Re-Stating Who Tshabangu Is & What The End Game Should Be!
1. I had not felt it necessary to do so previously but in light of what I have been reading on these streets, I feel it has become imperative to re-state what I consider is the obvious.
2. Tshabangu is a proxy. He is serving a political purpose on behalf of ED‘s regime to destroy the opposition movement.
3. He is doing that via recalls of MPs & via spreading alarm & disillusionment in the opposition movement.
4. Destroying the opposition movement this way pre-occupies it, diverts attention from ED‘s illegitimacy crisis, chips away at Chamisa’s authority while inflicting his own legitimacy concerns via the structures & constitution red herring.
5. The real crisis in the opposition movement is not the so-called weaknesses that Tshabangu is allegedly exposing.
6. It is the failure to conjure up a credible response to the massive electoral theft that resonates with the rank & file members of the opposition movement as well as selected members in the regional family who were prepared to back the opposition to the hilt.
7. By repeatedly playing to the strengths of the regime via returning to participate in by-elections while seeking to hold Tshabangu to account via the captured Judiciary, the opposition has left itself open to charges of inherent strategic contradictions & bankruptcy of courage to confront the dictatorship.
8. It is not a secret that the regime controls all levers of state power – Parliament, the Judiciary, Police, ZEC etc, so the solution could not possibly come from there if it is accepted that the regime is pursuing a Third Term Agenda.
9. It is of course true that all dictators are by their very nature brutal & would never willingly concede power or embrace democracy. ED‘s regime is neither the first nor will it be the last brutal regime in history.
10. The biggest challenge that @nelsonchamisa faces is loss of legitimacy via a crisis of frustration in failing to muster a coherent & consistent strategy in challenging ED‘s regime.
11. The response that has been provided so far is, with regret, highly inadequate in light of the scale of the challenge.
12. ED‘s regime has repeatedly provoked the opposition movement & the generality of law abiding citizens yet there has been no single political cost exacted on it.
13. Unlike others, I consider the decision to participate in the flawed elections inspired & a strategic masterpiece given what it managed to garner for the opposition evidentially – domestically, regionally & internationally via the Electoral Observer Mission Reports.
14. Participation should not have been an end in itself. It should have been part of a cocktail of adaptive strategies.
15. Much more importantly, what is damning is the political response at key stages once the electoral theft had been exposed domestically & regionally.
16. The political imperative of unleashing a political response on the streets in Zimbabwe within the parameters of the Constitution matching the scale of the illegalities cannot be overstated.
17. It is that failure which gave rise to Tshabangu and has in turn fuelled his brazenness – using borrowed robes of course. Each failure to unleash a powerful political response has been met by a corresponding & contemptuous upping of the ante.
18. As things stand, the opposition movement is literally folding arms while Tshabangu is politically decapitating & devouring it. It’s only a matter of time before only bare bones are left.
19. @nelsonchamisa & @CCCZimbabwe can lodge as many court applications as they want & field as many candidates as they want while contesting in as many by-elections as they want but at this point, they either know it or ought to know it – the solution lies in directly challenging ED‘s brutal regime on Zimbabwean streets & raise the political temperature until a negotiated outcome can be reached under the auspices of regional players.
20. If any weaknesses have been shown by the opposition movement, it has been the capacity to mobilise effectively at key points within the current crisis – mobilising effectively & consistently domestically, diplomatically & regionally.
21. The Tshabangu carry on exposes not just the desperation, moral & political bankruptcy & vacuousness of ED‘s regime but the opposition’s indecisiveness & absence of courage to “meet the moment.”
22. The solution to the Tshabangu debacle has always been political. Throughout history, those under the yoke of oppression have always drawn strength & inspiration not from their individual attributes – but from the force of their collective strength which can only be used effectively if mobilised successfully – otherwise what is the point of being supported by millions of people if their political voice cannot be brought to bear when circumstances dictate otherwise?
That is the end game to the Tshabangu debacle! It’s a battle of wills. To shrink in instalments until there is nothing left or to embrace the moment & make it count!
