The Herald Opinionist Attacks Mahere, The MDC Alliance

If personal emotional disposition lingering on the vile side could translate to votes, then the world and Zimbabweans must stand ready for an MDC-T government thrust on the throne by the continued misrepresentations tailor-made for foreign audiences.

Unfortunately, nowhere in the world has emotional inclination and wishful thinking been turned into policy that influences voting patterns unless one is a socially awkward kindergarten avid follower of Harry Porter where reality is blurred by phantasmagoric episodes.

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Let’s go back to where it started. Let’s go back to 2013, well before Fadzayi Mahere dared ventured into politics, well before she foolishly confused speaking through the nose with likeability when she contested as an independent candidate for the Mt Pleasant constituency where she lost.

Let’s start well before Mahere, who never learns that social media popularity does not translate to votes, once tried to hold a rally a Newlands traffic cycle and got the shock of her life when less than 20 people turned up.

Let’s start before that time when Mahere should have learnt that everything happens on the ground and the issues that affect the voters are rarely on Twitter.

Let’s start in 2013 to analyse MDC’s policy bankruptcy and how it has sunk so low that it has resorted to pandering to the whims and confirmed biases of foreign audiences that over the years have been fed on a media diet of something dreary, dastard, barbaric, animalistic, chaos, hunger and poverty coming from Africa.

From JUICE, ART, RELOAD, HONA — MDC’s policy documents have all sounded hollow in that they are not grounded in the basic understanding of what the ordinary men and women really aspire for in Zimbabwe.

They all sound hollow because they are so much shaped by their benefactors who are averse to fundamental empowerment of black people through ownership of the means of production like land.

All MDC policy documents without exception are damp squibs and appear like they were consummated by individuals whose tawdry lives are elevated by fantasy in the same way that alcohol convinces a man that he is better looking than what he really is.

Is it not given that policy formulation must be a product of well-reasoned out strategies to uplift people’s lives in a fundamental way? In other words, a policy document must always mirror the aspirations of those targeted by it.

A perusal of MDC-T’s policy documents since ART, JUICE, RELOAD or HONA will testify their complete retreat from reality as they fail to identify the fundamental and foundational basis upon which the Zimbabwean economy can be revitalised to benefit citizens.

I am neither an economist nor a student of theatrical comedies, but my layman upbringing informs me that any policy document must encompass basic strategies to bring out not just sustainable development, but resultantly transform lives in a sustainable manner.

Compare MDC’s policy documents to ZANU PF’s 2018 Manifesto titled “Unite, Fight Corruption, Develop, Re-enage and Create Jobs” then you see the difference between a revolutionary party and an ephemeral party, which can’t dovetail its thinking with the aspirations of the ordinary people.

ZANU PF’s 2018 Manifesto forewords by stating that as the New Dispensation, its “focus and pre-occupation of the new administration is opening up the country for business, fighting corruption, creating jobs, modernising the public sector and promoting investment, economic empowerment and re-aligning to an investor friendly trajectory that leads to economic growth and job creation”.

Let’s short-circuit and do simple maths. The Beitbridge-Harare highway has on average five companies undertaking the dualisation and these companies have on average 250 employees doing all sorts of work.

The majority of these workers are recruited from the surrounding communal areas. And the businesses along the highway like retail shops also benefit.

This is empowerment at grassroots level.

MDC is literally in charge of urban local authorities, but their administration has got nothing but rampant corruption to show off, which stinks to heavens.

Realising that they have nothing to offer in terms of policy, the MDC has now resorted to clutching at anything they think would damage the reputation or retard the momentum of the New Dispensation’s thrust for economic recovery and development.

Numerous cases exist in which MDC has sought to besmirch anything positive about the country with the sheer aim of spotlighting the country internationally and regurgitate the same tired tropes about Africa and Zimbabwe.

A recent case in point is that of opposition MDC Alliance’s Mberengwa North constituency coordinating committee secretary, Trinos Chinyoka who died in July after falling into an uncovered disused gold mine shaft.

The MDC rushed to proclaim to the world that Chinyoka had been murdered by State agents without even a shred of evidence.

What was even more interesting was that even after the MDC Midlands provincial spokesperson Tafara Zhou ruled out foul play, saying Chinyoka met his untimely death when he fell into an unprotected shaft at Chabudapasi Gold Mine, the opposition leadership still clutched at the narrative that the official had been murdered by State agents.

In other countries, this sort of lying would definitely land someone as a guest of the State.

But MDC Alliance has really nothing substantive to offer, so they will continue harping about human rights abuses and in their phantasmagoric thinking hallucinate about non-existent crisis.

But a case that must surely embarrass MDC and its handlers is that of their Hurungwe Ward 4 councillor Lavender Chiwaya whom they also said was murdered by State agents.

The party’s spokesperson even had the temerity to appear on South Africa’s eNCA television stating as a matter of fact that the councillor was for long been trailed by secret agents who later killed him.

This is the narrative that got circulated on some television stations around the world including some Western embassies corridors including the European Union.

And when the police issued a statement clearly stating that the man possibly died after imbibing an illicit brew whose container was found besides his lifeless body, the opposition officials, particularly Mahere, continued hanging on to the “murder” narrative.

I sincerely think that ZRP should have an audience with Mahere for she seems to have more information about the demise of the MDC councillor.

I also think that the New Dispensation has been very soft in dealing with charlatans in the habit of demonising their country for cheap political gains.

It’s time this sort of politics is dealt with once and for all.

Mataire, however, failed to point out the economic deterioration that has seen inflation reaching 837%, human rights abuses that that made international headlines, food insecurity that is threatening half the population, questionable judiciary impartiality, gross levels of corruption, civil servants strikes, among other ills bedevilling the country.

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