This was precisely because opposition politics was merely about how much Tsvangirai would try to fight down the Western-hated Robert Mugabe -- and never about the MDC leader's leadership character, or lack of it.The ponderous portrayal of Tsvangirai as a shrewd and brave democracy fighter by the mainstream Western media elevated an otherwise vain common villager to what many thought was international heroism -- attracting a few contrived international awards in the process, not least a nomination alongside Barack Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize. Australia's Julia Gillard was even audacious enough to pontificate that Morgan Tsvangirai falls in the class of anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela. The resemblance went no further than Gillard's ill-measured words.
It took incumbency for many to realise that the decision to join a coalition government with Zanu-PF was for Morgan Tsvangirai like a stupid cow that rejoices at the prospect of being taken to a beautiful abattoir. The altar of power has totally demystified the mythical perceptions that once elevated Tsvangirai to a seeming man of great political capacities -- at least by those that deemed it wise to use the man as a protest platform against Zanu-PF.
