Chiwenga warns street protests to "desist" - no you desist propping a failed dictatorship

You cannot have your cake and eat it too! This is just plain common sense but tyrants like Mugabe think otherwise.

When it comes to holding free, fair and credible elections, Mugabe has been deaf, blind and dumb because he repeatedly ignored all calls for meaningful change to ensure elections are free and fair. He has blatantly rigged the elections to secure a landslide victory. And yet after the elections he has been quick to claim the legitimacy and protection given to the winner of free, fair and credible elections.

“I was elected by the people. As long as the people and party says continue, I continue…If I still have the energy, I still have the life, the blessings of God, I will continue.” Was Mugabe’s defiant reply to the historic war veterans’ statement denouncing him as a dictator and demanding his resignation.

Mugabe’s cronies who have never cared about rule of law, justice, human rights, free and fair elections, etc. are joining the tyrant in proclaiming his political legitimacy and their willingness to defend his continued rule.

“The Zimbabwe Defence Forces will never accept any unconstitutional change of Government and will stand firm and unequivocal by President Mugabe who was duly and democratically elected by the people of Zimbabwe, the Commander of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF) General Constantino Guveya Dominic Nyikadzino Chiwenga has said,” said a report in The Chronicle.

"It follows that the ZDF, while remaining apolitical, would not tolerate or support any unconstitutional change of Government in the country, whether internally or externally induced," said Chiwenga.

Does Chiwenga know what being apolitical means or he is just parroting what he has heard others saying? He is on record, saying he would not "salute anyone with no liberation war record". He should know that in the last 16 years the Army has played a major role in the intimidation, beating, raping and even killing of civilians to help Mugabe and Zanu PF stay in power. And Chiwenga himself is a member of the Joint Operation Command, the shadowy “parallel government”, as Tendai Biti called it, complete with its own illegal sources of funds that has ruled Zimbabwe for decades now.

And yet today General Chiwenga wants to cut a figure of an outstanding public figure and defender of the constitution and the people. He is not fooling anyone with that!

No amount of pretending and propaganda can change the fact that Zimbabwe is de facto one-party dictatorship in which elections are routinely rigged. The country is in a real economic mess because of 36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. Other than the few ruling elite, including Chiwenga and Mugabe, who have grown filthy rich the overwhelming majority of the people have suffered as unemployment soared to dizzying heights of 90% and as much as 76% of our people now in abject poverty.

"Where contradictions exist, we must be able to dialogue, bearing in mind that we are one people. We should learn to synchronise our approaches and have a common vision where the nation thinks with one mind, hears with one ear, speaks with one voice and collectively pulls in one direction," Chiwenga argued.

There lies the heart of our political problem; one which simpletons like Chiwenga and tyrants like Mugabe, blinded by their stupidity and/or greed, have failed comprehend. Why should a nation of 14 million be forced into a straitjacket to speak with one voice, think with one mind and, most notable of all in a dictatorship, rig the elections to ensure the victory of one Robert Gabriel Mugabe regardless he is a proven corrupt and murderous tyrant!  

"It is the ZDF's hope, therefore, that the internal component of this asymmetric threat to the country will take heed and desist from these divisive activities for the betterment of the whole nation," said Chiwenga, threateningly.

General Chiwenga, you are a simpleton (Mugabe has always surrounded himself with simpletons to do his dirty bidding) so I will put this in plain and simple language so even you, a simpleton, will understand. Please understand that:

1)      Mugabe rigged the last elections so stop all this nonsense of Mugabe was “dully and democratically elected by the people of Zimbabwe”. We all know he rigged the elections and stubbornly refused to release such key documents as the July 2013 voters roll because it is the smoking gun.

2)      Mugabe has used the ZDF staff to carry out some dirty vote rigging activities, as a senior officer in the Army you General Chiwenga would know the details. It is therefore nonsense for you of all the people to claim that “ZDF is apolitical”.

3)      The present de facto Zanu PF dictatorship has failed to deliver freedom, justice, human rights and dignity and economic prosperity. The economic hardships brought on by the decades of criminal waste of human and material resources are socially and politically unsustainable.  

