By Special Matarirano

THE political relevance-seeking by the opposition in Zimbabwe is in overdrive. 

The history of the MDC is equal to a history of political grandstanding perched on perpetual dramaturgy. 

This political dramaturgy has been a characteristic of the grand political strategy by especially the MDC (Alliance) and its attention-seeking leader Nelson Chamisa.

The past two weeks saw the MDC Alliance leader displaying a spectacular performance that left many pundits asking the political morality within the opposition forces in Zimbabwe. 

One thing that is not surprising is the lack of political growth of the MDC Alliance. 

The larger Zimbabwean polity has seen this before; we have seen this drama-filled party performing its theatrics.  

It’s not new.

Let’s look at its rebound. 

It re-emerged on October 10 2021, when the MDC Alliance reported its members were attacked by ZANU PF supporters in Charumbira area in Masvingo. 

A plethora of video and photographs were posted on social media showing damaged cars belonging to the MDC Alliance. 

This became a merchandising gesture. 

With help from the Zimbabwe Amalgamated Diaspora Association (ZADA), an organisation launched on Zoom on September 11 2021, an appeal for the purchase of an armoured vehicle for Chamisa started circulating. 

This ZADA is believed to be an MDC Alliance front working to raise funds for the party in preparation of the 2023 elections. 

It is also charged with the responsibility of financially linking up the activities of Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe (ARTUZ) and MDC rural penetrative efforts. 

Much as its scope of activities are labelled non-political, the association is actually a political creature. Eliot Pfebve, a lecturer at Coventry University in the UK, serves as its interim president. 

To escalate and market the idea of an armoured vehicle, Chamisa, on October 19, reported that he was fired at by suspected ZANU PF members. 

What baffles is, there were no videos nor pictures of the assailants as was the case in Charumbira. 

It’s a script falling apart at the seams. 

Ostallos Siziba, the deputy spokesperson for the MDC Alliance, had the audacity to confirm that “…we are in a speed chase with ZANU PF thugs.” 

To escalate the purported chase, he went on to say: “We suspect some of them are soldiers in civilian clothes.”

Now the mentioning of soldiers in civilian clothes was not coincidental, it was in the script. 

Why? 

Soldiers are for war and if soldiers are chasing Chamisa’s convoy, it therefore translates to mean there is war. 

The picture of a war in Zimbabwe presents Chamisa and his party as ‘real fighters’ and this amplifies and reinvigorates their dwindling foreign support. 

In fact, those who have been following developments in the opposition camp will obviously have discerned that ‘foreign support’ was dwindling as a result of ‘failures’ by the opposition to achieve the much needed ‘regime change’ in Zimbabwe.

This is not new. 

It can be recalled that in November 2018, Chamisa and his band of hangers-on tried and dismally failed to capture the country’s attention in yet another poorly done performance, ‘the kidnapping attempt’ in Marondera.

These political falsehoods, themselves a means to an objective by the opposition MDC Alliance, have led to a pejorative enquiry into the extent of Chamisa’s political morality and his so-called ‘democratic’ lieutenants. It is left to those of us who are not ‘stupid’ to bring to light such shenanigans and expose them for the sham they are.

Dramaturgy has, therefore, come as a strategy to the MDC Alliance in their efforts to make a ‘Lazarus moment’ to their foreign sponsors. 

They are so desperate for financial assistance since the party’s loss of name and premises at the hands of Douglas Mwonzora and, with it, went the ‘political party’s financial grants.

One may wonder why the MDC Alliance has, of late, taken to dramaturgy and political bigotry? 

There has been a lot of pressure on Chamisa to lay out his political strategy and that strategy is not there. 

If one listens to the MDC Alliance leader speaking, one gets an obvious impression that the strategy is that ‘there is no strategy’. 

Hence the role that ZADA is now playing. 

So the MDC Alliance’s strategy is not within it but outside it. 

No wonder there is a gross lack of legitimate homegrown ideas from the party and falsehoods, especially on allegations involving attempts at their lives, have swamped and scripted.

Such are the theatrics we are provided by the MDC Alliance.