Do the right thing even in this silly season

By The NewsDay | Mar. 16, 2018 | 5 Min read

I am not a spoilsport, but we are back to that recurring phase associated with elections — appropriately called “the silly season” — when politicians out to grab power resort to unverifiable, trivial, irrelevant, hoax and even false claims.

By CONWAY TUTANI

Along with this are phony issues that prospective candidates dredge up to get attention, which tend to have little or nothing to do with the real challenges facing the nation.

Only fact-checking will expose these lies, distortions and exaggerations for what they are. There should be no sacred cows spared from scrutiny especially as regards the main protagonists — Zanu PF and MDC-T/MDC Alliance — as a lot rides on them. So what this pair says should be unpacked without fear or favour. They should equally be held to account for what they say or do. This in no way is discounting the emergence of a spoiler — that candidate whose chances of winning are near zero, but may garner enough votes as to cause the loss of one of the leading candidates. In the United States, Ralph Nader was a spoiler in the 2000 presidential election by taking votes from Al Gore, handing victory to George W Bush. And that prospect is real in Zimbabwe this year as the winner might end up being the loser even without rigging.

Back to the silly season, the report that President Emmerson Mnangagwa said that if he needs cash, he will queue for it in the bank like everyone else because the current cash shortages are affecting all Zimbabweans is unnecessarily misleading and he did not have to make such an improbable claim. This was after Mnangagwa reportedly refused to accept his salary brought to his office in cash by his banker, who said that was how they paid ousted former president Robert Mugabe. Mnangagwa’s unconvincing claim of queuing, instead deflected attention from Mugabe’s greed and selfishness.

This reminded me of the late Masimba Musarira’s interview of the late then Cabinet minister, Kumbirai Kangai in the 1990s at a time of critical shortages of basics, and Kangai claimed he was also queuing for those goods like everyone else. Musarira unsurprisingly burst into laughter of disbelief, leaving Kangai with egg on his face after being caught in a lie.

Then, in order to capitalise on the highly improbable claim that Mnangagwa queues for his money like everyone else, some opposition-supporting people posted a picture on Facebook showing MDC-T-cum-MDC Alliance leader, Nelson Chamisa, in a queue inside a banking hall, and one Hillary Chibaya Jona captioning the picture: “While Zanu PF get paid in cash Chamisa stands in queue for long hours.”

But, again, this was highly misleading. One did not have to have keen sight or a PhD in counting numbers to see that there were only seven people in that queue in a virtually empty banking hall. This was a classic case of resorting to half-truth, a statement that mingles the truth (that Chamisa was in a queue) and falsehood with deliberate intent to deceive (that someone could conceivably “queue for long hours” when they are only six people ahead of him in a largely empty banking hall). Yes, when you campaign, you decampaign, but if you take such cheap shots you will be exposed for the bad liar you are. If you have to lie, you need to be a good liar.

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But some people swallowed Jona’s half-truth hook, line and sinker. There are none so blind as those who will not see. The most deluded people are those who choose to ignore what they see with their own eyes because it does not suit their political bias for or against Zanu PF and for or against MDC-T. Understanding cannot be forced on someone who chooses to be ignorant — and there are lots of people who have completely turned a blind eye to obvious lies being peddled across the board. It’s not that lies are being churned out at the speed of a bullet train or supersonic jet, but that voters should be discerning enough to pick out lies without fear or favour and even call to order those parties and politicians they support.

In that respect, Mlungusi Dube can be counted among those people who do the right thing even when people are pushing you to do the wrong thing. Reported this paper, NewsDay, this week: “MDC president Welshman Ncube has bizarrely claimed that MDC Alliance presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa’s appointment had been endorsed by spirit mediums at Njelele shrine, as evidenced by the rains that poured during his campaign rally in Plumtree on Sunday.” “…We know that when rains come in such circumstances, God has agreed that he (Chamisa) is a leader,” Ncube said to the crowd’s delight.

Responded Dube on Facebook, despite and in spite of being an ordinarily opposition supporter: “It seems Welshman Ncube is quickly turning into a Chamisa ‘youthiez’. A whole law professor fretting into the level of (expelled Zanu PF youths Kudzanayi) Chipanga and (Innocent) Hamandishe’s sycophancy . . . Ncube has been out of Parliament for too long to the extent of elevating to the level of a god anyone who may help him get back into the green benches.” Minus the sarcasm, Dube’s response cannot be faulted.

Of course, this drew fire from those who refused to see Ncube’s far-fetched and unverifiable claim. But Dube firmly stood his ground, saying: “Was it not raining some days before the event? Did it not rain after the event? Did the rains come specifically for the event? Didn’t the newspaper link attached say in a ‘bizarre claim’?”

Indeed, we should question the validity of such absurd, irrational, preposterous claims whether made from inside or outside your political party, church, etc. This is what differentiates people like Dube from rabid and blind opposition supporters. While Dube is an ardent opposition supporter, he is not impulsively and unreasonably so.

The nation needs individuals like Dube across the political spectrum who do the right thing even when people are pushing them to do the wrong thing in this silly season.

lConway Nkumbuzo Tutani is a Harare-based columnist. Email: [email protected]