“Chamisa has accused the government of rigging elections and still insists he won the 2018 presidential elections,” reported Bulawayo24.
“He however, called on supporters to exercise their right to vote, warning that
ballot box apathy due to rigging concerns would only benefit Zanu-PF.”
This
is utter nonsense! There is no denying that Zanu PF has been rigging elections.
In the
March 2008 elections; the nearest Zimbabwe has ever got to holding free, fair
and credible elections because Zanu PF was forced to switch-off the party’s
vote rigging machine; Morgan Tsvangirai garnered 73% of the votes, according to
Mugabe’s Freudian slip. The vote rigging machine was turned back on in time to
stop the results being announced.
The
regime then spent the next six weeks counting 5 million votes – read cooking up
the votes because Tsvangirai’s 73% was whittled down to 47%, enough to force a
presidential runoff.
During
the runoff Zanu PF used wanton violence to punish the electorate for having
rejected the party in the earlier vote. Millions of people were harassed,
beaten, raped and/or had their property destroyed. Many were abducted and over
500 were murdered in cold blood! And in the June 2008 runoff Mugabe claimed an
84% landslide victory.
However,
no one; not even the see-nothing, hear-nothing and say-nothing SADC and AU elections
observers; would recognise Zanu PF’s electoral legitimacy given the party’s blatant
cheating and wanton violence in election.
SADC
forced Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies to sign the 2008 Global Political
Agreement (GPA), agreeing to the need to implement a raft of democratic reforms
designed to stop the blatant cheating and wanton violence that had marred the
2008 elections. A Government of National Unity (GNU) was formed and tasked to
implement the reforms.
Morgan
Tsvangirai, Nelson Chamisa and the other MDC leaders were in the GNU and everyone
expected them, not the Zanu PF leaders, to implement the reforms. Mugabe bribed
the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office and, with their snouts in the
feeding trough, they forgot about implementing reforms. Not even the regular
nagging by SADC leaders, who were the guarantor of the GPA, to implement the
reforms got Tsvangirai and company to do anything.
SADC
leaders made a last-minute desperate bid to have the 2013 elections postponed
until reforms were implemented.
“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, director
of SAPES, told Journalist Violet Gonda.
“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’.
As
we know, Tsvangirai and company participated in the 2013 elections and as
feared, Zanu PF blatantly rigged. Indeed, MDC has been participating in these
flawed and illegal elections, with not even token reforms in place only to give
vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. SADC leaders’ advice to postpone elections
until reforms are implemented has fallen on deaf ears.
Even
now, 14 years since the 2008 GPA and benefit of hindsight, Chamisa and his MDC/CCC
still continue to insist on participating in flawed and illegal elections. The
truth is Chamisa and company are now a curse to the nation; they have proven to
be corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent beyond the pale.
Chamisa
is arguing people to participate in these elections knowing fully well without reform
Zanu PF will rig the election. It is “you right to participate”, he maintains.
People have the right to free, fair and credible elections. If elections are rigged
then, per se, that right is being denied and to pretend one is still exercising
their right then is stupid, to say the least; especially when doing so gives
legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.
“The
fact that the game is unfair does not mean you should not play! We continue to
improve the game!” Oh! For Pete’s sake! What improvements could possibly come from
participating in flawed elections to perpetuate the dictatorship, to outweigh dismantling
it and end the corrupt and tyrannical rule so the important task of rebuilding from
the ruins can finally start!
It
was USA ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell for said in a leaked cable to
Washington that Morgan Tsvangirai was “a flawed and indecisive character who will
be an albatross round the nation’s (Zimbabwe) neck if he ever got into power!”
He should have said it about the entire MDC leadership.
7 comments:
In the rural areas Zanu PF and its operatives and proxies have reduced the ordinary citizen into a medieval serf poor and powerless, dependent of the party for handouts and forever fearful of being punished at the drop of a hat.
