Friday 7 July 2017

Heal Zimbabwe's "Peace Campaign" is well intended but will never deliver free elections. P Guramatunhu

The task before us today is to demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms BEFORE the next elections. There are those who would want the nation to think the country can still have free and fair elections without the reforms, they are fooling themselves and povo.

"The campaign is against political candidates who promote violence and abuse political power and influence to perpetrate violence. Heal Zimbabwe (HZ) notes that the campaign is a positive step as it adds a voice on the need for violence free elections. The move by the church is most welcomed by HZ because it complements the Organisation's own initiative which is the 13 Million Voices for Peace Campaign for a peaceful environment in Zimbabwe before during and after the 2018 election. The campaign is running under the hashtag #13Milvoices4Peace," said the trust.

"HZ joined other stakeholders at the Christian Vote Campaign as a way of reiterating its Commitment to working on peacebuilding and social cohesion in the Country.  Working with various key stakeholders, HZ continue to encourage key Stakeholders such as the Youth, War Veterans, Traditional leaders, politicians, women, the church and security services to come together to pledge and commit to campaign for peaceful 2018 elections."

This is all very well but, and it is a big BUT, are HZ people really saying we should abandon the pursuit of implementing the democratic reforms designed to restore the democratic powers of key institution like the Police, ZEC, the Judiciary, a free Public Media, etc. in favour of these peace and voter registration campaigns?

It is the work of the Police to keep law and order. It is the task of ZEC to deliver a clean voters’ roll and free and fair elections, etc. These institutions have failed to carry out their statutory tasks in the past because Zanu PF has eroded and corrupted them to suit its own selfish one party state agenda.

In 2008 election the nation and the world at large hard first-hand experience of just how rotten our Sate institution are. SADC leaders managed to get President Mugabe to sign an agreement agreeing to a raft of democratic reforms. The reforms, properly implemented, would have restored the independence and effectiveness of the Police, ZEC, etc.

SADC leaders warned MDC leaders not to contest the 2013 elections without implemented the reforms first. Tsvangirai and company ignored the warning and we all know the disastrous consequences of that folly.

No meaningful reforms were implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections. It is will be mad to go through yet another election with no reforms in place next year. It is for us, Zimbabweans, not SADC or anyone else, to make sure the reforms are implemented before elections are held.

Those involved in these voter mobilisation and peace campaigns must be absolutely clear in their own minds that they are, by their actions, saying their activities will deliver the free and fair elections we are seeking and therefore we do not need the reforms. Voter mobilisation, etc. are much easier to deal with than demanding the reforms and so one cannot deny their appeal to most people. However, I, for one, do not believe these activities will deliver free and fair elections.

Even if the voter mobilisation and peace campaigns deliver the free and fair elections this time we will have to do these thing afresh for each election because as long as the ruling party of the day has the excessive powers to abuse the Police, ZEC, etc. to consolidate its grip on power it will do so.


There is no substitute to implementing the reforms. All these voter registration and campaigning for peaceful elections is, at best, just one of those kicking the can down the street activities. We have been kicking this “can” of free and fair elections down the street for 37 years now we have gain nothing, have paid dearly for it in terms of having a corrupt regime ruining all our lives and the task of implementing the reforms is even tougher now than ever.

8 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Conway Tutani

“This shames all those rabid critics who are now conveniently wiser with the wisdom of hindsight placing all the blame on Tsvangirai as if he was solely responsible when we all - yes, all of us - folded arms bemusedly and cowardly as the regime trampled all over us,” you saying, paraphrasing Dr Moyo.

This is nonsense, you and Dr Moyo should not try to rewrite historic facts to suit your narrative.

After two days or so of ZEC dragging its feet regarding announcing the result Archbishop Desmond Tutu condemned the delay as totally unacceptable and a sign Zanu PF was tampering with the result. It was none other than Tsvangirai himself who said the people must be patient. It was only latter after five days or so with the regime still dragging its feet that Tsvangirai called for public protest but by then the initiative was lost.

ZEC finally took a staggering six week to announce all the result!

Tsvangirai went on to make many other blunders beside the failure to see that Zanu PF was cooking the result with the worst blunder being, first of all, the failure to implement even one reform during the GNU and then contest the 2013 election with no reforms. Dr Nkosana Moyo is too make the same blunder of contest next year’s election with no reforms in place.

Zimbabwe Light said...

Zimbabweans are ignoring the warning not to contest elections with no reforms in place at their own peril. We ignore the warning in 2013 and we paid dearly for it as Zanu PF can back into power and assumed the mismanagement and corruption from where they left off when they were forced in to the GNU. If we do not implement the reforms than Zanu PF will once again rig the vote and stay in power. The economic meltdown will get worse!


It is infinitely easier to take up voter education, voter mobilisation, building coalitions, etc. and leave the all important reforms untouched because Zanu PF does not want them touched. We want the easy solutions but these are in fact not solutions at all just as fool’s gold is not gold! There is nothing to be gained by contesting another flawed election but a very high price to be paid for doing so!

Nomusa Garikai said...

People should not discount out of hand the possibility of Dr Nkosana Moyo and Mahere are Zanu PF projects. Zimbabwe is awash with secret agents and double agents all very well paid thanks to the wealth from Marange, Chiadzwa and other looted resources.

The one thing President Mugabe cares about and has ever cared about is absolute power and he has achieved it by creating a Police State. He was lucky to have had a pool of some of the most corrupt and incompetent individuals on both side of the political drive whom he has conned, cheated and bamboozled in equal measure to always get what he wanted.

