Monday 25 January 2016

Free elections are "political suicide" for Mugabe vs rigged elections are political, social and economic suicide for the nation

I agree with Patrick Guramatunhu, Mugabe has a nuclear arsenal with which to fight off Mai Mujuru and her PF if they should ever become a real serious political threat to the tyrant (Bulawayo 24 opinion). Mugabe has a warehouse full of detailed stories of acts of indiscretion, corruption and even murder on each one of Mai Mujuru and her PF friends; he will relish the chance to use the stink bombs to create chaos and confusion in the PF camp. 

Mugabe has out lived all of his political challengers; even with the country in a mess and old age catching up with him, he is still a formidable adversary because he has a secret weapon – he fights dirty. Whilst everyone else is constrained by such rules as no hitting below the belt; he go for the family jewels at the first chance he get be it with his head, fist, elbow, knee, foot, anything. His glove has a lump of steel for padding, he only has to land one blow anywhere and the opponent will feel the punch; land one on the head and its lights out!

What Mugabe will not want to do is give the game away that MDC’s demand for electoral law reforms will not deliver free and fair election or that PF will not stop him dead on his tracks from rigging the next elections. Throughout the five years of the GNU he worked hard to make sure Tsvangirai and his MDC friends never doubted for even a minute they would win the elections even with not even one GPA reform implemented. Mugabe would want to string MDC, PF and the whole nation along once again.

The regime has already started trial runs of the biometric system in which voters will be identified using their unique finger print and iris. The regime is already using this as proof if its acknowledgement that the old electoral system did not work well and the regime’s willingness to reform.

The biometric systems is called for in the new constitution and MDC will, no doubt, make a big song and dance about  this; they would give this as proof they are forcing Zanu PF “kicking and screaming” to reform, proof  NERA is working. All nonsense of course because MDC know that with no ZEC reforms, Zanu PF can rig the next elections just as easily as they did the July 2013 elections.

NIKUV, the Israeli company Mugabe hired to tamper with the voters roll in 2013, deliberately posted suspected opposition supporters details in the constituencies other than where they expected. So nearly one million voters (Mugabe’s winning margin was one million votes) failed to vote because their names were not in the constituent voters roll. NIKUV was paid a princely $10 million for doing this. No doubt they will do the same again with the biometric data for another princely fee!  

Many Zimbabweans are becoming increasingly uneasy with Tsvangirai and his reputation for making promises he cannot deliver. Many people were slowly coming round to the realization that MDC will never ever deliver free and fair elections; by now many of them would have been demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms as the only way to end this Zanu PF dictatorship. So the appearance PF on the political stage has been a blessing for Mugabe; instead of people demanding the GPA reforms they now believe Mai Mujuru will remove Mugabe from power even with no reforms implemented.

It is in Mugabe’s interest to encourage the belief that Mai Mujuru and PF are giving him sleepless nights and he is on the ropes. He does not want to implement the GPA reforms and he will do anything to ensure Mai Mujuru, PF and the public are not spooked into realizing the folly of going into yet another election with not even one GPA reform implemented.

If he manages to hang on, given the pressure he is under from the worsening economic meltdown and his own party imploding, without being forced to implement any GPA reforms then he has a fighting chance of winning the next elections.

If I was a betting man my money would be on Mugabe winning the next elections as long as no GPA reforms have been implemented regardless whom his political opponent happens to be, be it Tsvangirai, Mujuru or a grand coalition of the two with the plethora of all the other wannabe opposition parties. Mugabe will bamboozle Tsvangirai.

It is true that embedded Mai Mujuru sympathizers will make difficult for Zanu PF to rig the next elections but Mugabe will overwhelm PF with information; giving their incompetence, it will take PF forever to separate the good, the bad and the ugly. Meanwhile he will pick off the PF leaders one by one, bombarding them with the stink bombs from their dirty.  

The only sure way Zimbabwe can ever get out of the political and economic mess Mugabe has landed the nation is by implementing the GPA reforms followed by fresh free and fair elections. Vince Musewe is right it would “political suicide” for Mugabe because he will never win free and fair elections. Mugabe and his propaganda machine are working flat out to amplify the voices of those supporting Tsvangirai’s NERA and/or promoting Mai Mujuru as a real serious contender to defeat Mugabe in the next elections; they have to drown out the voices of reason warning of the folly of holding yet another election without implementing the GPA reforms.

Yes accepting free and fair elections would be “political suicide” for Mugabe but then another rigged election will be social, political and economic suicide for this nation. It is better that he  suffers the democratic consequences of regime change, he brought it on upon by imposing this de facto one-party dictatorship to gratify his insatiable greed for power and wealth; than the nation, the victims of his 36 am counting years of misrule, should continue to suffer and die in dumb anguish for even another day longer!