It is interesting to note that the late John Robertson proposed to both Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe that the rural peasants should be given title deeds to the land on which their huts stand. Mr Robertson gave details of how such a move would economically and politically empower the peasant and giving them a sense of ownership and pride. Both Smith and Mugabe rejected the proposal for exactly that reason – they did not to empower the peasants economically and politically.
For the middle-income, professionals and all otherwise independent individuals the regime sort to control them by ensuring the regime had its many fingers in every pie. Everything in Zimbabwe today is either government owned, owned by government-controlled parastatal or owned by Zanu PF ruling elite or their crony. The so-called independent sector has been squeezed out and transformed into a Zanu PF owned/control cartel.
Zanu PF has used its power and influence in the rural areas and in commerce and industry to guarantee its total political dominance. Zimbabwe will never have free, fair and credible elections as long as Zanu PF retains its vice-like strangle hold in every facet of human activity. Never!
It beggars belief why the MDC/CCC failed to implement even one reform during the GNU when the party had the golden chance to do so. And why Chamisa and company have remained resolute in their determination to participate in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy. There is no doubt that Zanu PF has double agents in the opposition camp but one has now to consider the possibility the party has completely captured the opposition, just like everything else.
Admittedly Mugabe and now Mnangagwa has never had any problem in recruit black Zimbabweans to help him establish and sustain the Zanu PF dictatorship even when it was clear it was founded on riding roughshod over the ordinary Zimbabweans denying them their freedoms, rights and human dignity. Zimbabwe is a failed state and causing tragic human suffering and deaths; Mnangagwa and his cronies know that and don’t give a damn.
A good read, thank you!
The 2008 to 2013 GNU was first and foremost about implementing the democratic reforms to stop a repeat of the blatant cheating and wanton violence by Zanu PF that marred the 2008 elections. Not even one reform was implemented during the GNU. Not one! SADC leaders wanted the 2013 elections postponed until reforms are implemented.
“If you participate in the elections next month, you will lose. The elections are done!” SADC leaders told Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to their faces during the SADC summit meeting in Maputo in June 2013.
As we all know, MDC leaders paid no heed to the warning and, as expected, Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the 2013 elections.
It is therefore shocking, to say the least, that Professor Stephen Chan completely ignored the reality that with no reforms in place Zanu PF was bound to rig the elections.
"How did it happen? Was this another instance of Mugabe and Zanu-PF stealing an election through what some in the opposition claimed was a potent combination involving a sketchy voters' roll with 100 000 centenarians, ‘assisting' voters, turning away over 300 000 voters, bussing people into key races, and intimidation, though with less overt violence?" the authors asked.
"Or, did the wily politician win the election fairly, as Zanu-PF claimed and as was accepted, with misgivings, by observer teams from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) and the African Union?" Chan and Gallagher challenged the rigging claims, suggesting instead that Mugabe and Zanu-PF won credibly, aided by some "judicious rigging" and a healthy helping of ineptness on the part of Tsvangirai and the MDC.
@ T Manjoni
The political opposition is good for a number of things. It serves — or is supposed to serve — the role of questioning government decisions, actions, non-actions and what not. This way, it acts as a watchdog, bringing incumbent power to account.
The opposition is useful for offering constructive criticism of government policies, programmes, plans and laws. It can ensure adherence to the constitution and the laws of the country by the executive, judiciary, legislature, citizens and all the like.
It carries the voice of the marginalised, neglected and forgotten in the ideal democratic dispensation. Its mandate also includes making progressive laws in consultation with the citizenry and the various constituencies it represents.
A good read, thank you!
MDC leaders' greatest failure has to be their failure to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. We have been stuck with this dictatorship for 42 years and with no reforms or violent uprising the regime will remain in power for donkey years to come!
@ Razi Emile
“I have no idea why someone so full of knowledge as Wilbert Mukori, are not starting their own perfect parties?
Any Zimbabwean with a progressive hypothesis can start an own political party and compete with those who are doing things wrong.”
