By Dr Masimba Mavaza
NELSON Chamisa’s opposition MDC Alliance has reportedly resolved to roll out countrywide mass demonstrations dubbed “winter protests” against the people of Zimbabwe. The planned protests, come against the backdrop of the recall of 40 MDC Alliance legislators and 80 councillors by rival opposition parties aligned to the ruling Zanu PF party. Chamisa’s party has also lost its headquarters and $7,5 million State funding, all this was as a result of their infighting which ended up decimating the opposition party left waxing away in an unprecedented fashion.
In a very disturbing way the opposition party’s national standing committee (NSC) took a position to abandon the non-confrontational route and employ the violent stubborn none admission way of reducing the Zimbabwean infrastructure into rubbles. With America ready to support any violent way wrapped in a democratic veil as long as it comes from the MDC they will always support the opposition in Zimbabwe. After the recall of Biti from parliament by his own party the Americans felt defeated and are all out to punish Zimbabwe for the failures of their puppets and the serious disastrous failure of the regime change agenda they have always supported.
MDC is quoted as saying “It’s one of the resolutions made at the NSC on Wednesday. The majority of the members of the organ were in agreement that we have to change strategy and confront the government of Mnangagwa on the streets. We also agreed to consolidate the agenda 2021 which is centred on the citizens’ convergence for change,” the grand plan is to provoke the Zimbabwean government to retaliation and make a smoke screen which purports to show that the Zimbabwe government is not regarding the human rights. The demonstrations are meant to create chaos which will result in violent clashes with the security forces. This already a rolled out plan and the MDC is setting it in motion as to make the country ungovernable. Part of the NSC communiqué read: “The party has commenced the execution of Zimbabwe agenda 2021, the roll out of which has reached all provinces in the country… The meeting received feedback on the massive nationwide programme to energise the base in light of the agenda 2021.”
Political protests are an exercise in democratic rights with which individuals or groups attempt to address perceived injustices within a political system. Protests serve an important role in the democratic process by facilitating discourse and deliberation; they drive political reform by signalling people’s disapproval of policies, legislation, and other government actions. As a result of the political mobilization spurred by the protest many governments have reconsidered some of their positions and things have worked. This is possible were the protestors are responsible and not bent at destroying property. We are living through the golden age of protest, but the MDC A has failed to understand the meaning of protests.
The Zimbabwean government is aware that the increase in the frequency and scale of protests is unique to the 21st Century, as it denotes a structural shift in how citizens confront authority and how society organizes in addressing its concerns. To that end Zimbabwe allows its people to demonstrate peacefully with no malice intended. The MDC has made protests a way to destroy the country’s economy and have tried to make sure the people are forced to demonstrate and put the economy on its knees. All these years MDC has tried to arm twist the government to allow them to be part of the government. Still, what has protest done for us lately? Smartphones and social media are supposed to have made organizing easier, and activists today speak more about numbers and reach than about lasting results. Is protest a productive use of our political attention? Or is it just a bit of social theatre we perform to make ourselves feel virtuous, useful, and in the right? Chamisa will not be able to answer these questions, yet he pushes people to self-destruction. While democracy is one of the adopted political systems worldwide Zimbabwe’s opposition has taken advantage of the government’s latitude as a weakness. Zimbabwe will not fold its arms and watch MDC and Chamisa reducing our gains to nothing. So the plans to destabilise the nation should be taken seriously and Chamisa must be arrested for planning to cause havoc in our peaceful nation. We must not forget that demonstrating is a human right and Zimbabwe’s Government is also a product of this dominating political system. But all this must be done in a reasonable peaceful manner. Demonstrations comes in different forms and shapes and above all it is interwoven with civil liberties and human rights, amongst them is the right to demonstrate and to petition but not the right to destroy and limit the freedom of others. Chamisa and his thugs must remember that one’s freedom starts where yours ends. 2 the moment it overrides then there is a breach on your part. All these rights are clearly articulated and protected by international statutes under the Bill of Rights.
We must know that Zimbabwe’s Constitution guarantees the right to demonstrate and to petition and show disapproval of government actions or policy. Section 59 of the Constitution expressly states that every person has the right to demonstrate and to present petitions, but these rights must be exercised peacefully. The condition of this demonstration is to be human and indeed peaceful. The MDC has always ridden on the backs of force to cultivate sympathy. This means they expect the government to retaliate or use minimum force to protect the people and property then they will tell their handlers that they are being abused.
