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| President Mugabe speaks to Zanu-PF National Chairman Cde Simon Khaya Moyo, while Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai (left) and Professor Welshman Ncube follow proceedings during the indaba on violence in Harare |
We have a saying that goes "chinoziva ivhu kuti mwana wembeva anogwara" (literally it's the soil that knows that a mouse is sick), the proverb in effect means it is those closest to an individual who know his/her foibles. With elections around the corner, so to speak, likely to be held in the first quarter of 2012, the election season is upon us.
Some aspirants are already on the campaign trail.
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, for one, is already on the road, and what remarkable imprints his plodding feet are leaving for his rivals, at times with self-defeating results.
On his part, Welshman Ncube, the MDC leader has also been holding campaign rallies, mostly in Bulawayo where he has really been laying into Tsvangirai whom he basically likens to an ostrich whose eye is bigger than its brain.
President Mugabe has not yet hit the campaign trail; neither has the party national political commissar who has been burying more artistes than opponents, so to speak probably belying the confidence Zanu-PF has going into next year. But judging from the speeches President Mugabe has given at various forums, Zanu-PF's election issues are clear, manifest in the programmes being implemented by the inclusive Government.
For Zanu-PF the election is likely to revolve around the indigenisation and economic empowerment drive, the agrarian reform programme the successes thereof and the usual themes of safeguarding our territorial independence and sovereignty.
For the MDC-T its jobs, food and foreign investment while for the MDC of Welshman Ncube its not quite clear yet but most likely its the same issues advocated by MDC-T with particular emphasis on Tsvangirai's unsuitability for the highest office in the land.
This probably explains why Prof Ncube upped the ante this week, by challenging President Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to live televised debates before next year's polls saying he was confident he would carry the day enunciating his party policies and programmes.
I couldn't help but appreciate Prof Ncube's deviousness here, pardon the word. The man knows how to demolish an opponent.
I am sure Prof Ncube knows his target will be the MDC-T not the Zanu-PF leader given what the two men are reputed to have between the ears.
I immediately wondered whether Tsvangirai would agree to such a debate given his predilection for flip-flopping and dearth of a clearly defined position on many things.
Would the MDC-T agree to expose its main man in the run-up to a crucial poll particularly as several senior MDC-T leaders were quoted in leaked US embassy diplomatic cables bemoaning Tsvangirai's cerebral weaknesses? The MDC-T treasurer and donor point man, Roy Bennett, was quoted saying, "Tsvangirai remembers the advice of the last person he would have spoken to".
Would the MDC-T or its handlers allow Tsvangirai to square off against Ncube - arguably one of the country's legal brains who helped draft the Land Acquisition Act in 1992 - and President Mugabe whom US ambassador Charles Ray recently praised as ‘‘having an encyclopedia for a brain."
With Charles Ray's predecessor Christopher Dell saying the President ‘‘has survived for so long because he is more clever and more ruthless than any other politician in Zimbabwe. To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactician and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalise the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda.''
Reading Prof Ncube's proposal on debates, I understood why Dell described him as ‘‘a deeply divisive and destructive player in the opposition ranks,'' and that the sooner he is pushed off the stage, the better.
Its clear Dell wanted Ncube off the stage for the simple reason that the Professor knows the ins and outs of the two MDCs having been the united MDC's secretary general.
He worked with Tsvangirai for years and knows best how to expose or destroy him which is why some of us, who have long questioned Tsvangirai's suitability for the highest office in the land, buy into Prof Ncube's proposal for televised debates.
I believe its high time all who aspire for high office engaged each other without their handlers to tell the nation where they stand on the national question, the national interest and major policy issues.
Many a time votes are cast along party lines with scant regard to the calibre of the candidate which is why the late Vice President Simon Muzenda, for instance, could tell supporters at one rally that ‘‘even if we give you a baboon, you must vote for that baboon''.
This is also why the MDC's first MP for Highfield, Munyaradzi Gwisai who had amassed 12 616 votes in the year 2000 poll, could only manage 73 after he was chucked out of the party in 2003.
Gwisai, as an independent, came a distant fourth after the MDC's Pearson Mungofa (8 759 votes), Zanu-PF's Joseph Chinotamba (4 844 votes) and the nomadic Egypt Dzinemunhenzva of the Wedza-based African National Party who managed 272 votes in the by-election.
Televised debates have become customary for the main candidates in the United States, invariably drawn from the two largest parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. They have also been used in the United Kingdom.
The debate topics are often the pressing issues of the day, and in these western societies that are not encumbered by the scourge of puppet parties, the debates at times decide the poll outcomes. I do not know whether, given the nature of our highly politicised political environment if televised debates would work here as far as swaying voters is concerned.
There, however, is a school of thought that says such debates could be crucial in boosting voter turnout given that the average turnout in a constituency with 35 000 registered voters has invariably been around 15 000.
It means there are about 20 000 voters who remain undecided or non-committal on voting day. These should be the main targets of these debates, the undecided voters who usually are not partial to political party or ideology. We have had televised debates before but pitting senior party officials not the presidents on ZBCTV ahead of the 2005 general poll.
