Our MPs can afford to get lost

via Our MPs can afford to get lost – NewsDay Zimbabwe July 22, 2014

Zimbabwe’s 27 MPs who afforded to get stranded in China were a talking point recently.

What we need to understand is that most of our MPs have nothing to do since they represent not the people, but their political parties.

The current set-up in Parliament makes everything a sham. It starts with the sham called primary elections conducted by political parties in this country.

The so-called primary elections have turned out to be the primary imposition of candidates on the hapless electorate.

All political parties are guilty of this immorality as they seek to protect their buddies who, if democracy is exercised, would be kicked out by the electorate so hard that they would land at the bottom of the political dustbin.

The whole shameful and unethical practice is hinged on the politics of patronage. The party leaders are always bent on keeping those who praise them as messiahs or God’s representatives on earth.

The results have been disastrous. Most of the MPs we have are not only of poor quality, but have this crazy idea that they are in Parliament not to represent the people, but the interests of their political leaders.

Therein lies the problem because the MPs cannot play their oversight role on the Executive since the very same Executive butters their bread.

Having assisted them to fraudulently represent their respective parties in Parliament at the expense of the electorate, they play it safe as it were, by turning a blind eye on the excesses of the Executive.

We have seen how non-performing MPs have always been retained through this fraudulent system.

MPs should not only play the watchdog role, but should also play the legislative and representative roles.

But some of these imposed candidates are of such poor quality that they can hardly understand the Highway Code. To expect such people to effectively interrogate policy or legislative issues is like expecting to catch an elephant using a mousetrap.

They have no capacity and they will never have the capacity to do so. They cannot think beyond pork barrel projects no matter how harmful they are to the economy. The situation is compounded by what the political parties call guided democracy, a euphemism for guided dictatorship.

It is a futile attempt to clothe the devil in cherubic robes. This is reinforced by the whipping system where MPs do not vote for or against Bills after thorough examination, but because of party positions.

The Chief Whip is each party’s police officer.

Because of this guided dictatorship system, our MPs have nothing to worry about. They can afford to go into Parliament and sleep as it were, or argue over trivial issues to pass time.

They are lucky because their paths are already mapped out. Their function is simply to pretend to be MPs while awaiting instructions from their political parties to vote in a certain way. The people, whom they purport to represent, are the last thoughts on their minds.

So these MPs can afford to sit, relax and get lost in China because they know the electorate cannot touch them.

They also know that since they have to wait for decisions from their political parties, their duty is just to rubberstamp those decisions to legitimise them on behalf of their scandalous “bosses” in the Executive.

Honestly, who can fail to rubber-stamp? Even a Grade 2 dropout cannot fail to do that. So we may forgive the MPs for thinking that their sole responsibility in that once august House is to represent their masters and not the people.

We can also forgive them for thinking that their role is to ask for expensive cars and to abuse Constituency Development Funds.

Since they have nothing substantial to think about such as playing the watchdog role and scrutinising policies and legislation, we can forgive them for thinking that it is their responsibility to go on shopping sprees and get lost in foreign lands while the majority endure the vagaries of a non-performing economy.

Actually they can afford to get lost and their absence will never be felt.

Parliament, for instance, is the custodian of the Constitution, but we have never heard MPs pressurising the Executive to ensure that laws are aligned with this supreme law. Why should they bother?

They were not brought into Parliament by their benefactors to interrogate such issues on behalf of the people. Their role is to play the puppet.

And of course some of them can only interact with the Constitution by holding its hard copies.

Moreover, they are not answerable to the electorate, but to their masters. No matter how much the electorate gets angry with them, come election time, the guided dictatorship system will ensure they will be back in Parliament.

Some of them will be elevated to ministerial posts to ensure the system is kept alive.

Only the naïve will fail to agree that such people can afford to get lost, who cares?