Their handlers will then make a case against Zimbabwe in saying Zimbabwe is abusing its own citizens. In light of this, various pressure groups, civil societies and opposition political parties, among others have been racing to demonstrate and to petition over various political, social and economic issues in Zimbabwe and taking photos which they post on You Tube and face book trying to vilify the country.
MDC A has a very short memory; Precedence has proved that demonstrations do more harm than good in Zimbabwe, not to say that demonstrations are bad, but MDC ALWAYS BELIEVE THAT DEMONSTRATIONS MEANS DESTRUCTION. Whilst the Constitution requires the demonstrations to be peaceful, protesters have defied the odds; violence has become one of the salient features of demonstrations in Zimbabwe. Chamisa believes that his relevance is measured by violence and violent demonstrations. Instead of engaging the government Chamisa mistook his student immature politics to mean popularity. One can question the power of marches, protests, and other acts of what they call demonstrations, and it shows nothing comes out of it but utter destruction. These methods, they say, are more habit than solution. Protest is too fleeting. It ignores the structural nature of problems in a modern world. “The folk-political injunction is to reduce complexity down to a human scale,” This impulse to demonstrate promotes authenticity-mongering, lack of reasoning through individual speeches which are useless and a general inability to think systemically about change. The way Chamisa wants to take Zimbabwe back to the Stone Age by destroying our gains is witch craft in the making.
The idea of rolling out demonstrations now is evil and meant to destroy what we have achieved so far. This is politics transmitted into pastime—politics-as-drug-experience, perhaps—rather than anything capable of transforming society. If we look at the protests today as an exercise in public awareness, they appear to have had mixed success at best. Their messages are mangled by an unsympathetic media smitten by images of property destruction—assuming that the media even acknowledges a form of contention that has become increasingly repetitive and boring. Zimbabwe deserves better than this monkey business Chamisa and his none existent part are planning to roll in the country. Demonstrations in the Zimbabwean context have been a misconception phenomenon. Numbers or the masses which would have graced the demonstration and the number of those arrested are used as a yardstick to measure the success of the demonstration. So they deliberately urge a proper arrest, they provoke the police and incite a massive response. They only do this in front of the cameras to please their handlers who are on the ready to punish Zimbabwe for nothing. it has become clear that demonstrations are detrimental because they choke investment.
No investor would want to invest in a country where demonstrations are the order of the day, and this is exactly what Chamisa wants to achieve. A man who has seen his party disintegrating and melting away now wants to find relevance. He is compromising peace and investment in Zimbabwe. Peace is one of the factors that attract these foreign direct investors which Zimbabwe needs so much. Tourism, which is also one of the country’s top foreign currency earners, will also be affected negatively by demonstrations, especially is they degenerate into violence. We are just coming from COVID 19 and effects of lock down We now need to pull together as a country and benefit every Zimbabwean. Zimbabwe will not be a favourable tourist destination if Chamisa starts his Jecha brigade crusade. The difficulty, with MDC is that, despite its pride in being progressive, is mired in nostalgia. “Petitions, occupations, strikes, vanguard parties, affinity groups, trade unions: all arose out of particular historical conditions which glorified demonstrations.
So to expect a peaceful outfit from such people is expecting a lion to massage a calf. They think that demonstrating for an internationalized, digitized world will free us from what they vividly call our “endless treadmill of misery.
For centuries, on the right and the left alike, it has been an article of faith that, in moments of sharp civic discontent, you and I and everyone we know can take to the streets, demanding change. The Zimbabwean constitution enshrines such efforts, protecting “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. But when the peace of the nation is compromised then the government has a duty to act and stop such nonsense. Zimbabwe needs long-term solutions in order to effectively deal with its problems, now and for all and the journey starts with the ordinary citizens up to the policy makers and Government officials and agencies. It is not a one man show hence all citizens must play their part in building Zimbabwe. In addition, it is imperative to note that demonstrations have been used to further the political mileage and personal scores of various politicians globally.
