Sunday 3 September 2017

"Nothing beats dialogue," says Tsvangirai - Khupe & co. know better. Patrick Guramatunhu

Mr Tsvangirai said the alliance was bigger than individual parties, adding: "This alliance is a far bigger vision than the individual political parties that are in it. In our individual parties, we may have disputes, we may have differences, but nothing beats dialogue.

"That is leadership. Even if you disagree with me, the first basis you must understand is that nothing beats dialogue. As we move to a new Zimbabwe led by the alliance, you will see that there will be squabbling here and there. Some of the disputes will be informed by individual personal interests."

Dialogue! What does Tsvangirai know about dialogue? His idea of dialogue is he talking at you until the cows come home. If you disagree with him, he will send his thugs to beat you up and pretend it was CIOs who beat you. If there is a free vote on the matter and he loses the vote, he will disregard the vote.

Former USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, said Tsvangirai was “a flawed figure” who was “not readily open to advice, indecisive and questionable judgement in selecting those around him,” according to Wikileak report.

The Ambassador has been proven right thousand time and thousand times again. Tsvangirai is not clever to start with and combine that with his inability to listen to others has made his a downright dangerous leader who has led the MDC and the nation from one blunder to the next with disastrous consequences.

Tsvangirai has wasted the last four year pursuing this grand opposition coalition although he has been told again and again and again that this is distraction. Whether next year’s elections result in a meaningful democratic change will depend on one thing and one thing only – are the elections free, fair and credible. And the only way the nation can be certain the elections are free and fair is by making sure the democratic reform designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the vote are implemented.

The decision by Tsvangirai and everyone in the opposition camp to contest next year’s elections with not even one democratic reform in place – forget this MDC Alliance, because it will never do anything to stop the vote rigging – is madness. The more so, given these MDC leaders were advised in 2013 not to contest that year’s elections with no reforms and they failed to listen. David Coltart did shed some new light on MDC leaders’ real reason for contesting flawed elections – greed.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” explained Senator Coltart in his book.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

Everyone agrees the elections will be rigged but the MDC Alliance is not about “doing the obvious – withdraw from the elections”. Greed is still trumping reason! The Alliance is about sharing out the few winnable gravy train seats they know Zanu PF giving away by fielding one Alliance candidate for each contested seat.

As long as the opposition has a chance of winning a few gravy train seats they will never demand the implementation of the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections; this is a well-established historic fact and reality. It is now for the people of Zimbabwe themselves to fight both Zanu PF and the opposition by demanding the implementation of reforms BEFORE elections.

“If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders warned Tsvangirai & co. against contesting the 2013 elections with reforms. One can say the same about next year’s elections, they too “are done”! Tsvangirai did not listen to SADC leaders’ warning then and he and his MDC Alliance are not listening to any warning now because their eyes are fixed on the gravy train seats.

Tsvangirai is “not readily open to advice and indecisive” at the best of times but when his eyes are glassed over with greed, he sit on his ears and will not hear. Holding a dialogue with him at such times is a complete waste of time. He will contest next year’s elections come rain come sunshine regardless how flawed and illegal the process gets; not even if millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are denied the vote, frogmarched and even murdered in cold blood.   

“Even if you disagree with me, the first basis you must understand is that nothing beats dialogue,” said Tsvangirai.


 Nothing beats dialogue; that is rich coming from someone who takes advice from no one but he does not listen to anyone!

7 comments:

Patrick said...

MDC have had many opportunities to bring about meaningful democratic changes in Zimbabwe but have wasted them all. The best chance to deliver reforms came during the GNU when all MDC leaders were asked to do was to implement the reforms agreed in the Global Political Agreement (GPA). SADC leaders, who were the guarantor of the GPA, tried their best to get MDC to implement the reforms but were ignored.

MDC has been contesting elections they knew are flawed and would be rigged all these years and have lost each and everyone of these elections precisely because Zanu PF rigged the vote one way or the other. Of course, they contested the elections confident they would win, confident they had strategies to Win In Rigged Elections (WIRE) although they never gave the strategies the name WIRE.

The bottom line is MDC are dragging the nation into yet another election process knowing fully well that Zanu PF will rig the vote claiming they have “smarter strategies” to win the elections when all they have are the same failed strategies only this time they are giving the strategies a fancy name, WIRE.

If the people of Zimbabwe want to get out of this hell-hole Zanu PF has dragged us into and MDC have done their best to keep us there by giving false promises of having found a way out; then we must demand the implementation of the reforms before elections are held.

