23 Jan 2012 By Reason Wafawarova The last time this writer engaged Senator Obert
Gutu on his routine publications on political
commentary was when he wrote about the indigenisation
policy and what he thought of its chief presiding
executive, Minister Saviour Kasukuwere. Then Senator Gutu profusely expressed his allured
admiration for Direct Foreign Investment as the
panacea to economic growth for Zimbabwe, arguing that
FDI would "inevitably" grow the economy to a point
where local entrepreneurs would also "inevitably" pop
up from our midst. It was an argument akin to telling
a man to wait for roast chicken to fly into the mouth.
That wait can only be forever. The piece was an effort by Gutu to spin Morgan
Tsvangirai's Marondera shallow attack on the
indigenisation policy, pretty much as uncalculated as
Fidelis Mhashu's infamous promise to return Zimbabwean
commercial farmland to dispossessed white farmers. Recently, Obert Gutu commented with a lot of
disapprobation on the pending 2012 Election. This was
on Tichaona Sibanda's pirate radio program "Election
Watch 2012". Giving an exposition of his intentions and goals,
Tichaona Sibanda gave a revealing preamble of the
interview transcript to would be readers. The pliant journalist said Gutu "fears that as long
as ZANU-PF remains with its tenacious hold on
instruments of state power like the police, the CIO,
the army, and also the national radio and television
stations, it might not be possible to have free and
fair elections." This is the kind of preamble you do when you want
to imbue the reader towards a desired perception, to
manipulate the reader's mind so that they read your
script from your viewpoint and not their own. Lance
Guma is a master of this art and this is why he would
phrase a question like this: "Betty Makoni, here is a
question for you from the Australian based ZANU PF
supporter and Mugabe apologist Reason Wafawarova. He
asks……" Tichaona Sibanda and Lance Guma both work for a
media unit that requires them to facilitate a Mugabe-targeted
regime change agenda, and as such they have to be
impressive in carrying out this mission. The interview began with Sibanda asking about
electoral reforms that have or have not taken place
during the lifespan of the current inclusive
government. Gutu authoritatively stated that "the problem we
have in this country is that there is a lot of
misinformation and disinformation, most of the time it
is actually deliberate misinformation." This could have been an honourable response if only
the allegations were not limited to blaming ZANU-PF
and Zimbabwe's public media, exonerating and even
applauding guiltier parties like the very pirate radio
station to which Gutu was giving an interview. We are dealing with private media units that once
went absolutely crazy about baseless and defamatory
allegations of infidelity targeted at personalities
like the Reserve Bank Governor at one time, but now
they are dead silent on factual substance about the
philandering ways of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai;
who has evidently bedded not less than half a dozen
women since the death of his wife just over three
years ago, jilting and ditching some of them in the
process. Of course these media units will deliberately
misinform the Zimbabwean public that "we do not cover
petty personal affairs in people's private lives,"
unless of course when these alleged private affairs
involve people associated with ZANU PF. It would be absolutely appropriate and correct for
a Zimbabwean paper to run a screaming headline "Our
Prime Minister is a Fornicator!" one morning, only
because that is the fact. But for media units like The
Daily News and SW Radio the sin has been committed by
the wrong person. Senator Gutu went on: "We are still a very long way
from having what one might want to call a level
playing field for the purposes of holding an election
that will pass the test of legitimacy." Surely we
cannot be anywhere near such a level playing field for
as long as political parties engage in acts of
political violence at intra and inter party levels.
And there is absolutely no way such a level playing
field can ever be achieved for as long as political
parties like the MDC-T continue to be funded and
directed by foreign powers like the United States and
Britain. There is no way we can ever achieve a level playing
field for as long as some Zimbabwean political players
are isolated from some international platforms through
illegal travel bans and murderous illegal economic
sanctions unilaterally imposed by the West. Senator Gutu raised issues to do with unfinished
business regarding the Electoral Amendment Bill, the
Human Rights Commission Bill, and the debate over
polling station-based voting system versus
multi-station voting system where one can vote
anywhere within a ward or a constituency. In a true
democracy this debate must administrative and not
political. Both the MDC-T and ZANU PF are simply after
pursuing illicit political interests on this
matter.This is why Gutu and his party would also want
to retrospectively apply the Human Rights Commission
Bill to 18 April 1980, but not as far back as 1890,
when the descendants of the MDC-T's current funders
carried out heinous crimes against our people. According to Senator Gutu, only the Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission can come up with an "accurate,
credible voters' role." It is ironic that the Senator
in the same breath says the Commission is infested
with pro-ZANU-PF intelligence and security agents. Gutu might find it expedient to describe Zimbabwe's
voters' roll as "shambolic," which it is; but it must
be noted that this description only pops up when the
MDC-T is trying to run away from the prospect of an
imminent election, and it is absolutely silent when
the same party wants to misinform us that Morgan
Tsvangirai "won the election hands down" in March
2008. It appears the "shambolic" voters' register is
of no consequence when it gives Obert Gutu or anyone
else from the MDC-T electoral victory, suddenly
becoming an issue whenever the same party disagrees
with anything else related to elections. Gutu describes the contentious issue of civic
society carrying out "voter education" as a "deal
breaker" for his MDC-T. He mentioned in particular Zim-Rights,
ZESN, Zim-Lawyers for Human Rights and NANGO,
organisations he described as "the democratic train,"
and he correctly pointed out that "ZANU-PF distrusts
these civic organisations". Does the MDC-T trust these organisations for human
rights interests or for political interests? Does ZANU
PF distrust these organisations for human rights
interests or for political interests? Do these
organisations pursue a human rights cause in their
relationship with the MDC-T or they pursue a political
relationship? Are the strained relations between these
organisations and ZANU PF of a human rights or
political nature? These are the unanswered questions
that Senator Gutu chose to overlook in his
preoccupation of vilifying his political opponents
from ZANU-PF. He rhapsodised further: "The whole issue is about
ZANU PF being scared of losing power." But why would
ZANU PF be comfortable of losing power to people they
view as traitors for their undisputed sponsorship from
Western powers? Losing power to a British-sponsored
political party is indeed a scary thought and ZANU PF
are better off doing something about it if at all they
are the revolutionary party they say they are –
entrusted with safeguarding the gains of post-colonial
independence. This writer is not sure if the Senator was serious
when he said: "So you will notice that they are keen
in having all other non-governmental players not being
given an opportunity to carry out voter registration."
