Staff Reporter
The Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) Bulawayo Mayor and former Minister of Education, Sport, Arts and Culture during the Government of National Unity (GNU), David Coltart has admitted that the two MDC parties, which were party to the GNU of 2009 to 2013, were responsible for their own failures, including their overwhelming electoral loss to ZANU PF in the 2013 general elections.
This came out in an advisory article which Coltart wrote to advise the South African opposition party, the Democratic Alliance on the pitfalls of coalitions drawing from the experience of the two MDC parties in the GNU in Zimbabwe. The article was published by the Oppenheimer-sponsored neo-colonialist outfit, the Brenthurst Foundation’s website last week.
Coltart admitted that the two opposition parties lost the electorate’s support because their Cabinet Ministers prioritised perks and benefits instead of rebuilding their parties in preparation for the 2013 harmonised general elections.
“Several MDC Ministers themselves sought perks. For example, some Ministers insisted on being driven to the stairs of aircraft…to enhance their status,” he said.
The former Minister accused the late former MDC-T leader and Prime Minister during the GNU, Morgan Tsvangirai, of incompetence which manifested in his failure to run the Council of Ministers which he(Tsvangirai) chaired.
“The creation of the Council of Ministers provided a significant opportunity for Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC parties to exercise power, but that opportunity was squandered. The Council of Ministers was poorly run, it rarely started on time, was often cancelled, and there was inadequate follow up on its resolutions. It stood in stark contrast to Cabinet itself (chaired by the late former President Robert Mugabe) which was punctual and orderly. Ministers would never miss Cabinet meetings whereas they regularly missed Council of Ministers meetings,” the Bulawayo Mayor wrote.
Although the two opposition parties clamoured for powerful Ministries, such as Finance, Education, Health and Industry and Commerce, which they got, Coltart shamelessly claimed that this was a ZANU PF plot to bog the opposition ministers down, enabling the revolutionary party to adequately prepare for the 2013 polls.
“Most MDC Ministers spent five years stabilising their respective Ministries and their relevant spheres of influence while, at the same time, ZANU-PF focused on consolidating its own power. By 2013 the economy had been stabilised, there were drugs back in hospitals, teachers were back teaching, hyper-inflation had been tackled and, as a result, there was far less economic pain for people and far less reason for them to exercise a protest vote against ZANU-PF as had happened in the March 2008 Election,” Coltart said.
The former British South African Police (BSAP) officer also conceded that the two opposition parties acquitted themselves very poorly in the constitution making process, which they participated in, through assigning less experienced and incompetent politicians to the exercise and making poor judgements.
“For example, when it came to the key argument regarding the separation of powers, and in particular the reduction of the Executive’s powers, the two MDC parties made some key errors of judgment,” he regretted.
Coltart also blamed the two MDC parties’ huge electoral loss to conceit and overconfidence.
“That situation was further exacerbated by overconfidence within the MDC T which thought that it would easily win the next election, and which did not share the MDC M’s disquiet regarding the substantial powers which were left in the hands of the Executive.”