4)      The social unrest that we have seen in the country is from the people demanding an end to their economic suffering. Listen to the people because they will never stop until the country has meaningful political change leading to free, fair and credible elections; the pre-requisite for meaningful economic recovery.

5)      You can join Mugabe in denying that the Zanu PF dictatorship has failed the nation and most end; what matters here is that it has failed and that regime change is already upon us. When ZDF fight the people demanding change the Army will not fighting to preserve the country’s independence, etc. but rather to perpetuate the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.

6)      There will be a thorough investigation into the conduct of elections in Zimbabwe, especially the July 2013 elections; no stone will be left unturned in the drive to establish the facts. If it should be established that the elections were indeed rigged and that people like yourself General Chiwenga known this and even played a part in this treasonous act then you must know that you and all those responsible will be punished!

After 36 years of propping a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship with disastrous consequences to the nation it is high time that people like General Chiwenga opened their eyes and accepted this system has failed and must therefore be changed. The choice here is not of whether or not to accept change but rather whether it is going to be peaceful or violent change; by resisting change the regime is per se electing violent change. 

ANC defeat is not regime change conspiracy but rather the expression of people power. By Nomusa Garikai

For all the claim by the African nationalists that they were fighting to end white colonial oppression and exploitation and for freedom, liberty, justice, human rights and dignity and economic emancipation, the bottom line is that the black Africa nationalists were fighting for power and did not care a hoot about the rest. As soon as the respective country gained its independence these liberation struggle heroes and heroines got into power and they top priority has always been to consolidate their hold on power even when that meant denying the ordinary people their freedoms and basic rights including the right to free and fair elections and some politicians even killed to retain power.

As soon as the people realized that the black nationalists were after power and did not care about anything or anyone else they stepped up their resolve to remove them from office. The black nationalists have responded to pressure to remove them from power by creating a fictitious enemy seeking to undermine the independence of the nation through regime change.

“The Democratic Alliance, on the other hand is not a creature of the failure of the ANC, but it is a product of a worldwide determination by liberal movements to prevent liberation movements, failed or successful, from achieving economic and political power in the Global South.” This was Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena’s, a Zimbabwean academic, response to South Africa’s ANC poor showing in recent local elections.

There is one thing all South Africans would agree on regardless of their political divide – that the recent elections, like all the other past elections, were free, fair and credible. So if the results were a true reflection of the democratic wishes of the people where does worldwide liberal movement conspiracy nonsense come from?

Why is it inconceivable that the South African electorate have come to the conclusion that ANC have failed to deliver on their promises to the people and so the electorate want to have regime change? Why should the electorate be stuck in this tunnel vision where only liberation movements are they only one fit to rule just because liberation nationalists themselves have this tunnel vision?

In Zimbabwe we have had the great misfortune of rogue war veterans like Jabulani Sibanda, Douglas Mahiya some who have gone on to occupy positions of power and influence such as MP Joseph Chinotimba, former minister Chris Mutsvangwa and Chiwenga and Nyikayaramba in the Army, etc. who have gone on to deny the people their freedoms and basic rights to promote this tunnel vision nonsense that only Zanu PF is fit to rule the country.

“We are the stockholders of Zanu PF and Zimbabwe,” declared the rogue war veterans. By denying everyone else their basic freedoms and rights to impose the Mugabe’s no-regime-change ethos, they granting themselves a veto on who is to rule Zimbabwe. They have since discovered their folly when they tried to remove Mugabe, by refusing to go he has effectively granted himself a veto to override the war veterans’ veto!

The solution to Zimbabwe’s political paralysis is plain as day; all political power belongs to the people the rogue war veterans and the African nationalists were wrong in their attempt to usurp the people’s power to promote the foolish notion that liberation movements are they only ones fit to rule.“Nyika vanhu!” (It is the people and their will, people power, that must reign supreme!) as one would say in Shona. 

Do not just watch Rio Olympics, be inspired to excel and save Zimbabwe from ruinous Zanu PF

The 2016 Rio Olympic Games are upon us; we should all watch the games and enjoy the sporting spectacle but, most important of all, be inspired by the Olympic spirit!

