The scenarios are almost the same. In 2005 the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front went to the polls quite aware that there was a possibility it could lose following its near defeat in 2000. It went into the 2013 polls quite aware that it lost the 2008 polls.
In 2005, the Movement for Democratic Change went to the polls half divided on whether to participate or boycott because the playing field was not level. It went into the 2013 polls still divided because the government had not implemented the reforms necessary to have free and fair elections.
The MDC’s indecisiveness in 2005 cost it the elections. It won only 41 seats giving ZANU-PF a two-thirds majority. The party lost 16 seats in the process and the split that it had tried to cover up in the run-up to the elections came into the open and the party officially split.
The MDC has been strutting and kicking from the day President Robert Mugabe announced the election date. It even declared the elections illegitimate regardless of who won.
But just like the 2005 elections, the violence that everyone had predicted was not there. People voted peacefully. But also just like the 2005 elections when the MDC had plan B, to discredit the elections if it lost, it is doing the same, and even wishing the country to plunge into chaos.
It is not clear yet whether ZANU-PF will win a two-thirds majority, something that even staunch ZANU-PF supporters should not wish for because it is not healthy, but while the election playing field may not have been level, the MDC only had itself to blame.
According to Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions leader Japhet Moyo, the MDC was pandering too much to the West, when it was clear that investors did not vote. Moyo warned MDC leaders about this two months before the elections, but it appears they did not listen.
Moyo said that the MDC had deviated from its pro-poor foundations, adding: “We have noted with concern that some policy pronouncements from party officials do reflect that. It’s important to come out in the open. Either you come from the left or from the right. There is no need to sit on the fence. If you are not clear, people will find it difficult to vote for you because they don’t know what will become of you once you are in government. Pronounce yourselves very clearly.”
He warned party secretary-general and then Finance Minister Tendai Biti: “Let me be very clear Cde Tendai Biti, mind your language when you are in government because hausati wavakutonga. Ndizvo ka? Be very careful of what you say. You are destroying the party uchiti urikupliza ma investors. Vanhu vanovhota are the poor, not the investor. Mind your language Mr Biti. How do we defend an MDC minister? At least you dialogue with workers.”
And to Public Service Minister Lucia Matibenga, Moyo had this to say: “Mai Matibenga, kuma civil servants uko. Talk to those people. Please, please, please! You put us in a difficult and awkward situation to justify the close links that we have colleagues. Ndizvo ka?”
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