Zimbabwe is facing a
serious economic problem; unemployment has soared to 90% and as much as 72.3%
of our people are living on US$1.00 or less per day. The economic situation is
socially, economically and politically unsustainable. We need a solution and
fast!
The root cause of our
economic problems is the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption
caused by Zanu PF misrule. The people have known this for many years but have
failed to do anything about it because Zanu PF rigs elections and so the nation
has been stuck with a corrupt and incompetent regime.
So the solution to our
economic collapse is a political one – stop Zanu PF from rigging the elections.
But, like many such political problems, saying stop Zanu PF rigging elections
is the easy bit; how has been mission impossible until SADC leaders spelt it
out in the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA).
The GPA stipulated that
Zanu PF and the two MDC factions in the 2008 to 2013 GNU will be tasked to
implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging future
elections. Sadly, not even one reform was implemented throughout the five-year
life of the GNU.
SADC leaders advised Morgan
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends that they must not contest the 2013 elections
with no reforms in place for obvious reasons – Zanu PF will just rig the vote
as it has done countless of time in the past.
“If you go into elections next month, you are going
to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders warned Morgan Tsvangirai &
co. in June 2013, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza who attended the Maputo summit.
As we know, MDC
leaders paid no heed and contested the flawed and illegal July 2013 elections
with disastrous consequences to the nation. SADC leaders’ advice is even more
relevant today vis-à-vis the coming 2018 elections; it was very foolish of us
to have ignored SADC leaders’ warning not to contest the flawed July 2013
elections, it would be unforgivable for us to repeat the same mistake and
contest next year’s elections still with no reforms in place. And yet this
exactly what Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT) people are asking people to do on the
basis that the Trust’s will deliver peaceful, free, fair and credible elections
even thou not even one reform has been implemented.
HZT has been holding
meetings up and down the country promising people free and fair election.
telling the people
greatest problem with these NGO initiatives is that they are totally
misleading; people believe they are the cure to these problems when in reality
they are only a placebo.
“The objective of
the interface meetings was to create a platform for community members to
interface and interact with duty bearers on critical issues affecting the
community. Some of the major issues that came out during the interface meeting
include 1) partisan conduct of traditional leaders in issuing proof of
residence for the BVR process ii) forced attendance to political gatherings
iii) unfair food aid distribution,” reported Heal Zimbabwe.
“The interface
meetings were attended by a total of 250 people (101 men and 149 women), nine
Traditional leaders, one councillor, two School Development Committee members
SDCs), seven Village Development Committees (VIDCOs) and three Ward Development
Committees (WADCO) members.
“As a way forward,
the interface meetings resolved that the CAATs together with the traditional
leaders and other opinion leaders collaborate and carry out public awareness
campaigns on the importance of peace, tolerance, social cohesion ahead of the
elections. During the public awareness campaigns, Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT)
shall also facilitate for organisations working on elections such as ERC and
ZESN to attend and raise awareness on the BVR process as a contribution towards
peaceful and credible elections.”
The nature of the
blatant vote rigging and wanton violence we witnessed during the 2008 elections
beyond the political powers of the local traditional leaders and community
leaders to stop even if they wanted to. ZEC officials who are responsible for
the chaotic voter registration exercise going on right now do not take their
orders from SDCs, VIDCOs and/or WADCO members. The only way to ensure ZEC carry
out the voter registration exercise properly and competently and deliver a
verifiable voters’ roll and free and fair elections is by making sure the
democratic reforms designed to make ZEC independent and free are implemented.
It is therefore
totally irresponsible of an organisation like HZT to be misleading innocent
villagers that they can deliver peaceful, free and fair elections when that is
not in their power to do. Whatever HZT people are doing; it is NOT a cure to
stop Zanu PF rigging the vote and it is criminal for them to be administering
placebos to unsuspecting povo especially when they should be taking the cure.
7 comments:
Zimbabwe is facing very serious economic and political problems all because for the last 37 years the nation has been stuck in this anti-white colonialist mode. Of course, all black Zimbabweans want the country to be independent and free from white colonial oppression and exploitation but if they had known independent Zimbabwe would be hell-on-earth many would have said no thanks to independence.