Who on this planet gives that role to non-governmental
strangers? And what is this "voter education" that the civic
organisations want to "teach" people about? Making a
political choice and expressing it through an X on a
piece of paper is not a process that should "take a
lot of funding" for a relatively highly literate
community like Zimbabwe, especially after having
carried out nine general elections since 1980 to date.
It may just be a question of the voters being educated
in a way the civic organisations do not like, and we
must determine if that is of any importance to the
people of Zimbabwe. In a clear case of contrived meanings Tichaona
Sibanda juxtaposed Morgan Tsvangirai's victoryless
lead in the March 2008 first-round presidential race
with the victory of Michael Sata in Zambia, going on
to ask Gutu if Zambia taught us a lesson or two about
"transfer of power". Whichever way one looks at it, Morgan Tsvangirai
never won any election. He only led in votes without
winning anything out of it, simply because the lead
was not good enough to warrant a win. This is what
Gutu calls winning "hands down". So there was never a need to transfer any power
after the March2008 harmonised election, and as such
there was no "failure" to transfer such power. It is like the unfounded lie that the MDC-T is "the
largest party in Zimbabwe" when the party garnered
only 43% of the majority vote to ZANU PF's 47% in the
2008 March elections. Senator Gutu made politically motivated predictions
of violence to push home his point of opposing
elections in 2012. It was a simple case of "there will
be violence if ever we allow elections to take place,"
without much objective analyses to the prediction. The claim that there is "total blackout on TV" and
on "all activities" to do with the MDC-T is frivolous
and as pretentious as the vainglorious title "Doctor"
to the name Tsvangirai. Gutu used this title at least
five times in the interview. We can only pretend that
Tsvangirai is a Doctor of anything, and that is the
best we can do for the man. The less said on this the
better. Gutu accused The Herald of "lampooning our leader"
and portraying him as "someone who can't be trusted." Despite the fact that this writer has read
substantial positive coverage of Tsvangirai in The
Herald, it is surely not the media's fault that the
man "can't be trusted." This is a legacy solely
created by Tsvangirai himself. He is the man who
called for ruinous sanctions on his own country, the
man who habitually flip flops on policy, who
arbitrarily boycotts political processes, a man who
notoriously opposed the land reforms in 2000, a man
who recently expressed unexpected support for gay
rights in Zimbabwe, and he is the man who portrayed
himself as a philanderer who is not only promiscuous,
but who also jilts and ditches women after stinging
them. Gutu ended by saying "ZANU PF and violence are
synonymous". Maybe this is why Welshman Ncube
chronicles a sad narration of Morgan Tsvangirai-led
intra-party violence that used to happen when Ncube
was still Tsvangirai's Secretary General. It may also explain why the late Tonderai Ndira and
his thug colleagues just fell short of callously
murdering Trudy Stevenson in Tafara in 2005. And ZANU
PF's "violence DNA" probably explains why the MDC-T
Bulawayo provincial elections were so bloody just a
year ago. Was this writer not chased by two MDC-T marked
vehicles in a hot-pursuit road chase in 2003 for
simply driving an NYS marked vehicle along the
Bulawayo-Gwanda Road? And if truth be told, was
Senator Gutu himself not recently threatened with
violence by youths from the MDC-T's Harare Province
for his alleged demeaning of Morgan Tsvangirai through
Wiki-Leaks? Do we pile all this primitive culture of political
violence on ZANU PF just because ZANU PF has its own
undisputable share of the culture which the West
selectively chooses to see and often exaggerates? How
would we ever heal? Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome.
It is homeland or death! Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in
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