Wednesday 27 December 2017

"Era of bussed voters is over," say Muchinguri - nonsense, Zanu PF will go extra mile to hide the evidence.

“The Zanu PF National Chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, National Political Commissar, Retired Lieutenant General Dr Engelbert Rugeje and the principal of the Chitepo Ideological School, Munyaradzi Machacha have agreed that Zanu PF has to change its work ethic, adding that the era of bussing people around is over,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“The three were addressing Zanu PF provincial chairpersons and provincial commissars in Harare this Wednesday.

Is this the party now admitting that it bussed people around to attend its rallies and, more significantly, to cast multiple votes?

I do not believe you can teach an old dog new tricks much less teach it to forget old tricks. I firmly believe Zanu PF has no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections next year; it will rig the vote as before. What the party will do different next year is go the extra mile, ten miles whatever it will take, to hide the evidence of vote rigging.

There are four bench marks to show Zanu PF has no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections:

a)     ZEC will not have the time to register 7 million, by its own estimate, voters and, worse still, to produce a verified voters’ roll. Until the Mugabe’s last cabinet reshuffle two months ago now President Emmerson Mnangagwa was VP and also Minister of Justice. He would have known that the voter registration exercise should have started January 2015 at the very latest for ZEC to given all would be voters a chance to register. Instead the registration only kicked off in mid-September 2017 and ZEC has been given five months to register the voters. A week ago, ZEC officials admitted they will only register 5 million instead of 7 million. How can this process be legal when it has disenfranchised nearly 30% of the electorate just like that!

Worse still, ZEC will not have the time to produce a verified voters’ roll, there is simple no time left with the voter registration finishing mid-February and voting set for July at the very latest. It was because there was not verified voters’ roll that nearly a million opposition supporters were denied the vote in July 2013 because their names were not in the constituency voters’ roll they expected. Also with no verified voters roll Zanu PF was able to bus its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple votes. The party will do the same again next year or bus marked ballots not people to avoid detection.

b)    Two years ago then President Mugabe admitted the country was being “swindled out of $15 billion in diamond revenue”. No one has ever been arrested and not one red cent has ever been recovered. A year ago, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament he was receiving 1/6 of the expected diamond revenue. In other words, the swindling is still taking place. Some of the money has been used to build Zanu PF ruling elite’s ten bedroom plus mansions and their multi-million business empires. However, some of the looted money has been used to bankroll the party’s multifaceted vote rigging schemes.

How can we have a fair election when Zanu PF spends $15 billion plus on its campaign activities whilst the opposition will be very luck to amass $1.5 million?

c)     Zanu PF’s monopoly of the public media is totally unacceptable because it has denied the electorate the opportunity to hear the opposition’s points of view.


d)    SADC came up with a raft of democratic reforms including reforms to free ZEC and the Police to carry out their duties without fear or favour. None of these reforms were implemented during the GNU and the regional leaders recommended that the July 2013 elections must be postponed to allow time to have the reforms implemented.

MDC passed a party resolution not to contest future elections until reforms are implemented. “No reform, no elections!” Sadly, they have since disregarded the resolution in pursuit of the few gravy train seat Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to take part.

With no reforms in place it is IMPOSSIBLE to hold free, fair and credible elections.

“The three also called for people to register to vote in next year's general elections,” continued the report.

Well there lays the political dilemma, the catch-22 of Zimbabwe politics. With not one sign of movement in any of the four areas above there is no doubt that Zanu PF is determined to rig next year’s elections or be it go the extra mile, ten miles or whatever it takes, to hide the evidence. The catch is if people register to vote or participate in any other way, they cannot complain after the event that the elections were rigged.

If people participate in the elections knowing, as we all do, that the process is flawed and illegal then it is assumed they are doing so because they have devised “Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies” as MDC-T put it. If the strategies do not work, well tough luck; one must not complain that the elections were rigged.

So, for anyone with no WIRE strategies the choice is pretty simple do not register to vote or play any part because doing so gives the flawed process credibility.

