TABITHA, WHY THE PEOPLE’S PROJECT MUST BE RESTORED!

TABITHA, WHY THE PEOPLE’S PROJECT MUST BE RESTORED!

It is not the sad news that worries me but it is the saddening, that which continues the failings and the negative trajectory that worry me. And the demotion of Tabitha Khumalo is not sad news but even though the mere act of her demotion is in itself clearly tragic, it is even worse when you are confronted with the reality that the act in truth represents a mindset and that if the actions are a continuum that have been depicted before and that in all likelihood will be repeated in the future, the act bears testimony of a total tragedy.

Yes I have known Tabitha for quiet a time. She is a comrade, we were together in ZESN, Community Working Group on Health, NCA, Civil Alliance for Social and Economic Progress, MDC etc but I am not saying her sacking is flawed because of that. And I mean no disrespect to Joel Gabuza because I do not know his competencies. So I can never judge him. But I must rush to say Joel Gabuza, with due respect, must realise that he does not deserve the post, well at least at this point in time. Not because he lacks the competencies no, but because he has been whisked to the post through the back door. One thing he shares with Tabitha in all this is that both are victims of circumstances; they are the living testimony of what has gone wrong and what is going wrong not only in the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai but in Zimbabwean politics at large. What one cannot avoid is the evidence that this is largely countervailing to democracy whether it is sanctioned properly by a lawful mechanism or instrument such as a constitution or a precedent-setting practice. Mindful that I am not writing for a journal I will attempt as far as possible not to bore readers by technical language but try to be plain.

People who have worked with Tabitha will agree if I say she is an epitome of a really free mind, someone who speaks her mind something many people in our country still find problems living with. I believe through and through she is a rare voice for women, a representative of the often looked down upon type of woman who has been championing their cause. She does not represent the utopian, the perfect society in which every woman has a husband and every man is so perfect that they stick to their one wife. No, she talks about the contemporary, the reality, the broken society that we live in, the single mother who is not employed and who is eking her living through unprintable means, she represents real victims of pertaining realities; she only goes one step ahead; she knows that they are real people with real lives. I believe she has done a good job for herself and even the MDC. I believe she is an astute student of the school of frank talk and that people could be that threatened by her to a certain extent. But I also believe once she assumed the role of deputy spokesperson all should have respected the enfranchisement that had been bestowed upon her.

I am not so sure how helpful it is that a position such as Deputy Spokesperson can easily be reshuffled and replaced. Probably the enabling procedure could come from the way in which she ascended to the post; ie by appointment. And this is where all the problems begin. If political parties are trying to be democratic they should show us their desire in practice. You cannot blow hot and cold at the same time. MDC has a secretariat and one would believe it is the Secretariat and only the Secretariat that should be appointed through a combination of merit and commitment to serve the party neutrally. I said neutrally because it is the secretariat that should not involve itself in the politics of the party. But all political positions must always and exclusively be the creation and responsibility of membership. In a truly membership organisation members must retain the rites of ownership and authorship. Ownership as they are the vanguard of the party. They should be allowed to authorise through a mechanism of appointment. This they should do so by their ability to elect all leadership. It follows therefore that every representative position must be directly elected. And the same goes for party representatives in national and local elections who should also be directly elected. A membership that has such rights must also be aware that rights come with burdens; they have to be responsible.

The responsibility of membership to their party should be as a feeder for the finances that run the party, a feeder for the policies that make the party, growing the party and the backbone of the party in times of strife. Once the issue of responsibility is settled, the issue becomes that of accountability. Every elected position including the Presidency must be accountable to membership. And national leaders cannot be accountable to one individual, or party structure or to the district that they came from. Makokoba Constituency cannot decide the fate of Tabitha as the Deputy Spokesperson of the MDC, the position is national. Similarly Morgan Tsvangirai and even the National Executive Committee acting on its own without seeking the empowering hand of membership should not be allowed to make decisions on fellow senior party members. They may surely have not liked what she was doing, it may be that the majority of them felt disgusted at her conduct but it is not them that matter, it is the entire party membership. What does it say? Why are they being disenfranchised? Where is the bottom to top approach? They should always be consulted.

Enter democratic centrism

Slowly MDC is closing internal debate in the same way that ZANU PF, ZAPU and ZANU did. When you close internal opposition then you start pretending that internal dynamics that are an inevitable nature of institutions even families and which in progressive minds must be tolerated, do not exist and you expel divergence and promote the quick rapture of an institution. Party members must be allowed to criticise their leaders and a spokesperson should not be left in limbo or be shocked by statements she hears for the first time in the press. We have so far seen the emergence of a lot of political parties from the MDC. Whilst that on its own is a natural consequence who said the unity dividend was bitter? Those formations emerge because there is that clear attempt to muzzle out internal vibrancy through dynamism and people are being urged to toe the party line even where there is corruption.