When we see great athletes like Usain Bolt of Jamaica run 100m in less than 10 seconds or our own Zimbabwean flag carrier, Kirsty Coventry swim 200m backstroke in 2 minutes 5.24 seconds; we should rightly cheer and jump for joy at their great achievements.

Whilst it is true that a great athlete like Bolt has some inherent physical characteristic like being tall with long strides still there millions of other humans with comparable features who will never run 100m in anywhere near 10 seconds. As far as I know Kirsty does not have webbed feet like a duck to my plain chicken feet! So given the same opportunities there are many people out there who would have given Usain Bolt a run for his Olympic Gold if they had the one thing he, Kirsty and many other champions have – the Olympic spirit!

The four essences of the Olympic spirit are:

a)    Self believe in one’s own ability to rise above the daily challenges of life.

b)     Meticulous attention to detail

c)    Practice makes perfect

d)      Acceptance of the give and take of true competition; by competing with not just the best but with the crème de la crème one is pushed into giving their very best and the price is that one’s very best is not always the best of the competition and so one must accept defeat gracefully.

The Rio Olympic games are taking place at a time when Zimbabweans’ self-confidence in doing anything right is at an all-time low. The nation attain her independence 36 years ago and ever since the nation has followed a path of economic and political ruin. Zimbabwe used to grow enough food for the nation’s needs with plenty left over for export. We were the breadbasket of the region. Not anymore!

Ever since the chaotic and violent farm invasion and seizures of 2000 Zimbabwe has failed to produce enough for its own people let alone for export. We are starving in the Garden of Eden.

Zimbabwe has broken the world record in having the highest inflation rate at 500 billion per cent; the highest unemployment rate of 80% plus for over ten years (still counting); State President admits $15 billion, which more than the country’s $14 billion GDP, was looted and no one is arrested; etc.

It is little wonder that the nation is right now wallowing in abject poverty and self-doubt. God knows we need some inspiration, some Olympic spirit inspiration. The two things we need above all else are:

1)    Self-belief

As a nation we have never really believed that we could govern ourselves; not with any real conviction founded on reason as contrast to one founded on fingers crossed hope.

“If you plant a mango tree, you have good reason to hope to one day enjoy mangoes,” my late father often said. “If you do not plant a tree you have no good reason to hope to enjoy mangoes!”

We never trusted Mugabe to deliver freedom, justice, peace and economic prosperity; we hoped that he would, which was another matter.

Similarly, we have never really trusted Tsvangirai to deliver democratic change and so when the July 2013 elections were rigged we were not shock because deep down we expected this to happen.

2)    Meticulous attention to detail

A healthy and functional democracy demands an electorate that is diligent what is the point of being given electoral choice if one is incapable of drawing the distinction between the good, the bad and the ugly.

Tyrants like Mugabe have taken full advantage of naïve and gullible electorate blaming sanctions, for example, for his economic failures. If the people had been paying attention then they would have question why the sanctions should be a problem now and yet he know of their existence back in 2013 when he promised the 2.2 million new jobs.

3)    Practise makes perfect

It is for the people to hold those in power to account and this is a full time occupation. We have never held our leaders to account for all the billions they have looted, the over 30 000 this regime has murdered in cold blood, etc.; we should start doing that right now.

4)    We need to embrace the competitive spirit

We live in a country in which the competitive spirit has been killed under the pretext that it promotes disunity or worse. Mugabe used Gukurahundi to justify crashing PF Zapu and thus impose the de facto one-party state we have lived under ever since.

The Mugabe regime has failed to deliver freedom, peace, justice and economic prosperity but has managed to stay in power regardless because the people could not elect anyone else. The greatest threat to peace and stability was not democratic competition but Mugabe and Zanu PF who deployed the party thugs and state security personal to harass, beat, rape and even murder innocent people to stifle debate and competition.

Embracing democratic competition who have forced many political parties to emerge and by competing against each other they would have force each to excel and the nation at large would have benefited. We certainly would not be starving in the Garden of Eden.

