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Nduduzo Tshuma
THE planned MDC-T march in Bulawayo will not turn around the troubled party’s fortunes in the city with the Bulawayo City Council, its model of governance, presently under pressure over allegations of shady land deals and looting.

The party last month held violent marches that left a trail of destruction in the capital, Harare, where rowdy youths destroyed property in a number of shops including Choppies Zimbabwe.

After the infamous demonstrations and perhaps excited by the inconsequential numbers that attended the march, the MDC-T thought of bringing the demonstrations to Bulawayo.

The agenda, according to MDC-T provincial spokesperson Mandla Sibanda, is to extend the Harare version to include protests against local government minister Cde Saviour Kasukuwere’s alleged meddling with the operations of the BCC.

What is surprising, however, is that while claiming to have a clear agenda, the MDC-T has been holding a series of workshops for its supporters in Bulawayo on how to conduct the demonstration.

It would appear that the MDC-T is not even sure if it’s so called grievances are legitimate to the point of coaching its supporters on how to take to the streets and demonstrate about things supposedly close to the people’s hearts.

However, what is significant is that the Bulawayo demonstrations come at a time when there are widespread protests against the MDC-T run council over looting of stands by some party councillors.

Since Independence in 1980, the BCC has won plaudits as the best run council but fears are growing that the current crop of MDC-T councillors are on a looting spree, demonstrated by their parcelling out to each other land at less than commercial value.

Bulawayo residents, through the Bulawayo Progressive Residents’ Association, have since petitioned Parliament to order an investigation into the alleged illegal land grab involving some councillors.

Local campaigners were outraged after deputy mayor Gift Banda was revealed to have been allocated a portion of the famous Ascot Race Course last year — some 3.5 hectares of land.

Banda will soon be constructing town houses at Ascot Race Course after the BCC granted him permission to buy the land worth $130,000.

The land will be used to construct town houses for middle to high income earners.

Two councillors, James Sithole of Ward 7 and Charles Moyo of Ward 9, are also said to have been given town house stands in Parklands measuring 3.7 hectares and 2.3 hectares at below market value.

The Bulawayo demo has therefore been interpreted as a bid by the party to prop up its councillors who are under attack for alleged corruption and running down the city.

The MDC-T has, until last year’s June by elections and another late in December, maintained a stranglehold on Bulawayo since the 2000 elections with the party’s leadership declaring that the city was a model of the party’s governance style.

With allegations of shady dealings at the BCC, the governance style of the MDC-T is there for all to see with councillors falling over each other to partition Bulawayo among themselves.

The alleged corruption coupled with the fractious MDC-T Bulawayo structures fragmented by factionalism, makes it easy to understand why the support of the party has dwindled over the years.

The MDC-T leadership, despite declaring Bulawayo a “Zanu-PF liberated zone,” did not field candidates in last June’s by-elections for five constituencies that were eventually won by Zanu PF.

Zanu-PF then bagged another seat in December, ending the MDC-T’s 16-year-old stranglehold on Bulawayo with the two parties holding six constituencies each.

It is clear therefore that the demo will not clean the image of the BCC amid the unprecedented looting spree going on at the local authority.

The party is used to blaming Zanu-PF for the country’s ills but here is an MDC-T dominated council doing the very things that they accuse the ruling party of doing, begging the question: what change is the movement about?

Nothing will be said about the democracy that the MDC-T claims to be pursuing with the documented cases of violation of constitutional provisions within the party by Tsvangirai himself and his lieutenants as they purged their perceived enemies.

It is clear that the demos are not about the people but an expression of excitement by the MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, who thinks that the paltry Harare crowds have suddenly restored his long lost popularity.

So excited is Tsvangirai that he has even made a U-turn on participating in the 2018 elections.

Behind the scenes, however, we understand the demo crowds have caused more than excitement with reports of divisions between Tsvangirai and his lieutenants on whether or not to join other opposition parties to challenge the ruling Zanu-PF.

The MDC-T’s secretary for local governance and Bulawayo South legislator, Eddie Cross, was quoted in the private media contradicting his boss about the need to form a coalition with other parties.

The legislator goes on to claim that the majority of the party is against a coalition.

The party’s secretary general Douglas Mwonzora is also on record as saying the party had taken a step back from coalition negotiations to go it alone.

Besides, many have not forgotten calls by Tsvangirai for sanctions to be imposed on Zimbabwe in a desperate bid to effect regime change.

The images of Tsvangirai on South Africa’s SABC calling for neighbouring countries to cut electricity supplies to Zimbabwe to pursue the same agenda are still fresh in the minds of Zimbabweans.

If anything, Tsvangirai and his party should apologise to the people of Zimbabwe for bringing so much suffering to the country just for them to occupy State House.

It boggles the mind how Tsvangirai and his party believe that meaningless demos will remove Zanu-PF from power when all other efforts including punitive sanctions failed to turn Zimbabweans against their leader, President Robert Mugabe.