Reject Mugabe’s provocation

Written by John Makumbe

Wednesday, 17 March 2010 10:28

It is extreme provocation for dictator Robert Mugabe to unilaterally grab virtually all the powers to administer government acts from the MDC ministers.

The administration of government acts by line ministers amounts to the exercise of governmental power.
For Mugabe to deny MDC ministers the responsibility to administer these snatched acts is tantamount to saying he does not trust any of them to do the right thing. It is tantamount to reversing power-sharing, whichever way one looks at it. It is also unusual for the President’s office to administer government acts that are normally allocated to Cabinet ministers.
Herein lies Mugabe’s dictatorship; he has to see, hear and do everything through his office. He firmly believes that he alone can run this country competently. He is totally blind to the disasters he has caused this country to endure over the thirty years of his mis-governance. It is time to resist him firmly and read him the riot act. The question is whether the MDC has the courage and stamina to challenge the geriatric ruler on this one.
There is a sense in which the MDC has demonstrated its lack of experience in both negotiations and in handling dictators. It was unfortunate for the MDC to accept Mugabe’s dubious argument that permanent secretaries are civil servants and should not be allocated among the three parties in the GNU. We all know that permanent secretaries wield a lot of governance power. They, in fact, are the representation of practical governmental power and authority. Sadly, the MDC accepted Mugabe’s foolish line of reasoning concerning this critical aspect of power-sharing.
Then Mugabe has refused to appoint MDC provincial governors for no valid reason whatsoever. This is after he had initially agreed to six MDC and four Zanu (PF) governors. It would be wrong to “park and proceed” in relation to this aspect since it also pertains to a critical aspect of power-sharing. We are aware that provincial governors are instrumental in the mobilization of political support for their parties at the provincial level. Both these wins by Mugabe emboldened him to grab more power from the MDC, hence this latest affront.
Just to demonstrate his arrogance, Mugabe decided to avoid consulting the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of government and president of the MDC. This was in clear and deliberate violation of the Constitution of Zimbabwe as amended through Amendment 19. President Zuma’s expected visit must be used to make Mugabe heel. I have my doubts that Zuma can facilitate the process of resolving most of the outstanding issues.
I strongly suspect that the South African President’s primary objective is to come and persuade the parties to the GPA to “park and proceed” all the way to elections as soon as possible, or as soon as a new constitution is in place. The MDC are quite likely to accept this line of thinking, unfortunately. They are likely to keep on compromising and giving in to Zanu (PF) until that thieving political party recreates an environment conducive to the massive rigging of the next election. Then we will be back to the year 2000 or 2002. In the elections held during those years, the MDC won both elections but were robbed of their victory through Mugabe and Zanu (PF)’s ballot manipulation.
Mugabe’s provocation of the MDC should be rejected by both Tsvangirai and Mutambara. I suspect that the latter fellow is now quite embarrassed by Mugabe’s action. The man has been seeing nothing wrong in most of what the crude dictator has done since the formation of the GNU. I wonder what he things about the acts that have bee grabbed from two of his own ministers.

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