Post independent Zimbabwe is in a economic and political mess. 37 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has left the country in economic ruins; unemployment has soared to nauseating heights of 90% plus. Over 72% of our people now live in abject poverty; Zimbabweans are now the poorest people in Africa. The few ruling elite are living the lifestyles of Holy Wood's mega stars at the poor majority's expense.
On the political front the ordinary Zimbabwean's lot has seen very little improvement from the white colonial rule days; they have been denied their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a free and fair elections and even the right to life. Over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans have lost their lives to establish and retain the de facto one-party, Zanu PF dictatorship.
“Whites came to Zimbabwe and wanted to make it theirs oblivious of the fact that what is not yours will never be yours no matter how much you fight for it,” the state-run Herald quoted the president as saying in his speech at Harare’s National Heroes Acre.
With the country in serious economic meltdown and political paralysis you would think President Mugabe would finally allow the nation to move on and talk about the bread and butter issues concerning people's lives. No chance; 37 years after independence, he is still talking about the colonial days as if the war of independence is still raging on!
Yes Mr Mugabe, the message that Zimbabwe was not for the white colonialists has hammered home when the country gained her independence in 1980 now can we please talk about making Zimbabwe a country for the masses and not just the super rich ruling elite! Your anti-white rhetoric is nauseating and an insult to the intelligence of the impoverished who know you are using it to draw attention away from you corrupt and tyrannical rule.
#Tajamuka protestors, protesting against the country's cash crisis, clash with the Police in Harare.
Zimbabwe is facing a serious economic meltdown and political paralysis these problems are not going away but instead are getting worse and worse. Solution; we need to bite the bullet and implement the wide ranging democratic reforms designed to restore the individual freedoms and rights and free our state institutions like ZEC and the Police from Zanu PF dictatorial control to carry out their democratic duties of delivering free and fair elections and maintaining law and order.
If Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had implemented the democratic reforms when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU, we would not be in this mess. But whether we like it or not this country is not getting out of the mess until we implement the reforms!
“WITH elections drawing closer, the opposition has never been in such disarray and the coalition that was touted as the country's best hope to end Zanu-PF misrule is literally in tatters,” you said.
Could not agree with you more. Indeed, I will go even further and argue that the opposition has been is disarray and tatters for a long, long time; we should have known this by now because there is a mountain of evidence to show it. After the opposition failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU, they prove beyond all doubt that they are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. After that, we only have ourselves to blame for foolishly putting our trust in such corrupt and incompetent leaders.
In the long run, people certainly get the government and opposition they deserve; we certainly deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the over fifty corrupt and useless opposition. If we are ever going to get out of the hell-hole Mugabe has landed us into then we must first acknowledge the fact that our opposition are corrupt and incompetent, so incompetent they will never dislodge the foxy Zanu PF thugs, and search for opposition leaders fit for purpose!
We should not be surprised that Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow opposition friends are in disarray and tatters, they are corrupt and incompetent and cannot be anything else.
Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT) is telling the people of Zimbabwe, especially those in the rural areas, is that the country will have free, fair and credible elections thanks to the Trust’s activities of promoting peace. We do not need demand the implementation of the democratic reforms and boycott the elections until the reforms and implemented. And yet there is not a shred of evidence to show the Trust’s campaigns are changing anything.
“Hell is full of good meanings, but heaven is full of good works!”
What HZT are doing goes far beyond ill-advised good meaning; it is criminal for five good reasons:
1) HZT people are naïve to believe that a corrupt ZEC, Police, etc. who take their instruction from Mugabe himself will suddenly carry out their democratic duties without fear or favour because a village committee instruct them to do so.
2) There is a mountain of evidence already that HZT’s good meaning works is not delivering the desired credible elections. Why is the Trust ignoring the evidence and still continue to mislead the nation?
3) The consequences of yet another rigged election because the nation went ahead with the elections with no democratic reforms in place are catastrophic to Zimbabwe and therefore those who are actively encouraging the people to contest another flawed election must bear the responsibility for the folly.
4) HZT is clearly spending truckloads of money financing these meeting up and down the country; why has the Trust failed to commission a study to assess the effectiveness or otherwise of its activities?