It is up to us, the people, to make sure all the democratic reforms are implemented and Zimbabwe’s position as a functional and healthy democracy is fully restored and jealously guarded to all time. It is our duty to restore democratic competition and not for those continued reign is totally dependent on ensuring elections to high office remains a strictly one horse race.

Life is a race, just as the race in Olympic Games, with winners and losers; for the last 36 years Zimbabwe has been running a losing race and has paid dearly for it in lost treasure, human suffering and even human lives. We are not fighting for Olympic gold and the fame and fortune that go with it; we are fighting for something even more precious than that, the lives of hundreds of thousands if not millions of Zimbabweans and the very stability of the nation! That is surely a price worth fighting for, worth being inspired for it.

So do not just watch the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, be inspired to excel and save Zimbabwe from the ruinous Zanu PF tyranny and dictatorship.

1980 euphoria got us into this mess, the present #Tajamuka, etc. euphoria will NOT get us out. By Nomusa Garikai

People get the government they deserve; after 36 years we cannot say we do not deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its numerous corrupt and incompetent opposition parties.

We gave President Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs a blank cheque in 1980 to do with the nation as he pleased; we did not have a clue what was demanded of us as the electorate to make sure Zimbabwe was a free, just and prosperous nation. Mugabe had his own ideas of what the nation need, a de facto one-party dictatorship, and went on to ruthlessly impose it! Zimbabwe had seen many other African country attain their independence only for them to slid into chaos and despair as the new black nationalists became corrupt and self-serving tyrants. We should have been on our guard to stop Zimbabwe falling into the same trap; we were not!

It has taken the nation 15 to 20 years to finally convince the majority of our people that where Zanu PF was taking the nation was not where we wanted to go. By the time Morgan Tsvangirai and his friends came together to launch their political party it was an agreed fact that the country needed democratic change leading to free, fair and credible elections to move forward. Tsvangirai incorporated this public sentiment in the naming the party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

After the fiasco of letting President Mugabe turn Zimbabwe into a failed state ruined by mismanagement, corruption and tyrannical rule one expected the people to be a lot more vigilant and diligent in defining what democratic changes they wanted. Sadly, that was not the case. Just as the people had granted Mugabe a blank cheque to define what post independent Zimbabwe was to be, they did the same again with MDC. Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were left to define what democratic changes were required. As it turned out Tsvangirai et al did not have the foggiest what these reforms were much less how they would be implemented.

Zimbabwe has had many chances to implement democratic reforms and break the Zanu PF dictatorial strangle hold on the nation with the best chance being during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. This GNU chance, like so many others, was wasted; MDC was supposed to implement the agreed reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented because Tsvangirai and his friends did not have the foggiest idea what these reforms were, as I have pointed out about.

In a country with a vigilant and diligent electorate who understood, in this case, what the democratic reforms were about and how they are to be implemented; they would have seen to it that MDC implemented the reforms. Zimbabweans are NOT the vigilant and diligent electorate, they too like MDC leaders had no clue what the reforms were and that is why they never pushed MDC implement the reforms.

What makes our situation even worse than ever is that even with the benefit of hindsight, of the rigged 2013 elections because no reforms were implemented, the people has still not woken up to the reality that implementing the democratic reforms is the key to ending the corrupt and tyrannical dictatorial system of government Mugabe and Zanu PF fostered on the nation. It is not enough to remove President Mugabe if only to replace him with another dictator. It will not be enough to remove Mugabe and Zanu PF because as long as the state president continue to wield undemocratic powers over state institutions she or he will use those powers to consolidate their hold on power and thus create a new dictator.

What we need in Zimbabwe is to dismantle all the vestiges of the Zanu PF dictatorship and thus remove the present dictator, his dictatorial party and make it impossible for another dictator and his/her dictatorial party to emerge in future. The only sure way for this to happen is for the nation to implementing all the democratic reforms. Sadly, that will never happen unless we have an electorate that finally takes its responsibility to be vigilant and diligent with the urgency and seriousness it deserves.

