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Nduduzo Tshuma, Political Editor     
PREDICTIONS by former MDC-T top official, Dr Toendepi Shonhe, that the so-called grand coalition will suffer defeat in the 2018 elections flies in the face of MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai who last week threatened that he would not accept the poll results if he is not declared winner.

Dr Shonhe, a former MDC-T director general, in a report by our sister paper The Herald, cited ideological bankruptcy and donor fatigue as some of the reasons why the coalition of opposition will fail to dislodge Zanu-PF.

He noted that Zanu-PF’s empowerment politics had given birth to a new social class comprising of mainly farmers and artisanal miners, who owed their allegiance to the revolutionary party.

Contributing in the Gravitas Volume 1. Issue 7 released on May 2, 2017, courtesy of the Institute for Public Affairs in Zimbabwe (IPAZ), Dr Shonhe, who was writing on “The Prospects of a Grand Coalition in Zimbabwe’s 2018 Elections: An Ideological Lens”, posited that a grand coalition was not a licence to victory for the opposition next year.

MDC-T leader Mr Tsvangirai last week made spectacular declarations that he will not accept results of next year’s election results unless he was declared winner of those polls.

The embattled MDC-T leader went on to imagine himself as US President Donald Trump who had prior to that country’s polls, declared that he would not accept any result that did not confirm his victory.

“We will not accept any outcome which is not victory for the opposition, ndakuita hwaTrump manje. Trump said he was not going to accept the result if he did not win,” Mr Tsvangira said.

“If I do not win in 2018 I will not accept the election result because it is very simple. How does a minority win over the majority. How can a minority divided, fragmented and imploding win over a united opposition and a united alternative?”

Mr Tsvangirai then went on his election rigging mantra which he has used to explain successive defeats at the hands of Zanu-PF since the formation of the opposition party.

The MDC-T leader  made sensational claims that Zanu-PF was already rigging the 2018 elections as he had received information to that effect.

“We have all the information, you (President Mugabe) want to cheat like what you did with Nikuv in 2013,” he said.

“We are faced with elections in 2018, there is no outcome yatinobvuma which is not a victory for the opposition.”

That Mr Tsvangirai, his MDC-T and their coalition partners will lose to Zanu-PF is certain and can be seen by anyone who doesn’t share the former Prime minister’s delusions of grandeur.

It is not surprising that Mr Tsvangirai knows, a year before the poll, that he will suffer a decisive loss to Zanu-PF, a loss that will seal his political career, but it is the reasons for his defeat that point to a delusional politician who has learnt nothing from the political field that he has been contesting in since 1999.

It has been said that outside their “Mugabe Must Go” mantra, the opposition is not guided by any ideology but has used politics as a conveyor belt to riches from the equally naive West ever ready to sponsor organisations opposed to Zanu-PF.

Just recently Mr Tsvangirai’s deputy Thokozani Khupe told a gathering of party members in the UK that they are in politics for money as they wanted to use politics to create business opportunities, live a good life and send their children to school.

Dr Shonhe’s prediction and reasons attached come at an appropriate time to expose Mr Tsvangirai’s delusions. It has to be stated loud and clear that Tsvangirai will not rule Zimbabwe not because of the rigging as he alleges but his ideological bankruptcy.

This paper has maintained that the fragmentation of opposition parties has not been a result of disagreements around the national interest of Zimbabwe but a clash of selfish interests and positioning of opposition players to financial resources and Dr Shonhe agrees.

“As things stand, the opposition is in a very weak financial position because of fatigue across well wishers. To a large extent, the collapse of momentum and subsequent splits resulting in more fragmented groupings: PDP, RDZ, ZimPF and NPP are a manifestation of financial drought across the opposition movement. It has nothing to do with ideological differences or contestations around the national agenda.

“In any case, none of the parties has placed the people’s agenda at the core of its actions since 2013. Much more, some parties will be left out, possibly to form their own ‘majestic’ alliance/coalition,” said Dr Shonhe.

That Dr Shonhe was once a key member of the MDC-T establishment and has first hand experience to the ongoings within that party and his predictions about the 2018 elections shows that attempts by Mr Tsvangirai to trash the 2018 elections are just ramblings of a failed politician standing face to face with his inevitable demise.