Wednesday 13 June 2018

"Mnangagwa is rigging the election, I can repeat under oath!" says Moyo - it is impossible this reality.

Just a month before the 2013 elections, SADC leaders advised both Zanu PF and MDC leaders to postpone the elections to allow democratic reforms to be implemented. This was unwelcome advice because each party wanted to keep up the façade that the elections were free, fair and credible. In the end both parties ignored SADC leaders and, as we now know, Zanu PF went on to rig the elections, just as SADC leaders had predicted.

This year it is Professor Jonathan Moyo, Zanu PF’s former Minister of Education and the party’s chief political strategist who is ringing the alarm bells that Zanu PF is rigging the elections. SADC leaders’ warning against Zanu PF rigging the elections was a stink bomb compared to Moyo’s nuclear bomb, whilst the SADC warning was not widely known and was easily dismissed as speculation because it lacked detail the same cannot be said of Professor’s warning.

“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza of SAPE explained to Violet Gonda in an interview in April 2017.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections.

“If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws, and after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

Not many Zimbabweans understood what the democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the GNU were about, much less that Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had failed to implement the reforms. So, it was little wonder that very few Zimbabweans had fully appreciated the seriousness of SADC leaders warning of the folly of holding the elections without first implementing the reforms.

When Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections, the dire consequences of that rigged elections have forced many Zimbabweans to pay attention to problem and to appreciate the futility of participating in rigged elections. And so, Professor Moyo’s warning that Zanu PF is rigging this year’s elections is seed falling on fertile ground!

Many people have been complaining about ZEC’s performance and have expressed their doubts that the commission will deliver free, fair and credible elections, for example. Professor Moyo has provided even more detail to substantiate these fears.  

“ZEC run by Govt to run elections is not set up in terms of the Constitution. Most of its full-time staff are former or current Army, CIO & ZRP. ALL of TECHNICAL staff is 100% from security organs & ALL polling officers are civil servants!” wrote Professor Moyo in his opinion article in Zimeye.

“On the back of the Nov coup, and the fact that Zimbabwe is under military rule, it’s unreasonable to expect a Govt run ZEC to run free, fair & credible elections. With securocrats managing its TECHNICAL operations, ZEC is a rigging tool!
“Govt has seconded to ZEC a team of Chinese BVR & cyber experts from the People’s Liberation Army linked to a top Chinese university. Their remit is to manipulate the voters roll through shadowy & virtual polling stations & fake voters!

Chinese team seeks to manipulate the BVR system & create virtual polling stations to guarantee victory for Mnangagwa, whose appeasement strategy of disinformation would be used by UK govt to justify declaring the poll free, fair & credible!”

No one can dismiss what Professor Moyo is saying as mere speculation because as Zanu PF’s chief strategist, he certainly knew Zanu PF’s vote rigging tactics. President Mnangagwa, for 37 years Mugabe’s Chief Enforcer, as Moyo call him; executed most of the regime’s vote rigging schemes, the ruthlessly carried out the politically motivated harassment, beatings, and even murders and the looted to raise the cash to bankroll all the party activities. The tyrant turned to Professor Moyo to provide the intellectual finesse to the vote rigging schemes, etc.

“Some 11 days after BVR closed for 2018 poll & a day before sitting of Nomination Court, ZEC continues to deny the opposition access to the roll, yet it has given Zanu PF hard copies,” concluded Professor Moyo.

“ZEC has always done this & I can confirm it under oath.”


“Mnangagwa has already rigged the elections” read the headlines of Professor Jonathan Moyo’s article. The only logical reason why MDC politicians and the rest in the opposition camp are participating in these flawed and illegal elections is 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,” confessed David Coltart, a former MDC Minister during the GNU. 

“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.”

Coltart was commending on why he and his MDC friends contested the 2013 elections. Three of the leading MDC factions have since merged to form the MDC Alliance; there was never any talk of boycotting the elections even then – proof greed trumps reason with this lot.

MDC leaders lost all political credibility in 2013 when the failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU and then went on to participate in the 2013 elections, ignoring SADC leaders’ express warning not to. Still, if they had any trace of credibility left then it has all been completely wiped away by participating in this year’s elections regardless of all the warnings and evidence Zanu PF is rigging the elections.

None of the international community observers, in Zimbabwe right now for this express purpose, can in all honest, ignored the mountain of evidence of blatant vote rigging and judge these flawed and illegal elections free, fair and credible.


The only logical outcome of these elections is declaring the whole process null and void and get the country to revisit and implement all the democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU. The sooner the nation can finally deal implement the reforms and end the scourge of rigged elections, the sooner we can focus on the difficult task of rebuilding after decades of death and destruction!

5 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

"He came into the position in a great position. He was considered the heir to the legendary leader Morgan Tsvangirai. He was young and charismatic, and seemed just right for a new Zimbabwe. Many thought that finally the MDC would win an election and take the presidency," you say.