The very fact that many Zimbabweans still consider Tsvangirai and his MDC friends as possible future leaders even after these MDC have already proven beyond doubt that they do not have the foggiest idea what the reforms are is itself proof that Zimbabweans are not yet ready to embrace democratic change and good governance. Following the likes of Joice Mujuru and her Zim PF who are Zanu PF in all but name makes one despair; it shows that despite all the trials and tribulations we have gone through these last 36 years, we have nonetheless learnt nothing!

Ultimately, people get the government they deserve; we deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF government complete with its corrupt and incompetent opposition parties because we are a naïve and gullible nation!

The political euphoria generated by the recent street protests is comparable to the euphoria of independence in 1980, to the euphoria democratic change in 2008 and 2013, etc. All the past euphoria failed to deliver the Zimbabwe we wanted because the electorate had no clue where the Promised Land was or how to get there. The present #ThisFlag and #Tajamuka, etc. euphoria will too get us nowhere because we still do not know where we are going! 

MDC-T council "deadlocked" on election boycott - still have no clue on what reforms. By Patrick Guramatunhu

“The MDC-T national council that met on Wednesday was deadlocked on whether to lift its election boycott stance which has seen the opposition party surrendering to Zanu-PF parliamentary and council seats that it had won in the July 31, 2013 harmonised elections,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“Some of the national council members felt that it was high time the election boycott was lifted ahead of the 2018 harmonised polls while others felt that the conditions were still not yet ripe, according to sources that attended the meeting.”

That the MDC-T national council should be deadlocked over whether or not to continue boycotting elections is not at all surprising given that no one in the party understood why the boycott was necessary back in 2013; frankly, they are no wiser now!

To any outsider landing form Mars Zimbabwe’s opposition parties have no choice but to boycott all future elections after witnessing the blatant way President Mugabe had rigged the July 2013 elections by disregarding the law, looting billions of dollars to bankroll his campaign, etc. Elections should be about the electorate voting for whoever they pleased and not about Zanu PF deciding in advance the winning margin the party wanted and manipulating the process to deliver the predetermined result.

To someone more familiar with Zimbabwe politics the call to boycott elections, especially by MDC-T, did not make any sense because the party had five years during the GNU to implement the democratic reforms to ensure the July 2013 elections were free, fair and credible  and yet failed to get even one reform implemented. To boycott elections to press for someone else to implement reforms that you should have implemented yourself simply does not make sense!

If one accepted, for the sake of advancing the cause of ensuring free and fair elections, that it does not matter for is to blame for past failures to implement reforms everyone must boycott elections to press the need for reform. The one thing one must, however, insist on is that all the parties in the boycott know what reforms are required and how they are to be implemented to ensure free and fair elections. Sadly MDC-T did not have a clue what the required reforms were.

MDC-T has demanded the realignment of existing laws to the new constitution; the central pillar of the party’s National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA); as the key requirement for free and fair elections. It was explained to MDC-T that NERA will not deliver free and fair elections because the 2013 constitution is too weak and feeble to deliver free, fair and credible elections. This is hardly surprising given that President Mugabe "dictated" the new constitution as the Zanu PF co-chairperson on the parliamentary committee tasked to write the new constitution, MP Paul Mangwana, boasted soon after the constitution was adopted.

In fact Zanu PF has since carried most of the realignment of the existing laws to the new constitution with the enactment of the General Law Amendment Act (GLAA) on 1 July 2016. Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN), a local NGO whose wishy-washy views are more often than not supportive of MDC-T’s position, have this time dismissed Zanu PF’s work as a waste of time.

“The current Electoral Laws still require comprehensive amendments,” said ZESN in their report in The Zimbabwean.

“The most worrying issue is that GLAA, in a number of ways misaligns; the subsidiary law with the Constitution and in some respects actually undermines the letter and spirit of the constitution. For example while the Constitution requires that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) be fully responsible for the registration of voters and maintenance of the voters’ roll, the amendments seem to revive the role of the Registrar of Voters - an office that should be abolished and have no further business concerning the running of  the election.”

