At the end of Zanu PF Conference in Gweru Mugabe sent off his followers with instructions to prepare for the planned elections. He said nothing about the referendum on the Copac draft constitution which must precede elections as if the draft had already been approved and therefore the referendum was of no consequence.
Zanu PF Minister of Mines, Obert Mpofu, was out in Tsholotsho campaigning. “We want to assist the youths in many ways, they want projects that would boost their livelihoods,” he said.
It was three decades of mismanagement and corruption and, in the last ten years, some of the worst looting in human history by Zanu PF that destroyed the Zimbabwe economy forcing millions into abject poverty and millions to leave the country in search of work and to escape Zanu PF the political repression.
Obert Mpofu is one of the few Zanu PF ruling elite who have grown fat, very fat, from the corruption and looting. All he is doing now is offering some of his ill got wealth to buy votes and, to bolster his election chances, to pay thugs to intimidate and terrorize the electorate into voting for him. As soon as he is re-elected whatever funding he would have provided for these youths projects will disappear like mist in the Africa morning sun.
What Obert Mpofu, Robert Mugabe and the rest Zanu PF cohorts are doing everything possible to ensure they retain power and thus continue with the corruption and looting as before. Zanu PF intends to use the looting of the white owned farming as template for an all-out looting of whatever is left in the Zimbabwe economy with its 100% indigenization plan. This will sink the Zimbabwe economy even deeper into trouble.
Mugabe and Zanu PF are not offering an solutions to Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess - they created; all they are offering are the same cheap short term answers that landed the nation in the mess in the first place.
It is not elections per se Zimbabweans should be thinking about at present but more specifically making sure the next elections are free, fair and a true reflection of the democratic will of the people – an anomaly which has kept Mugabe and Zanu PF in power all these years and will do so again, contrary to the their performance and popularity.
This dysfunctional GNU was tasked to implement a number of democratic reforms, write a democratic constitution in preparation for holding free and fair elections whose results will not be disputed. None of the reforms have been implemented and the Copac draft constitution is rubbish.
It is in Mugabe and Zanu PF’s interest to have the next elections under the same mudded water conditions. Zimbabweans must not allow themselves to be lured into yet another election process marred by abuse of power and violence but rather insist that everything to ensure the next elections are free and democratic. Zimbabwe must reject the Copac draft in the upcoming referendum and thus force the implementation of the reforms before elections are held!
Obert Mpofu, Mugabe and Zanu PF are gearing for yet another violent election confident Zimbabweans will follow Tsvangirai and MDC, who have already foolishly approved the Copac rubbish, like sheep to the slaughter and vote yes in the referendum. Zimbabweans must shock Mugabe by voting NO to the Copac rubbish and thus demonstrate in no uncertain way that they can think for themselves and refused to be denying a meaningful say in the governance of Zimbabwe!
7 comments:
MDc factions are talking of uniting, to improve their chance of defeating Mugabe; we are told.
In 2008 Mugabe did not win the elections, he used brutal force and all manner of cheating to get the votes. And he is set to do so again unless something is done to stop him. It is rich that the two MDC parties who were supposed to do something about stopping the orgy of violence of 2008 have done nothing these last four years are themselves fighting for who should be running when the threat of a repeat of 2008 is real. Clearly they do not care if another 500 Zimbabweans are murdered and hundreds of thousands more beaten or rape as long as they get back on the gravy train!
Zimbabweans have to realize that it is the ordinary people and not the leaders who must spear head change. We should learn from the Arab spring!
@Crush
When for this coming referendum, Mugabe has Tsvangirai campaigning hard for him already. Tsvangirai got Mugabe off the hook after the sham elections in 2008 all he get from the tyrant is the chance to be on the gravy train, travel the world, chase women, live in a US$ 3 million house, etc. Tsvangirai did not care that his ticket on the gravy train costed hundreds of thousands beaten and/or raped and over 500 murdered by Zanu PF to say nothing of the economic hardships the nation has suffered.
Another election process marred by violence is going to cost the ordinary Zimbabweans dearly; but Tsvangirai does not care. All he cares about is that he gets back on that gravy train.
@Dumbu
"If free and fair elections are held," you say. That worries me; why should be free and fair elections be in any doubt? You are right to say "if" because even Tsvangirai himself uses the same language. Here is the man who had four and half years to ensure the raft of reforms were implemented and not even one of these reforms has seen the light of day.
Everything on the ground points to one thing and one thing only - that the next elections are going to be a repeat of the orgy of violence of 2008. What is yet to be establish is whether the violence will be as bad or worse. What worries me is people like you, Dumbu, who have resigned themselves as if violence is normal. People do not have to accept anything short of free and fair elections. They can do so by voting NO to the upcoming referendum and they must!
@Crush
If Tsvangirai found Mugabe's use of violence repugnant then why did he go on to get the tyrant of the hook by signing the GPA? But more significantly why has Tsvangirai done nothing for the last four and half years to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the GPA designed to end the scourge of political violence? And worse still, why is he now telling the people the next elections are going to be free of violence when he KNOWS all the evidence on the ground says the exact opposite!