5) When the dust of the political chaos in Zimbabwe final settle the nation must thoroughly investigate who are the people behind HZT and who bankrolled the Trust’s satanic activities and see to it they are held to account for all the suffering they have brought to the nation.
A PEOPLE'S Democratic Party (PDP) faction that expelled party leader Tendai Biti on Thursday has gone a step further in its "fight with the latter" writing a letter distancing itself from the MDC Alliance, Southern Eye reported.
The tragedy here is that Biti and his PDP members are fighting over the trivial matter of whether they are in the Alliance or not and ignoring the real game-changer – stopping Zanu PF rigging next year’s election. With not even one democratic reform in place neither side can ever say, with any confidence, that the opposition will dislodge Zanu PF from office next year.
Indeed, Zanu PF is already rigging the vote with the ongoing chaotic BVR exercise; there is no way the regime is going to produce a verifiable voters’ roll before next year’s elections. In the July 2013 elections, the regime failed to produce a verifiable voters’ roll and we know it was the smoking gun to many of its vote rigging trickery. It beggars belief why the opposition accepted contesting the elections with no verifiable voters’ roll; but they did. History is set to repeat itself!
Tendai Biti, Gorden Moyo and many others in PDP were in the GNU and proven they are hopelessly corrupt and incompetent the nation should not be surprised that nothing of substance has ever come out of this lot. If the elections are rigged, and it is certain that is exactly what is going to happen, who cares whether PDP was part of the MDC Alliance or not. Talking of fiddling whilst Rome burn!
"I have been holding negotiations with NPP for over two years and I came to a conclusion that Mujuru is in the opposition on the basis of her exclusion from Zanu-PF, but she still maintains the blood and spirit of her party in all her dealings. She can't be trusted," said Tendai Biti.
When you broke away from Morgan Tsvangirai, you were pretty scathing in your criticism of him and his lack of democratic values. A few weeks ago you embraced Tsvangirai again and praised him.
During the GNU you shocked some of us when you started praising Mugabe calling the murderous tyrant “a fountain of wisdom and an unflappable father of the nation”. Since the rigged July 2013 elections you have flip flopped and started call Mugabe a dictator.
In short, Mr Tendai Biti, you are just a corrupt, incompetent political prostitute who cannot be trusted.
“What is regrettable is that Mugabe never takes responsibility for his actions. First, he blamed the British and the Americans, then the opposition and sanctions, now its internal foes in Zanu PF, yet the truth is none of these as this is a pure case of his poor leadership style and endemic corruption in the country,” said Newsday.
“Mugabe himself is the biggest saboteur. Where did his wife First Lady Grace Mugabe get the money to buy a $1,4m diamond ring, how about money buying latest cars and mansions in foreign lands for his family?
“What does he and his family do that brings them all this cash to burn if these are not acts of economic sabotage, some kind of asset-stripping for self-aggrandisement.”
I agree with you analysis 100%, Mugabe himself is the biggest saboteur, but not just of the economy but our political system too. Mugabe has never held free, fair and credible elections and yet after rigging the elections he has insisted he was elected by the people.
“This also demonstrates that the soon-to-be 94-year-old Mugabe does not care about the people’s suffering despite his claims that only the people who elected him will remove him from power when the time comes,” you rightly pointed out.
As long as Mugabe is allowed to rig elections therefore, he will remain in power claiming that he has the people’s mandate. The key to ending Mugabe’s ruinous and tyrannical reign is making sure we have free, fair and credible elections. The only reason why not even one democratic reform designed to stop Mugabe rigging elections was implemented during the GNU was because the MDC leaders are corrupt and incompetent.
After MDC leaders sold-out during the GNU, the people of Zimbabwe should have finally woken up to their responsibility of electing competent leaders and ditched Morgan Tsvangirai and his inapt MDC friends. The very fact that MDC leaders are dragging the nation into yet another flawed election process next year shows how little Zimbabweans themselves have learnt from the country’s disastrous past.
Mugabe is exploiting the MDC leaders’ breath-taking incompetence and the Zimbabwe electorate’s political naivety to falsify his electoral mandate, has done so for the last 37 years, and we still have not leaned. Of course, it is insane to keep contesting flawed and illegal elections and expect a different result; Mugabe to lose the election he has carte blanche powers to rig!
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