So MDC-T’s call, three years ago, for election boycott on the basis of some wishy-washy NERA demands was stupid. The very fact that MDC-T council is divided today over the same issue goes to show they still have no clue what reforms are required to deliver free, fair and credible election.

What is the point of boycotting elections if we still have no clue what reforms we need implemented to get free and fair elections. We, the people, are our own worst enemies by failing to define where we are going to it is little wonder that tyrants like Mugabe have taken us for a ride landing us in this mess. 

Our genius will be in accepting past failures just as Darwin accepted a chimp as cousin.

When Charles Robert Darwin, an English naturalist and geologist, published his book On the Origin of Species in 1859 – a little over 150 years ago – proposing his theory of evolution with compelling evidence, he could not have insult more of his generation even if he had spit in their mouth! The most offending notion in his whole book was than mankind evolved from an ape like creature and that the champ is our cousin! This flew right in the face of all accepted school of thought of the God, world and mankind’s place in it.

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1: 26.

This Charles Darwin fellow was discounting the mankind’s position as the one creature made in God’s own image and given dominion over everything else. Worst of all, the fellow was discounting the very existence of God Himself as all living things, according to his theory, evolved from simple, single celled organism over billions of years; making a complete mockery of all the “Let there be light, and there was light!” bull.

It was painful enough to be dethroned as one made in God’s own image but to be given a champ as a long lost cousin was an insult many could simple not endure; their egos would simple not allow that! Damn the “compelling evidence”!

Thank God (many who believe in evolution still find room for God and religion – Genesis’ account of creation is a religious synopsis pregnant with symbolism and not a scientific theory backed by hard evidence) reason prevail, compelling evidence cannot be discounted on the basis of perceived egos but only by the production of compelling evidence to the contrary.

Further research has shown that the human genome, the DNA, the coded genetic recipe defining each and everything alive or has ever lived, is 99% identical to the genome of the chimpanzees and bonobos making them mankind’s closest relative in the tree of life. The gorilla’s DNA is 98% identical to our own.

Have a chimp for a close cousin has not stop us excelling in every sphere of intellectual endeavor. We are light years ahead of the chimp if chimp is a day ahead of the gorilla and confirming Genesis’ assertion of man having dominion over all living things.

Whilst there is nothing in the human genome to differentiate the intellectual ability of one human from another or the basis of race, gender, religion, etc. Still some nations or tribe within a nation have certainly performed better than others so within nations and tribes some have assumed dominion over others. The dominance of one nation or tribe over the other has not been a permanent fixture like that on mankind over other living things but has it peaks and troughs with the passage of time just as there are hills and valleys with the passage of distance.

When Zimbabwe attained her independence in 1980, after nearly a hundred years of white colonial exploitation and oppression many thought the country was set for great things; freedom, justice, peace and economic prosperity. 36 years later, only Mugabe, his cronies and his apologist and their families would deny the economic reality that the country is in a real mess. There is compelling evidence that the root cause of the economic mess is the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which has result in the criminal waste of the country’s human and material resources.

Mugabe and his cronies are like hyenas that grow fat on carrion of the drought victims, except that they are the ones who have drought on this economic ruin on the nation and they have grown filthy rich from the mismanagement and wholesale looting. But with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus, with the country’s health and education services all but collapsed, chronic power and water shortages, 76% of the population now living in abject poverty, etc. even Mugabe and his cronies cannot deny the country is in a mess. This is not where the people expected to be back in 1980!

Sadly Zimbabwe has become the basket case of the white supremacists who resisted the ending of white colonial rule in Africa on the grounds that “blacks were inherently incapable of self-government!”

There is compelling evidence to prove that Zimbabwe has suffered from the ill effects of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regimes. Yes the misrule has been a complete disaster for the nation. How we react to this grim reality of 36 years of failed governance will decide whether we continue to sink or come up for air.

We can bury our heads in the sand, which is what Mugabe and his cronies are forcing us to do, and continue we have not put one foot wrong these last 36 years and all our economic problems are because of the sanctions imposed by the West, drought, etc. We will continue to sink into the abyss!

