'I like the American system'

*TANONOKA JOSEPH WHANDE | Friday February 15, 2008 00:00

 

And the money spent by just one of those candidates makes me weep when I think of my draught-stricken Africa.

I enjoy watching the election circus, though, but feel repulsed by an electoral system that does not recognise the power of the individual voter. For, as has become clear now, one can get more popular votes and still lose to the other who gets less.

However, amid all this maze of electoral intrigue, there is something I really like about the American system. First, no one is the president of any party.

Americans do not marry a party position to any one individual like we do here in Africa. The one who wins the US presidency becomes the de facto head of their party for a while as the party Chairman hovers around.

In Zimbabwe, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the then popular opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, lost his first attempt to enter parliament in the 2000 elections, a year in which his party won 57 seats and almost toppled dictator Robert Mugabe in its maiden appearance.

The wise men of the MDC then decided that Tsvangirai would remain leader of the party although the leader of the official opposition in parliament was Gibson Sibanda, Tsvangirai's deputy at party level.

Tsvangirai, however, should have voluntarily stepped aside. Now the situation is a typical African setting where an individual is more known and more important than the party he leads.

Now, there cannot be a meaningful MDC without Tsvangirai; Tsvangirai has become synonymous with the MDC. No longer can anyone mention the MDC without mentioning Tsvangirai and vice versa.

Later, Sibanda and his breakaway group found this out when they tried to ditch Tsvangirai. People felt Tsvangirai had paid his dues and was the rightful leader (owner) of the MDC.

Marooned in the political desert, Sibanda's group is now desperate to find a resting place anywhere. They cannot even remember why they tried to destroy their once vibrant party.

Still in Zimbabwe, it remains to be seen what ZANU-PF would be like without Robert Mugabe and how people would receive it because the two, along with the violence they both inspire, have become inseparable and there cannot be one without the other. Over the decades, Mugabe, violence and ZANU-PF have become an unholy trinity.

In rural areas, people can be forgiven for believing that Mugabe owns ZANU-PF and it really will be interesting to see how people will react to a Mugabe-less ZANU-PF, if Simba Makoni has his way.

In most African countries, a party leader is 'married' to the party and its presidency.

Kenyatta was married to KANU while Kenneth Kaunda was married to UNIP. You always hear of 'the President and First Secretary' of such, such a party. This scenario is exacerbated by another flaw in African politics which blurs the line between a ruling party and its government.

In countless countries, government vehicles are used for party work because the line between the two is deliberately blurred. If the President and First Secretary of ZANU-PF, who also happens to be the President and head of the government of Zimbabwe, uses government money, furniture, drivers, vehicles and civil servants to hold his birthday bash, who would dare to question him?

Most do not even know the president would be thieving. In Botswana, the leader of the opposition, Otsweletse Moupo, lost elections in his own party's parliamentary primaries. As should be the case everywhere else, the party should just choose a new leader and march on to do the job expected of them. Moupo should resign and will just have to start all over again and endear himself with the people should he want to make a comeback.

It is grossly unfair to the voting public that a person rejected by the people at the polls should continue to 'lead' the people without seeking a new mandate from the same people.

Tsvangirai's style has changed over the past few years; he no longer pays as much attention to the people as he did at first because he does not owe his status as party leader to them. He owes it to a few within the party who propped him up after defeat and somehow convinced those who did not breakaway to keep him as party leader.

Understandably, the party leaders wanted to maintain the momentum and felt that changing leaders so early and so quickly would do more harm to the party than good.

But all the same, honesty was not preserved; people's decisions were ignored. A leader they had rejected remained at the helm of their party.

If the people say 'no', it should be taken seriously and not to find ways of defeating people's wishes. Hopefully, Botswana politics will not try to imitate some of Africa's political parties.

Political parties should be dynamic and allow competing minds to forage for people's approval. Politics of personalities should have no room because all this defeats the people's wishes.

Fortunately, in South Africa, the African National Congress did not get much of a chance to marry the party to a particular leader although Thabo Mbeki tried to fiddle around with the constitution for his own selfish ends. Millions are glad he failed.

The revered Nelson Mandela served one term and retired. Does Mbeki think Mandela was stupid in halving his term instead of seeking to extend it? For what reason, other than a fondness for dictatorial pleasure, would Mbeki, or any aspiring tyrant, want to temper with the people's constitution to remain in the same post past their sale-by date?

For decades, the Kenyan opposition could not dislodge the ruling party until they got together and voted as one. What is happening there today does not take anything away from the initial commendable show of unity in fighting a mole on their nation's face. Their alliance in fighting a stubborn and repressive leader should be emulated.

Botswana has the same circumstances. If the opposition were to unite, they could easily unsit the ruling party. In many constituencies, the number of votes cast for two opposition party candidates well surpassed the number of votes received by the winning candidate from the ruling party.

This is not politics; it is something called arithmetic, elementary arithmetic. In my beloved Zimbabwe, political parties are being formed willy-nilly, now that they see a real possibility of defeating Mugabe. January alone saw the creation of not less that four political parties, excluding Makoni's party, to contest next month's elections. Although people sense that neither the army nor the police can no longer do much to save Mugabe, most of these parties are ZANU-PF creations meant to give the impression that there is pluralism in Zimbabwe and also to blunt any threat to the legitimacy of the election result should the MDC decide to boycott the elections.

The problem, however, is that everyone wants to be president. No one wants to step aside for another. None feels the need to unite with the others to fight what Mugabe calls 'enemies', not political opponents.

The weaker ones who stand no chance, like Sibanda, Welshman Ncube and Arthur Mutambara of the other MDC are already snuggling under Simba Makoni's shadow and hope to be resuscitated and legitimised. To hell with ideology, they say, supping with the devil is only a tactical manoeuvre. Even spent former ZANU-PF stalwarts are trumpeting Makoni who keeps telling us that he is not running against ZANU-PF (but for the people).

I feel apprehensive about this state of affairs for there are so many able people in Zimbabwe, people who are not tainted by Mugabe and ZANU-PF. The people of Zimbabwe are tired, hungry and demoralised. I hope we do not do something stupid and tighten our bondage under the thumb of a youthful ZANU-PF operative.

Makoni's first statement was to pledge his allegiance to his old party. Mugabe needs a multitude of parties to jump into the fray. He has used this tactic before.

And the timing of Makoni's move has all the hallmarks of Mugabe's cunning; every time we go to the polls, it is the Zimbabwean people who lose.

*Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Botswana-based Zimbabwean journalist.