Since there is very little the individual can do to stop the likes of Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Fadzai Mahere and all the others in the opposition camp contest next year’s elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process. Their beady eyes are set on the bait seats Zanu PF gives away and nothing short of shooting them dead is going to stop them contesting. The only this the ordinary Zimbabweans can do stay clean out of the whole thing; do not register to vote, do not attend any opposition rallies, etc. Show the whole world that these opposition politicians have lost public support and credibility.

Starve the flawed electoral process of political credibility and the international community including SADC will have no qualm in declaring the result null and void. SADC leaders would have never advised MDC leaders to boycott the July 2013 elections and then validated Zanu PF’s one-horse election result.

If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders had warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders in June 2013, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza who attended the Maputo SADC summit too.

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and political and social stability hinges on the country proving to the world that its days of lawlessness and thuggery are over. Removing the old dictator Mugabe and replacing him with another dictator, worse still in a military coup and then rewarding the coup plotters with cushy government post, will not fool anyone into believing the country has changed. Hiding all the evidence bussed voters when not even one reform has been implemented will impress the politically naïve and gullible Zimbabwe electorate but not the shrewd foreign investor.


President Mnangagwa must stop messing around, continue to rig the vote and hide the evidence. He must implement all the democratic reforms and then and only then can the country be certain the elections are free, fair and credible!

4 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

"President Mnangagwa Has told journalists that prices of commodities must come down. He said there must not be a legislation to reduce prices of commodities but there must be an agreement with retailers and manufacturers to normalize prices," reads the tweet.

President Mnangagwa has only been in office for two months and he came on the promise to be different from the dictator Robert Mugabe. But already the call of the wild, the urge to dictate, is proving irresistible to him. He has been promoting his command agriculture and now this is moving to command commerce and industry.

He can order everyone to reduce prices all he wants but that will not help the consumers because goods will either disappear altogether or they will be available on the black market at even higher prices.

The solution to Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is end all government interference and control of the economy and let the market forces of supply and demand take over. This goes against the grain, it is counter intuitive, to a seasoned corrupt and authoritarian like Mugabe and Mnangagwa. They are obsessed about power and being able to dictate and control every facet of the nation’s activities is a measure of their power and influence.

All success stories must be accredited to them or there must be no success story to tell. They seek absolute power and are obsessed with it; they will not give it up even when its exercise is ruinous to the nation, as has happened in Zimbabwe these last 37 years.

The only sure way for the nation to get a government that is not obsessed about political power is to make sure the regime is accountable to the people through free, fair and credible elections. If President Mnangagwa can transform Zanu PF to give up its dictatorial urge is for him and his Zanu PF cronies to decide. What is of great concern to the nation is that elections from henceforth are free and fair and the nation is never again denied the opportunity to get a competent government. For the last 37 years, Zanu PF has rigged elections to stay in power, holding this nation hostage to its tyrannical autocratic rule; this must stop here and now!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ 003tico

Zanu PF is like a crocodile it hunts under cover of darkness and by day it will muddy the waters. President Mnangagwa, he was Minister of Justice until two months ago and ZEC was under his control, delayed the BVR exercise to the very last eight months before elections for two reasons:

a) There was no way ZEC could register all the 7 million potential voters. When you know most people are not going to vote for you, make it impossible for them to register – simple.

b) ZEC will not have time to produce a verified voters’ roll. If you are going to rig the vote by bussing in your supporters and allow them to cast multiple votes, for example, the last thing you want is someone carrying an audit based on the verified voters’ roll and discover the true identity of the voters.

ZEC has already admitted that it is going to register 5 million not 7 million and, more significantly, ZEC will NOT produce a verified voters’ roll. There was no verified voters’ roll in the July 2013 election and there will be none next year although the law clearly states that one must be released at least one month before the elections.

