It is rare that I have found myself agreeing with Senator David Coltart because most of the time what he is saying is half-truths or out and out lies. He has surprised me this time.
“Much of our current euphoria in Zimbabwe is misplaced,” he wrote in his recent article in Zimeye.
“As I have reflected this morning about the amazing scenes across Zimbabwe yesterday when people turned out in their hundreds of thousands I am left with much disquiet. I marched yesterday to celebrate the end of Mugabe’s rule, not to thank the military for removing Mugabe. In all of our euphoria we must never become so intoxicated as to forget that it was the same Generals who allowed Mugabe to come to power in 2008 and 2013.”
Of course, Coltart is right that our euphoria of seeing the coup as having ushered in our “Real Independence” as some people claimed; is hopelessly misplaced. The coup has removed Mugabe but only to replace him with Mnangagwa, another dictator. Worse, still, the coup has done nothing to dismantle the dictatorship itself. We can only talk of our real independence when we has implemented all the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship the only sure way to remove a dictator and making sure no one ever emerge from the woodwork to take his place.
Coltart is also right that we must not thank the military for staging the coup because they are the ones who have rigged the elections and shed innocent blood to create and retain this obnoxious Zanu PF dictatorship for selfish gain. It is no secret that the coup plotters are the principal beneficiaries of the dictatorship’s wholesale looting of the nation’s resources including farms and diamonds.
“We must never forget how the military engineered the election victory of Mugabe in 2013. Although they did not engage in violence that year, I remember the long lines of soldiers (dressed in civilian clothes) in my constituency who voted early and often,” continue Coltart.
Well that was a half-truth in that Coltart has never publicly admitted that Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2013 elections because MDC leaders had sold-out during the GNU. It was Coltart and his MDC friends’ task to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop Mugabe rigging the vote. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years.
SADC leaders warned MDC leaders not to contest the elections with no reforms in place and they paid no heed. Coltart acknowledged the mountain of evidence of vote rigging tricks by Zanu PF even before the elections and yet he and others still contested the elections regardless. He blamed the two MDC factions’ failure to unite for their insanity of contesting elections they knew will be rigged.
“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.
“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.”
The three main MDC factions have since united to form the MDC Alliance and yet they are all as keen as mustard to contest next year’s elections even though not even one reform has been implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections and in violation of their own “No reform, no election!” resolutions. In other words, Coltart was lying that it was the failure to form a coalition that had stopped he and others doing the “obvious” thing of boycotting flawed elections. It was greed, for the few seats Zanu PF was giving away to entice the opposition, that forced them to join the rat race in 2013 and in drawing them to contest next year.
The people of Zimbabwe have every reason to be downright angry with General Chiwenga and his posse of generals who staged the coup because they are not only responsible for nurturing the dictator, Mugabe, they are now removing but notably for, even now, continuing to treasonous games. Mugabe and the few G40 members the coup plotters have singled out are not the only criminals in this Zanu PF regime. There are as many criminals in the Mnangagwa factions including the coup plotter themselves who still in positions of power and authority and are set carry on with the corruption, vote rigging, tyranny, etc. post-coup era.
Indeed, the coup was staged to forestall the actions of the G40 who too were set to “target criminals” in the Mnangagwa camp.
2 comments:
@ Sam Wezhira
“Give Mnangagwa a Chance: We have zero opposition in Zimbabwe!” you say.
There is an inherent contradiction, and a very dangerous one at that, in your argument.
Whilst it is true that the opposition camp is full of some of the most corrupt and incompetent individuals one can ever imagine. There is no doubt in my mind that, given the right political environment if healthy and meaningful debate and democratic competition, Zimbabwe can attract competent and visionary leaders into holding public office. The reason why we have corrupt and incompetent politicians crowding our political stage is the country’s suffocating political system that has stifled all meaningful debate and democratic competition and, worse still, has raised the stakes for being a politician so high one must be a thug as a matter of bear necessity.
Mnangagwa only stands head and shoulder above all the other political minions of the political stage at present because he is the biggest thug of the lot. Zanu PF created the dictatorship and it is no surprise that the system favours the party at the expense of the other parties. To argue that Mnangagwa should therefore be allowed to rule is counter intuitive in that one would in fact reward Zanu PF for having created the dictatorship and, worse still, will be seeking to perpetuate the dictatorship.
The solution demands that we dismantle the dictatorship as a matter of urgency by demanding the implementation of the democratic reforms to end the poisoned political environment Mugabe and Zanu PF created. The last person who would want to implement reforms is someone like Mnangagwa and therefore he is the last person who should be trusted with holding public office ever.
Just because Morgan Tsvangirai and his banded mongoose MDC friends lack the intellect to grasp the importance reforms does not mean they are not important and/or impossible to implement. They are important; indeed, so important nothing of any substance can ever be accomplished until we implement the reform; and, given the intellect, fairly straight forward to implement.
We had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the GNU and have wasted those five years and all the years since because we failed to implement the reforms. We must stop wasting time and get the team to implement the reforms!
My grief with Coltart and his MDC friends is they failed to implement even one reform in five years of the GNU. Not one!
Even when people like Coltart could see "electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw," as he readily admitted; they still contest the elections out of greed. The country is in this whole mess because they sold out. There are somethings in this world one can forgive selling out is one must cannot readily forgive!
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