Biti should not be entertained

AT SOME point in life we have to say: “Enough!”

And that point regarding the formation of a grand coalition of opposition parties to unseat the now 36-year-running Zanu PF regime has arrived, as insults — most of them vengeful, petty, silly and empty — fly back and forth with time running out to have something tangible in place to mount a strong and effective challenge to the divided, but still formidable Zanu PF.

Source: Biti should not be entertained – NewsDay Zimbabwe December 9, 2016

echoes: CONWAY TUTANI

Yes, we all have the right to hold an opinion on everyone and everything and freedom of expression, but that does not make each and every opinion worthwhile. We can ill-afford empty mouthings such as: “I feel had Itai Dzamara received support from MDC-T, he would not have disappeared without trace,” as opined one Umzukulu Ka Sitsha. That’s as desperately false as it can be. “Even when (MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai) knew that he had failed as a leader to implement reforms, he still force-marched us to a stolen and rigged election (in 2013).” This self-pitying, finger-pointing lying and ignorant nonsense mustn’t be indulged either.

And we should not get bogged down in non-scientific thinking such as this postulation by the same Umzukulu: “The sex scandals tainted his (Tsvangirai’s) image and cost us vital support during the 2013 presidential election.” Really?

Not at all. “There is a difference between what often offends voters and what affects them,” said United States President-elect Donald Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, now his strategic adviser, explaining why many American voters — including women — overlooked Trump’s offensive behaviour of groping women’s private parts because what concerned them was getting back their jobs that had been taken abroad through trade agreements arising from policies of the political establishment, of which Trump’s rival, Hillary Clinton, was or is one.

Indeed, voters see the bigger picture that it is corruption — not Tsvangirai’s sexcapades — that has ruined their lives and those of their graduate children. What affects people are divisions in the opposition ranks, which has given the regime respite after reprieve. People, seeing the bigger picture, long rejected blaming Tsvangirai personally and solely for failing to effect political change. This is because they see things the same way as Frank Badza Nyaku, a war veteran aligned to ousted former Vice-President Joice Mujuru, who recently said: “We know, as war veterans, it will be difficult for them (Zanu PF) to deny us power, as they did with Tsvangirai.” That is why more and more people are warming up to a winning combination that includes war vets, not to totally exclude them for their past sins. What we need is realpolitik, politics based on practical objectives rather than on ideals. We need politics that is based on the country’s current situation and its needs rather than on utopian notions about someone’s value-laden sense of what is morally right and wrong, overdoing the outrage against war vets as if they fell from hell.

No one is saying Tsvangirai has been getting it right all the time. No. The MDC-T’s continued boycott of by-elections is now looking more and more directionless and, to put it mildly, most stupid. Will they go on to boycott the Masvingo City Council by-elections if or when they fire most of the councillors, including the mayor, they recently called for a disciplinary hearing over corruption? The MDC-T made a bold decision without Plan B totally discounting changed circumstances and peculiar situations and the likes of Temba Mliswa took the free gift with both hands. The Norton victory is his and his alone, whether the MDC-T claims credit for that or not.

That said, there has been this “universification” or “Harvardisation” of politics through what appears to be a narrow, “overeducated” approach. It’s when people of higher learning model their strategy, structure and methods after those made famous by universities, among them the pre-eminent Harvard University in the United States.

Despite Harvard’s success, those models only work in a well-resourced, prosperous environment without the normal constraints of scarcity such as universities; not in the real world, where there is never a time when it’s ceteris paribus, that is, when all other relevant things, factors, or elements remain unaltered, or hold constant, or are all in balance or all other things being equal. Thus, “there is need to develop distinctive strategies for the market each institution serves”. In other words, one needs to be situation-specific and not pluck a model from somewhere — such as the People’s Democratic Party’s (PDP) oft-repeated National Transitional Authority — and transplant it into Zimbabwe. Harare is not Harvard; Harvard is not Harare.

As can be extrapolated, the PDP is operating in its own idealised world far removed from the reality on the ground and seeing others as completely stupid and ignorant. But people on the ground are not buying this. As a result, PDP leader Tendai Biti (pictured), whether out of frustration or wounded pride, is becoming the political equivalent of a vexatious litigant. A vexatious litigant is a person who persistently and habitually engages in legal proceedings often against a large number of people without a legitimate claim requiring solution, where it is obvious that an action cannot succeed, or the action would lead to no possible good, or no reasonable person can reasonably expect to get relief.

As it stands, Biti — like a vexatious litigant — is increasingly finding himself in conflict with everybody. Biti rushed to publicly endorse Mujuru for coalition leader. Now he has issues with Mujuru after senior PDP officials defected to that same Mujuru. He then rushed to say a coalition is impossible, but then threw the hat into the ring saying he was the best to lead the coalition. Is he really in a position to say that definitively and conclusively because, by all indications, he is but one of the many small players? Or is he behaving like a vexatious litigant so as to block, obstruct and disrupt when it is clear he won’t succeed in his plans? As one can see, Biti grossly miscalculated.

This vexatious nature has seen Biti get ahead of himself — saying something sooner than it ought to be done when proper explanation or preparations have not been made. It’s like, as some sage put it, when one pre-parties too heavily and becomes drunk prior to the main event — like what used to happen in Zimbabwe when staff Christmas parties dominated this time of the year, and some over-excited employees would down copious amounts of beer and become totally drunk before the party began, making complete fools of themselves, even getting fired.

When you are a journalist, you tend to offend one side or another, but Biti — like a vexatious litigant who is increasingly finding himself in conflict with everybody — should not be entertained.

Conway Nkumbuzo Tutani is a Harare-based columnist. Email: nkumbuzo@gmail.com