World crumbles around Tsvangirai

Morgan Tsvangirai under pressure from a disgruntled membership.

EMBATTLED Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, risks becoming irrelevant, politically, unless something dramatic happens to salvage his credibility, which is currently on the line, the Financial Gazette can report. Despite giving in to pressure to hold an early congress in 2015, instead of 2016, Tsvangirai’s approval ratings have sunk to their lowest, even among his fellow comrades. Following the MDC-T’s heavy loss to ZANU-PF in July 2013, Tsvangirai has been under pressure to resign.

To stay put, he has surrounded himself with praise singers although his desperation to remain in charge of the MDC-T has been betrayed by the use of violence to crush dissent. With his credentials coming under scrutiny once again due to his unending sex scandals and disillusionment among key allies, there are telltale signs that the MDC-T leader could be fighting a losing battle.

There is a strong sense, even among those who have remained loyal to him that Tsvangirai has run out of ideas to save the MDC-T from collapse, especially after its combative secretary-general, Tendai Biti, and his renewal team claimed leadership of the party in April. Earnest Mudzengi, a political analyst, postulated this week that Tsvangirai’s survival in politics now hinges on his ability to find solutions to a myriad of challenges before him. “There is also some mudslinging at him but he needs to deal with all that from a political level,” said Mudzengi.

Despite its heavy drubbing at the last polls, the MDC-T had maintained its stranglehold on Harare and Bulawayo metropolitan provinces. But it is in these urban strongholds where ugly infighting within the party has broken out, presenting a lifeline to ZANU-PF which has been struggling to penetrate these areas since 1999, when the MDC was formed. Gorden Moyo, the provincial chairman for Bulawayo, threw in the towel, saying he has had enough of the problems in the MDC-T.

Although he remains a card-carrying member of the party, his departure is indicative of wider disillusionment within the civic society, where he came from, over Tsvangirai’s leadership. Another reflection of the disenchantment among its allies in the civic society was a vote of no confidence passed in the MDC-T by a loose coalition of university students. The Zimbabwe National Student Union, previously a strategic ally of the MDC-T, recently said it was transferring its allegiance to Biti’s faction.

As if that was not enough, the party’s Manicaland provincial youth assembly announced last week that its members were defecting to the Biti-led faction. In a statement, the assembly members, led by Dennis Simango, said they were parting ways with Tsvangirai because of his “dictatorial tendencies”. Tsvangirai’s rivals, both in his party and from ZANU-PF are also having a field day on the latest revelations that he had abandoned a child he sired with 23-year-old, Loretta Nyathi, four years ago.

Questions are also being raised regarding the status of Tsvangirai’s marriage to Elizabeth Macheka, amid reports that they are still living apart despite claims by the MDC-T leader’s publicist to the contrary. Macheka walked out of their Highlands home last year; stayed apart for several weeks before reports indicated they had talked the storm over. The MDC-T leader is, however, adamant that he is still far from being finished.

His spokesperson, Luke Tamborinyoka, told the Financial Gazette that the MDC-T leader will no doubt shrug off the current troubles and emerge a stronger brand. “Anyone with an honest analysis of the MDC and its president will tell you that the ground on which Tsvangirai stands remains politically solid and unshaken,” said Tamborinyoka.

But political analyst, Charity Manyeruke, who is sympathetic to ZANU-PF is convinced that the end is nigh for Tsvangirai. “As a leader of a political party and presidential aspirant, this is the end of the road for Morgan Tsvangirai because we are witnessing mass desertions by very influential members of his party. The problems he is facing both in the party and in his private life are likely to increase and the party continues to disintegrate, so I do not see him pulling through,” she said.

“The donors are also deserting him en masse. That is his problem. They have over relied on donor money which should not be the case. His personal problems are also mounting to his detriment. In terms of his personal profile, he doesn’t have the integrity at all as a leader. If a man goes around sleeping with and impregnating women, some of whom are well younger than his daughters, it shows that he cannot observe the very basic rule of protection,” she added.

While the former Prime Minister managed to shake off attempt to depose him from the helm of Zimbabwe’s main opposition party in 2005 when former secretary general Welshman Ncube challenged his leadership shortly after the party lost that year’s parliamentary elections, the current scenario playing out in the MDC-T is very different from what it was then.

Analysts say while Tsvangirai used the tribal scapegoat to discredit Ncube, he cannot do the same today now that the man at the forefront for his ouster, Biti, has no roots in Matabeleland region. Also, in 2005 Tsvangirai’s private life had not been dogged by endless sex woes, which have gifted his nemeses with a very unclean lifestyle to feast on. While he might have demystified and faced up to ZANU-PF for more than a decade, his four years in power left many asking whether he was the right man for the country’s top job.

It is during his tenure as Prime Minister that the MDC-T leader was linked to a string of women and immediately adopted a luxurious lifestyle, thereby tarnishing his image both at home and abroad. The pandemonium in the MDC-T has taken its toll on Tsvangirai’s health as well. Last month, the MDC-T leader was admitted at the Trauma Centre and Hospital amid fears of a mental and nervous breakdown as the political and personal problems weighed down on him.

He had previously been holding marathon rallies nationwide in a bid to outwit those lobbying for his ouster from the main opposition party. Due to ill-health, he could not attend the last two rallies, which had to be put on hold. In addition to this, party coffers have dried up as donors are said to have deserted him. Political commentator, Alexander Rusero, believes that Tsvangirai’s tainted private life will not hinder his political career. “I don’t think Tsvangirai will sink at all. If you look at the calibre of people he has dribbled past previously, people like Welshman Ncube, Gibson Sibanda, Paul Themba Nyathi and others, you will realise that he will definitely come out of this smart,” he said.

“It is wrong to measure him on his capability, or lack of it, to unseat President (Robert) Mugabe; you have to look at how he has won and still command significant crowds. As a country, we are not yet ready for the politics of ideas or constitutionalism. That is the issue which even Mugabe has understood very well but the Biti faction has not read,” he added.