Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo- Many political stalwarts and opposition outfits need to understand something for them to survive politically and creat strategies on how to contain military Governments. Yes ED could be facing challenges both external and internal forces, but one thing you need to comprehend is that any political move that ED makes is taken with extreme caution.

With Zanu PF, particularly the child of military politics, they will not simply give in and disband POLAD, and resume negotiations outside polad. My critical thinking would be, opposition should focus on talking points and references and guidelines and framework of the agenda. Whether POLAD or GPA or any other frameworks, dialogue remains dialogue, I think the focus should be on the framework.

POLAD is a creation of Zanu PF as an institution, and they are using it as a basis of any talks with regards to the court outcome of July 30 elections, and anything outside that is anon-starter. So whoever would be advising opposition must focus on the talking points.

Suppose there is a resurgence on the economy, what is going to happen to the opposition? Will there be any political scores? Let’s go back to the 2013 narrative when opposition lost to Mugabe, there was little gain from the economy and opposition was literary outshined for a long period of time after the 2013 elections.

This is politics and there is need for political strategy for one to remain strategic. In Zimbabwe you are dealing with a military regime bracketed in a civilian terms or approach, and power is not given on a silver plate. Yes ED is in need of dialogue but critical thinkers and researchers must never make wrong assumptions that dialogue will give birth to new narratives.

Dialogue normally bring in political settlements that are favorable to ruling governments. In fact we have a 2009-2015 case study where opposition was reduced to a mere junior partner in Government after hastily making wrong decisions.

Political leadership must know what to say and what not to say in public particularly when political and economic pressures are mounting. This is where political advisory fits in. there is always an excitement particularly when leaders face huge crowds, it is important and critical to address national matters.

I was making my own comprehensive analysis on the comparative politics of the modern day world in relation to the Kuwadzana narrative, and I Can safely say ED needs strong political advisory to save his Presidency from vicious attacks and committing political suicide.

The Kuwadzana fiasco has alluded to my previous article which I made it clear that ED is failing to close the generational consensus gap to match the general standard or expectations. Why would a President of the whole nation mock citizens over the meat and vegetables issue? Honestly are you telling me that the whole nation has two problems, meat and vegetables?

The bottom line is the Presidential Advisory Council (PAC) is literary dead and it must be disbanded. There could be some form of imitations from the former head of state Robert Mugabe, but the PR stunts were refined to make people laugh or to bring little diversion. Whoever is working on the PR for ED needs a bit of political consultancy on how to handle political matters.

The Kuwadzana scenario was an embarrassment to the presidency. My overall assessment is that there is need for political advisory which must back political and economic decisions. It is important to study the political environment for future decisions basing on political judgments on the ground.

Kuwadzana scenario was a good basement for Zanu PF and ED to make assessments and make comparative study on the urbanites and rural folk. What exactly do urbanites want and their perceptions on the presidency? ED who is coming from military background, and having occupied key strategies security ministries was supposed to have picked these sentiments before making such utterances on the podium.

It is important to study some other case studies in our neighboring countries and some parts of Africa on how they are handling their politics. We have Lungu in Zambia who has managed the Zambian politics very well despite facing internal and external rife. He has done well in politics and how to contain political pressures.

Tinashe Eric Muzamhindo writes in his personal capacity as a Policy Advisor and Researcher and he can be contacted at [email protected]