Zimbabwe opposition’s self-created dilemma

In 2014, the party split again, with many senior party members walking out to form a platform that purported to be concerned about renewing the MDC-T. Before long, this renewal platform split to form many other parties.

After the 2014 split, Morgan Tsvangirai wrote to the Speaker of Parliament recalling 18 members of parliament on the grounds that they were no longer MDC-T members. However, when by-elections were conducted to fill these constituencies, major opposition parties did not participate, causing all 18 seats to be taken by ZANU-PF.

This allowed ZANU-PF to find its way back into constituencies that had been the reserve of opposition parties. The pitfalls of allowing ZANU-PF to reclaim dominance in the legislative arm of the state should have been learnt in 2005 when the ruling party won almost all senatorial seats after the official opposition boycotted the elections.

There is no doubt that Members of Parliament that Tsvangirai vindictively recalled would have benefited opposition politics had they stayed in Parliament, and could have been a solid ground to build alliances for future elections, to which I now turn.

Since 2016, major Zimbabwean opposition parties began to see the need to work together in a quest to unseat ZANU-PF. Subsequently, two coalitions have emerged – the Coalition of Democrats (CODE) and the MDC Alliance.

The latter, which is far more influential, is made up of seven political parties (all male-led). This new MDC Alliance has been able to draw huge crowds in their recent rallies. However, in forming this alliance, the MDC-T sacrificed its long serving deputy president, Thokozani Khupe, and her not so insignificant group of loyalists.

Khupe’s claims, that in the absence of Tsvangirai she is the legitimate leader of the party are not entirely without merit. She now stands fired from the party, but has responded by forming her own parallel structures, in essence creating another split, the umpteenth for the eighteen year old party.

The “special congress” that Khupe held in Bulawayo in mid-April not only consummates that split, but also gives ZANU-PF a possible avenue to rig elections. But even worse, these new contradictions have motivated the Chamisa led MDC-T to vindictively recall Khupe and her group from parliament, prematurely shutting avenues for any further negotiations.

Beside the two alliances mentioned earlier, there are over hundred other political parties recently formed, some of which exist only by name. It would seem their electoral prospects can almost be predicted with certainty.

They have not set up structures that are capable of winning them any election. However, the impact of their participation as individual entities is what cannot be ascertained. There is no doubt that they will once again split the opposition vote.

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