Mutambara’s image now damaged beyond repair
Opinion
August 15, 2008 | By Asher Tarivona Mutsengi | © zimbabwemetro.com ⋅
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Kirsty Coventry is making all of us proud,its difficult to find something to cheer you up when your country is slowly sliding into chaos and Kirsty ’s victory couldn’t have come at a better time. Congrats girl! I am happy for Kirsty also partly because she is enrolled at the same university that I went to in Austin,TX quite insignificant of course, but it makes her victory even more sweeter. Now back to the bitter sweet world of politics.
I must say I never trusted MDC faction leader Arthur Mutambara from the start,everything is wrong about a man who spends two decades in the diaspora,shut out of the public never saying anything about developments in his home country only to come back at the eleventh hour claiming to be the saviour.
But recent developments in which Mutambara said they are prepared to strike a deal with Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party is more revealing about a politician we have known for little over two years. This event has shaped his political image.
“Political image is like mixing cement,” said US Democratic Party nominee Walter Mondale. “When it’s wet, you can move it around and shape it, but at some point it hardens and there’s almost nothing you can do to reshape it.” This statement rings true of Mutambara.
In the next years regardless of the outcome of these talks people will never forget this great betrayal by Mutambara. Any attempt to repackage himself to cut a new and winning impression after these talks will be a damp squib that won’t work.
Mutambara should have realized that even if they agreed with ZANU PF,it was suicidal to say this in public. Politicians survive through knowledge of how to maintain a balance between which information is available to the public and which information is kept hidden. Mutambara failed in that balancing act.
Mutambara’s utterances and calling Tsvangirai names revealed not only pride but arrogance. As a prominent political analyst, George Will once observed: “A politician’s words reveal less about what he thinks about his subject than what he thinks about his audience.” Mutambara revealed his condescending attitude towards the Zimbabwean majority which supports Tsvangirai,its a costly revelation,one that could consign him to political oblivion one way or the other.
Mutambara has alienated himself from his faction’s core voting block. Its public information that his faction derives its support from rural Matebeland. The faction’s electoral successes in these two provinces could be attributed to their political strategy one in which Tsvangirai and his candidates were portrayed as ‘traitors’ and tribalists.
Being born and raised in Matebeland South, I remember an incident during my school days. It was at a prize giving ceremony, those who went to school in Zimbabwe know about those events where achievers in different fields be it academics and sports are rewarded. So it happened that I won a prize for excelling in Ndebele and as my name was being called out I could hear people murmuring,I knew why, my name sounded strange. I was shona.
What I am trying to explain is that the scars of tribalism cut deep in Matebeland, people are still traumatized by traitors like Enos Nkala and Naison Ndlovu and the Gukurahundi genocide is still fresh in minds. People still don’t approve ZAPU’s marriage with ZANU. They feel they have been left out and the politicians do not really care about them.
The tragic history of Gukurahundi,broken trust,betrayal and government abandonment defines the politics in those regions and the political language that resonates includes the code words; ngumthengisi, traitor, opasi, kathenjwa. Economics in rural Matebeland is not a huge deal because most bread winners work in South Africa and Botswana. So some politicians understand these code words and use them to their benefit and through this strategy the Mutambara faction won.
It will take more than one or two political cycles to win back rural Matebeland people’s hearts and their faith in government and politicians. But one thing is clear, Mutambara’s image is now tainted with one of more of those code words.
They say he who sups with devil should use a long spoon, Mutambara used a short one and is now too close to ZANU PF for comfort.
Promising political leaders in Matebeland have seen their political careers go up in smoke because they had aligned themselves with ZANU PF. ZANU PF is an anathema and anyone who aligns himself with the a party of blood is bound to get burnt.
Like I said politicians in Matebeland understand the dynamics and the political landscape there and that is why you saw a stampede by some of the elected officials to distance themselves from Mutambara ’s bed hopping with ZANU PF,they understand its political suicide.
The damage has been done,cast in stone an epitaph that reads,’ Here lies Arthur Guseni Oliver Mutambara…’.
Visit Asher ’s website www.mutsengi.com to read more about his views and commentary on Zimbabwe’s politics
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you hit it on the head Mutsengi thats the way to go . your article is much appreciated you guys at Metro are keeping us informed. you are a welcome angle to the Zimbabwean online media great work guys.
