Mutambara a loudmouth?

Extremely gifted academically, the Deputy Prime Minister lacks one important element: diplomatic etiquette.
The robotics professor, whose claim to fame is student activism in the late 1980s, went on a tangent at a ministerial retreat held in Nyanga last week to review the inclusive government’s 100-Day Action Plan by stating that last year’s elections were “fraudulent, a nullity and a farce.”
While Mutambara was not far off the mark, according to analysts, he fired from the hip at the wrong platform.
His provocative statement caused several ZANU-PF ministers, including Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa to walk out on his presentation.
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai had to rein in on his deputy who apologised for his utterances but the apology was not accepted by the walk-out ministers who immediately checked out of the conference rooms and left for Harare. It was the second such gaffe by the Deputy Prime Minister in as many weeks.
His comments  sparked an outrage of senior African leaders during a conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in Uganda last month.
At the NAM conference, the former student leader whose smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-M) is in sixes and sevens following massive defections and the recent expulsion of three legislators, courted the ire of some African leaders when he said no African leader had a brand worth selling. The African leaders were not amused.
Chinamasa was not amused either by Mutambara’s outburst in Nyanga.
Despite being one of ZANU-PF’s vitriolic propagandists, the Justice Minister found the Deputy Prime Minister’s comments hard to bear.
In 2004, Chinamasa along with Didymus Mutasa, then Anti-Corruption and Anti-Monopolies minister were assaulted in Parliament by Roy Bennett after the Justice Minister said the government would not reverse its decision to take possession of the MDC-T senior official’s Charleswood Estate in Chimanimani.
“Mr Bennett has not forgiven the government for acquiring his farm, but he forgets that his forefathers were thieves and murderers,” Chinamasa said then, courting the wrath of Bennett who was imprisoned for 15 months as a result of the incident.
This week the Justice Minister said Mutambara’s utterances undermined the legitimacy and the spirit of the inclusive government that is battling to stay intact and lure foreign investment while at the same time advocating for the lifting of sanctions.
Writing for a local daily, Tsholotsho North independent legislator Jonathan Moyo, said the Deputy Prime Minister’s behaviour has been grotesque, because he has used just about every speaking opportunity to present himself as a delinquent clown masquerading as a political principal.
“Yet the self evident fact which Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara has sought to hide through his attention seeking statements that are manifestly inconsistent and insane is that, while he is a political principal on paper as per his signature on the GPA (Global Political Agreement), he is not a political principal in reality on the ground,” said Moyo.
“In fact, he is a political nobody who is where he is not because of his self imagined cleverness, which he has said is the strategy to his political madness, but because of the unfortunate naiveté of ministers Welshman Ncube and Gibson Sibanda whose cowardice to take leadership when it beckoned led them to cynically hire Mutambara in the misplaced if not false name of ethnic balancing.”
Analysts said Mutambara, a beneficiary of the unity accord of September 15 2008, seems not to understand that the GPA and its off-spring, the inclusive government, are mechanisms meant to resolve past political differences between the two factions of the MDC and ZANU-PF. Political analyst Eldred Masunungure said the Deputy Prime Minister’s statement was inappropriate and unnecessary.
“That (the 2008 harmonised elections) is water under the bridge as evidenced by the formation of an inclusive government. I am not privy to whether the elections were rigged or not, but the fact that there is a coalition arrangement suggests that there is concerted effort by all parties involved to address the political environment obtaining in the past. The 2008 elections are no longer an issue.”
Continued Masunungure: “Mutambara should not have made such statements in such a forum which is more or less like the continuation of a cabinet meeting.
Even if it was true, it was improper for him to say that. He could have been more careful and confined himself to the business of the day. What he did was inappropriate, reckless and should be more prudent in the manner he approaches such delicate issues.”
On the other hand, Masunungure said the ZANU-PF ministers who walked out of the meeting should have demonstrated maturity by staying put and addressing the issue.
“They (ZANU-PF ministers) should have shown maturity. It would have shown that they are capable of navigating the turbulent and volatile environment in which they are operating.
“The ZANU-PF ministers should also remember that they cried foul when the MDC-T ministers boycotted a Cabinet session. These excesses by the Deputy Prime Minister (Mutambara) and ministers who walk out should not cloud the final objective of rebuilding Zimbabwe. Regarding Mutambara, there are limits to which he can say things in public particularly when he holds such an office.
“Restraint is critical when you are in a coalition government.  He can talk about the merits and de-merits of the 2008 elections at an MDC forum but not in a coalition set up.”
Political commentator John Makumbe said; “That was completely tactless. That was not the forum for Mutambara to say such things.  His statement was irresponsible. It does not matter whether he was factually correct or not, but he made the mistake of taking a political matter into an administrative setting. The result was that ministers walked out and the parties failed to work together.”
Asked whether the deputy premier should get away with a slap on the wrist, Makumbe replied: “He is only a young man. He should be denied desert at dinner for a week and that should straighten him up.”