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Opinion Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu
AT the time of writing this article, the MDC had actually splintered for the third time, the latest being the post-2013 general elections in which that organisation was heavily defeated by Zanu-PF led by President Mugabe. The first split was caused by a difference of opinion on whether or not the MDC should participate in senatorial elections. A group led by Morgan Tsvangirai was for boycotting the elections, the other, was for participation and was led by Professor Welshman Ncube.

Tsvangirai’s faction lost in a national council ballot but its leader defied the majority’s decision and a split occurred. It was strange that when the senatorial elections were actually organised, the Tsvangirai group took part in them.

The second split was a minor one and involved an MDC Harare official and vocal activist, Job Sikhala. He later re-joined the Tsvangirai-led MDC. It is important to remember that among the senior MDC officials who were in the Prof Ncube group was Gibson Sibanda, at that time the vice-president of the organisation. He is now deceased.

The third and current split features the movement’s former secretary-general, Tendai Biti, and deputy treasurer-general, Elton Mangoma.

Biti and Mangoma and quite a few of those who support them are of the opinion that there should be a leadership renewal in view of the poor MDC-T performance in the July 2013 elections. Tsvangirai and quite a number of the MDC-T senior leaders contend that there was nothing wrong with the MDC-T leadership performance but that the party lost because Zanu-PF rigged the elections.

Biti’s view is that Zanu-PF won because it presented a highly credible election manifesto to the electorate. There is certainly a lot of truth in this assertion in that while Tsvangirai dwelt at length and on many occasions on how sure he was to replace President Mugabe at state house, the Zanu-PF leadership was repeatedly telling the electorate how it would create a large number of jobs if it won.

In addition to that promise, it ordered through the Local Government, Public Works and National Housing Minister, Dr Ignatius Chombo, all municipal councils to cancel some debts owed by their respective residents and ratepayers.

Meanwhile, the MDC-T leader’s moral worth was very much tarnished by stories about his alleged philandering with one woman after another. The state-owned print media went to town with throttle wide open on that aspect of Tsvangirai’s alleged immoral behaviour.

Although it is impossible to say exactly how many MDC-T members were disappointed by that allegedly immoral behaviour, we can quite safely conclude that many modern-minded women were. We can also add that the allegations did the exact opposite of promoting the MDC-T’s public image especially among the Christian churches. This and other matters are what an introspection of the MDC-T’s electoral performance and public standing could have certainly looked at.

Mangoma was calling for such an introspection that could have led to some remedial measures being taken by that party’s leadership. One of the most important virtues of a genuinely democratic organisation is the wish to introspect and its power of self-criticism.

Members of democratic institutions have a right to complement and a duty to criticise themselves. That is the essence of the freedom of expression or speech, a democratic tenet based on the freedom of thought without which members become mere puppets.

In a democratic dispensation, leaders have no mere right to suppress criticism than they have to refuse complements. If one can be complimented, one should expect and accept criticism if and when it is necessary or justifiable.

The MDC-T leadership as a whole should have treated Mangoma’s proposal as a call for a post-mortem that could have helped it to identify its weakness or its weaknesses and its strengths.

Now that the Biti group has more or less crossed the Rubicon, Tsvangirai needs to examine his role and standing to see whether or not he is still relevant to Zimbabwe’s future political landscape.

The considered opinion of the author of this article is that he has run his race and must voluntarily step down with whatever honour he still commands in the minds of those who support his leadership.

He may be thinking that he is still an asset to his organisation. That would be, however, a subjective way of looking at his leadership role. Objectively looking at the issue, it is obvious that he is now a heavy liability to his party.

His argument that only a congress of his organisation has the power to replace him from the presidential position is, in effect, if not fact, a constitutional and legalistic way of saying he wants to remain in office.

That wish is tenable virtually only by means of violence, something   that  is  anathema  to  a  democratic     organisation.
He should base his decision to quit (should he so decide) on the very sound fact that many, if not most, senior founder officials of the MDC-T have aligned themselves with one or another of the break-away factions.

That obviously means loss of confidence in his leadership. Those founder-officials know more about his leadership achievements or failures than lower rank members who comprise the MDC-T majority most of whom think that if there is a conflict in the party’s top leadership, their duty is to support the topmost leader.

The duty of every patriotic leader is to put the objective aspirations of his organisation before his subjective wishes and dreams. Such a leader would, if he were Tsvangirai, step down either before his or her party’s congress or not stand for re-election.

Meanwhile, it is important for the MDC-T’s general membership to notice that there must be something wrong with the national leadership of an organisation from which splinter groups break away after every few years.

Like King Tshaka’s leadership, that of the MDC-T’s appears to have a centrifugal effect on the national movement, that is, it tends to make people move away from the centre of power and authority. A democratic organisation should have, instead, a centripetal effect on its social environment as was the case with King Moshoeshoe’s of the Sothos whose abode, Butha Buthe, was the destination of all peace-seekers, as that name (Butha Buthe) implies.

It is important for Tsvangirai to learn from both recent and ancient history.

Saul Gwakuba Ndlovu is a retired Bulawayo-based journalist. He can be contacted on cell 0734 328 136 or through [email protected]