Politics of assumption is always misinforming, the truth as of last hour, those close to Tswangison are tired of his delay to sign and are siding with AGO, the positions they are going to get in government are already out and the recipients have been informed by the man himself Tswangison , to the opportunist bloggers like you, here is the fact of the matter Ago has the keys to these talks and the majority of Tswangison’s executive is behind AGO’ s drive to sign, if not they will split from MDC-T, this is according to one of the seniors and part of executive i spoke to, and this discreet, otherwise i would have provided his name.
thats really Boss Mutambara does not know where exactly he stands.I really do trust Tsvangirai
n/a you full of ****.You have absolutely no idea what is the outcome.Tsvangarai and his followers are men of their word unlike boboon and his ****heads who are just bull****ters.We will wait and see and you will be proven wrong.
its 1030 US central time lets wait and see, politics hadzisi dzokutora woita dzako especially if you know you not in control, mangwana Bob naTswangison vanenge vomwa tea vese, ndosaka dzakanzi politics.
mugabe please form the next gvt-we cant wait forever
n/a is lst. You should sk yourself about what is it hat Morgan shoud sign for? If Mutambara and Mugabe think Morgan is not relevant then they should not e bothered by his refusal to sign. Why did we hve elections ifthe wil of the people inot respected?I think what ever agreemet that coms ou ofthe alks i sould reflect the wishe ote people. Anything less than that is a betrayal of the people. Morgan stands fo people, Mugabe stands for JOC and his junta, Mutambara stands for loosers
Thanks Mutsengi. I really sympathize with Authur. He is a motor mouth and I guess he is a political nonentity. He maybe an academic guru but unfortunately he has nothing to show as far as his achievements are concerned except the certificates.
An interesting issue is the political base of Mutambara’s party. Looking at the past elections one is tempted to believe that Mutambara’s team may not even win a single council ward in future elections. They only managed to scrap a few wards because they were using the name MDC. The rural fork at Matabeleland had not yet grasped the difference between the two MDC and thanks to AGO’s stupidity now they are in the light. I wish the MPs jump ship and join MDCT because they would certainly win those bye-elections under Tswangirayi’s stable.
You put it so well my brother, this guy is an embarrassment. Too much learning doth make him mad. I was in the class of UZ 1990 which so happened to intersect with him as student leader SRC. The guy was an enigma. Even Mugabe was uneasy about AGO. When he went away, most of us were disappointed but we waited with bated breath for the day he would come back.
And come back he did. But first mistake, he joined a faction of a party that was in serious turmoil at that juncture, and with the benefit of hindsight, the lesser popular faction. But the very myopia of being handed a position like that when he could have started his own party and got supporters like many of us defied my logic.
I first had my suspicions when Mugabe would never criticize and vilify Mutambara as he was wont to do with Tsvangirai. And aligning with Welshman whom many of us have since been convinced has CIO links did not make his case any clearer. Added to that, this group has accepted farms, tractors, money and other goodies reserved for Zanu PF bigwigs. Now is the payback, the master is playing ‘fetch’ with his pets and they are all too complying. Hardly surprising, but disappointing. That his career has gone the path of Jonathan Moyo’s is now clear, a nonredeemable wasted career once so promising. Its a shame really…
tuvana Asher
you guys are cruel.vakuru vanoti seka urema wafa and here you are laughing at arthur’s madhuku type of head.how many times have i said it here and elsewhere including in my many lectures kuti, education is not in touch with reality.here are a few hints.
there are times when reality demands that 1+ 1 be equal to 5 or 10 even.but the real basics of education teach that it must always be 2.
education has taught all of us that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.reality is the sun might set in the south west which is not the same as west.
education and knowledge are both concerpts asina maturo .they help us kno things relative to what others know yet we would rather know things relative to reality.
so what does this say about mutambara .mutambara is considered one of the most educated zimbabweans and said by his classmates to have been brililiant beyond measure.but unfortunately while he can easily master 1+1 he has not learnt how to master zimbabwean politics.anyone who sides with mugabe is like a hunter who ties a lion to his legand sleeps hoping to deal with it later.