"SADC, you must listen (to me) or Zim crisis will haunt you!" chastised Chamisa - the chutzpah N Garikai

Nelson Chamisa, leader of the MDC, has once again appealed to SADC to help Zimbabwe emerge out of a recurrent political and economic crisis.

“SADC, you must listen because if you do not resolve this issue, it will haunt you.

“The likes of South Africa and Botswana, correct the Zimbabwean issues; help us help ourselves,” he said.

SADC did try to help Zimbabwe get out of this mess by forcing Mugabe to agree to the implementation of the raft of political reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship. MDC leaders, including Chamisa, were tasked to implement the reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not one.

Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office, ministerial limos, generous salaries and allowances, a US$4 million mansion for the late Tsvangirai, etc. With their snouts in the feeding trough, MDC leaders forgot about the reforms. 

SADC leaders did make a last minute attempt to stop the 2013 elections going ahead with no reforms because they knew Zanu PF would rig the elections. They warned MDC leaders of this, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza.

“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. I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections,” Dr Mandaza told Violet Gonda. 

“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’.”

MDC leaders paid no heed to the warning and participated in the 2013 elections. As SADC leaders had predicted, Zanu PF rigged those elections. 

MDC participated in last year’s elections again with not even one token reform in place and, as expected, Zanu PF rigged those elections too! 

The way out of the political mess is for this illegitimate Zanu PF regime to step down so that Zimbabwe can appoint an independent and dependable interim administration that will be tasked, trusted, to finally implement the democratic reforms. 

Chamisa and his MDC friends want SADC to back a power sharing arrangement with Zanu PF, National Transition Authority (NTA); a watered down version of the 2008 GNU that failed to implement even one reform. Why would SADC listen to MDC; given SADC will not even have the supervisory powers of the even the 2008 GNU with which to goad the NTA to implement the reforms; it is clear that once again that no reforms be implement.  

“SADC, you must listen because if you do not resolve this issue, it will haunt you!” Nelson Chamisa chastised! It was MDC leaders, not SADC leaders, who sold-out by failing to implement even one reforms in five years and would not listen to advice. The chutzpah of the upstart!