Tell me Crush; do you believe the next elections are going to be free and fair? If so; what evidence do you have to believe so? If you believe there will be violence; do you still believe we should still go ahead with the planned elections regardless?
@ Chimbwido
And you real think you a better "Zimbabwean" by denying the untold suffering and deaths of your fellow black Zimbabweans if the suffering and deaths are inflicted by or in the name of Mugabe and Zanu PF.
You Chimbwido are nothing but a faithful dog and tyrants the world over have relied on your brutality and stupidity to keep them in power. You are ruthless enough to beat, rape and murder defenseless civilians who only crime is that they dared complain about their suffering and/or exercise their basic rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. You are so stupid you failed to see that these people you are beating and raping and murdering have committed no crime but that in carrying these acts you are the one committing a heinous crime. You are so stupid you do not see that you are as much the victim of the oppression as the rest of us and the tyrant is using you to do his dirty work for which you are paid peanuts. And the day the tyrant is kicked out of office and the past is revealed in all its hideous details, the tyrant will not hesitate disown the mad dogs who carried out the dirty work.
You have served Mugabe well just as your father and grandfather before you served Smith well - being a brutal and stupid murderous dog is more often than not hereditary. Your father and grandfather were lucky in that Ian Smith was replaced by a tyrant keen to employ murderous dogs than prosecuting them. Mugabe's reign of terror is drawing to an end and Zimbabwe is not going to have another tyrant. This time, the murderous past is not going to be swept under the carpet but investigated. Woe to you who have shed innocent blood!
You will have you chance to defend yourself, of course; you can explain how you were serving Zimbabwe by killing over 30 000 innocent and defenseless people!
@Crush
You are totally wrong to say I "come down hard on Tsvangirai"! The man is a flawed and indecisive character; that is a fact! And the nation should be warned about the heavy price the nation has paid already for having him as Prime Minister and the sheer folly of following him from now on.
Look, Tsvangirai signed the GPA in 2008 in which there was a raft of democratic reform to be implemented and a new democratic constitution to be written in preparation for free and fair elections. None of these tasks have been accomplished. Not even one! There is no other reason one can give for this failure other than the obvious - he is incompetent and Mugabe's gravy train trappings of power, the globe-trotting, chasing women, etc. made him even worse.
The US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, said Tsvangirai was a "flawed and indecisive character" back in 2002. After all these of countless blunders by Tsvangirai anyone who still consider him to be anything else but an idiot is doing so out of blind loyalty to the man - a very common Zimbabwean weakness - and/or out of ignorance.
We have all complained about the partisan nature of Zimbabwe's Police, for example, and yet PM Tsvangirai and his MDC parliamentary majority have done nothing to end this madness. One does not need a University Degree to see there is something wrong here. If parliament was so weak and useless, then why did the nation risk so many lives election them in the first place!
The up-coming referendum of the Copac draft constitution is the chance for the people to express their views on whether or not the dysfunctional GNU has done enough to deliver free and fair elections. If it has then vote YES! If it failed then vote NO!
You are right in your observation that the next elections are NOT going to be free and fair. Tsvangirai tells the nation the elections will be free and fair because he will force SADC to get Mugabe to implement the critical reforms. He failed to get the reforms implemented in four and half years only an idiot would believe the PM will get this done in as many weeks before elections. So if we all agree this dysfunctional GNU have failed to do what was required to ensure the next elections are free and fair then the nation must vote a resounding NO in the referendum.
I fear many Zimbabweans are going to vote YES because MDC told them to do so. Whilst it is clear why Tsvangirai would rather keep up this pretence that he will get the reforms implemented than admit he is a failure he is; it is sheer folly that anyone else follow him. Sadly we have a significant number of people totally incapable of making any decision on their own even with all the facts staring them in the face.
@ Crush
Then there are many others, knowing fully well the elections will not be free, will still nonetheless vote YES in the referendum because they are hoping against hope that the elections will still produce the democratic change they wanted. “We contest in the hope that something might give this time,” you said. Good luck!
No wise man would concede to playing in a game in which the other side has a loaded dice. Only a fool would risk his own life in such a game! MDC leaders know that it is ordinary people who are the victims of violence not the leaders and if they win the get on the gravy train – a price worth risking 500 lives for as far as they are concerned.
An Election which is NOT free and fair will NOT produce a democratic government and after 33 years of bad governance surely the last thing the nation wants is another bad government.
A NO vote in the referendum will force GNU to implement the reforms and thus secure free and fair elections not just in 2013 but from hence forth. The GPA would force SADC as the guarantors of that agreement and the international community at large to get Mugabe to accept democratic reform.
Zimbabweans in the diaspora were short changed by Tsvangirai over the dual citizen and the right to vote outside Zimbabwe. MDC had even the chic to spread falsehood on what the Copac draft said rather than admit they had sold the diaspora people. Still Zimbabweans in the diaspora still have an very important role to play in determining the country’s destiny.
Most Zimbabweans in the diaspora know the coming elections are NOT going to be free and fair and that there is nothing to be gaining from going through the process but everything to be gained by forcing Mugabe to accept democratic reforms, initially by voting NO in the referendum. If every Zimbabwean in the diaspora called five Zimbabweans back home and explained why they must vote NO; the NO camp will win the day!
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