Opposition parties in back-door power bid
The opposition is fully aware that it has no ideological wherewithal to unseat ZANU-PF through elections hence the frenetic bid to use nonelectoral means to get into government through the backdoor.
AS the 2018 elections draw closer, it appears opposition political parties are becoming nimble-footed and are slowly reverting to their default setting of seeking power through any other means but elections.
Afraid of facing the palpably invincible ZANU-PF juggernaut, opposition officials are panicking and seeking a Plan B way of circumventing the impending polls.
This is nothing new to the feeble and fractious opposition, which for long has tried to usurp power through street protests, stayaways, boycotts and other forceful non-electoral measures.
In their current bid, opposition political parties are once again trying to rope in Sadc to intervene on their behalf to midwife a non-elected unity Government as in the 2009 scenario.
The Sadc narrative has gained so much momentum that a pro-opposition civil society organisation, the Election Resource Centre (ERC) suggested in a local daily last week that “Sadc has unfinished business in Zimbabwe”.
The ERC opined that, “With South Africa taking over the leadership of the Southern African Development Community, (Sadc), and Zimbabwe heading for another landmark election likely to be highly-contested and equally disputed, it is only logical to remind both Sadc and South Africa on the unfinished business in Zimbabwe. Unfinished business given the investment made after the 2008 election in trying to resolve the political impasse that had emerged arising from a disputed electoral outcome.”
It is amusing that the pro-opposition body, without any shred of evidence that the 2018 polls would be disputed, is already canvassing for Sadc to meddle in Zimbabwe’s electoral matters. This is what election phobia does to political actors. They panic!
A similar panicky voice was echoed by the MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu who expressed fear that chances of Sadc intervening in Zimbabwe’s political matters could have been dampened by the appointment of South Africa’s pan-African President Jacob Zuma as the chairperson of the regional body.
Gutu was quoted in a local daily saying, “What guarantee do we have that Sadc will take a strong position if violence erupts in next year’s watershed elections?”
It is clear that both the ERC and MDC-T are frenetically praying for a disputed election that would enable Sadc or any other foreign body to get an opportunity to intervene and unseat the current ZANU-PF Government.
Other than stacking their hope on the wishful Sadc intervention, opposition political parties are also trying to employ other gimmicks to avoid the electoral route.
People’s Democratic Party, (PDP), leader, Tendai Biti, is toying with the idea of cancelling the 2018 elections and instead create a non-elected government through the so-called National Transitional Authority (NTA).
Writing on his Twitter page, Biti said, “Two years ago PDP spoke of the need of an NTA. Two years down the line, it is clear that this may be the only thing to save Zimbabwe.”
Biti cowardly believes that the NTA would save “Zimbabwe”.
However, it is noteworthy that what the PDP leader is calling the “Zimbabwe that needs saving” is the opposition chariot that is facing another embarrassing crash at the hands of ZANU-PF in 2018.
Opposition mandarins like Biti have forlornly realised that their chariot would never reach its destination through the electoral route hence the edgy attempts to circumvent elections through short cut detours such as the NTA.
Academic and opposition sympathiser, Dr Ibbo Mandaza, has also been exasperatingly peddling the NTA narrative after equally realising that opposition political parties would fair badly in 2018. Anglican Bishop Sebastian Bakare, has also deafeningly run with a similar proposal called the National Convergence Platform (NCP), which is laden with ideas on how the opposition could side-step the electoral route in order to get into power.
All these cunning shenanigans fall squarely into previous inimical bids to use illegal sanctions to make the economy ‘scream’ and trigger social discontent that would spur violent protests designed at removing the incumbent Government and ushering in the opposition into power.
So, instead of focusing on preparations to contest ZANU-PF in the 2018 elections, the opposition is feverishly scrounging for other undemocratic, negotiated, mediated or Arab Springlike violent ways of getting into power.
The opposition is fully aware that it has no ideological wherewithal to successfully unseat ZANU-PF through elections hence the frenetic bid to use non-electoral means to get into government through the back-door.
However, all this has remained an evasive dream as Zimbabweans remain attuned to the constitutional way of choosing their government through regular elections.