Kenya’s NASA and MDC-Alliance fail to dislodge Zanu-PF
DEMONSTRATING nothing super in record time, Kenya’s National Super Alliance (NASA) came to the political fore solely to oppose President Uhuru Kenyatta’s Jubilee party in the East African country’s 2017 general election.
Fronted by Raila Odinga, arguably the late Morgan Tsvangirai’s apparition to the grave, having attended the deceased’s burial in Buhera, Odinga has had his fair share of political failure at each attempt. Perpetual loss has defined his political life, having lost the presidential bid in 1997, 2007 and 2013 respectively.
In 2017 Odinga lost while riding on a NASA ticket when the now scattered bloc initially garnered 44,7 percent of the votes against Kenyatta’s 54,2 percent before finally succumbing to the incumbent after a bruising 98 percent loss. This put the final nail on the coalition’s political coffin, ushering in a prolonged period of scattering to the Kenyan opposition parties.
The term doppelganger is often used to describe any person with a striking physical or behavioural resemblance to another person. In some cultures, doppelgangers were considered as omens of bad luck and seeing one’s doppelganger was said to be an omen of death. Furthermore, ancient cultural banks are replete with notions alluding to doppelgangers even going to the extent of providing misleading and malicious advice to the person they shadow.
Hence, when one sees their doppelganger and apparition, it would be foolhardy to take them for some picnic. Instead it’s advisable to just run, run and run for dear life!
Unfortunately, the now ideologically depleted East African political block found itself a tolerating and hence bound to nowhere doppelganger in Southern Africa. This comes in the form of our very own now seemingly big-for-nothing MDC Alliance led by the embattled Nelson Chamisa, and arguably inherited from the late Morgan Tsvangirai, solely created to oppose the ruling Zanu-PF party, added to fulfilling personal egos and satisfying the apparently insatiable political greed in the 2018 harmonised elections after several attempts executed since the turn of the new millennium.
Failing to learn from the past and as well as failing to realise that it does not necessarily need coalitions but ideologies to defeat grounded and well oiled political machineries, both NASA and the MDC Alliance have never missed an opportunity to demonise those responsible with the electoral process in their usual blame shifting game, a development which has seen the vilification of Kenya’s Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec), respectively.
It’s quite amusing how a claiming-tobe-democratic lot can actually protest against the will of the people, to the extent of taking that same will to the courts of law!
The Odinga-led and on the verge of collapse NASA, and our very own MDC Alliance, will go down the annals of history as the two famous political blocs who added to suffering perpetual defeat due to inconsistency in policy, as well became movements of resistance and symbols of instability in their respective countries during their political journeys to nowhere.
The two political babels are as well possessed with a worrying penchant of setting out to render illegitimate, a legitimate poll outcome. They both refuse to accept defeat, and this they do under vehement circumstances, stopping at nothing to render their respective countries ungovernable.
To people of more research, this they obviously do in a desperate attempt to force their free and fair electoral tormentors, their victorious opponents into some Government of National Unity (GNU), the usual solace for losing opposition parties in Africa, it seems.
The Kenyan and Zimbabwean cases both tested power in 2008-2013 and 2009-2013, respectively, and thanks to the forged GNUs. It was as well amusing how they went mum in criticising their now perceived political opponents.
In the Zimbabwean case for instance, some were blinded by euphoria and went to the extent of forgetting their source(s) of relevance, acknowledging that the “targeted sanctions” hurt the ordinary people more than it did the people it claimed to harm:
“You must engage strategically to assist the people of Zimbabwe,” pleaded Tendai Biti while Finance Minister under the political comfort of the GNU in 2012.
Surprisingly in political darkness after the collapse of the GNU, the same Biti and like-minds were back in the trenches of political egotism; executing their scotched earth policies and once again calling for the imposition of sanctions on the generality of Zimbabweans. The majority in this highly literate nation has since realised it and this has arguably fuelled voter apathy for the embattled opposition movement, as demonstrated in the recent harmonised elections which went PFEEEE!
“We will make sure they don’t get a cent. I can’t tell you how, but I can tell you we have done it before,” boasted Biti while shocking all and sundry in an apparent attempt to frustrate developmental efforts at a time when the country needs nothing besides moving forward amid unified efforts.
The impatient political blocs initiated by Raila and the departed Tsvangirai have a disdaining tendency of fuelling instability. So daring are they to an extent that they can even declare themselves winners even before actual results are announced, threatening not to accept any outcome that will not favour them in the nexus.
Flaunting no democracy at all, the very democracy they so much preach about, and with a violence DNA, it comes with no surprise that Biti and company have been accused of being responsible for the August 1st ugly scenes that gripped Harare. Going to the extent of sacrificing innocent souls in desperate fulfilment of political egos and tainting Zimbabwe’s image in the international community was an appalling stunt executed under very heartless circumstances.
Come to think of it; as Zimbabwe and the rest of the world was patiently and procedurally awaiting the 2018 harmonised election results in peace, Tendai Biti, “proclaimed” Nelson Chamisa as the winner of the presidential poll.
This he probably did basing on statistics from their Twitter followers, the very blog they spent most of their time in, while their political opponents were busy campaigning on the grassroots, and with the people.
Sadly on Twitter, we at times just follow for the fun of it. Ah! Who wouldn’t dare follow political bafoonery in all its flavour?
Kodwa lapha ngani kungcono. In Kenya, Raila Odinga went to extremes and inaugurated himself in a mock “swearing-in’” ceremony after his bruising 98% defeat by incumbent Kenyatta, in what many viewed as the joke of the year in 2017.
As soon as the actual results trickled in, violence arguably perpetrated by Biti and company erupted. Interestingly, the post election period saw the jetting in from Kenya of Raila Odinga’s former political aide, Silas Jakakimba. Not surprisingly, a few hours after his departure, Harare was up in smoke and innocent lives were lost.
Sadly, the gullible and used innocent youths will unfortunately now frequent the courts of law, while the real perpetrators, probably guilty hence afraid but fortunate enough to be having the means, yet unfortunate not to subvert the voice of the people, which is the voice of God, attempted to flee the country but to no avail because God was not in it.
It is as well amusing how today poor Biti is even drawing sympathy even from wolves in sheep skin, wandering souls of lost ideas like the now fading Twitter Professor. The very people who went miles in celebrating the demise and finding joy in inflicting social pain on anything presumed opposition when they were still in the echelons of power. Not surprisingly however, to people of more research once again, these are just desperate émigrés, bent on rendering the country ungovernable so they could find a way back home, a peaceful place they seem to be so much sick for.
But all was well when it suited them; why not Let It Play still?
@melumoyo86