By Tapiwa Gomo
THE year is coming to an end with higher chances most people will be locked in their houses over the festive season due to fear of the COVID-19 wave-driven new variant — Omicron. But next year is not promising anything special as political parties will step up their campaigns — fractionalising our people once again.
The new dispensation will again beg for your vote before blaming everything on this earth for its dismal failure and to justify its autocratic tendencies. Opposition parties too, will once again ask for your vote for nothing other than being able to recite the ruling party’s failures instead of offering alternative ideas.
That has been the story of our lives since 1999 when the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) came on to the political arena. We cannot blame it for being part of the origins of the story but it has its fair share of responsibility for how the story has evolved and become so protracted.
It is the second largest political party to be accorded votes by the people after Zanu PF in the 1980 elections. The difference is that MDC squandered opportunities to takeover power casting doubt on its ability to govern should the ruling party step aside.
What has transpired between 1999 and now is nothing but a political game of recriminations. The opposition has focused on reminding the ruling party of how corrupt, inefficient and abusive it is. And it has traded these with the promise of change, democracy and growth, while its behaviour in the way it runs the party and treatment of its members is akin to that of the ruling party.
As they trade political blows — much of them hollow — the situation has continued to deteriorate for ordinary citizens. The ruling party blames the opposition for sanctions and all the problems facing the country, while the latter blames the former for maladministration — again another unnecessary political sparring that has resulted in polarisation and destroyed social cohesion. Belief in national interest has died among most of our people and this explains why individualism, corruption and criminality are the order of the day.
Our nation has become highly opinionated and fragmented along individual interests and this has kept the ruling party in power more than its abuse of power. Views, opinions and allegiance are now driven by personal interests over national interests and public good. And most people tend to rely on various kinds of problems — past and present — to justify individual decisions that undermine the bigger picture.
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Take for example, there is consensus that the ruling party must go but there is no consensus on who must take over. The defection of former senior MDC leadership was never about principle but personal interest and gain. Similarly in the ruling party, the festering of factionalism ahead of elections is largely due to the same reasons. Of course, this individualistic behaviour tends to be couched as part of democratic rights.
Perhaps, the big question that needs further debate is are our problems today still political or they have shifted to the position of fragmented individualistic mentality that has undermined national interest over the last two decades. Take for example, what stops the opposition from mobilising resources to build public infrastructure and restore essential services as a teaser of what they can do if they assume power? Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has a history of building houses and infrastructure for the poor, but in our case it is easy to mobilise money for vehicles and campaigns but not for the development of the people.
There is no guarantee that if sanctions are removed or if the ruling party leaves power, the country will be in safe hands.
We need to bring back social cohesion, restore a sense of national interest and unity to usher our people towards common national goals. By definition, a nation is cohesive when it works together to improve the well-being of all its members, fights exclusion and marginalisation, creates a sense of belonging among its members, promotes trust and offers its members equal opportunities for personal growth.
There is plenty of evidence suggesting that divided societies or those whose members are fragmented and individualistic have limited chances of effectively responding to and addressing challenges than united ones. We are among those. The lack of concern for others undermines the notion of public good and the ability of societies to defend themselves or grow. It is one of the main drivers of economic inequality, poverty and fractionalisation which together impedes the ability of a society to develop and be stronger.
Social cohesion is an important determinant of a peaceful, democratic and prosperous nation. It creates stronger bonds within and across different groups, and fosters greater trust in government institutions. Unfortunately restoring social cohesion begins with leadership and in our case the leadership debate is still trapped in politics of inconclusive elections. Ideally everyone in the political leadership arena must step aside and allow non-divisive characters to re-engineer our society. And that will be a beginning the country needs in order to progress.
Reinforcing or promoting social cohesion needs to be an integral part of government policy and civil society engagement in a society where multiple identity groups share geographic space. People should be identified as citizens and not enemies or beneficiaries because of their allegiance to a political party or elite group. Our pre- and post-independence history is supposed to unite us after coming out of many years of liberation war and a four-decade oppressive system.
- Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa. He writes here in his personal capacity.