Or we can admit we have let ourselves down as a nation; we should have never allowed Mugabe and his cronies 36 long years to drag the nation this deep into the abyss. Whatever else they may claim to be, the bottom line is that they are mere mortals and it is in the power of another mortal to refuse to be led by the nose like a bull.

Throughout the 36 years, we have had many opportunities to end Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical rule with the best opportunity being during the GNU when all we had to do is insist on the implementation of the democratic reforms agree in the 2008 GPA. Not even one reform was implemented and we lost that chance.

The country’s worsening economic crisis is forcing Mugabe and his cronies to acknowledge the reality of the economic meltdown, Mugabe and his cronies are engaged in a dog-eat-dog fight over the fast dwindling wealth. Like it or not they know the present system is unsustainable although they a loathed to accept the change must include far reaching political reform. It is for us to make sure there are far reaching political reforms; we implement all the 2008 democratic reforms.

As a black person accepting that our leaders, Mugabe and his cronies, are corrupt and incompetent has been comparable to mankind at Charles Darwin’s time accepting mankind is not special, he not made by God in His own image. There is compelling evidence that Mugabe and his cronies are corrupt and incompetent, we need to accept this reality, implement the democratic reforms design to end Mugabe’s no-regime-change mantra and set the nation free of his corrupt and tyrannical rule that has brought nothing but misery and ruin!

Mankind’s genius over our nearest cousin the chimp was in accepting Charles Darwin’s compelling evidence that we evolved from a simple single celled organism just like every other living organism and move on and be the ape that has reached for the stars and beyond. Similarly Zimbabweans’ genius would be to accept black leaders can be corrupt and incompetent, learn from Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical misrule, and build a healthy and functional democracy and put the nation on the map as a free and prosperous nation.

Swiss Ambassador warn of dire consequences if Zimbabwe does not implement reforms. By Patrick Guramatunhu

“ZIMBABWE must combat corruption, facilitate a clear legal framework for investments and uphold the rule of law for the country to extricate itself from the current economic and political crisis, Swiss Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Ruth Huber, has said,” reported New Zimbabwe.

“Switzerland is also assisting with the alignment of laws to the 2013 Constitution, and facilitating dialogue platforms between stakeholders in the country around negotiation, mediation and consensus-based nation-building.”

Could not agree with the Ambassador more on everything except on the issue of aligning existing laws to the 2013 constitution, this is just a waste of time and resources.

The 2013 constitution grants excessive dictatorial power to the State President to hire and fire Zimbabwe Election Commissioners (ZEC), senior members in the Police, Army and CIO, Judges, etc. without any of the usual democratic checks and balances, for example. With all the best will in the world there is real very little anyone can do to stop the State President, if he/she so wished, appointing party loyalists who will in ZEC and all the other state institution who will  then turn a blind eye to corruption, vote rigging, etc.

Zimbabwe’s political reforms demands the implementation of the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement signed by President Mugabe on behalf of Zanu PF and by Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara on behalf of the two MDC factions and SA’s President Thabo Mbeki on behalf of SADC as the guarantor. Sadly, none of the reforms were ever implemented during the GNU hence the reason President Mugabe was able to blatantly rig the 2013 elections and land us in this political paralysis and economic mess!

Only the full implementation of the GPA democratic reforms will extricate from the present political and economic crisis.

Unemployment has soared to 90%, up to 76% of the country’s population now lives in abject poverty and hopeless despair, etc. The strain of the economic hardship on people and nation is clear for all to see if the social bonds snapped the country will sink to civil unrest or worse. The elasticity limit of the people’s patience has been exceeded a long time ago, the risk of the country sliding into mindless violence and chaos is real.

“In order to convince our Head Office which shapes our position in the Boards of the International Financial Institutions (IFIs), we need to see concrete reform steps being approved and implemented,” said Ambassador Huber.

“This includes a commitment to combat corruption, to facilitate a favourable legal framework for investments and ensure the rule of law.”

Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation is a ticking social time bomb and the need for the country to implement the democratic reforms and defuse the bomb is now the most urgent matter for this nation.