4 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

Former Botswana President Festus Mogae was clear in an interview with a UN online publication that sovereignty has limits. He made no direct reference to Zimbabwe but his message was un-mistakeable. Here is part of what he had to say:

‘Sovereignty has limits like any other right. A leader cannot kill and harass his people and hide behind sovereignty. A true leader does not kill, but protects his people. We still have leaders in Africa who think they are indispensable, larger than life and more important than their countries. That must stop. If a leader loses control, the world will and should intervene to save the people.’

SADC did try to intervene to save the people during the GNU in asking MDC to implement the reforms but got nowhere. What made the situation worse was that the Zimbabwean people themselves were not interested in getting any reform implemented. Even today with the benefit of hindsight, few Zimbabwe seem to care that MDC sold-out during the GNU.

The world would like to help Zimbabwe out of this political and economic mess but they will only do so when they see that Zimbabweans are doing something to help themselves. So far there are just too few Zimbabweans who seem to even notice what a mess the country is in!

Zimbabwe Light said...

The Zimbabwe government has it is expecting FDI this year to hit the $ 1 billion mark on the back of deals signed with China, Russia and India. Some of these deals were signed in 2014 but on undated cheques – to be dated once a raft of conditions has been met! Zimbabwe failed to meet the conditions and so the deals have remained deals on paper only!

In 2014, Zimbabwe recorded FDI inflows of $545 million, the highest since 2009. Yet the inflows were low compared to South Africa ($5,7 billion), Mozambique ($4,9 billion) and Zambia ($2,4 billion). In other words even if the $1 billion is achieved this year, we will still have a lot of catching up to do.

Government is working on a raft of ease of doing business reforms to lure FDI. This has resulted in the country moving 16 places up the ladder to 155 out of 189 economies on the World Bank 2016 Doing Business index.

We earned our 155 th place or much worse with the passing of such obnoxious laws as the in-digenisation law demanding that foreigner must sell 51% of their equity to Zanu PF cronies. Would be investors gave the regime the two finger salute and left to find other nations who want to do business. The regime has tinkered with this law but would not scrap it; no foreign investors have been fooled with the tinkering!

The question the people of Zimbabwe should be demanding an answer from this regime is: “For how much longer is the regime going the whole nation hostage to a law designed to benefit its cronies only?”

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Patrick

So far Zimbabweans have made the surprising collective decision that it is better that their hospitals and clinic should have no drugs whilst Mugabe is allowed to spend $1 million on birthday parties, $ 5 million on his daughter's wedding and continue to loot $2 billion a year from Marange. Mugabe has shown his appreciation by using the looted money to rig elections so he can stay in power for even longer so he can loot even more!

Mugabe has praised the people of Zimbabwe for their "resilience" in putting up with so much suffering and deaths without complaining. This is no different from the slave owners' praise of slaves' "physical hardness" so they do not "suffering from the hard labour and harsh conditions!"

Mugabe will start to foam on the mouth when talks about white colonial oppression and exploitation of the blacks. He is exceeding proud of his role as the liberation hero. It has not yet dawned on him that he replace the white colonial oppressors with his own corrupt and tyrannical rule.

Some African countries have been independent for over 50 years now and they have yet to break the vicious circle of removing one corrupt and tyrannical regime only to replace it with another equally corrupt and tyrannical regime! Meanwhile the country has continued to sink deeper and deeper into the economic abyss and political chaos. Most independent African country look back on the colonial days as the nation's golden age!

Although we have the benefit of all the world history to learn from, Africa is still failing to figure out the art of self government! Many have given up as something beyond their reach; many like Zimbabwe never ever bothered, the people never tried stopping Mugabe becoming a tyrant.

This year is set to be real tough year,for Zimbabweans with the double whammy of the economic meltdown and the drought; it will test their "resilience" to the death!

Zimbabwe Light said...

MDC-T has wasted the last two and half years boasting dragging Zanu PF "kicking and screaming" to the reform table but have failed to do so.


MDC should have concentrated on the set task of implementing the GPA reforms during the GNU because nothing of any value will ever be accomplished without implementing these reforms. MDC has since admitted they had underestimated Mugabe's infinite capacity to rig elections, especially since he has a war chest of funds from the looting and plunder going on in Marange. The tyrant is getting a staggering $ 2 billion a year for Pete's sake plus all the public resources.

When it comes to elections, the nation has the choice of demanding the full implementation of all the GPA reforms BEFORE the elections. If the nation decides, as happened in 2013, to have the elections with no reforms implemented then people must not complain afterwards that the vote was rigged because we all know with no reforms Zanu PF will rig the vote!