The Sunday Mail
The response was as swift as it was predictable. What we did not expect was the assault on the messenger, and even the decision to ignore the studied advice of one of their own.
A local daily newspaper reported on Friday that opposition political parties in Zimbabwe had rejected the research findings by Afrobarometer that 63 percent of Zimbabweans support President Mugabe, that 54 percent support his party, Zanu-PF.
In rural areas, the researchers found as high as 70 percent of Zimbabweans support Zanu-PF.
By contrast, the research revealed that only about 34 percent of Zimbabweans trust opposition parties (and there are many of them!), preferring rather to put their faith in the prosperity gospel movements and their charismatic leaders.
Professor Lovemore Madhuku of the National Constitutional Assembly was unstinting in his attack on Afrobarometer and its findings.
Quote: “It is a pack of nonsense and these people want to use their names to peddle falsehoods because why would anyone commission such a study at this moment? . . . I am sure they are talking about some other society that is not Zimbabwe because nobody in this country trusts the army and the police.”
Zapu leader Dr Dumiso Dabengwa reportedly said it was hard to believe the survey results: “They must be using some substance and it calls into question their integrity, not least their relevance in our society.”
MDC-T secretary general Douglas Mwonzora weighed in with strong reservations about the findings. He said he doubted that Mugabe and Zanu-PF had more support than his party . . . “that the army is more popular than us cannot be true . . . However, we are working hard to strengthen our structures, reinvigorate and then position ourselves as the next government.”
MDC Renewal said Afrobarometer was a credible outfit and that its findings should “motivate us to work hard” to win over those Zimbabweans who have been “hoodwinked by Mugabe and Zanu-PF”.
The pervasive spirit in all the opposition parties is one of denial.
This is topped up with a supercilious arrogance which assumes that people don’t know what they want, they don’t know what is good for them and that they are being fooled by Zanu-PF.
What is never attempted is to offer a comparative set of policy alternatives for people to compare with those of Zanu-PF except the insulting claims that life was better under Ian Smith.
While it is true that protest votes do work sometimes, it is equally true that they have a very short lifespan unless there are plausible policy options to sustain them.
Since the protest vote of 2000, it has been downhill all the way.
People have grievances against Zanu-PF, but in terms of policy, it appears to be the better devil, it appears to be the only one giving people a longer perspective, home-grown policy options which buttress national Independence.
The rest can’t seem to think beyond foreign investors who must be given free rein to do as they please because their money is supposedly more valuable than our natural resources and skills and talents.
And the preferred investors have to be those from the former colonisers.
The result is that these parties have failed to shake off the stigma of their birth, that they are foreign-sponsored outfits whose agenda is set by foreigners to serve foreign interests.
Such perceptions are not helped by public lamentations by British diplomats, with one Richard Dowden reportedly describing MDC-T’s drubbing in the July 31 2013 harmonised elections as “the biggest defeat for the United Kingdom’s policy in Africa in 60 years”.
United Kingdom’s policy!
Meanwhile the whole nation was deceived, or, at least according to the outcome of the elections, refused to be deceived that the MDC-T was a local political party championing the interests of Zimbabweans. The results of the vote demonstrated that people know more than they are often given credit for.
They remind us of another elementary truth which opposition parties ignore, that a hungry baby will not permanently forsake its poor parents for a rich neighbour. Zimbabweans may be facing challenges of great magnitude, but they have refused to sell their birthright for a pot of porridge.
They would rather learn to farm the painful way and build their own country – through sweat, blood and tears.
But there is another sad point.
Opposition parties will not accept election results, they will not accept independent survey results and will not take part in national elections, but want to position themselves “as the next government”.
By what alchemy when you are boycotting elections?
The parties have a lot of work to do to win the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans and stop fooling themselves that Facebook posts constitute votes. As former advisor to Morgan Tsvangirai under the inclusive Government Dr Alex Magaisa commented rather naughtily on the survey findings, even if Zanu-PF were not there, they (opposition parties) would still not win the elections. Most likely.
They seem to have adopted the rigging mantra as a key campaign strategy rather than offer alternative policy propositions.
Too bad.