Even if you had the Albert Einstein of politics, he/she will lose to elections to Mnangagwa because electoral process is so flawed and illegal the competence of the individual is irrelevant, what matters is who has the loaded dice and that is Mnangagwa.
Like it or not we have a ruling party Zanu PF that has the reins of power by virtue of rigging the elections, on the one hand. And on the other hand, we have MDC/CCC who are the main opposition by virtue of getting the political support of the ordinary people. The people risked life and limb to elect MDC on the understanding the party would implement the democratic reforms and stop Zanu PF rigging elections.
After 22 years, MDC/CCC have not only failed to implement even one reform but, worse still, have sold-out to Zanu PF. Chamisa and company are participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy in return for a few gravy train seats. This is a cosy political arrangement that is feeding and sustained by the ordinary Zimbabweans who continue to participate in this electoral process out of ignorance.
The challenge is to educate the Zimbabwean electorate on the folly of participating in these flawed and illegal elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy, MDC/CCC leaders get a share of the spoils of powers whilst the people are left stuck with the dictatorship!
I believe that task of educating the voters can be done by an individual(s) outside the context of political parties particularly in the present setting of a corrupt and toxic political system.
The political system in Zimbabwe has produced corrupt and incompetent leaders because one has to be a thug to survive in Zanu PF, MDC/CCC, etc. Reforming the political system itself is best done outside the context of political party because the thugs will never reform themselves out of office.
The 2008 to 2013 GNU was Zimbabwe's golden opportunity to implementing the democratic reforms and dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship once and once for all. It is a great pity that many Zimbabweans failed to see this at the time and continue to do so to this day.
It is totally intolerable that leaders like Nelson Chamisa who sold out by failing to implement even one reform during the GNU should continue in public office and misleading the people into believing there is an rational in participating in rigged elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy. Chamisa and company are not improving the Zanu PF dictatorship, they are participating in these flawed elections for the sake of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is giving away as bait.
What MDC leaders have done by helping Zanu PF to stay in power is force the economic situation to get worse and worse in the hope this will drive the people over their limit of endurance and on to the streets to protest. Chamisa and company are hoping to go to state house riding on the wave of violent street protests.
What should and could have been achieved by implementing the reforms to deliver free and fair elections will now be achieve by violence! This is tragic!
@ Mavaza
In July 2020 the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor, Dr John Mangudya, admitted the country was losing a staggering US$1.2 billion per year to gold smugglers alone. Zimbabwe would not need to borrow money to pay for her development is this leak was stopped, he explained. Yet you still claim Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is caused by sanctions!
You are just Zimbabwe's Chemical Ali who maintained Iraq was winning the war even when the Allied Forces were on TV in every city in Iraq! You are just an empty head making a lot of noise!
@ Nedson Shumba
“Well said I am also confused with his thinking which he has been parroting for years now.
If he thinks he smart why is not forming his part and boycott elections so that Zanu PF will reform.”
You are not the only with a fixation with political leaders and parties as the only ones who can solve the country’s problems. Zimbabwe has 23 presidential candidate and no few than 130 political parties contested the 2018 elections. Name one, just one, political leader in Zimbabwe’s political history who is/was not corrupt and incompetent and utterly useless.
The politicians have brainwashed this nation into believe the people are powerless and helpless with the politicians and yet the politicians are the ones who have dragged the nation into this mess.
You will not find a single political leader in Zanu PF or anyone of the myriad of opposition parties in Zimbabwe with common sense much less with any statesman qualities worth a spit. Not because there are no men and women of substance in the country, they are but none of them can survive in the country’s toxic political system. Zimbabwe’s political system is a sewage swamp – you don’t get quality fish from a sewage swamp!
I have said it once and will say it again; what Zimbabwe needs is to implement the democratic reforms, drain the sewage swamp, and have a clean start. Zanu PF and MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU because they are very happen, thank you, living in a sewage swamp.
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