Is Tsvangirai suitable to be our next President? In our stupidity we have equated historical personal sacrifice with political leadership competence
Historically the only qualification of African Presidents has been their fight for independence and as we have experienced, this has not necessarily resulted in good, selfless men who seek to pursue the common good prevailing.
In my opinion Africans have failed to define for themselves who should lead them, it has been about brawn and not competence, it has been about the past and not the future. The authenticity of our political leaders needs to be continually questioned and debated upon so that we choose those that are most likely to take us to a better future.
I have argued in the past that a fundamental problem is the issue of "the liberation struggle hangover" and "from poverty to power" where political leaders who have come from a poverty background and suddenly thrust in the fore-front to manage the vast resources of the state and the competing interests of opportunistic charlatans who may have funded their political careers.
This inevitably results in cronyism and selfish accumulation of wealth as those placed in power. The other limiting factor is what I term "mass idiocy" where the masses who deliver the majority vote do so repeatedly and blindly expecting different results. No wonder why the loudest and most populist political campaigners have tended to get the largest number of votes despite their failure to deliver.
In our stupidity we have equated historical personal sacrifice with political leadership competence and look what we have got! We unfortunately believe that because certain individuals have sacrificed they are therefore entitled to live in the State House. In the case of Morgan Tsvangirai, there is no doubt that he has contributed tremendously to the possibility of change and I respect him for that. The question we must now ask is should we vote for him to be our next President?