President Robert Mugabe's nephew, Patrick
Zhuwao, has told the Sunday Mail that Mugabe plans to stand as Zanu PF
presidential candidate in 2018 and only step down at the end of his second
presidential term, as stipulated in the country’s new constitution, in 2023.
Given that Zimbabwe is a de facto one party
state, thanks to MDC’s failure to implement even one democratic reform designed
to stop Zanu PF rigging elections and the nation’s no expense spared attitude
when it comes to securing Mugabe’s longevity; Zhuwao’s statement is not as
wishful thinking as it sounds.
In a country where life expectancy has
plummeted from 68 years in 1980 to 34 years in 2004; one would say a 91 years
of age Mugabe is already living on borrowed time and therefore not likely to
live another 7 more years. The reality is the nation has already shown its
willingness to sacrifice everything and everyone to keep him alive and there is
no reason to believe this will stop.
Gweru Provincial Hospital is the referral
hospital for the whole of Midlands Province with a population of 2 to 3 million
and yet it is so poorly funded, it does not have something as basic as a
dialysis machine, for example. The same regime that has no money for a dialysis
machine Gweru Provincial Hospital has paid for Mugabe’s regular medical
check-ups in Singapore. In 2012 alone, Mugabe made no fewer than eight such
trips with each costing $ 3 million.
What makes Zhuwao’s assertion of Mugabe
standing in the 2018 elections, life and health permitting - even the rich will
die, laughable is that die-hard Mugabe loyalists like him are ignoring the
seriousness of the country’s worsening economic meltdown and its potency as the
instrument for change.
Three and half decades of mismanagement and
corruption have taken a heavy toll on the national economy. After rigging July
2013 elections Mugabe was convinced he would rig economic recovery with his $27
billion ZimAsset plan. Instead of finally doing something to end the criminal
waste of resources through misrule, Mugabe planned to throw lots and lots of
cash at the wasteful in the hope that some of the money will trickle through
and achieve the desired economic recovery.
Sadly, Mugabe failed to get any donors to
bankroll the plan. Not even his “all weather friends”, the Chinese, would fund
such a hare-brain scheme. With ZimAsset is dead in the water and no plan B; the
national economy has gone into a dangerous nose dive.
Many companies have closed in the last two
years with no new companies opening up to take their place. Unemployment has
soared to 90%, 16% of our people are now living in abject poverty, the
government itself is struggling to pay the civil servant wages let alone pay
for everything else, etc. Like it or not the country is facing a very serious
economic meltdown and it is laughable that even die-hard Mugabe loyalists would
pretend not to have noticed the problem.
Even is Mugabe and his cronies pretend not to
notice; the reality is unemployment rate of 90%, 16% living in abject poverty,
etc. are socially and politically unsustainable. And yet, as long as Mugabe and
Zanu PF remain in power, the economic situation is bound to get even worse! It
may take a year or two years for the number of those living in abject poverty
to double. Will the 32% living in abject poverty trigger the social unrest;
nobody knows. What is certain is the present situation cannot last for much
longer.
Continued Mugabe and Zanu PF rule of the
country is no longer socially and politically sustainable.
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to bring
about regime change. Mai Mujuru and her followers schemed to force Mugabe out
of power but they too failed. And yet regime change is now as certain as day
and it is the economic meltdown that has brought it about.
There is no doubt that this Zanu PF regime will
spare no expense to keep Mugabe alive and in power; whether he will live to
stand for re-election in 2018 is in the lap of the Gods. The regime’s failure
to rig economic recovery had produced a new political adversary for the regime
- economic meltdown which Mugabe has failed to bribe and cheat. It is the
economic meltdown that is going to force Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs to accept
the dreaded accept regime change long before the 2018 elections.
8 comments:
@ Chikwanha
Both Tsvangirai and Mai Mujuru have already proven to be both corrupt and breathtakingly in-competent still it is not surprising that some Zimbabweans should consider these two potential presidential candidates. We have an amazingly lazy electorate who will follow anyone no questions asked.
For the first 20 years of our independence the people have followed a corrupt and murderous tyrant, no questioned asked. One had hoped that the people learned the lesson of that folly but clearly they did not as they went on to follow corrupt, incompetent and sell-out village idiots like Tsvangirai and company.
After 15 years of endless blundering it beggars belief how anyone would consider the same village idiot a suitable presidential candidate! The fact that it is not just ordinary citizens but leading figures in the community are the cheer leaders in the praise of the village idiots goes to show the sorry state of Zimbabwe society.
