They spend so much energy doing each other down instead of running the country. To make matters worse, one, two or all of them are always out of the country. Worse still, Mugabe, whether present or absent, has become a liability with nothing to offer except the same old rhetoric, defiance, threats and the usual reference to the war of liberation.

By all indications, we are in for the same crap we have endured for the past several years.

This unity government, made up of, strictly speaking, no elected party, is causing more danger than good to our nation.

Although Tsvangirai beat Mugabe in the initial stage of voting, classic rigging forced him into a run-off against Mugabe. That run-off election was not seen to its end because of violence Mugabe unleashed on Tsvangirai’s supporters.

Then there is ZANU-PF, which lost the incomplete election but still managed to get its leader to remain president, while wielding so much power over the nation that the opposition ZANU-PF, in effect, remains the ruling party.

Then there is Arthur Mutambara, a shameless pawn who is milking Zimbabwe dry while representing no one and playing no role in government.

Welshman Ncube deserves our prayers. God is kind and will offer him some relevance.

His role is to make sure that Tsvangirai’s MDC does not succeed. Once in a while, they harass him and let him make anti-ZANU-PF statements in a pathetic effort to make him appear as if he is an independent thinker.

Zimbabweans are not stupid; Mutambara and Ncube will re-imburse Zimbabwe for the money they are stealing from the people under the guise of salaries. Mark the calendar!

We seem to have two parallel governments because of the disharmony and principals in the misnamed “unity government”.

So much time is spent on attacking each other, both verbally and physically. The country is put on hold as each one of the leaders is fighting personal battles of survival both in government and within their political parties.

There never was any unity among the so-called principals and how we expect them to agree on national issues when they can’t agree on mundane issues is beyond me.

The bickering among these parties has put service delivery in great danger and the people cannot continue to be subjected to this nonsense, mostly by people rejected at the polls.

Our situation is pathetic. I have no confidence in any one of the principals, especially since the three of them are fighting internal party wars in their respective political parties.

Early this month, Mugabe’s ZANU-PF and Tsvangirai’s MDC were involved in a noisy tug of war over the burial of an MDC official.

The MDC said they would bury her, Queen Gondo, because she was one of their own while Gondo’s relatives, who happen to be ZANU-PF supporters, wanted ZANU-PF to handle the burial.

How these political parties can lower themselves so low as to play around with the corpse of a person, using party loyalties to defile a sacred moment at the end of one’s life is beyond me.

They both had to use the harmless dead to further their political parties. This is outright disgusting, regardless of who started it. Do things really have to degenerate to such a level?

And the reason for all this abuse of a corpse? Some people did not want MDC people in the village fearing a backlash from other villagers!

Are the villagers serious? This is madness, pure and simple.

But again, this is what we get from a unity government.

They cannot agree on just about anything, except, of course, foreign trips. This culture has also pervaded Africa when it deals with Zimbabwe. Africa has failed to speak with one voice when it comes to our nation.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai cannot agree on elections.

Zuma and Mugabe cannot agree on elections.

SADC and ZANU-PF cannot agree on elections.

President Sata of Zambia agrees with Mugabe on elections.

Oh, dear! Let me stop here before I cry!

At about the same time ZANU-PF and the MDC were trying to score points over an innocent departed, the dictator from Equatorial Guinea was in Zimbabwe for a visit, making his friend Mugabe cut short a holiday in the Far East.

Nguema then told a press conference in Harare that Zimbabwe would not be on the agenda of this week’s African Union Summit; the same cowardly behaviour displayed by SADC over the same issue.

And we hear our African presidents talking about being sovereign nations, republics and independent nations who apply African solutions to African problems.

As an African, I can vouch for the fact that shying away from a problem or fearing to tackle a problem is definitely not an African solution to an African problem.

Yea, Mugabe was right, African presidents are cowards!

If the so-called principals were patriots, they would be working hard to get things back to normal. The chaos we see in our country is the result of the aims of an individual being imposed on a nation.

These leaders ignore certain issues of necessity to the nation because they would work against their self interest.

Mugabe and Tsvangirai both have personal interest in what should happen and not happen to Zimbabwe.

They all have their own idiosyncrasies.

For example, a free press is a need, a necessity for Zimbabweans but Mugabe does not want a free press because it would tell the truth about him and there is no man in Zimbabwe who has been as false as Mugabe.

Look at the way both men are suspicious of constitutions!

The heart of the matter is that as long as the culture of the ordinary is being ignored in Zimbabwe, no progress will be made because it is the ordinary Zimbabwean who has the answer.

The wishes of the ordinary Zimbabwean are the answer to our problem and as long as these political leaders play around ignoring the people, we are not going anywhere.

All these leaders will be sent to the political dustbins of history, and this should worry Mr Tsvangirai more than anyone else because Tsvangirai received the people’s votes.

Zimbabwe is in the grip of greedy men who know their shortcomings but feel safer banding together for their own survival.

The next elections will see only one party winning the mandate to rule Zimbabwe, meaning two others will have to go and look for jobs elsewhere and this is bad news for all the principals because they have no constituencies anywhere.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai, Mutambara and Ncube are in parliament and cabinet courtesy of paper work not from people’s mandates. It is very easy for this group to connive and try to prolong the life of the unity government to accommodate not Zimbabweans but to accommodate each other.

We are at the mercy of musketeers who have long lost focus and are pampering each other at our expense.

Honestly, Tsvangirai and his MDC could have done better. The reasons why they went into this unity government are no longer valid. Their continued stay is an indication that they have decided that they are safer where they are instead of facing people afresh. They’d rather stay together than risk being separated.

The arguments over COPAC and the elections are a clear indication that decisions are no longer being made for the betterment of the nation but with consideration towards the personal political survival of those involved.

Zimbabwe is being held hostage by its own “principals” and these so-called principals must beware.

None of them should ever think of keeping Zimbabweans in this mess for another year. National interest must come before personal interest. We are tired of greedy men who fight over a carcass they had not killed or hunted.

It is my hope that one of these men will rise above all others and rekindle the true spirit of Zimbabwe.

Let us now pause and remember those we have killed because they were MDC or ZANU-PF; let us take a moment and remember who we are.

We need a moment to remind ourselves of where we are going; we are not a nation of suicide bombers.

We are Zimbabweans.

I am Tanonoka Joseph Whande and that, my fellow Zimbabweans, is the way it is today, Thursday January 26, 2012.

 

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