While presidential poll debates are not constitutionally mandated, it's worth considering since we are in the middle of drafting a new constitution. Providing for them in the constitution will prevent those candidates with nothing to say to the electorate from wriggling out as the debates will be part of the election process.
Food for thought.
Some aspirants are already on the campaign trail.
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, for one, is already on the road, and what remarkable imprints his plodding feet are leaving for his rivals, at times with self-defeating results.
On his part, Welshman Ncube, the MDC leader has also been holding campaign rallies, mostly in Bulawayo where he has really been laying into Tsvangirai whom he basically likens to an ostrich whose eye is bigger than its brain.
President Mugabe has not yet hit the campaign trail; neither has the party national political commissar who has been burying more artistes than opponents, so to speak probably belying the confidence Zanu-PF has going into next year. But judging from the speeches President Mugabe has given at various forums, Zanu-PF's election issues are clear, manifest in the programmes being implemented by the inclusive Government.
For Zanu-PF the election is likely to revolve around the indigenisation and economic empowerment drive, the agrarian reform programme the successes thereof and the usual themes of safeguarding our territorial independence and sovereignty.
For the MDC-T its jobs, food and foreign investment while for the MDC of Welshman Ncube its not quite clear yet but most likely its the same issues advocated by MDC-T with particular emphasis on Tsvangirai's unsuitability for the highest office in the land.
This probably explains why Prof Ncube upped the ante this week, by challenging President Mugabe and Mr Tsvangirai to live televised debates before next year's polls saying he was confident he would carry the day enunciating his party policies and programmes.
I couldn't help but appreciate Prof Ncube's deviousness here, pardon the word. The man knows how to demolish an opponent.
I am sure Prof Ncube knows his target will be the MDC-T not the Zanu-PF leader given what the two men are reputed to have between the ears.
I immediately wondered whether Tsvangirai would agree to such a debate given his predilection for flip-flopping and dearth of a clearly defined position on many things.
Would the MDC-T agree to expose its main man in the run-up to a crucial poll particularly as several senior MDC-T leaders were quoted in leaked US embassy diplomatic cables bemoaning Tsvangirai's cerebral weaknesses? The MDC-T treasurer and donor point man, Roy Bennett, was quoted saying, "Tsvangirai remembers the advice of the last person he would have spoken to".
Would the MDC-T or its handlers allow Tsvangirai to square off against Ncube - arguably one of the country's legal brains who helped draft the Land Acquisition Act in 1992 - and President Mugabe whom US ambassador Charles Ray recently praised as ‘‘having an encyclopedia for a brain."
With Charles Ray's predecessor Christopher Dell saying the President ‘‘has survived for so long because he is more clever and more ruthless than any other politician in Zimbabwe. To give the devil his due, he is a brilliant tactician and has long thrived on his ability to abruptly change the rules of the game, radicalise the political dynamic and force everyone else to react to his agenda.''
Reading Prof Ncube's proposal on debates, I understood why Dell described him as ‘‘a deeply divisive and destructive player in the opposition ranks,'' and that the sooner he is pushed off the stage, the better.
Its clear Dell wanted Ncube off the stage for the simple reason that the Professor knows the ins and outs of the two MDCs having been the united MDC's secretary general.
He worked with Tsvangirai for years and knows best how to expose or destroy him which is why some of us, who have long questioned Tsvangirai's suitability for the highest office in the land, buy into Prof Ncube's proposal for televised debates.
I believe its high time all who aspire for high office engaged each other without their handlers to tell the nation where they stand on the national question, the national interest and major policy issues.
Many a time votes are cast along party lines with scant regard to the calibre of the candidate which is why the late Vice President Simon Muzenda, for instance, could tell supporters at one rally that ‘‘even if we give you a baboon, you must vote for that baboon''.
This is also why the MDC's first MP for Highfield, Munyaradzi Gwisai who had amassed 12 616 votes in the year 2000 poll, could only manage 73 after he was chucked out of the party in 2003.
Gwisai, as an independent, came a distant fourth after the MDC's Pearson Mungofa (8 759 votes), Zanu-PF's Joseph Chinotamba (4 844 votes) and the nomadic Egypt Dzinemunhenzva of the Wedza-based African National Party who managed 272 votes in the by-election.
Televised debates have become customary for the main candidates in the United States, invariably drawn from the two largest parties, the Democrats and the Republicans. They have also been used in the United Kingdom.
The debate topics are often the pressing issues of the day, and in these western societies that are not encumbered by the scourge of puppet parties, the debates at times decide the poll outcomes. I do not know whether, given the nature of our highly politicised political environment if televised debates would work here as far as swaying voters is concerned.
There, however, is a school of thought that says such debates could be crucial in boosting voter turnout given that the average turnout in a constituency with 35 000 registered voters has invariably been around 15 000.
It means there are about 20 000 voters who remain undecided or non-committal on voting day. These should be the main targets of these debates, the undecided voters who usually are not partial to political party or ideology. We have had televised debates before but pitting senior party officials not the presidents on ZBCTV ahead of the 2005 general poll.
While presidential poll debates are not constitutionally mandated, it's worth considering since we are in the middle of drafting a new constitution. Providing for them in the constitution will prevent those candidates with nothing to say to the electorate from wriggling out as the debates will be part of the election process.
Food for thought.