Least people forget, the people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC politicians to bring democratic change and not these nonsensical promises of how to win rigged elections. We do not want rigged elections, we want free, fair and credible elections!

Vana Obert Gutu arikuwawata zvisina maturo neWIRE! (People like Obert Gutu are talking nonsense about this WIRE strategy!) How long are we going to listen to them!

Patrick said...

The people of Zimbabwe risked life and limb to elect MDC into office on the promise they would deliver democratic change including free and fair elections instead MDC have settled for Win In Rigged Elections - although after 17 years they have consistent failed to win. The people of Zimbabwe must revert to demanding free and fair elections and get someone who will fight to implement the reforms and stop wasting time following MDC.

MDC Alliance is about sharing the few winnable gravy train seat next year, and everyone knows there will be no free and fair elections andclearly MDC leaders do not care that elections are not free and fair. Zimbabweans will be foolish not to care that elections are not free and fair because there will be no meaningful political change until we have free and and fair election; that is a fact!

Patrick said...

@Dr Masimba Mavaza

If we are going to have a meaningful discourse then it must be one based on fact and respect of the truth.

“ZANU PF has been in power for the past thirty seven years. It has been winning the elections with very little challenge. It was only in 2008 that it lost by non losing margin. Its foundation was shaken but it came out of that shock more stronger than it was,” you wrote.

Zanu PF has been rigging elections to stay in power and the vote rigging and wanton violence in the 2008 elections were so outrageous that not even SADC or AU could pretend that was a free and fair election. Zanu PF itself could not argue and hence the reason why the accepted going into the GNU, ‘sin bin’!

Patrick said...

THE Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has taken delivery of 400 Biometric Voter Registration kits, kick starting the first major phase of the 2018 harmonised elections.

The equipment arrived from China last week in terms of an arrangement between Zec and Laxton Group Limited, which landed the supply deal around June this year. Another batch of 2 600 kits will be delivered before October when countrywide voter registration is likely to begin.

With all the best political will in the world there is no way anyone will be able to register 7 million voters, produce a verifiable voters’ roll, have time to check the roll and correct the mistakes, carryout a trial run, etc. and thus deliver a satisfactory electoral system. We all know that Zimbabwe does not have the political will to deliver free, fair and credible elections and this inordinate delay in buying the BVR kits, taking delivery, stating the voter registration, etc. are all deliberate.

One does not need to be an election expert to see that next year’s elections are already being rigged! Only a first class fool will still want to have anything to do with such a process!

Patrick said...

@ Alson

Why both vote for Zanu PF, the party has the machinery to generate as many votes as it wish to secure a landslide victory.

As for allowing Zanu PF "right to finally fail dismally", you will not be disappointed if failure is what you want. Zimbabweans are now the poorest in Africa; how is that for failure! If you are one of the 72.3% now officially living on US$ 1 or less a day; you would not want to get to get out of this hell a.s.a.p. and not voting for the regime to see how much poorer it can make you. Still, I will not deny that there are many Zimbabweans out there stupid enough to do this, we would have never sunk this deep into poverty and despair if it was not for them.

Let me also add that Zanu PF will take on the challenge with zeal and will be determined to make sure the party remain in power for generations!

Zimbabwe is supposed to use a new Biometric Voter Registration system for next year’s elections and yet with less than a year to go before voting voter registration has not even started. How is the country going to register 7 million people in time to produce a verified voters roll – unless of course this was what the regime did not want to do.

The 2018 elections as good as rigged already and only a first-class idiot – needless to say we have more than our fair share of such people in Zimbabwe - would waste his or her time having anything to do with such a process.

Nomusa Garikai said...

“Tsvangirai has wasted the last four years pursuing this grand opposition coalition although he has been told again and again and again that this is distraction. Whether next year’s elections result in a meaningful democratic change will depend on one thing and one thing only – are the elections free, fair and credible. And the only way the nation can be certain the elections are free and fair is by making sure the democratic reform designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the vote are implemented,” you said.

This time next year we all be looking real foolish when Zanu PF has blatantly rigged the elections yet again and we all finally admit that the existence of the MDC Alliance did not any bit of difference to the election outcome. The Alliance was just a total waste of time.

Given the seriousness of our economic and political situation, can this country afford yet another rigged election? The answer has to be a no!

Nomusa Garikai said...

“God still wants President Mugabe to lead and he will tell us when he wants to step down,” said Grace.

And God told you that because you one of the prophets??? This is just the usual nonsense from those who have lost the mandate of their fellow mortals and are then claiming they have a divine mandate. Since when has God taken the side of the unjust over that of the oppressed!