“Any lawyer will tell you that if a letter of demand is flagrantly ignored by the person to whom it is sent, appropriate legal action should ensue forthwith.”
The global political agreement (GPA) solemnised in Harare amidst pomp and ceremony has been anything but a happy marriage. Marriages of convenience are never known for their bliss and harmony, especially where a young and vibrant political party such as the MDC goes into a marriage of convenience with a tired and faction-ridden party such as ZANU(PF).
The MDC and ZANU (PF) are fundamentally and structurally dissimilar. Whilst the MDC is a movement that believes in a genuine democratic dispensation where the leadership of the party is accountable to its membership and is never allowed to degenerate into a one-person band, ZANU(PF) has a tradition of being a commandeering and top-down political party where the ” big man” syndrome is deeply entrenched.
ZANU (PF) is an organisation where any form of alternative thinking is ruthlessly clamped down and denounced as sell-out and/or neo-imperialist machinations. Whilst the MDC is forward-looking in its ideology and easily encourages robust debate amongst its membership, ZANU(PF) is deeply stuck in history and rather than engage the future and move forward, this party spends precious energy and time ”
celebrating” its past glory and eulogizing its former heroes; both living and dead, regardless of the apparent fact that some of these ” heroes” have since mutated into rabid tyrants who viciously clamp down upon any form of dissent; real or imagined. Such is the tragedy of ZANU(PF) that only a miracle can save it from inevitable disintegration and collapse.
The MDC’s decision to dis-engage from ZANU(PF) and not from the inclusive government is instructive. To some of us who have been carefully monitoring events in the inclusive government as they happened, we were not at all surprised by this bold and courageous decision. We had seen it coming. Mindful of the inherent mistrust typical of all forced marriages, we appreciated that a battered and habitually abused spouse in any unhappy forced marriage will, at some point in time, cry foul and seek to assert his/her rights vis-a-vis the abusive partner.
Put alternatively, the MDC tolerance threshold for continued abuse by ZANU(PF) was not going to last forever. The mere fact that eight months after the signing of the GPA, the contracting parties are still haggling over outstanding issues such as the Gono and Tomana appointments and the sharing of governors’ posts was in itself a symptom of a very unhappy and unstable political co-habitation.
Without mutual trust, love and affection in a marriage, divorce attorneys should always be ready to file the necessary papers at court.
I must confess that personally I was very pleased with the decision taken by the MDC to dis-engage from ZANU(PF) until such a time that all the afore-mentioned outstanding issues have been conclusively resolved. The MDC won the Parliamentary elections that were held on March 29, 2008. Morgan Tsvangirai beat Robert Mugabe hands down during the Presidential elections that were held the same day.
I will not dignify the electoral farce that took place on June 27, 2008 by making a substantive comment on it suffice to state that even the most die-hard ZANU(PF) supporters would agree that the June 27, 2008 run-off election ” result” will not be accepted as a genuine and free expression of the people’s will even in violence-ridden and lawless Somalia.
As expected, some latter-day opportunists and turncoat political ” analysts” have wasted no time in condemning the MDC decision to dis-engage from ZANU(PF) in both the Cabinet and the Council of Ministers. What these individuals seem not to appreciate is that the MDC has not walked out of the inclusive government. The MDC has simply given notice to their hostile and unco-operative partner in the inclusive government, ZANU(PF), that unless they start honouring their obligations honestly and honourably, divorce summons will sure be issued sooner rather than later.
In the practice of law, what the MDC has done is tantamount to issuing a strongly worded letter of demand. Any lawyer worth his/her salt will tell you that if a letter of demand is flagrantly ignored by the person to whom it is sent, appropriate legal action should ensue forthwith. Thus, ZANU(PF) will languish in a fool’s paradise if they think that the MDC is just playing mind games.
For some strange reason, all the twenty five (25) articles of the GPA do not specifically provide for any dissolution mechanism of the agreement. But this does not and should not be taken to mean that the GPA is cast in stone and can, therefore, not be dissolved. It can. Upon good and sufficient cause being shown and proved by any contracting party, any agreement (and this includes the GPA) can be terminated. I am not by any stretch of the imagination suggesting that the GPA should be terminated.
All I am submitting is that the GPA cannot be allowed to hang around the neck of the MDC like some kind of the Sword of Damocles. As a social democratic party, the MDC is busy consulting its supporters and Zimbabweans in general to decide whether or not this unhappy marriage called the inclusive government should be allowed to continue subsisting. The consultative process is on-going. The people will ultimately decide. This again shows the democratic and people-driven credentials of the MDC.
Some misguided senior civil servants who are still nursing a hangover of the expired ZANU (PF) political hegemony have gone ahead to mislead the nation by announcing that it will be business as usual in the inclusive government, even if the MDC has dis-engaged from ZANU(PF) in the Cabinet and the Council of Ministers.
It is this type of denialism that has been the hallmark of ZANU(PF)’ s descent into a deeply unpopular and rag tag organisation that is loosely held together by bitterly opposed and largely, tribalistic factions. Without the MDC under the astute leadership of Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe cannot be taken any further on the democratisation and socio-economic development fronts. ZANU(PF) is beyond redemption and indeed, all right-thinking and genuinely patriotic Zimbabweans locate the salvation of this great country in the MDC and not in ZANU(PF).
Constitutionally, executive authority in Zimbabwe shall vest in the President, the Prime Minister and the Cabinet. How ZANU (PF) dreams of turning around the fortunes of this country without the involvement of the MDC simply boggles the mind. They can continue with this ostrich mentality as they have done in the past.
The consequences are there for everyone to witness. However, the good news is that both SADC and the AU are not as naive as some ZANU(PF) apologists would want the nation to believe. These two organisations are acutely aware of the crisis that Zimbabwe has gone into because of the MDC decision to dis-engage from ZANU(PF), and they are already working frantically to ensure that the inclusive government experiment in Zimbabwe is not aborted.
The MDC decision to dis-engage from ZANU(PF) in both the cabinet and the council of ministers is a well thought-out political decision. This a strategic game plan that ranks amongst some of the major masterstrokes in contemporary world politics. It is an act of sheer political genius. And behind the scenes, ZANU(PF) is panicking.
Senator Obert Gutu
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