"Opposition will not end Zanu PF rule," admits former MDC adviser - still giving wrong advice N Garikai

Alex Magaisa, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s chief adviser during the GNU, admitted the opposition will NOT dislodge Zanu PF from power but still does not understand why that is so. Even now with the benefit of hindsight, he still cannot see the wood from the trees.

“According to the MDC leader’s former adviser, Alex Magaisa, the opposition will struggle to end Zanu PF hegemony because of resource constraints,” reported the Daily News Live.

“A combination of donor fatigue, misappropriation and misallocation of resources and the never-ending divisions and squabbles in the opposition have contributed to the current parlous state of affairs,” said Magaisa.

“This lack of resources in the opposition, compared to Zanu PF’s access to abundant resources from both the public and private sector, is probably the single biggest impediment to change in next elections.”

Yes, Zanu PF’s ability to commandeer state resources and coerce/bribe the private sector and individual to bankroll its political activities is an important factor but not “the single biggest” as our chief PM adviser would have us believe. The single most important factor to Zanu PF’s strangle hold on political power must be the party’s total and undemocratic control of all state institutions.

There is no doubt that Morgan Tsvangirai had garnered more than the 50% plus one votes, 73% according to President Mugabe’s own inadvertent admission, in the March 2008 elections to be declared the winner, for example. But because Mugabe had total and undemocratic control over ZEC, he ordered the commission to ‘cook’ the result to deny Tsvangirai the minimum votes to avoid a run-off. It took ZEC six weeks to cook up the new result because they had to alter the figures from all the polling stations.

The Global Political Agreement; which President Mugabe signed on behalf of Zanu PF, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara signed on behalf of the two MDC factions and SA President Thabo Mbeki signed on behalf SADC as the guarantor of the agreement; was about implementing a raft of democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF’s total and undemocratic control of state institutions like ZEC, Police, Judiciary. Yes, the reforms, properly implemented would have ended Zanu PF’s unfettered access to public resources and forced transparency in political funding too.

This is why, as Tsvangirai’s adviser, Magaisa should have seen to it that all the reforms were implemented without failure. Some utterly useless “adviser” Alex has turned out to be; not only did he fail to get the reforms implemented during the GNU, to this day he still thinks the opposition can dislodge Zanu PF without implementing any reforms if they can have the funds.

The donors deserted MDC in droves before the 2013 elections when it became clear that the party had not only failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU because Tsvangirai & co. had sold out. President Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of the gravy train, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. and they returned the favour by kicking all reforms into the tall grass to be forgotten.

“In light of this, one would expect the opposition parties to be more imaginative when it comes to fundraising,” continued the former PM adviser. “However, over-reliance on donor support in the past seems to have affected the opposition parties’ fund-raising abilities.”

Magaisa was Tsvangirai’s adviser right up to the 2013 elections. MDC-T parliamentary candidate got $700 to finance all their political campaign activities compared to their Zanu PF counterparts who receive a brand-new car, $10 000 spending money plus all the T-shirts and other freebees Zanu PF doles out traditional leaders, povo, etc. Where was Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s chief adviser’s, Alex Magaisa, “imaginative fund-raising activities” then?

With not even one reform in place there is no chance of Zanu PF rigging the vote and, somehow, lose the elections. None! The grand opposition coalition was supposed to be some excuse for contesting the flawed elections but even this has now failed to materialize. It is clear that the donors who deserted MDC-T in droves before the 2013 elections have never returned, the party will be luck to give each MDC-T parliamentary candidate $100, etc.

Given the fact that with no reforms next year’s elections are flawed and illegal plus all the other disadvantages the opposition face the question is why are they still determined to contest?

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” answered David Coltart in his recent book, .

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

Zimbabwe’s opposition politicians have lost donor funding because they are corrupt and incompetent. But worse still the opposition have also lost all political credibility because their naked greed has blinded them, they cannot even see the folly of contesting flawed elections. The international community but more so SADC who stand to bear the burden of Zimbabwe’s worsen economic meltdown and political chaos, are not going to accept another sham Zimbabwe election next year.

Yes, Alex Magaisa, the opposition will not dislodge Zanu PF from power next year, not because the former has no money, but because the latter has the licence to rig the vote. And it is MDC leaders and your fault that not even one reforms to stop the vote rigging was ever implemented during the GNU. Still no one is going to accept Zanu PF’s victory this time; winning an election because you are popular is one thing and “winning” because you have an open licence to rig the vote is another.