Mujuru offers to be "bridge NTA leader" - bridging imaginary river seen by her puppy eyes. By P Guramatunhu

One of Mai Mujuru's weakness is her political naivety!

She has spent 34 years in Zanu PF and she has never ever criticized all the corruption and murderous tyranny that took place. She has played he part in the tyranny as opposition politicians like Eliot Pfebve will readily testify. She has also taken her lion's share of the looted wealth. And yet when she was asked about her 34 years of silence over these matters she claimed she never saw any of the corruption, vote rigging, intimidation, political murders, etc., etc. She only saw these evil things and the suffering they were causing to the nation after she was booted out of Zanu PF in 2014.

“A puppy does not open its eyes the day it is born!” she claimed.

Only someone who is as naïve as Mai Mujuru would believe that there is a breed of dogs in Dotito (Mai Mujuru’s home area) whose puppies take 34 DAYS to open their eyes. Only Mai Mujuru and certified fools would believe that the puppies take 34 YEARS to open their eyes!

After all her 34 years at the heart of this Zanu PF dictatorship, Mai Mujuru still has no clue what the country’s political problems are much less what the solutions are. Her pitiful track record as a corrupt and incompetent, shallow and naïve political minion who was promoted way above her level of competence has clearly not sunk in. She still see herself as a key player in Zimbabwe politics.

“Before we even talk of numbers, it (opposition coalition) gives security, and numbers are the last thing. A coalition will bring MDC-T and ZimPF together and all these other democratic parties then we can defeat Zanu PF because it has tricks,” she said.

Yes, madam and we all witnessed some of those Zanu PF “tricks” only a few weeks ago in the Bikita West by-elections when the villages were intimidated, threatened, known opposition supporters were denied food aid and told in no uncertain terms that worse will follow if they did not vote for the Zanu PF candidate. On the day of voting, the villagers were corralled like animals and herded to the polling stations by village heads and chiefs where they were instructed once again to vote for the Zanu PF candidate.

The Zanu PF candidate in the by-election polled 78% of the vote and the Zim PF candidate and the others shared the remaining 22%. Surely the by-election result shows that Zanu PF’s dirty tricks work!

Of course, what happened in Bikita West was not an isolated event; Zanu PF has been rigging elections ever since the country attained her independence in 1980. When the people realized that Zanu PF mismanagement and corruption was bringing economic ruin, not prosperity as President Mugabe promised; the party’s popularity started to sink. Zanu PF only managed to stay in power by stepping up its vote rigging activities.

If Mai Mujuru did not see the blatant vote rigging in the 2013 national elections, the wanton violence that left over 500 died in 2008, etc. because her puppy eyes were still closed then Bikita West spelt out to her the seriousness of Zanu PF’s dirty tricks. Zimbabwe’s elections are flawed, illegal and a mockery to democracy!

Mai Mujuru’s avowed position to contest the elections regardless how flawed they are is not just naïve, it is downright irresponsible as the opposition parties taking part in the elections are per se granting the process the veneer of democratic competition and credibility. Of course, we know why parties like ZimPF, MDC-T, etc. contest these flawed elections – they are after the few seats Zanu PF gives away to entice opposition participation. Mai Mujuru, like Tsvangirai and all the other opposition politicians are so desperate to get a seat on the gravity train they do not care that the price is paid by the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans   who continue to be denied their right to free, fair and credible elections.

In many ways Mai Mujuru and her ZimPF friends are being consistent; they have never criticized Zanu PF’s corrupt and tyrannical rule all the 34 years they were in the regime because they as long as had their share of the spoils of the autocratic dictatorship, they saw nothing wrong. They see nothing wrong with contesting flawed elections where millions of voters are denied their vote and human dignity and treated like animals as long as they get a few seats back on the gravy train.

“I am willing to bridge the transition between opposition and ruling parties as a National Transition Authority (NTA) leader. I want to rest, as I will be 62 in two months time,” said Mai Mujuru.

So, she has heard of the NTA but clearly got the wrong end of the stick. The NTA is meant supposed to implement the democratic reforms MDC failed to implement during the GNU and Zanu PF cannot be trusted to implement post GNU. She cannot be trusted to implement any of the reforms because she is an overrated, corrupt and incompetent politician who has no clue what the reforms are about much less how to implement them. She is so desperate to get back into power; she is offering herself as a bridge across an imaginary river that only she and her puppy eyes can see!

As for her offer for another term of office before she finally retires; she really does not get it! After all the economic misery and deaths and political oppression, anguish and deaths, she and her Zanu PF cronies have brought upon this nation; the lot of them should have resigned from public life decades ago. What awaits them now is the certainty of a thorough legal process to establish the source of their vast wealth and to uncover the truth behind the over 30 000, at least some of them, murdered by the regime in cold blood.