CONSTITUTIONAL Lawyer and National Constitutional Assembly leader Lovemore Madhuku’s claims that opposition parties, alongside the government, were responsible for the country’s debilitating problems are most unfortunate as they deliberately seek to protect the actual culprits while apportioning the blame elsewhere.

NewsDay Comment

The Zanu PF government is responsible for crafting national policy which directs its operations and can therefore not seek to have blame for its own failures laid elsewhere. It is not the responsibility of opposition political parties to provide government with solutions as these are competitors for the same political space.

What is true, however, is that the Zanu PF government has dismally failed to provide solutions to the crisis bedevilling the nation. Quite clearly, the Mnangagwa administration is bereft of workable ideas, and this explains the ruinous path the economy has taken since it came to power.

It is quite laughable that Madhuku would have us believe that Polad — itself a loose grouping of failed politicians that fared terribly in the last elections and therefore have no mandate from the public or anyone — could provide ideas that will take this country forward. Polad is a useless gathering of failed politicians and does not inspire confidence or hope at all.

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The late former President Robert Mugabe used to chastise the “Madhuku Syndrome” of making money — and clearly the man is trying hard to get the most out of Mnangagwa’s desperation.

What the Mnangagwa administration should do, upon realisation that all they have is power but not ideas, is to embrace the opposition and find viable ways of working together within a formal and legally recognised arrangement rather than seek to milk ideas in the dark and present them as their own during the day. This is only done by those seeking to gain cheap political points.

The toxic nature of our politics has bred suspicion and mistrust between the ruling party and the opposition.
When Zanu PF decided to contest the elections, it was because it believed in its ability to deliver, and deliver it must, without mortgaging its failure to the opposition which is not in government. What is quite obvious is that it is presiding over a deepening socio-economic crisis and it has demonstrated that it has no solutions.

Zimbabweans, however, would recall that officially bringing in the MDC-T and MDC-M in the government of national unity in 2009 through a recognised formal system and sharing power helped stabilise the economy. This is unlikely to happen with this joke called Polad, set up just to sooth some politicians’ ego and present a fake image that there is some inter-party dialogue going on to help Zimbabwe out of its mess. We do not buy that ruse and only the deluded believe it is anything, but a gathering of the dumb.