These same political analysts cheered and applauded MDC along in 2013 elections ignoring the fact that not even one democratic reform had been implemented and MDC lost that election. They are doing the same thing again.
The key to ending Zimbabwe's political and economic mess is implementing all the democratic reforms.
The wealth from the diamond windfall should have helped us get us out of the economic hell but because of corruption the diamonds have become a milestone round the nation's neck!
So MDC-T's list of demands has now increased eight demands two months ago to twelve today.
There is still a level of naivety on the part of MDC-T in all this; do they real expect Zanu PF out of the goodness of their heart and the desire to restore the basic right of every Zimbabwean to a meaningful vote to implement all the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging all future elections. Zanu PF bribed MDC to do nothing on the reforms and now MDC expect Zanu PF to implement the reforms?
Of course Zanu PF will never ever implement the reforms that would end the party's own tight grip on power. This is why MDC was expected to implement the reforms during the GNU. The only why the reforms will be implemented now is for Zanu PF to be forced to step down so some body is appointed and authorized to implement the reforms.
None of the MDC leaders have ever appreciated the critical importance of getting the democratic reforms implemented which is why they failed to get even one reform implemented in the five years of the GNU. It was only after the rigged July 2013 elections that they have accepted the need for some reforms, first 8 and now 12.
MDC leaders will never get all the reforms implemented properly a situation that will suit Zanu PF just fine.
Even if Zanu PF was to implement all MDC-T’s 12 reforms demands that will not deliver free, fair and credible elections. None of the listed reforms will stop Zanu PF’s culture of political violence, for example.
Nothing of any substance will ever be accomplished until we implement all the reforms properly. If there is one task that we owe to ourselves, our children and to posterity to get done and done properly it is implementing ALL the reforms properly.
MDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU; are we going to let these corrupt and incompetent sell-outs waste of yet another opportunity to bring about real democratic change by fudging the implementation of the reforms?
Nigerian journalists humiliate Mugabe by demanding to know when he would hold free and fair elections in Zimbabwe!
When Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections he thought the whole world will take his word for it that there elections were free and fair. He is shocked that there are so many people who have refused to accept the lie and, newly two years after the elections, are still demanding that he holds free and fair elections.
The second shock for Mugabe is that the demands for him to hold free and fair elections are not coming from the West but from black Africans!
Zimbabwe's politicians must be among some of the most arrogant politicians who have ever lived. Here is a leader who has sat in high office for 34 years and has played her party in the political repression that has kept her and her fellow Zanu PF thugs in power all those years. She has joined in the wholesale looting that has taken place amassing a huge fortune for herself. Two years ago she stood up to deny there was no looting and all such talk was Western propaganda and lies.
Now that she has lost her position of the feeding trough she admits to failures by the Zanu PF regime and she thinks that is enough for the nation. She now expects the nation to fall over backwards and elect her back into power. How arrogant is that? She must think all Zimbabwe are certified idiots who will not see that she has not repented in anyway and that all she is after is a chance for her to resume her looting from where she let it before she was rudely interrupted by the purge.
Mai Mujuru, you are corrupt and incompetent you have proven this beyond all doubt during your 34 years in power. You will never ever be elected into public office in Zimbabwe in free, fair and credible elections.
Still, stick around, when there is regime change and it is coming, you will be expected to give a lot more detail of your role in the Zanu PF dictatorship and looting.
@ Patrick
Six months ago when she and her supporters were first kicked out of Zanu PF she would have never apologized for her role in the Zanu PF dictatorship. The last six months has taught her that the people of Zimbabwe are not as naive and gullible as she thought they were. So even making this apology has taken a lot from her.
She will soon learn that a simple "I am sorry" is nowhere near enough to get her off the hook after 34 years of corruption, looting and brutal oppression. As for her getting back into power that is one dream that will never ever come to pass; mark my word!
@ Patrick
Now that word is out that the Emperor is naked the more he tries to pretend that he is clothed in his golden rob the more people will mock his vanity.
Of course the whole of Africa knew Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections but no one wanted to be the first to say it. Now the Sahara TV Journalist has said it, the ice has been broken and so eve-ryone feels free to say it. The Journalist will now be nominated for freedom of speech award for being the first to say something others knew but did not have the guts to say!
As for Mugabe, he will have to fire some of the CIO who were with him in Nigeria and then re-double the number of security details accompanying him on his many travels. Of course, that will not stop people asking when he is will be holding free elections now that it is in the open he rigged the 2013 elections.
Mugabe is not the Pan-African statesman he has pretended to be all these years but a corrupt, vote rigging tyrant; the gene is out of the bottle and there is no putting it back!
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