Newsday Editorial Comment
THE opposition MDC’s desperation to get into power through
the backdoor has reached alarming and almost comical levels that has seen the
opposition party speak with a forked tongue.
On the one hand, the party creates the impression that they
want dialogue to help salvage the country from the current economic gridlock,
while on the other, they appear to be gunning for a street fight to get into
power.
The calls went a gear up at the weekend, with party deputy
national chairperson Job Sikhala telling a rally at Zengeza 2 Shopping Centre
in Chitungwiza that after the party’s seven-day fasting period, if President
Emmerson Mnangagwa does not engage opposition leader Nelson Chamisa in talks to
end the economic meltdown within 14 days, the party would carry out protests
and civil disobedience.
One thing for certain, which the opposition should know, is
that there is not going to be any transfer of power outside the elections.
Their decision to participate in the elections that brought Mnangagwa to power
— whether or not they were free and fair — was a taciturn admission that they
believed in the country’s electoral system.
To now call for a transfer of power after participating in
those polls, is problematic.
Ironically, the said sentiments seem to dovetail into the
charges that Sikhala is already facing; those of alleged attempts to subvert a
constitutionally-elected government.
Understandably, people are now even suffering more
following the presentation of a supplementary budget last week which pushed
prices of fuel, electricity and transport up against stagnant salaries, but we
do not see how driving people into the streets, where they are likely to meet
the full wrath of the armed authorities, is going to address the manifold
crises in the country.
One is prompted to ask whose authority Sikhala is using to
order Mnangagwa to the negotiating table. This smacks of desperation as the
opposition has been clutching at straws in its bid to take over power.
Perhaps what is ironic in this whole thing is that these
ill-advised plans are coming after the party claims it had been fasting.
One wonders if, in their prayer and fasting, God instructed
them to take power by force? Sikhala’s sentiments would have been laughable if
there were not a reflection of the kindergarten politics that the party has
become synonymous with.
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