Zimbabwe’s electoral silly season in once again upon us and
the usual political analysts, the connoisseur of electoral nonsense, have set
up the stalls and they have started dishing out their respective specialist
dish.
“Analysts say the only way Zimbabwe could get out of
its current political and socio-economic mess would be if the opposition formed
a coalition ahead of the 2018 national elections, possibly with former Vice
President Joice Mujuru as their presidential candidate, to take on the ruling
Zanu PF which has been weakened by its deadly infighting,” wrote Thelma
Chikwanha in the Daily News.
“As you
know, President Tsvangirai has repeatedly spoken about the MDC big tent, so
there is already appreciation within the movement (MDC) that a coalition of
whatever nature is the way to go in 2018. It is also certainly better to be
smeared with Gamatox, because it can be washed off than go solo and lose.” A
senior MDC official said; no doubt, excited at the prospect of a coalition.
There is a tassel as to which of the two Tsvangirai and Mai
Mujuru would constitute a winning ticket.
“Tsvangirai has an established support base,
which can be calculated using perception surveys and more importantly previous
performances in elections. Mujuru’s support is perceived and a matter of
conjecture,” argued McDonald Lewanika of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
All this talk is no consequence, hence electoral silly season
talk, because come the 2018 elections, as things stand, the Mugabe/Mnangagwa
Zanu PF faction will “win” the elections just as they did in the 2013
elections. History has a habit of repeating itself, especially amongst those
who never stop to view the past!
Throughout the GNU years right up to the 31 July 2013
elections our political analysts set up their stalls, just as they have done
now, and assured the nation and Morgan Tsvangirai that he would win the coming
elections hands down based on MDC’s “established support base”. Mugabe went on
to “win” the elections with a landslide victory regardless!
Mugabe “won” the 31st July 2013 elections because he was able
to rig the vote and he was able to do so blatantly. He issued his supporters
with voter registration slips so they would bussed from one Polling Station to
the next casting multiple votes, for
example. On the other hand, nearly one million or 100% of his winning margin,
of mainly opposition supporters failed to vote because their names were
deliberately posted in wrong constituency. It had to be a deliberate mistake
because the regime stubbornly refused to release the voters roll a month before
the elections as required by law.
MDC’s “established support base” counted for nothing in 2013
because Mugabe was able to rig the vote. Our good-for-nothing political
analysts said nothing about the need to get all the democratic reforms agreed
in the 2008 GPA implemented. MDC had failed to get even one reform implemented
and our analysts, for their, part said nothing on the subject.
Of course, it was the holding of elections with no democratic
reforms implemented that allowed Zanu PF to blatantly rig the 2013 elections.
Our good-for-nothing political analyst are at it again they
are producing volumes of commentary on the 2018 elections and yet have said
nothing about getting all the democratic reforms implemented. What good is
MDC’s mass support if Mugabe has all the leeway to use all the dirty tricks to
rig the vote?
Tsvangirai has produced a watered down list of eight reforms
MDC-T is demanding must be implemented for the party to call off its “No reform
no elections” boycott. Even if Zanu PF implemented all the eight reforms; that
will not stop the party using violence, a very serious matter as past
experience has shown, to rig the vote.
The argument that being a former party member herself Mai
Mujuru will have inside information on how Zanu PF intends to rig the vote and
thus will foil future vote rigging is wishful thinking. Although Mai Mujuru and
many of her supporters benefited from the July 2013 rigged elections there is
nothing to suggest they knew the details of the scheme. To prove it, there is
no doubt that Mai Mujuru and her supporters were completely outwitted and
outmanoeuvred in the Zanu PF 2014 party congress that saw her and her
supporters booted out of the party.
The truth both Tsvangirai and Mai Mujuru are corrupt and
breathtakingly incompetent and they have already proven this beyond all doubt –
a basic fact all our good-for-nothing political analysts have ignored. Facts
are facts they will not change because someone pretended they are not there!
For the first 20 years of our independence the people have
followed a corrupt and murderous tyrant and his band of thugs; no questioned
asked. One had hoped that the people learned the lesson from that folly but
clearly they did not as the switched their support from Zanu PF to MDC; a party
of corrupt, incompetent and sell-out village idiots.
Of course it would be to what “analysts say (is) the only way Zimbabwe could get out of its current
political and socio-economic mess,” as Thelma
Chikwanha rightly said, that the nation will turn. It is therefore very
disappointing that the good-for-nothing analysts should in fact be the cheer
leaders in picking the same and proven corrupt and incompetent individuals as
the worthy candidates to lead the nation out of the mess!
It beggars belief how anyone would consider Morgan Tsvangirai
or Mai Mujuru as suitable presidential candidate!
The only way out of the political and economic mess Mugabe
and Zanu PF have dragged us into is by making sure all the democratic reforms
necessary for free, fair and credible elections are implemented followed by
fresh elections. It would have been infinitely easier to implement the reforms
during the GNU, sadly that opportunity was wasted. Still these reforms must
nonetheless still be implemented because absolutely nothing of substance can
ever be accomplished until they are.
A democratic Zimbabwe with a freedom of expression and a free
media will allow the quality leaders to shine like diamonds and an informed
electorate will soon learn to distinguish the diamonds from the stones. Get a
healthy and functioning democratic political system and quality leaders and
political parties will follow, guaranteed!
7 comments:
@ Patrick
If the whole truth is to be told and it must then MDC played their role during the GNU in ensuring that the people did not enjoy a free press and freedom of expression. The only media reforms Tsvangirai insisted on was that the public media should stop calling him a puppet. Mugabe instructed his sycophants to do - for a few weeks and then it was business as usual!
