OPINION: Friday January 30, 2009, will go down as one of the most significant days in the political history of Zimbabwe. This is the day that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party decided to vote in favour of joining the Southern African Development Community (SADC) brokered government of national unity (GNU).

In so doing, the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC opted to gamble itself into partnership with the Arthur Mutambara-led MDC and the Robert Mugabe-led ZANU PF party.

Naturally, some political analysts and critics have greeted this new development in Harare with a huge air of pessimism and skepticism. 

Some of them immediately dismissing the whole set up as a “political marriage of convenience”. Others have even gone to the extent of dismissing it as a political mirage that will only flatter to deceive the long-suffering Zimbabweans yet again.

Ideally, most opponents of the proposed new government set up in Harare have raised the following key points:

• The new set up is a deliberate affront to the democratic will of the Zimbabwean majorities as popularly expressed in the harmonised elections that were held on March 29 2008.
• It does not recognise that there was a deliberate effort to undermine the actual outcome of the said electoral process that gave a leadership advantage to the Tsvangirai-led MDC in spite of a polling environment that was skewed heavily in favour of ZANU PF.

Secondly, the SADC endorsed process also seems to recognise the outcome of the controversial June 27 2008 presidential run-off election that was boycotted by the opposition mainly due to the upsurge of political violence prior to the election day.

The incumbent, Mugabe eventually won the poll as the sole candidate. However, all the three African observer missions that had been given the exclusive right to monitor the election were unanimous in their condemnation of the flawed poll.

The new set up in Harare has also been criticised as a mere reincarnation of the much maligned dispute resolution of the 2008 Kenyan electoral process in which the rivalry between the two key protagonists was eventually resolved with the setting up of a government of national unity.

The fragile arrangement resulted in Mwai Kibaki remaining as the President while Raila Odinga had to settle for the hastily created post of Prime Minister. 

This model has been heavily criticised as a faulty way of rewarding political violence against electoral popularity.

Last but not least, many critics also felt that the government of national unity model was not the most ideal in the Zimbabwean situation.

They instead suggested other alternatives such as setting up a neutral transitional authority or even organising another election under United Nations supervision to try and settle the Zimbabwean political impasse once and for all.

Yet at the same time, there is a divergent view.

There are also those who have opted to hope against hope and give the whole idea of a government of national unity a chance. 

They have chosen to let nature run its course and assumed that against all odds, the arrangement may represent the most plausible way out of the crippling political impasse the country has been experiencing for over a decade now.

Guarded optimism appears to be the rallying cry for this school of thought. 

It is based on a presumption of cautious expectation that it is still possible to salvage a semblance of democratic credibility even with the highly compromised nature of the government of national unity. 

They assert that while compromise may be a bitter pill to swallow, it has been proven time and again in history that it is indeed a necessary evil.

They further argue that while the GNU option may be riddled with the potholes of divisive political emotionalism, it is the most realistic and plausible of all options available for Zimbabwe to move out of the political woods.

The very fact that it is a co-operative concept of conflict resolution simply means that it can eventually set up the nation on the path of peaceful reconciliation.

This view is best represented in the words of one of the chief brokers of the GNU, the president of South Africa, Kgalema Motlanthe. 

Asked to defend his stance in support of the new set up in Harare at a lively public debate at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Motlanthe said that the fact that it a peaceful option makes it the best one since it is cheaper than the cost of the cheapest of all wars that could have been waged in attempt to resolve the long standing impasse in Zimbabwe.

And so the debate rages on and on.

But after all has been said and done, the big question that remains to be answered is whether or not the decision by the MDC to join up with ZANU PF was strategically wise one or not. Well as they say, the jury is still out on this one. Only time will tell!

Be that as it may, what remains clear is the fact that the MDC decision to endorse the SADC brokered process represents a decisive shift on its part from the flamboyant idealism that exuded from its launch in 1999 to a much more down-to-earth practical approach. 

The MDC appears to have opted to go down the path of realism and pragmatism in its ongoing quest for democratic change in Zimbabwe.

Perhaps the MDC has now accepted the fact that while it was formed to promote democratic idealism in the Zimbabwean political landscape, the harsh reality is that this has to be seen in the broader context of an on-going process instead of a tail-ended battle for change.

It is a marathon political process that involves engaging one of the most maligned but very wily and calculative politicians in the world today as represented by the person of Mugabe.

This new position of the MDC is best pronounced in the following textual extract from the statement read out by its leader Tsvangirai at the press conference in Harare on Friday:

“Let us make no mistake, by joining an inclusive government, we are not saying that this is a solution to the Zimbabwe crisis, instead our participation signifies that we have chosen to continue the struggle for a democratic Zimbabwe in a new arena. This agreement is a significant milestone on our journey to democracy but it does not signify that we have arrived at our destination – we are committed to establishing a democratic Zimbabwe regardless of how long that struggle takes us.”

* Daniel Molokele is a Zimbabwean human rights lawyer and political analyst. – ZimOnline