Human rights activist, Nixon Nyikadzino, appeal Constitution Court ruling to have elections held by July 31.
“As a human rights defender, I have been a victim of torture, harassment, arrests and so on… If the election is held before July 31st I feel I will not be able to exercise my right to vote freely,” said Nixon Nyikadzino. “What the Constitutional Court ruled was to protect the rights of one individual. But in doing so they have ignored the rights of many.”
Mr Nyikadzino has his heart in the right place, being a human rights defender and all that; but he has got the wrong end of the stick on this matter.
If Nyikadzino really understood what is going on here then he would know that his right and that of millions of other Zimbabwean to free and fair elections has been forfeited already by this GNU’s failure to implement not even one democratic reform and by writing this weak and feeble Copac constitution.
If Nyikadzino really believes that the democratic reforms can still be meaningful implemented without amending the weak Copac constitution then he clearly lives in the same cloud cuckoo land as MDC. These elections concern the real world and in the real world no reforms are going to be implemented now.
These elections are not going to be free and fair that is self-evident already. We are already in the middle of the election process and yet there is no free media, the voters’ roll is in a mess, the Police continue to behave in their highly partisan ways, etc. If Nixon Nyikadzino was paying any attention then he should have filed his court appeal a long time ago.
The constitution of Zimbabwe says there should be free and fair elections every five years. This dysfunctional GNU has failed to deliver on the first party we should not allow it to fail to deliver on the “every five years” too!
3 comments:
@ Moe
I too would be glad to see a free media, international observers, none partisan Police, etc., etc. The point here is that these things are not there right now because the GPA democratic reforms were not implemented. MDC had five years to implement these reforms and they did not. It is nonsense that they can get the reforms implemented now.
Of course Zanu PF knew the party would not win free and fair elections and that is exactly why they saw to it that not even one reform was implemented. Tsvangirai and MDC have made it easy for Mugabe to get away with this. This is what CNN's Beck Anderson meant when she said MDC and Tsvangirai have "legitimatized" Mugabe’s rule.
Why it is that outsiders like Becky to whom Tsvangirai is nothing but a morning mist, relevant only whilst it lasts, and yet she correctly figured him to be an incompetent blundering leader. And yet many Zimbabweans with a mountain of evidence of Tsvangirai blunders before them still consider him an able leader.
Is it Zimbabwe’s fate that many should see but never perceive, hear but never ever comprehend? Well, that sure explains why the nation is in such a mess and, worse still, has remained stuck there with little prospect of ever getting out.
@ Robo2
In these elections people can vote for Zanu PF or MDC it really does not matter the end result will be the same. Zanu PF will rule! Zanu PF will be the one seating on the throne if they win – which the most likely outcome given the party has the chance to use all the dirty tricks it wishes to “win”.
If MDC win, Zanu PF will be the real power behind the throne. MDC has given Zanu PF so much political and economic muscle already; the later will be using that power to call all the shots.
It will take another five years of another totally ineffective government for the people to finally realize they voted MDC but got Zanu PF. Just as the GNU was supposed to be MDC and Zanu PF but in practice it was really Zanu PF by another name.
For the last five years MDC has failed to implement not even one reform but then most people did not even notice. The next government will achieve very little if anything at all but once again the people will not notice that too.
That is the advantage of having an electorate with little or no expectations – it does not matter how many times and how badly you let them down; they never even notice! They are like a sloth, you can fire a shotgun into its face and all it will do is open its eyes blink a few times, yawn and go back to sleep!
What makes you think the electorate would want to change MDC if they won the elections? And having tasted power, you think MDC will willingly ever want to give it up! Whoever wins the elections, the nation will be stuck with that government for the next five years!
@ Yepec
If MDC has strategy, and every time you appear on this site you talk of nothing else, then the re-forms will be implemented and the nation has free and fair elections. We have all known that Zanu PF is a tyrannical party with no respect of the rule of law, etc. MDC’s strategists like you have known this all along and, no doubt, incorporated counter measures in your MDC strategy.
The success or failure of MDC’s well-orchestrated plan of action will NOT be affected in any way by what “Professor Wilbert Mukori” says, does or favors. All I have done is point out some self-evident realities on the ground proving that the nation is NOT going to have free and fair elections contrary to all MDC is saying. It is obvious the reforms are not going to be implemented just as it was obvious the Copac constitution was weak and feeble!
Mugabe and Zanu PF are corrupt and murderers; they will only bring more corruption and brutal repression if the form the next government. Tsvangirai and MDC are incompetent and have no vision; they will never deliver any change. They have already given the Zanu PF dictatorship so much political and economic power; even if MDC was to win these elections, the Zanu PF dictatorship will be the real power behind the throne. These are the facts; the political reality!
If Tsvangirai had any plan or strategy these last five years; then it was to appease Mugabe and Zanu PF so he can be allowed on the gravy train. He has certainly delivered that, he has made Mugabe and Zanu PF “legitimate” again as CNN’s Becky Anderson rightly pointed out. The big question is will Mugabe keep his side of the bargain?
It is not as if Tsvangirai’s policy of appeasement was a top secrete; he has pursued it openly. It is no secret that Tsvangirai has not implemented not even one democratic reform and accepted a weak and feeble Copac constitution after five years of the GNU although these were principal tasks he was supposed to do. No one expects you, Yepec, to see these obvious things; you are brain dead!
Two things are certain after Saturday, it will finally dawn on MDC that no reforms are going to be implemented and you, Yepec, will still be wittering about MDC’s strategy working - although up to now you claim getting the reforms implemented is an essential part of that strategy! You are brain dead!
All these years spent with your head buried in the sand has left you mentally retarded. You are not a full shilling and your brain is impermeable to reason, facts, etc. To you, Tsvangirai is the greatest statesman the world has ever seen and you simply refuse to accept all the evidence of him failed to implement not even one reform in five years, etc. You believe he has a strategic plan that will deliver free and fair elections although you and Tsvangirai have clearly failed to say what it is. You maintain the plan is WORKING although all the evidence on the ground point to the contrary!
Poor Yepec, it upsets you so to hear your Great Leader, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe, the Right Honourable Richard Morgan Tsvangirai is in fact one of the most incompetent leaders in human history!
One cheer for democracy, how can it grant a brain dead Yepec the same one vote as someone with common sense!
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