hugely successful Command Agriculture Programme.
Also the economy, which is on the rebound, presents fresh headaches for the embattled MDC-T.
Their fear of elections is thus understandable.
Let those with ears listen.