(Last Updated on June 12, 2014 by Editor)
ZIMBABWE – With the silencing of the renegades who have always masqueraded and wrongly labelled themselves as the renewal team, it is crystal clear that Morgan Tsvangirai has won this battle and will in due course wrestle the Presidency from one Dictator Robert Mugabe.
While it has never been questionable that President Morgan Tsvangirai still enjoys the support of the people, the Renewal team had attempted to pitch their arguments at the level that MT had lost the support of the people. They had portrayed The President as someone who was forcefully remaining at the helm of the party and therefore had to go by all means necessary.
Thanks to the quick reaction of the Organising team and all those people that chose to remain loyal to the President, those assumptions were quickly exposed as not only being untrue and cooked up but just a figment of the imagination of the Renewal Team.
The de-branding of the Morgan Tsvangirai brand has really failed to gain momentum and the greatest undoing of the renewal team was their ill-conceived and ill-planned focus on assassinating the character of the people’s President .That Morgan Tsvangirai‘s brand has since time immemorial survived the onslaught of detractors and enemies of progress is there for everyone to see as can be witnessed by the failure by a well oiled ZANU PF machinery led by the C.I.O, soldiers and all hardcore elements to destroy him.
That such a well oiled and systematized structure could fail to tarnish and de-brand Morgan Tsvangirai goes on to show how big the Morgan Tsvangirai brand has become. Attempting to embark on a de-branding exercise by the renewal team was only an attempt to chew more than one can swallow.
The level of sacrifice that he has put in and the amount of harassment, intimidation and personal losses that the President has gone through has cemented his place in the hearts of many Zimbabweans. The continuous vilification by the renewal team has also worked clearly to his advantage as ordinary men and women have failed to find reason in the need to be fighting Morgan Tsvangirai yet the real enemy is and has always been ZANU PF.
The renewal team has also been heavily undone by its officials who are fronting this campaign as they have shown beyond anyone‘s doubt that they are not cut to the task. There has been a lot of blundering on the part of the renewal through its blundering in communication, organizing and mobilizing on the ground. The few interviews that the renewal officials have been involved and the few strategies that they have executed have all but exposed them as lacking seriousness, maturity and not up to the task at hand.
More importantly the arrogance of the rebel’s leadership as well as their lack of touch with ordinary issues affecting people has been their greatest undoing coupled with their love for hate speech against The President and all those who have resolutely stood on the correct side and refused to get bought by a few pieces of silver.
This has all but shown that they cannot match the Midas touch of Morgan Tsvangirai. On another note, the love of money and corrupt dealings on the part of people that have flocked to the renewal team is well documented as it is in the public domain that they have always been driven by material benefits at the expense of saving the people of Zimbabwe.
The only value the renewal group has brought to the movement is that they have managed to make the President get back to the basics and engage with the real owners of the struggle. Thanks to their ill-fated campaign the President has gone on a whirlwind tour of the country, re-energizing the support base and rebuilding confidence in the masses. What the President now need is to continue engaging the real owners of the struggle, and keep the momentum going for the final onslaught of the regime. The betrayal by the elite members of our struggle should lead to a critical rethink of the need to go back to the founding values and members of the struggle.
The people’s struggle has always been driven by the suffering working class, the poor and the unemployed and it is time that the movement was realigned on such foundations. That the elite and “Johnny come laties” have divided and destroyed the people’s fight is there for all to see and it is my hope that the whole leadership of the party has learnt that they have to be careful on people whose only interest in this struggle is the positions that they can get. And Oh , boy yes , the big tent is growing in leaps and bounds and this all goes on to show the power and effect of the Morganite brand.
Now going forward The President has to be decisive, firm and always remind himself that it is not everyone who wishes him well in this fight to remove Robert Mugabe .From those working close to him , those who pamper him with false hope , to those who will pretend to like him only in his presence and to those who are unequivocally clear that they cannot wait to see his back Morgan Tsvangirai has to shoulder on and deliver the people of Zimbabwe from untold suffering and abject poverty that the insensitive ZANU PF Government has condemned all of us to .
It is Now or Never,
In Morgan Tsvangirai we believe!!!
Lovemore Chinoputsa is an MDC T National Youth Executive Member and is writing in his personal capacity