Your decision to suspend participation in next year’s election did not have majority support in your party. How do you explain this?
First of all, one has to decide what informed our decision. Obviously, it is the electoral conditions that have been proven over the past five years to be flawed and to affect the sovereignty of the very people who are complaining that they want to participate regardless of the conditions. The people do support the position of the executive. They are anxious to express themselves through an election, but they know the obstacles and the result of participating in an election that has a pre-determined outcome.
If [President Robert] Mugabe wants to run a one-party election, let him go ahead. We are very conscious that Zanu-PF may put on this brave face about ignoring national and international opinion. But eventually, they will come on board, because that is the only route to legitimacy and the resolution of the national crisis that we face.
What do you hope to achieve outside Parliament that you haven’t achieved in Parliament?
Parliament is one forum of engagement, of struggle. Surely the people are not going to give up their struggle and democratic resistance just because they are not in Parliament? We have been in Parliament when an adverse situation has prevailed, so it’s not a platform for resolving what we are talking about. The solution to this national crisis is not just about elections, it’s about the traditional mechanism of resolving the power contestations and structure of power beyond the elections.
You haven’t had much success in rallying people?
The allegation that the MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] is not mobilising Zimbabweans to fight for their own freedom and relies more on international solidarity is not true. What people should understand is that our capacity is hindered by the response of the state to any expression of discontentment by the people. People should look more at the extraordinary conditions under which the MDC has to mobilise the people in the face of this brute force.
So the withdrawal from the elections is to save lives. Is the MDC refusing to pay the full price for change in Zimbabwe?
When there is no pain, there is no gain — but we know that we have to make a responsible assessment about the risks we take. Any leader who takes a reckless attitude, that people must die to have their freedom — regardless of what price they have to pay — I think would be irresponsible. We are aware of the risks that we have to take and that risk is part of the game for freedom. After all, between 300 and 400 Zimbabweans have died for this cause and tens of thousands have either had their homes burnt down or have been raped. We are paying the price for freedom.
The MDC is widely perceived as an urban-based party that seems unable to crack the rural areas …
The disgruntlement in Zimbabwe transcends the urban and rural divide; it is inconceivable that this discontentment can only be expressed by urban voters. I want to emphasise that the MDC has wide support beyond the urban vote. Our MPs have the whole of Matabeleland, we have some representation in the Midlands, in the rural constituencies, and we have 50% of Manicaland. It is probably a perception because the base of the MDC comes from a labour background. There are no-go areas in Mashonaland province, but I want to tell you that the marginal vote in some constituencies there was narrow — just a thousand difference. So I dispute the fact that the MDC is an urban formation. It is a democratic formation. It is a post-liberation formation and, therefore, a totally new phenomenon.
Other than opposing Mugabe, does the MDC have policy on land and the economy?
Let me dispute the claim that our preoccupation is to remove Mugabe. We believe he is part and parcel of the whole institutional weakness that reflects a decay in our government — removing Mugabe without transforming the institutional base is not going to solve the problem. We know it is not just a change of personality that is required. It is a deeper transformation of the political culture in the country.
Our solution lies with our policy programme called Restart, which is a reconstruction programme to ensure that there is sufficient confidence in rehabilitating industry, tourism, the mining sector, manufacturing of basic goods, including food.
No one can accuse the MDC of not having policies on land — in fact, Zanu-PF reacted to the MDC’s proposals that land is an unfinished national agenda and should be tackled. We believe you need a combination of commercial and small-scale farming. All the farms that have been taken away from white farmers are now in the hands of Zanu-PF. Again he [Mugabe] has not solved the perpetual problem of inequality.
It is said that your advisers led you into the Ben Menashe trap that resulted in your treason trial. You’ve not had the smartest advisers, have you?
I have the best of advisers — it was an oversight not to check on the security background but not on advisers. I have the most competent advisers in all fields. I think the question was about an oversight in our security checks.
How do you contest Zanu-PF’s assertion that the MDC did not participate in the liberation struggle? You can’t seem to shrug off your tag as Tony Blair’s messengers.
Well, let’s start with the liberation struggle. If somebody monopolises the struggle of the people and turns it into a party struggle, it causes confusion. The struggle for liberation has never been a Zanu-PF struggle; it has been a people’s struggle. Why do they monopolise it? Because they don’t want this liberation tag to be owned by Zimbabwe. I can claim the fruits of our liberation struggle as much as any other Zimbabwean — it is our liberation struggle — not Mugabe’s, not Zanu-PF’s. So this privatising the national liberation struggle and making it a party thing should be dismissed. This is part of the abuse of the patriotic commitment of Zimbabweans to a national cause.
It is quite appropriate for Mugabe to demonise us — what else can he criticise us about? He has to find a bogey man called Blair and place it on the MDC. He has not accepted that the current crisis in Zimbabwe is not about Blair, it is not about [United States President George W] Bush — it’s about his mismanagement.
You are accused of hankering for the colonial days …
That we [MDC] are reversing the revolutionary gains of Zimbabwe — that again is untrue. The MDC is pursuing the ideals of the liberation struggle which have been betrayed by Zanu-PF — liberty, opportunity for everyone and sovereignty of the people. The MDC has taken the ideals of liberation to a higher plane — that is why we are a social liberation movement. We no longer need to free ourselves from colonialism but from subjugation and manipulation by the ruling elite, while at the same time responding to the social, political and economic needs of the people.
You seem to have changed tack by wooing African diplomats. Are they prepared to turn against an African liberation icon like Mugabe?
I wish he was an icon. He is a demon, because he has betrayed the very same ideals of the liberation struggle — from hero to zero, that is what he has turned out to be. How can a liberation fighter like that turn out to be such a dictator?
Yes, we have been to Europe — but if there is any investment that we have done, it has been in the African region, particularly South Africa. We have emphasised the fact that the Zimbabwean crisis is an African crisis. Our engagement with our African brothers is to move away from this complicity with Mugabe to a situation where they must understand the root causes of the Zimbabwe crisis. It is not a land crisis, it is not a colonial crisis; it is a crisis of governance. Obviously this has taken a very long time, because the black-white issue is still very valid. But the real cause is not about white on black oppression, it is about black on black oppression.