Biti offers new economic plan, "HOPE" but with no political reforms first call it hopeless!

A few weeks ago Tendai Biti, the only one in all the MDC factions who has shown that he has a few working brain cells left, admitted to and even apologized to the nation for MDC’s “collective foolishness”. MDC can be rightly called a party of blundering fools because they have blundered from pillar to post.

The most recent blunder by both the MDC-Renewal led by Biti and the MDC-T led by Tsvangirai was the gifting of 14 MPs seat to Zanu PF in the 10 June 2015 by-elections. The Biti faction was foolish in breaking away knowing fully well that would trigger the need for by-election if the MDC-T should exercise their right to recall the breakaway members.

MDC-Renewal’s blunder was in failing to anticipate the recall. It was Tendai Biti who assured the other breakaway members that they will never be recalled. “If that happened, I will change my name to Morgan Mugabe!” said Biti. It was the collective foolishness bug at work because, as we now know, the recall happened.

For MDC-T the collective amnesia was is asking for the rebel seats to be recalled knowing fully well that they would not try to win back the seats since the party had already passed a congress resolution to boycott elections until the reforms they wanted implemented are implemented. Surely it was better for the Zimbabwe opposition cause to have the 14 seats in the opposition camp than in the ruling Zanu PF party.

The worst case of MDC “collective foolishness” was in their failure to get even one reform implemented throughout the five years of the GNU. MDC’s foolishness knows no bounds, because it is over these same reforms, they failed to implement, that they are boycotting the elections.

The immediate consequence of this failure was that Zanu PF was able to rig the July 2013 resulting in the landslide victory for Mugabe and Zanu PF costing MDC leaders their gravy train position in government.

For the nation at large economic consequence of have the same corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime back in power was a 35% Zimbabwe Stock Exchange shares drop the next day after the election results were known. The national economy has continued the downward spiral these last two years as more and more companies have closed pushing unemployment into the stratosphere of 90%. 76% of the people now live on $200 per month or less; far short of the $500 Poverty Datum Line.

“If left to continue, the current situation will lead to cannibalism where human beings will resort to eating human flesh,” Tendai Biti told his supporters in Chitungwiza.

“Most of the deaths being witnessed in the country are either due to starvation or stress related ailments like High Blood Pressure, hypertension and heart attack, because of the economic, political and social decay we are witnessing.

“Going to funerals to pay condolences is now some form of formal employment because many people are stressed up to a level where the strain takes their lives”.

Yes Mr Biti, but why are you telling them things they already know and can see with their own eyes? Why are you not telling them that they would not be in all this mess if you and your MDC friends had implemented the reforms? And whilst still at it, tell the people that the nation will never ever got out of the mess as long as change is being championed by corrupt and incompetent whose “collective foolishness” knows no limit.

 

“The Renewal Team will, among other issues, launch an economic blue print Holistic Program for Economic Transformation (HOPE), that will outline the party’s strategy on curbing unemployment, attracting Foreign Direct Investment and dealing with external debt,” continued Tendai Biti.

The economic blue print will also proffer the infrastructure expansion and development plan,” he said, urging government to move quickly to repeal the contentious indigenisation laws.

Some people’s mental amnesia is influence by the moon but the “collective foolishness” of MDC leaders is a free agent that knows not about the moon and its cycle. Biti would not be talking all this nonsense of yet another economic blue print if his madness gave him even a few days respite each lunar cycle.

Tendai Biti should know that MDC-T’s economic blue print, RESTART, in the 2013 elections never saw the light of day because Mugabe and Zanu PF won that election. As long as Zanu PF remains in power no one else’s economic blue print will ever see the light of day.

Since Zanu PF rigged the July 2013 elections it follows that the party is in power on the basis of its ability to rig elections and not because the electorate like its own ZimAsset economic blue print. ZimAsset is died and, frankly, Mugabe has never placed any real hope in it ever delivering the 2.2 million new jobs it promised. He knew his election victory was totally dependent on his ability to rig the vote!

So as long as who will form the country’s next government is decided on one thing and one thing only - who is able to rig the elections - what is the point of producing all these economic plans with all the fancy names ZimAsset, RESTART and now HOPE? There is absolutely no point in talking about economic plans or recovery until we have dealt with the political problem of Zanu PF’s ability to rig elections.

Until we implement all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA, everyone agreed then these were all necessary for free, fair and credible elections and stopping Zanu PF rigging elections; nothing of any substance will ever be achieved. It was infinitely easily to get the reforms implemented during the GNU when Mugabe obliged to under the GPA.

Now with the GPA expired, it will be tough to pressure Mugabe and Zanu PF to get all the reforms implemented. Tough as that is, this is the task before us and we must keep our eyes on that ball.

The nation wasted its best chance yet to implement all the democratic reforms because of the “collective foolishness” of Tendai Biti and his fellow MDC leaders who failed to get even one reform implemented. And today Tendai Biti is once again threatening the process of having the reforms finally implemented by going off at a tangent offering his HOPE economic blue print which, without the political reforms, will never be tested! He is offering hope by offering a hopeless solution!

After their inexcusable betrayal of the people during the GNU the best thing Biti and the rest of the MDC crew should have done is apologize and resign. They have proven beyond all doubt that they are corrupt and incompetent, the “collective foolishness” as Biti called; serious faults over which one will be forced to resign immediately in a healthy and functional democracy.

 

In Zimbabwe corrupt, incompetent and self-confessed fools have a field day; instead of resigning over their past record of failures and blunders they are all out campaigning for re-election! Actually what the nation needs above all else to get out of this political and economic mess is a savvy electorate. One cannot deny that it was the “collective foolishness” of the electorate that made them elect corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders into power in the first place. It would be folly for the Zimbabwe electorate to re-elect the same corrupt and incompetent individuals back into office but that is one thing one cannot rule out!

 

Zimbabweans are suffering greatly under the worsening economic situation. But to deal with this problem is like cutting down a tree; if it takes five hours to cut down the tree, four hours was spend sharpening the axe. Before we can deal with the economic meltdown we need a savvy electorate competent to elect leaders who will get all the democratic reforms implemented because nothing will ever be achieved as long as Zanu PF is free to rig elections.