Zimbabwe’s dirty political system has squeezed out quality leaders out of both Zanu PF and the opposition camp.

It will take a brave person to even doubt that President Mugabe has double agents imbedded in opposition parties and, of course, there are opposition leaders out their working hard to promote the Zanu PF dictatorship out of their own stupidity. It is very possible that one or both Moyo and Mahere are by design or otherwise promoting the Mugabe project. They entry into politics is taking attention away from the all-important democratic reforms. Why would anyone, supposedly town-wise, contest an election he/she knows is flawed unless they are going to be richly rewarded for doing so.

So Moyo and Mahere could well be Zanu PF projects for three reasons;

1) In Zimbabwe’s mudded political waters anything goes!

2) President Mugabe is loaded with cash and can afford the luxury of bankrolling all manner of very elaborate and expensive vote rigging schemes.

3) But most important of all, President Mugabe is desperately looking for ways to jazz up the present political environment given the opposition camp has lost so much political credibility. There is growing pressure to justify why the country is being dragged through yet another flawed election and continue to ignore SADC leaders’ advice not to contest until reforms are implemented.

Nomusa Garikai said...

Forget the "big tent" coalition nonsense, it is dead in the water. Not even the most passionate supporters of the coalition have ever denied that the coalition would stop Zanu PF vote rigging in any way. Coalition was pursued instead of implementing the reforms because this was something the opposition felt they could do. They lied that it was the game changer because they needed something to justify why they were discarding "No reform, no election!"

Tsvangirai is saying he will conclude the coalition by the end of this month but that is nonsense. It took him four years to sign MOU to talk about coalition. How is it going to take him four weeks to finalise the coalition itself given the large egos that must be messaged here!

Nomusa Garikai said...

Comrade Tapiwa Mubonderi perhaps you can answer me because no one else, not even Mahere herself has bothered to do so.

We have the important issue of Zimbabwe elections being rigged. Is Fadzai Mahere contesting these election because she does not know elections are rigged or she does not care that they are rigged?

I find it hard to believe that she does not know that Zanu PF has been rigging elections. It was none other than Mount Pleasant constituency, the very constituency she is going to be a candidate next year, where we saw hooded Zanu PF youths who were bussed in to vote.

“She made an analysis of the available political parties and felt that their ideas do not resonate with hers. This is the main reason they are not happy with her as they feel she is not endorsing their political affiliations and is not interested in joining them,” you told us.

And continued for the rest of the article on the same vein telling us how clever she is, etc. but nowhere in all your rumbling have you acknowledge the problem of vote rigging, the elephant in the room, much less what she is doing about it.

Zanu PF’s landslide victory is made in the rural constituencies where the regime frogmarching the people to attend its rallies and then to vote for the party. From the looks of it, Fadzai Mahere is a member of the nose-brigade coming from the ruling elite and very proud of it. She clearly does not care about the misery of those in the rural areas, she does not care that they are frogmarched to rallies. She does not care that Zanu PF continues to stay in power by rigging election and that the regime’s misrule has forced millions, especially in the rural areas, into a live of abject poverty.

All she cares about is security for herself a seat on the gravy train by whatever means. Since she wants an urban seat, she could not win it on a Zanu PF ticket and so she has decided to stand as an independent candidate. Zanu PF will probably help her fund her campaign since she is one of their own!

Anyone, anyone at all, in the opposition camp contesting Zimbabwe’s elections knowing fully well the elections are going to rigged is doing so out of greed, they know Zanu PF will give away a few gravy train seats or/and they are paid by Zanu PF to contest. There is no other logical reason why anyone with even half a brain would contest such blatantly flawed elections.

The motive of those justifying why people like Mahere are contesting is yet to be established but sheer stupidity will be a good starting point!

Nomusa Garikai said...

The regime has no desire to deliver a free, fair and credible election of that we can be certain. If you are going to cheat you muddy the waters so your victim does not see what you have done. The whole voter registration is going to be rushed through and completed in two and half months, Rita Makarau tells us, for example. How is that possible? Is the country going to be asked to stop doing everything else and concentrate on voter registration alone because short of that this will not happen.

The regime decided on buying BVR system a long time ago but has dragged its feet over buying the kit for one reason – to have a stampede to the finish line.

There is really no reason for Zimbabwe to go into yet another election knowing the vote will be rigged – the rigging has already started. This is just madness!

Nomusa Garikai said...

@ Clear Blue Sky

"If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done," SADC leaders warned MDC leaders in June 2013. Zanu PF has completed the vote rigging early this time, a year ahead of time!

Nomusa Garikai said...

“The US’s Centre for Preventive Action (CPA) warned that political instability, violence, and further economic decline in Zimbabwe could see xenophobic violence directed against the country’s migrants in South Africa becoming worse if large numbers of refugees began fleeing the country,” reported Daily News.

If we have yet another rigged elections it is easy to see why this could well be the last straw that broke the camel’s back; the prospect of another five years of this economic and politics chaos will be too to bear! With no meaningful reforms in place another rigged election is a certainty and it is irresponsible of those saying otherwise.

Church bell size alarm bells should be ringing nonstop in every thinking Zimbabwean out there. We have had many, many opportunities to end all this political chaos by implementing the reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship. We can prevent the nation being plunged to the political nightmare by demanding the implementation of the reforms BEFORE the elections.