So, if Morgan Tsvangirai was so competent, "the legendary leader" then how is that he too has done else but "snatch defeat from the jaws of victory"? Chamisa has proven to be just as corrupt and incompetent as Tsvangirai. Zanu PF has been winning elections because it has blatantly rigged the elections and these MDC leaders have lacked the common sense to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop the vote rigging even when they had the golden opportunities to do so.

As long as Zanu PF retain the carte blanche power to rig elections, it will be for the party to lose any election it is 100% certain to win! Zanu PF is playing with a dice with six on all six sides, it is impossible for the party to throw anything else other than a six! Only a first-class fool will bet on Zanu PF failing to throw a six, especially after 38 years of being blatantly cheated.

Zimbabwe Light said...

It is now time to clear the rot perpetrated by MDC-T councils in cities and towns and President Mnangagwa's administration will not evict residents duped and illegally settled by land barons before Government finds a properly planned alternative for them, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga said yesterday.

How naïve can one be! The root cause of the rot in our local councils is the rot at a higher level, in government. Local council are stone broke, most residents are not paying their bills, with unemployment at a nauseating 90%, it is no surprise. And it is 38 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corrupt by this de facto Zanu PF dictatorship that has landed us in this mess.

VP Chiwenga should understand what corruption is all about; how else can he ever justify all the massive wealth he has amassed when the rest of the country's economy is going in total meltdown. But typical of these corrupt and incompetent tyrants they never admit to their failure but, worse still, they have even the cheek of blaming the victims of their misrule for all that has gone wrong.

Zanu PF will never get the nation out of the hell-hole the regime landed us in; President Mnangagwa, VP Chiwenga and the rest of this junta are corrupt and incompetent. They will win these elections because they are rigging the vote. We are stuck with this corrupt and incompetent regime. We are stuck with the rot!

Zimbabwe Light said...

Government sources yesterday told NewsDay that the 16-member Chinese team came through Mozambique aboard two private jets and landed at the Charles Prince Airport on the outskirts of Harare at 7:30pm on May 21.

According to sources, nine of the team members are believed to be employees of Guangdong Information Technology Security Evaluation Centre, regarded as the world's most sophisticated cyber security institution, feared even by American cyber experts.

Well, well, the plot is thickening fast and furious!

The team is reported to be operating from an undisclosed location in Mazowe and is due to fly out by mid-July, after which they would offer remote and online assistance should need arise.

The sources claimed that government officials privy to the deal told them that the group was helping to ensure the security and integrity of Zimbabwe's electoral system in the wake of the BVR exercise, a new system that involves quite a bit of technology.

The voter registration exercise was started very late, deliberately so the process is then a rushed process making it impossible to produce a verified voters' roll for these elections. With no verified voters' roll the vote riggers have a field day.

But Zec chief elections officer Utloile Silaigwana yesterday dismissed Moyo's claims as highly mischievous.

"That is mischievous. We are not working with the Chinese and I don't see the reason why we should. What he was saying is totally incorrect," he said.

ZEC officials are paid and paid well to see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing as regards the blatant vote rigging going on. Their job is to give these flawed and illegal elections a thick coat of respectability. When evidence of vote rigging comes out the only thing ZEC officials can do is deny everything. As far as Silaigwana is concerned these 16-member team has never existed indeed there is no country called China as far as he is concerned.

Zimbabwe Light said...

"That is false and mischievous (that ZEC has availed the voters' roll to zanu-pf). The voters' roll will be furnished to all political parties and candidates once the commission avails it in line with the provisions of the (Electoral) Act. At the moment, we are doing a second round of de-duplication using AFIS after we had registrants during the inspection of the BVR, we expect to be finished very soon."
How many times have many people said the BVR exercise should have started in January 2015 at the very latest. Why was the exercise started in September 2017 instead? Now ZEC wants us to believe that the failure to produce a verified voters' roll on time is acceptable.
The elections management body denied that there were Chinese experts that had been seconded to work with them.
"That is false, we do not have any Chinese nationals working with ZEC in any capacity," said ZEC.
"The allegations are purely malicious."
Sure thing, no single ZEC officials has ever seen a single Chinese in their whole life. Indeed, as far as ZEC is concerned there is no country called China!
The failure to hold free, fair and credible elections is at the very heart of the country's economic and political mess and the country is not getting out of this mess until we finally do something to stop this charade.

Patrick said...

The idea that ZEC would deliver free, fair and credible elections whilst Zanu PF continues to enjoy total control over the appointment of all its staff and dictate what they are doing was wishful thinking, to say the least. More details of the Chinese team helping Zanu PF rig the elections are coming out.

If is going to be very difficult for anyone to declare these elections free, fair and credible and pretend that they did not know of all these Zanu PF vote rigging shenanigans.


Just because has corrupt and incompetent opposition politicians who would participate in these elections just to win the few gravy train seats regardless how flawed and meaningless the election process gets is no excuse to pretend these elections are indeed flawed and meaningless. The millions of ordinary people must nor be punished just because the opposition are sell-outs!