The masses have been manipulated, used as scapegoats to cover the interests of power-hungry individuals. The protests also will disrupt supply chains, causing shortages and contributing to a decline in consumer confidence. Economy will be cut in half in large part because of the impact of the protests on industrial production and services activity. Some of the most impacted sectors will not recover lost business if these people are allowed to continue with their planned destabilisation crusade. The economic costs of protests are often overlooked. Protests can decrease property values and debilitate local and national economic activity. The cost of property damage from rioting is borne across the board—by the government, insurers, and the public. Businesses have a clear disincentive to establish operations in riot-prone areas, as they want to avoid risking their capital. Protests, therefore, can influence regional and national employment rates. This suggests that firms are ineffective in reallocating the factors of production to counter the uncertain and irregular shocks in productivity caused by protests. In addition, protests increase investors’ uncertainty as they serve as markers for political instability.
A risk premium is assigned to securities originating from politically unstable countries. “After Bahrain’s protests during the Arab Spring, rating agencies Standard and Poor’s and Moody’s both lowered the Bahrain government’s bond and credit ratings—attributing the decision to the region’s political turmoil and civil unrest” could this be what Chamisa wants for Zimbabwe or does he even care. Withdrawal of foreign direct investment (FDI) and capital flight, resulting from a fall in business confidence, reduce the economic growth rate of the affected country. The impact on tourism is more complex. Predominantly, tourists are apprehensive about traveling to countries experiencing protests, for fear of being endangered by riots. Chamisa wants to maximise this against Zimbabwe and he must not be allowed to do this. It is important to go beyond demonstrations in order to create lasting solutions which can be put in place so as to ensure a paradigm shift of Zimbabwe’s economy. Dialogue is the way to go, various stakeholders in the politics and governance of Zimbabwe must meet and speak in one voice so as to reach a consensus pertaining the roadmap and the way forward which the country must take in ensuring that all the obstacles which the country is going through will eventually be a thing of the past.
On an international scale, protests serve as a signalling mechanism to wealthier countries. As protests sometimes accompany a regime change, new governments have to deal with the repercussions of shattered international confidence. This lengthens the post-conflict reconstruction process, as it is difficult to accumulate the capital investment needed to revitalize the economy. So Chamisa is living under a false hope that Zimbabwe will give in to the useless threats. The Zimbabwean government must never allow the repeat of the past.
In principle, protests and demonstrations are allowed as enshrined in the Constitution as long as they are peaceful. But this must not be abused, the government must arrest all those agitating for violence. We have tried to please the MDC handlers and this has backfired in our faces. Whatever Zimbabwe does now it will never change the opinion of the enemies on Zimbabwe so let us work with Zimbabweans and not the Mbitis and Nelsons of this world who are meant to destroy the gains of our people.
Party spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere could neither confirm nor deny the planned protests.
“The MDC Alliance will continue to use multiple strategies to champion the people’s cause. In Zimbabwe, we have a governance and legitimacy crisis that can only be resolved by a return to legitimacy and democracy. The MDC Alliance has articulated its roadmap to address the national crisis in our RELOAD document — a roadmap to economic recovery, legitimacy, openness and democracy.”
Mahere said Mnangagwa’s refusal to address issues of bad governance was holding back the nation.
“We are a people-driven party, so the people will dictate the form of expression that our confrontation of the joblessness, corruption, public health, education and authoritarian crises will take in accordance with the Constitution. Crucially, we seek convergence and a finding of each other to take the nation forward and win Zimbabwe for change.”
Party deputy spokesperson Clifford Hlatywayo confirmed that they were, indeed, mobilising members to confront the Zanu PF government.
“We are mobilising the citizens of Zimbabwe and citizens of the world of like-minded to converge and fight for a people’s government. Zimbabweans deserve a better leadership, not these comedians who thrive on abductions of the ordinary and looting of taxpayers’ hard-earned money. The dictator wants to create a one-party State, it will fail, and it has failed. MDC Alliance is a people’s party and the leadership is a product of the people. President Chamisa is the people’s hope,” Hlatywayo said.
Contacted for comment, Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo curtly said: “No comment. Zanu PF subscribes to the rule of law, period.”
Political analyst Austin Chakaodza said the planned protests were likely to be brutally crushed.
he said.
“The MDC Alliance is facing a dilemma regarding the issue of winter street protests. They can go ahead, but there will be casualties. Disregarding the norms of the Constitution seems to be the order of the day in Zimbabwe,” Chakaodza added.
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