Friday, July 18, 2008

(TALKZIMBABWE) Opposition needs to be realistic and engage

Opposition needs to be realistic and engage
Miles Mudzviti—Opinion
Thu, 17 Jul 2008 22:18:00 +0000

DEAR EDITOR—Effective progress can only be home–conceived, home–grown and home–led. The opposition's agenda has shown itself to be neither locally generated nor owned and its definition completely and palpably driven by external financial, political and technical assistance.

The MDC-T has failed dismally and repeatedly to demonstrate to us that a firewall exists, especially on programme decision making and policy direction, between them and their backers.

It is time they take stock of themselves, discard their naked ambitions and remove ill-advice, which we can see from miles away, and put Zimbabwe's interests firmly at the fore.

Nevertheless, it is the magnanimity of the rightly elected president of Zimbabwe, by due process of the constitutional requirements of the land, that we should be commending now, and praying the opposition reciprocates, for seeking a common negotiated solution to the political malaise and economic quagmire we find ourselves amidst.

What the country clearly needs now is engineering and consolidation of sustainable democratic peace through effective dialogue processes within the nation.

Let me here and now commend the MDC-Mutambara for recognizing the President and more importantly, the discerning need to engage him as the legitimate executive of our country.

We can only hope that their counterparts recognize this urgent need to not only come to the table, but to do so with independence of thought and judgment that has eluded their campaign thus far. We urge them to sign the MoU now - time for vacillation and prevarication they do not have, and Zimbabwe itself cannot afford it.

These talks represent for them now, the primary and perhaps only alternative means through which their objective of pluriform democracy is achieved, having abstained from the process of the month gone. This process of dialogue should construct the effective practice of democracy, that is distinctly African and original, internationally recognized as indeed the process to create it has been by the Sadc, the AU and the UN and is paramount and divorced from the Western influences and cajoling that have characterized the opposition and its leaders' modus operandi so far.

Our common values, goals and destinies demand that we earnestly innovate, address our differences, refine and re-define our objectives and embark on the reconstructive journey now rather than later.

We have all lost more than we can afford to already-we can afford to lose no more. Progress must be made, and it must be seen by all to be made-signing the MoU would stand the MDC-T and its leaders in good stead now and going into the future.

Miles Mudzviti
Yorkshire, England

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