Earlier today, I had the misfortune of listening to Arthur Mutambara on an Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio show.

I remain convinced that Mutambara’s speech style resembles that of Mugabe some years back as a younger man. Mutambara’s speech overflows with vitriol and a hatred for anything and anybody that dares to question any part of his faction’s moves or decisions - and it sadly echoes the noise that Mugabe makes.

In this interview, Mutambara actually makes the claim that Zimbabwean are better educated and cleverer than people in the United States, Australia and in England.

Whilst I perhaps agree with him that the educational standards in Zimbabwe WERE very good at one stage, I find it very questionable that he should make such a sweeping statement, ostensibly speaking for the people of Zimbabwe.

The educational standards and the IQ of Zimbabweans is not what is in question. The aims, ideals and aspirations of one Arthur Mutambara ARE…

This is the leader of the smaller faction of the Movement for Democratic Change who holds just ten seats in opposition to ZANU PF, and in third place to Morgan Tsvangirai’s larger faction of the MDC.

Quite correctly, the interviewer asked Mutambara about the reports that he had signed an alliance with Mugabe’s ZANU PF and had, by that agreement, allied himself with the party that has ruined Zimbabwe in the past 28 years.

Mutambara then began to have a hissy fit, demanding that another question be asked as he felt no need to answer the question. He stated that a bilateral agreement cannot come out of tripartite talks. He certainly didn’t like being buttonholed and his reaction would indicate to me that he was hiding the facts.

Mutambara, if he wanted the world to listen to his tirade, should never have begun the short interview by laying into the West. The fact that the radio broadcaster that he was talking to is established in the West should have been his first clue.

Why come out with anti-West comments when you are on air in the West? People are hardly likely to give any support or time to Mutambara’s efforts within the negotiations, if he insists on echoing Mugabe’s speeches, repeating Mugabe’s feelings and making wild statements that fall in line with Mugabe’s policies…

The negotiations, which right now are stalled and we have no date of their recommencement, show the true colours of the likes of Mutambara, who is no longer interested in what he and his party can do for the people of Zimbabwe, but is more interested in what he can gain as a political personality.

When the personal aims of a political leader begin to outweigh and outrun the people that his MDC faction supposedly represent, then I can no longer put any trust or hope in that party or that leader, and I am embittered at the manner in which Mutambara seeks to pacify his own wants ahead of the people of Zimbabwe.

These negotiations have stripped bare the true nature of the parties participating, and the Zimbabwean people need to be aware that the likes of Mutambara, the man who leads the party that came third in the elections, has realised that his personal stock value is higher in ZANU PF eyes than in the eyes of the people.

He has truly been proved wanting when his political survival is only guaranteed by the man that put the Zimbabwean economy and its country in the toilet – Robert Gabriel Mugabe…

Robb WJ Ellis
The Bearded Man