A case against government of national unity
By Tanonoka Joseph Whande
April 30, 2008
‘NATIONAL unity' is a term that people use without thinking. It is especially abused, blindly so, in reference to a government that is formed from the ashes of a bruising election in which the outcome gave an almost 50/50 vote to the political combatants.
In such cases, we hurry to demand, advise or declare that ‘a government of national unity' is the only viable route to take. But a government of national unity is an unnecessary burden – and a dangerous one, too.
There are too many compromises involved. It reduces the people's votes to nothing; it puts the winner under pressure while the losers continue to stay in government and thumb their noses at the electorate.
A government of national unity is a compromise that puts a nation into a quicksand. Supposedly, such a bastard government is expected to encompass the wishes of all the people in a country. False!
Zimbabwe is currently under pressure to form a government of national unity. Some so-called experts have even suggested that such a government should be headed by one Robert Mugabe.
The issue is that peaceful elections took place in Zimbabwe and, as I write today, a month later, the results have not been announced. Yet there is talk and pressure for someone to form a government of national unity.
That is a load of nonsense.
Has the world become so impotent that it seeks compromises when confronted by a recalcitrant losing presidential candidate? If anyone thinks the problems in Kenya under similar outcomes are over, they must think again.
Kofi Annan's remedy in Kenya whereby a loser was accommodated at the expense of the winner should never be repeated anywhere else.
Such a formula rewards a loser, while making a mockery of people's votes.
Raila Odinga won the elections but, instead of being president of his nation as people mandated at the polls, he is now a prime minister.
They had to create a position for him instead of booting out the loser, Mwai Kibaki, who still calls the shots.
But all it did was to set the stage for simmering mistrust and bitterness. Odinga might have acquiesced but the people are not amused. And now such a disaster is being proposed for Zimbabwe.
And, once again, the key word is ‘unity.'
The people of Zimbabwe were not at each other's throats. They don't need to be united because they were never at loggerheads; it is the politicians who need to understand that a political opponent is not an enemy.
On Tuesday, the smaller faction of the MDC announced that they would be ‘rejoining' the MDC proper to make sure the opposition controls parliament.
While commendable, such prima facie accords should be treated carefully not only by the parties but by the elected individuals.
Members of Parliament are elected to the House by the electorate not by the party. The old Zanu-PF way was that all Zanu-PF MPs were party (read Mugabe's) stooges because they stood for him and the party at the expense of the people who had voted for them. That must stop. This is what got the country in such a mess, in the first place.
The people must come before the party. I noticed that the party leaders of the smaller MDC faction just rushed to Johannesburg to talk to the president-elect without so much as consulting the electorate that gave them the twelve parliamentary seats. This is arrogance and abuse of voters. The people voted for Mutambara's 12 parliamentarians and not for Zanu-PF or MDC candidates for a reason. Now the politicians at the top have already sold them to a party they rejected in their respective constituencies.
For twenty-eight years, Zanu-PF, personified by Robert Mugabe, Emerson Mnangagwa, Constantine Chiwenga, not to mention a horde of smaller party functionaries, humiliated, looted, murdered and destroyed the nation without anyone's help.
Who is going to ask the people to give these people the respect they do not deserve? And why? People voted for change and that is what they must get.
It is too soon to talk about a government of national unity. Over the years, Zanu-PF has relentlessly killed people. Let the temperatures and the tempers cool down. Let the people see their wishes have been respected. Do not hold the nation in a vice-grip, threatening violence if Mugabe and his cronies are left out of government.
If such a government is formed, it will render the Movement for Democratic Change politically sterile because the MDC will have to make compromises with Zanu-PF and what is it that Zanu-PF stands for that can be salvaged by the people? Such a government will simply hold the MDC in its grip and Zanu-PF would use such a platform to re-establish itself at the expense of working to improve the lot of the majority.
President-elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC must be given a clean slate. Let them fail or succeed on their own.
At independence, Zanu-PF was not pressured into forming a government of national unity because it won an outright majority and the decision to unite with PF-Zanu was not made under duress.
Now for hawks to suggest that before we even know the results of the presidential elections, we should start talking about election run-offs and governments of national unity is scandalous.
The people voted for the MDC because they did not want Zanu-PF anymore so do no drag rejected murderers and abusers into the new set-up. Let us give the MDC a chance just as much as Zanu-PF was given a chance.
On my part, I do not see what benefit Zimbabwe would derive from having Mugabe or anyone of his people in a new government. What purpose would it serve except to remind the people of the suffering they had gone through?
If the MDC is stupid enough to bow to such nonsensical pressure emanating from old Zanu-PF stalwarts who are more interested in looking for a place to hide than to offer civil service then they should start counting their days because they would be numbered.
"Zimbabwe does not need a transitional government; to put it bluntly, Zimbabwe does not need Mugabe," an irate Zimbabwean identifying herself just as Carol told the BBC's ‘Have Your Say'. "A run-off or re-run would not make much sense either, unless the first results have been published. What guarantee is there that the run-off results will be published? We need to know what happened to Mugabe on March 29,"
During his much publicized European tour last week, ANC supremo, Jacob Zuma, told a London news conference that now is not the time to consider an idea of negotiating a unity government in Zimbabwe, a wish muted by some scared bootlicker in the state-owned Herald newspaper on Wednesday.
"Once you begin to ask that question, you are even preventing a possibility of discussing the issue from the beginning," Zuma said.
"You are already influencing what the outcome is likely to be…If that proposal becomes a firm proposal, which must be put to the Zimbabwean people - if they accept it, let us allow them to go there before we scare them with who will lead."
But we know who should lead; the people voted for the MDC and the President-elect is Morgan Tsvangirai.
Should there be need for a government of national unity that is the prerogative of the winners. Mugabe and his cronies cannot demand inclusion in such a government. Any president chooses into cabinet those people he feels he can work with. No one should be appeased except the Zimbabwean people who voted for the direction they want their country to take.
(Tanonoka Joseph Whande is a Zimbabwean writer based in Botswana.)