Tsvangirai was at one with Mugabe that the public was to be kept in the dark on all matters at all cost! The Zimbabwe public have been kept ignorant before independence, after independence and the situation did not improve during the GNU. For all MDC's claims of being democrats and seeking democratic change they have been quick to resist democratic change.
@ Patrick
We have played the dum sheep for some long that one has to question whether we have not lost our ability to think and speak for ourselves. We have become so used to being caged in that we build in our own minds prison walls complete with barbed wire fences and guards armed to the teeth to justify to ourselves why we are prisoners!
We are drowning in water only a few feet deep because we cannot swim; we have become so single track minded that we have forgotten how to walk!
President Mugabe has returned home from his latest Nigeria to Equatorial Guinea and then to Sudan trip.
He did not give his usual speech on arrival? Poor Mugabe, I hope it was because he is still afraid of being asked about when he will hold free and fair elections! Yes Mugabe, you rigged the 2013 elections and now the world want to know when you will hold free and fair elections!
Wherever you go to next, you should know you will be asked when Zimbabwe would hold its first free and fair elections. The fear of being asked may force Mugabe to fly less often; that would be fine by me!
@ Tomjoad15
Mugabe and Zanu PF are corrupt, incompetent and a tyrannical lot but to blame them for the fact that not even one reform was implemented during the GNU only shows that you are single track minded.
You go where the evidence leads you, that is what an open minded person would do. So let look at where the evidence lead us in this case:
1) Of the two main parties in the GNU, Zanu PF and the two MDC factions it was in-cumbent on the latter to implement the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA for the simple reason that Mugabe and Zanu PF would not want free and fair elections and so would never implement any reform.
2) Even if we accept that MDC leaders did not realize it was for them to implement the reforms; SADC and other parties reminded MDC leaders to implement the reforms during the GNU but were ignored.
3) It is evident that MDC leaders had been bribe by Mugabe to kick reforms into the tall grass as the SADC said MDC leaders “were busy enjoying being in the GNU and forgot why they were there!”
These are the facts of the case, you can ignore them and make your own conclusions that is your choice but that does not change the facts! To make conclusions contrary to the facts means you are wrong!
@ Nyoni
“Pan-Africanism is an ideology and movement that encourages the solidarity of Africans worldwide. It is based on the belief that unity is vital to economic, social, and political progress and aims to "unify and uplift" people of African descent.” According to Google Search.
One can define nationalism, tribalism, regionalism, down to the smallest unit of family. All these isms have failed in Africa for the same reason the greatest proponents of this African solidarity and unity are also the greatest proponents of the perverse ideology, “What is yours is ourselves but what is mine is mine!” They want you to share with them what you have but will never share with you what they have. They will pursue their policy of dominance in to the extent of genocide in the name of unity. There is Mugabe, the model Pan Africanist, for you; a Dr Jekyll by day and Mr Hyde by night!
Zimbabwe is more divided and mistrustful now than ever thanks to Mr Hyde’s three and half decades of corrupt and tyrannical rule. The sheer brutality the nation was subjected to during the operation Murambatsvina, the wanton election violence in 2008 elections and Gururahundi have open fissures in Zimbabwe society that will take generations to close if at all. Meanwhile the nation will face the difficult task of building bridges to span the fissures!
Tyrants like Mugabe do not unite a nation they divide it; as soon as their tyrannical power start to wean the nation will, more often than not, breakup. Tyrants are good at the divide and rule and then use brute force to silence of descent; put wall paper over the cracks present to the world a healthy looking apple but with a rotten core.
There is a real danger of Zimbabwe side tracked or worse by those with narrow tribal and/or regional agenda when this Zanu PF dictatorship finally collapses. They will point to what Mugabe has done over the years as proof of how Mugabe has singled out the tribe or region and punished it. They will only be seeking to open old wounds for their own selfish tribal or regional agenda because in reality the whole nation has suffered under this dictatorship and the focus should be on rebuilding the nation.
There is nothing to be gain by counting the potholes in this road compared to that road; both roads need repairing.
Our challenge is to build a justice and prosperous Zimbabwe and not turn divisions Mugabe created into permanent national borders complete with new flags.
@ Nomazulu
How anyone can say Mai Mujuru is not corrupt beggars belief. She and her husband have amassed a fortune worth billions of dollars, she has no talent as a musician or writer and none of her business activities have been successful as far as I know. So how else did this incompetent idiot make her money at the time when many viable business were going down and corruption was rampant if it was not through corruption.
Mai Mujuru has either deputy Minister, Minister or Vice President throughout her 34 years in government and during that period the nation witnessed some of the worst human rights viola-tions including systematic denial of a individual freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote and the right to life. Over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans have been murder in that time.
The brutal oppression was carried out to establish and retain the de facto one party dictatorship we see today. All Zanu PF members, including Mai Mujuru, benefited from the party's "no regime change" ethos which accounts for the party's long stay in power. As a cabinet member, Mai Mujuru, must have known Zanu PF brutal oppression and disregard of the rule of law.
To pardon Mai Mujuru of all her corrupt activities and Zanu PF's decades of tyrannical rule just because she said she is sorry without even bothering to admit to doing anything specific is political correctness gone mad to say the least.
When Mugabe signed the ZimAsset mega deals with China and Russia the terms were so favourable to the two Asian giants topped up with secretive diamond deals the Chinese and Russians could simply not refuse. They have since taken up the diamond mining deals but have yet to start on the other deals.
Mugabe was hoping that by signing the mega deals with China and Russian it would open the flood gates for other deals; sadly that did not happen.
Mugabe's Zimasset plan is dead because he has failed to get anyone to anyone to bankroll his $27 billion plan. The only two cheques he got form the Chinese and Russians are all post dated and unsigned!
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