Crossing a flooded river

When I was younger, much younger than today, I used to cross flooded rivers from time to time. Sometimes I would cross two flooded rivers twice the same day and a swift stream to cap it all. So I can honestly say that I know how to cross a flooded river.
The safest way was to hold on to the tail of a bull and hang on for dear life. Another was to swim diagonally across by allowing the current to take one to a point on the other side which would always be a little farther downstream than one had hoped.
The least safe was to feel the river bed with a stick while taking tiny steps at a time and hoping that your head stayed above the water, and that the current below would not sweep one's feet away, in which case one would quickly switch to the diagonal swim.
It was always advisable not to attempt to cross a flooded river alone or with your enemy, unless you were using the first method described above. If the practice of politics may be analogized to crossing a flooded river, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) is crossing the river of change with a known enemy: ZANU-PF. Unfortunately, there are no bulls to haul the two enemies across the chooppy waters of Zimbabwean politics. Swimming appears to be something which neither party seems to be able or willing to do for fear of being swept away to the Indian ocean and into oblivion.
The only option is to feel the depth of the river with a stick and wade across. However, as I learned in my youth, in doing so one reaches a point of no return, where the chances of making it to the other side or drowning are equal. The MDC and ZANU-PF have reached such a point now, except that one of them appears to have run out of stick length. We do not know who, but we just have to hope that it is not the MDC!