By Patrick Guramatunhu- “MDC-T president Douglas Mwonzora (DM) has often been described as a sellout and likened to Rhodesia-Zimbabwe quisling Bishop Abel Muzorewa.

Mwonzora, nicknamed “Mwonzorewa” by critics who are determined to ensure that the Muzorewa analogy sticks for posterity, took over from Thokozani Khupe as party leader at last year’s congress,” reported The News Hawk.

The characterisation of Mwonzora as a Mnangagwa puppet no different from Muzorewa as an Ian Smith puppet is spot on. 

As much as Zimbabweans are hungry for meaningful political change to restore the fundament freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote, the same things they were crying for before independence; the people know they will never get them from Mnangagwa just as they knew they would not get them from Smith. 

Ian Smith tolerated Muzorewa as a stooge he could use to give himself legitimacy as representing the blacks. Ian Smith decided how many black MPs Muzorewa was to get and everyone knew the whites controlled everything and called all the shots in the Rhodesia-Zimbabwe. 

Similarly Mnangagwa has the dictatorial powers to ensure Zanu PF wins 2/3 majority and the presidency in any elections and Mwonzora must be content with whatever scraps Zanu PF gives him. Mnangagwa tolerates MDC for the sole purpose of legitimacy. 

But if the truth be told, MDC became a compromised and utterly useless opposition party during 2008 to 2013 GNU. The MDC’s primary task in the GNU was to implement the necessary democratic reforms to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and replace it with a healthy and function democracy. Morgan Tsvangirai and company failed to deliver even one democratic reform. 

The GNU was tasked to draft a new democratic constitution and produced instead a dictator’s creed. Paul Mangwana, the Zanu PF co-chairperson on the parliamentary committee that drafted the constitution could not resist boasting that it was Mugabe who had “dictated” 

MDC leaders, en masse, came out in support of the new constitution. “This is the most democratic constitution ever!” said Professor Welshman Ncube, President of MDC-Ncube and Minister in the GNU. “And I am speaking as a constitutional lawyer in my other life!” He was a retired UZ law Professor. 

“The new constitution is an MDC child!” insisted MDC – T President and Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai. 

The people were convinced and approved the new constitution by a staggering 93% in the March 2013 referendum. 

SADC leaders were not so easily fooled and wanted the July 2013 elections postponed until democratic were implemented. “If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!” they warned Tsvangirai and company. 

MDC leaders paid no heed to the warning and, as the SADC leaders had rightly predicted, Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections and thus proving beyond all doubt that the so called “MDC child” democratic constitution was if fact a dictator’s creed dictated by Robert Mugabe himself. 

MDC leaders participating in the 2013 and then 2018 elections as nothing more than Zanu PF’s acolytes, there to give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy in return for a few gravy train seats and a share of the annual Political Party Finance Act payout. President Mnangagwa has since extended the reward to include all the presidential candidate who joined his POLAD. 

It was USA ambassador to Zimbabwe 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell, who predicted that Morgan Tsvangirai was “flawed and indecisive character who will become an albatross round the nation’s neck if he got into power!” Tsvangirai and his MDC friends did get into power in the 2008 to 2013 GNU and by failing to implement even one reform and then participating in flawed elections to give the vote rigging Zanu PF they have become the milestone round the nation’s neck, dragging us all deed into the crashing abyss. 

All MDC leaders involved in the 2008 to 2013 GNU have proven beyond all doubt that they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. To therefore single out Douglas Mwonzora and a few around him as the corrupt, incompetent and Mnagagwa puppets is wrong and dangerous because it gives the impression that Chamisa and the rest still in the MDC A factions are clean, innocent and the epitome of the competent leaders the nation has been dying for. Nothing could be further from the truth!

It should be remember here that Bishop Tendekayi Abel Muzorewa was once upon a time a darling of the nation. He fall out of favour when he signed his Rhodesia-Zimbabwe agreement with Ian Smith.

Robert Mugabe, Emmerson Mnangagwa and the rest of the Zanu PF leaders were themselves the nation’s liberation heroes and heroines and rightly revered until they imposed the de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship. Corruption and mismanagement destroyed the nation’s economy forcing millions into abject poverty and over 30 000 were murdered to establish and retain the dictatorship. 

Mugabe and a few others around him were booted out of power in the military coup of 2017 by Mnangagwa and company. Mugabe and the G40 faction were blamed for all the evil of the 37 years of Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical rule although it was none other than Mnangagwa and many of the coup plotters who had carried out the blatant vote rigging, the wholesale looting, etc. 

Making Mugabe the fall guy for all the evil of Zanu PF of the last 37 years and giving Mnangagwa and company a squawky clean bill of health was a grave mistake and one the nation so regretted. 

Mnangagwa and his coup plotters promised to revive the economy with the clarion call “Zimbabwe is open for business!” Promised to stamp out corruptions, to hold free, fair and credible elections and a host of other things. The regime never kept any of the promises because Zimbabwe was still a pariah state, same as it was under Mugabe.

It is one thing nickname Mwonzora Mwonzorewa after Muzorewa but it would be folly to make him the fall guy of all MDC’s blunders and betrayals and give Chamisa et al a clean bill of health just as we did with Mnangagwa and the coup plotter in 2017. The GNU proved that Chamisa, Biti and the rest in MDC A are just as corrupt and incompetent as Mwonzora. 

Both Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A and Douglas Mwonzora and his MDC-T are set to participate in the flawed and illegal 2023 election just as they did in the 2018 elections. Zanu PF will rig the elections to get 2/3 majority and the presidency and the two parties’ participation will give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. 

The grime reality of yet another five year term of Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical rule is simply too gustily to contemplate. The election will settle the question of which of the two gentlemen, Chamisa and Mwonzora will have the bragging right to call himself leader of Zimbabwe’s main opposition but why has that to be at the expense of once again giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy! 

Douglas Mwonzora is just as corrupt and incompetent as the other MDC leaders Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, David Coltart, etc. They are all peas from the same MDC pod of the 2008 to 2013 GNU era. They will all dragged us into a flawed and illegal 2023 elections for the sake of a few gravy train seats and once again give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. After 41 years of rigged elections we must stop this madness by refusing to participate in these flawed elections. 

We must demand the implementation of the democratic reforms to guarantee free, fair and credible elections before election. If Zanu PF and MDC cannot implement the reforms, the clearly failed to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, then we must appoint others who can. 

In the grand scheme of things, we will never forgive ourselves if Mwonzorewa did stick at the price of Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections and getting  legitimacy because we participating. We really need to focus on what matters – stopping Zanu PF getting away with another rigged election by refusing to participate in flawed elections.