Tuesday 12 December 2017

"No one should fail to vote because they have no ID," Mpofu promises - but cannot Police impartiality N Garikai

Ever since the coup, everyone in Zanu PF is going the extra mile to try to convince us that the party has turned a new page it is not the same corrupt, incompetence, vote rigging and tyrannical regime of the bygone years of Mugabe.

“The Ministry of Home Affairs and Culture has assured voters that it will tirelessly work to ensure that no one is turned away from the on-going Bio-metric Voter Registration (BVR) program due to lack of proper identifying documentation,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“This was said by Minister Obert Mpofu as he addressed top ministry officials at a team building meeting held in Harare last week.

"Citizens should not fail to vote because they do not have the necessary identity documents. But rather, they should only do so on their own volition. So, let us diligently play our part," said the Minister.

Experience of years of abuse by the school bully tells me Minister Mpofu and his Zanu PF colleagues are not to be trusted because, like the school bully, they are gloss over issues. If he was since about making sure no Zimbabwean was denied the right to vote because he/she did not have identification documents to enable them to register then he should have enquired how many people were already been affected. The exercise is in its last of four months, there is no way that the Ministry would recover the lost ground.

If Minister Mpofu was really interested in turning over a new leaf then he, of all people must know that the Police have failed to keep law and order during the elections, turned a blind eye to Zanu PF inspired lawlessness and even taking part themselves by denying the opposition permission to hold rallies or worse. As Minister of Home Affairs the conduct of the Police fall under his brief. What changes is he going to implement to ensure the Police play their part in ensuring next year’s elections are free, fair and credible. 

3 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

On Friday Zanu PF will be holding its special congress and one will have to be blind not to notice the difference – for the first time in 37 years gone will be the Zanu PF regalia with Robert Mugabe head! It started with the rape-on, “maZambia”, for woman, then rape-on and head scarfs, then rape-on, head scarf and dress.

By the late 1990s man joined in wearing caps, then caps and shirts and soon they were wearing cap, shirt, trousers and jacket all with the Zanu PF and Mugabe’s face. All designed by Doctor Amai Grace Mugabe! If she gave up wearing her designer clothes to wear the party regalia, it was unwise not to follow suit. For the first time in living memory, there will be thousands of Zanu PF party members milling around on Friday and not even one of them will be wearing anything with Mugabe or his face on it.

The party will have T-shirts with Mnangagwa on them but there will be no maZambia with his face, no doubt the order has already been placed!

Zanu PF has a new leader and new regalia but other than that the party has not changed.

Minister Obert Mpofu has been rallying his Home Affairs team to step up the issue ID, this will not make a big difference in the number allowed to vote. This is just a publicity stunt, word is out that the new Zanu PF led by His Excellency President Emmerson Mnangagwa wants everyone to be given a chance to vote.

The Minister knows that the Police will play their usual role of stopping “agents of regime change”, as Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuru so aptly called the opposition in his doctorate thesis. He knows that asking the Police to reform would be the equivalent of asking the new Zanu PF to give up its dictatorial power and not just the Mugabe regalia. He knows that is something the party will not do.

It is in the interest of the new Zanu PF to promote the idea that it has changed. The truth is the thug Emmerson Mnangagwa, Chiwenga, Chihuri, etc. who planned and executed the corruption, vote rigging and political murders wearing Mugabe Zanu PF regalia will not be transformed into a democrat just because he has taken off his old Mugabe regalia!

Patrick said...

“Some international observers may be invited at the discretion of the Government of the day,” said Foreign Affairs Minister, Moyo. “As with the previous elections, the Government has always guaranteed a peaceful environment, before, during and after elections.”
There is not even one person out there with half a brain and familiar with Zimbabwe who does not know of the country’s caustic political culture of vote rigging and wanton violence. All these people therefore know that Minister Moyo, is lying when he said Zanu PF has “always guaranteed a peaceful electoral environment before, during and after elections”. Not even SADC and the AU, known for accepting so dodgy election processes, would accept the results Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections as legitimate because of the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence the people had been subjected to that year. Where was the government’s guarantee of peaceful elections then?
There was a lot less in-your-face violence in the 2013 elections – the more subtle type such as villagers being denying food aid or being threatened with a repeat of the 2008 wanton violence should Zanu PF lose, remained. That year, Zanu PF had devised many vote rigging schemes such as tempering with the voters’ roll to deny opposition supporters the vote whilst allowing its supporters the opportunity to cast multiple votes. So Minister Moyo is being clever in guaranteeing “peaceful elections” whilst being very carefully not to ever guarantee “free, fair and credible elections”.
Zanu PF will deliver free, fair and credible elections next year, not without implementing the democratic reforms first. The regime has stubbornly refused to implement the reforms since the rigged July 2013 elections.
The right to free election is not just a fundamental human rights but it is also the pre-requisite for good governance and economic recovery. With the national economy now in total meltdown and unemployment a nauseating 90%, the need for free elections and economic recovery is now a matter of life and death.
Minister Moyo, you can play at words all you wish but you and your reinstituted coup regime will never get away with another rigged election! We, the people of Zimbabwe, demand free, fair and credible elections and will never settle for anything else! NEVER! Read my lips, NEVER EVER!

Patrick said...

Parliament should craft a law that punishes people who undermine the interests of Zimbabwe through calling for illegal sanctions, traditional leaders have said. Chief Fortune Charumbira said the law should also disqualify culprits from seeking political or public office as part of measures to protect its interests and that of citizens and nip in the bud what MDC Alliance members led by Mr Tendai Biti did in the United States this week.
“Zimbabwe should seriously consider the need for a law that punishes Zimbabweans who undermine the country’s political, economic and social interests as what we read in the media as attributed to Mr Biti,” said Chief Charumbira.
“Such people should be disqualified from contesting for political office because they would have expressly shown that their ultimate mission is to seek political office through undermining the interests of Zimbabwe.”
Out of your own mouth Chief Charumbira comes the Lord’s judgement on you. You know the law of the land specifically demands that all Chiefs must be apolitical and yet you have openly supported Zanu PF and encouraged other Chiefs to do the same. The day Zimbabwe end this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship will be the last day you will wear that half-moon and be called Chief.
Biti and Chamisa, thou they have proven in their time to be breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent, they are nonetheless untitled to their own opinion, unpalatable thou it may be to the corrupt Zanu PF ruling elite. It is not Biti and Chamisa who should be banished from holding public office, it is you, Chief Charumbira, and your fellow Chiefs. You have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that Chiefs are corrupt and a dead weight to the nation, a healthy and functional democratic Zimbabwe, has no need for corrupt unelected busy bodies!
Zimbabwe must move on and modernise office of Chief must be abolished and the institution of chieftainship must go too!