And this thing called factionalism is an unnecessary excuse to muzzle internal debate. Institutions will definitely evolve to have different groupings. That is what politics is and if those are not visible then surely they will exist in the grapevine. The opposite of “factionalism” in this context will not be unity but totalitarianism. So we are seeing the politics of Zimbabwe clearly and shamelessly embracing totalitarianism which in this day and age will never happen be it in ZANU PF, MDC or whichever party. Instead of the Matson Hlalo-Gorden Moyo dynamic or should I say the Thoko-Tabitha dynamic being allowed to claim victims which in all likelihood will even worsen it, MDC should have had mechanisms to manage internal dynamics. The punishment model that is being pursued will certainly be unhelpful as one camp will view it as evidence of the preferred and the loathed and the buck will surely stop at the very end of the leadership spectrum and I do not see how the party will emerge unscathed. People in institutions will always be positioning themselves and plotting against each other and I feel membership organisations are better placed because once a person is elected they should all wait for the appointer to dis-appoint. And membership should be the one to play that part not party structures. The whole not a fraction must be involved. That is inclusive politics.

Self regulation

At the end of it has been the attempt at self-regulation. Like the other parties MDC has a disciplinary mechanism and I am so sure that will work one day. But at the moment the mechanism is being impeded by lack of honesty and instead of following due process it seems to be a witch-hunt in which the guilty and innocent are decided by procrastination and not on the basis of pertaining facts. Had there been a clear and transparent self-regulatory mechanism which would be deemed fair and fit for purpose at all time, I am sure there wouldn’t have been incidences that we have seen. That argument takes one back to 2001, 2002 and 2003 in Chitungwiza and Harare when these incidents of internal dynamics reared their ugly face. Even then we had people who would swear that they were untouchable and surely they were allowed a free reign. The mother of it all came in October 2005 when the leader of the party again could not be subjected to the same self-regulation that others would have been subjected to. I am clear that I would not and never did, support the expulsion of Morgan Tsvangirai for that reason and without the consultation and involvement of membership but yes he should have been censured. If there are internal dynamics in Bulawayo then fair self-regulation should entail that both warring sides be brought before a fair and transparent process.

The recall clause

I have always been an advocate of the recall clause as an empowering tool for the electorate. But its implementation is clearly problematic because it really does not take account of the electorate but the Constituency Party of the MP. Something tells me that it is wrong that an MP, elected by 16000people should simply be recalled at the instigation of 30 executives of his or her sponsoring party. I feel this is clearly narrow and unrepresentative and believe it will be fair if a formula could be arrived at where say a significant fraction of the electorate, even 10% should sign a petition before an MP is recalled. I believe that way those outside the structures of the Constituency Party can also have a voice.

Yes I am minded that those people have the permission to put their popularity to test by contesting again but I am also aware of the sinister use of the recall clause as countervailing to democracy. MPs are not voted to proffer guided democracy by always playing to the whims of their party leaders they are national leaders elected to represent their constituencies in national politics and forums. I am also aware of the economic realities of Zimbabwe, surely we cannot manage senselessly punitive recalls that are necessitated by party political dynamics. Recalls must be necessary and popular and this is why they ought to be widened in scope. The regime that sanctions them is too narrow and open to abuse; “you are suspected of voting with the party opposite” you are recalled, “you don’t greet the party leader” you are recalled and “you don’t toe the party line” you are recalled? This is clearly reactionary. All the political parties, particularly those in the GNU, are showing signs of restlessness that are simply put very laughable. It now seems there is urgency to show their followers the “who is who” of their party.

Leaders and cadres

I equally got the shock of my life when I read the addresses of the MDC when they are mailing the membership. They always say “Leaders and Cadres”, what a salutation!  Why that separation? Why does it matter much to remind recipients that among them there are leaders and cadres. One comrade, I think it was Briggs Bomba, coined the term “comodification of the struggle” and that restlessness is a depiction of that comodification. I do not see why it is necessary to address people as “Leaders” and others as “Cadres” if it does not serve the sole purpose of discriminating people while aggrandising others. Political leadership is through obtaining and holding a franchise and this is done by one’s election. Let’s call a Secretary a Secretary and a Chairman a Chairman whenever that is necessary. Why should the aim be bigger than the objective? I am worried some in MDC are becoming too important to the detriment of the bigger picture which is the growth of democracy itself. For sometime ZANU PF did the same, they became bigger than the revolution they fought and started violating the same democracy, the objective, they had fought hard to bring and saw nothing wrong in beating the same mother, father, brother and sister who only a few years back had sheltered, clothed and fed them. They seem to be taking remedial lessons although that could be too little too late. The Tabitha Khumalo case has opened a pandora’s box for the MDC but it is also a time to learn and remedy the slide into oblivion that is slow but evident.

Too big to fail

There are those who think they are too big to fail. They should look around themselves and see what is happening. In Zambia and Malawi both UNITED NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE PARTY and MALAWI CONGRESS PARTY, the parties of their independences are now but existing in names. But so are the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy [MMD] and the United Democratic Front the parties that successfully ousted autocracy in both countries. If Greece and Spain can fail, with all that history, if the Soviet Union could fail then no one and nothing is too big to fail.

Be Judge!

Julius Sai Mutyambizi-DEWA