Why Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends agreed to take part in an election in which something as basic as a voters’ roll was missing beggars belief? You will have to shoot these opposition opportunists to stop them contesting next year even when it is already clear there will be no verified voters’ roll again! They do not care that the elections are rigged as long as they get one of the few seats Zanu pf gives away as bait!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Mandi chimene

“If MDC T refuses to take part in the next coming elections, there are 60 parties which were registered and technically the government can claim that they cannot be held to ransom by one party. this was planned long back. The only solution is for MDC T to take part in the election and God will determine the future of Zimbabwe” you say.

First things first, please do not evoke God’s name in your irrational arguments. God granted all mankind the discerning mind to know right from wrong. People who have exercised their God-given talents have lived in peace and prospered whilst those whose brain has atrophied through lack of exercise have never known freedom, justice and have lived in abject poverty.

Zimbabweans are starving in a country that for all intent and purpose is the Garden of Eden. We are the poorest nation in Africa and yet the few ruling elite are filthy rich! It us the people who elected these corrupt and murderous tyrants who have brought ruin to us all; God did not wish this to be so!

Now let’s go back to your irrational argument. It is Zanu PF that is holding the whole nation to ransom by denying us, the people, our basic freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

“What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot,” Mugabe thundered in 2008 at the height of Operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) He had unleashed the rogue war veterans, Army, Police and CIO to punish the people for rejecting him in the earlier vote. The nation was subjected to some of the worst politically motivated wanton violence the world has ever seen. The people dutiful voted for Mugabe by a landslide 84% overtaking Tsvangirai’s 73% in the earlier vote.

The whole world, including SADC and AU known for turning a blind eye to dodgy elections, refused to accept Mugabe’s victory. SADC forced Mugabe to form a GNU which was tasked to implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. As we know, Mugabe bribed the corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to do nothing about the reforms.

When SADC leaders realised that not even one reform was implemented, they made their position very clear to both Zanu PF and MDC leaders, postpone the 2013 elections until reforms are implemented. With no reforms in place, it was clear as day that Zanu PF will rig the vote just as the party did in 2008!

Zanu PF maintains that it will not implement any reforms because it is not going to reform itself out of office. A nonsensical argument because no one has the right to deny others a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Zanu PF has no right to hold the nation to ransom!

MDC participated in the flawed 2013 elections but to what end and purpose other than give the process the modicum of credibility.

It is insane to participate in an election process that one can see is flawed and illegal.

“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result,” said Albert Einstein.

Of course, the minute the individual realises the futility of repeating the same thing that is clearly not working – their insanity is cured. After 37 years of Zanu PF rigging elections the penny has not dropped in your head and many others like you, Mandi; my guess is it never will.

It will be itself an act of insanity to let the insane hold the nation to ransom; to take part in flawed elections is madness personified and hence the reason all those with a working brain will heed SADC leaders’ advice any have nothing to do with this rat race of an election. Nothing!

Patrick said...

President Mnangagwa said there will be free and fair elections and now Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri is adding on with all this talk on "era of bussed voters is over". There is no evidence that President Mnangagwa has fired NIKUV, stopped the wholesale looting in Marange, done anything to end Zanu PF monopoly of the private media, etc., etc.

Whilst I will agree that the departure of Robert Mugabe has generated a lot of good will for Zanu PF. The part had no chance of winning a free and fair elections before the coup but that single event has changed the party's fortunes; the party is popular again. The people will vote for Mnangagwa and Zanu PF just to give them a chance.

Of course, the elections are still months away and things may change; events such as the failure to attract significant foreign investment may wash away the rose tint brought on by Mugabe's departure. Zanu PF would need to play its usual vote rigging dirty tricks or they will lose power. Zanu PF will may not use many of its vote rigging tricks next year still the party will never implement the reforms to take away its vote rigging power! Never!

So, next year's election will be watershed elections for both the nation and Zanu PF in that it was a lost opportunity for the people to pressure the regime to implement reforms wasted because the people had made the grave error of assuming the party had change after Mugabe was booted out. Watershed for the party itself in that it was given the breathing space of not having to rig the elections when it was too weak to do so and get away with it!