Tsvangirai speaks from the grave

EXACTLY four years ago, the doyen of the country’s democratic struggle died. It was only befitting that the late Morgan Richard Tsvangirai would die on Valentine’s Day — on the day that the power of love is celebrated worldwide — for the man was an iconic patriot who not only loved his country but was reputably a man of love in many other respects.

As per tradition, today’s column is a special dedication in remembrance of Tsvangirai, a man I served for 10 years as his spokesperson and trusted lieutenant. He was a father, a friend and a boss all rolled in one.

Tsvangirai loved his white wine. He would invariably become freewilled and would open up his mind after several glasses of wine, which he loved just as he loved his golf.

Tsvangirai did not take any type of beer. While on a trip from Mberengwa to Zvishavane late 2013, I asked him if he had ever taken any type of beer and if so, why he had kicked the habit. He only told me that something embarrassing had happened after he and others had drunk to the advent of a new country in the promising and celebratory days of the roaring 1980s.

Since then, he said he had vowed never to drink beer again. I had dutifully refrained from pressing him for the intimate details of the embarrassing episode as it was clear he was not keen to shed any more light on the shameful misadventure, whatever it was.

We sat down one evening in 2014 as he exhorted me to write a piece on his personal reflections, almost a year after the stolen election of 2013.

He told me several talking points that touched on the election that had been brazenly stolen against the background of an inclusive government that had engendered so much hope and promise for the country. He frankly spoke about his family, his love life and the despondency he had seen in the countryside in a nationwide tour in which we had traversed together the whole country together and engaged citizens in the immediate aftermath of the stolen plebiscite of July 2013. He also spoke about the naive assumption in 2013 that huge voting numbers in the absence of comprehensive reforms would overwhelm any Zanu PF rigging plot, itself a cardinal lesson for us as the CCC leadership not to lose focus on the reform agenda.

It was a candid and honest exchange that evening as he told me the talking points for his envisaged message to the people of Zimbabwe. He specifically instructed that I should dub the message his “personal reflections”.

We agreed that the op-ed would carry his byline so as to befittingly accord it the requisite intimate, personal touch.

Deep in my mind, I had attributed the candidness and jovial looseness of mind to the half-empty bottle of white wine that arrogantly stood on the table before him.

However, my conjecture could be wrong. It may not have been the wine as he would later exhibit the same frankness and free-spiritedness when I routinely interviewed him on a wide range of issues for a book that is set to be published in the coming months.

For Service and Sacrifice, my forthcoming book, contains hitherto unknown details about his personal views on a wide array of matters, his work in government as well as his interactions and his working relationship with the late former President Robert Mugabe, particularly during the tenuous era of the inclusive government.

But the forthcoming book is a story for another day.

That discussion that evening in 2014 for a candid opinion piece under his byline will forever remain ingrained in my mind. Here was the true Tsvangirai speaking from the heart. Unrestrained, free-flowing, unadulterated and genuine.

Today, in his memory, I republish the epic piece in which he reflected on his love life as well as a despondent country in the aftermath of a stolen election in which Zanu PF had made so many promises but delivered none.

Today, having come from yet another stolen election in 2018 in which Zanu PF promised to do so much and yet has delivered nothing, the country finds itself in the same space in which Tsvangirai wrote the piece below.

Indeed, we are in the same political moment in which Tsvangirai reflected on a diverse array of issues, particularly on a weather-beaten people in the aftermath of an election in which Zanu PF had promised so much and conspired to disappoint.

In his memory, amid a striking congruence in the moment in which his op-Ed was written, I will allow him to yet again address a similarly stressed nation from the grave!

Personal Reflections

BY MORGAN TSVANGIRAI

The lasting image of the last election that has remained largely ingrained in my mind is of the mammoth crowd that gathered in Harare on what we dubbed the Cross Over rally on July 29, 2013.

It is an indelible image of a nation that was geared for change, a determined people on the brink of crossing over to a new country with new opportunities under a new and competent dispensation.

Now it has been 11 months since the election on July 31 2013 and the swearing in of the current government of Zimbabwe; but the situation in the country is dispiriting.

Starting on September 3, 2013, I began a national conversation with the people of Zimbabwe.

I have travelled across the length and breath of our nation, engaging in dialogue with people from all walks of life and holding rallies that attracted multitudes.

In my visits to the various districts after the election, I have seen and witnessed the pain of Zimbabweans, the palpable despair among the people as they contemplated a future for themselves and their families under the Zanu PF regime.

The ordinary people of this country are simply failing to cope with life in the current socio-economic circumstances that are upon us.

I spoke to pensioners that have found themselves pauperised, disenfranchised and smothered by the debilitating economic policies and unmitigated mismanagement by the Mugabe government.

I saw parents struggling to pay for their children’s school fees and for their healthcare; men and women emasculated by Zanu PF’s failing policies and company closures.

I saw previously employed citizens and those seeking work who now cannot sustain a meaningful life, including university graduates vending airtime vouchers and anything else that can be sold.

Indeed, the nation has become one big mall, a huge “Siyaso” market with everyone trying to sell something to someone just to make ends meet.

I saw villagers struggling to buy basics for their families, huge families surviving on far much less that US$1 per day.

The question on everybody’s mind is how so much pain, despair and desperation can immediately follow what our colleagues in Zanu PF would want to call a resounding victory that gave them an overwhelming mandate?

From where we had started since the formation of the inclusive government in early 2009 and where we had reached by 2013, notable progress had been recorded and hope for a brighter future sufficiently generated.

The desperate times of the crisis era of 2008 had become a distant memory and a new sense of hope had crept in the country by the time we held the last election. The past had become another country.

We all thought that the election was going to result in the consolidation of the hope and the progress that had set in the country after 2009.

My heart is heavy today, as we accelerate towards the same economic turmoil from where we had rescued the people of Zimbabwe some five years ago!