Instead of implementing the GPA reforms Mugabe is wasting time tinkering with meaningless reforms!

“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has admitted that the polling station-based voters' roll trial-run recently conducted in Marondera exposed glaring logistical challenges which could stop plans to roll it out to all parts of the country ahead of the 2018 general elections,” reported Newsday.

 

The only real surprise here is that ZEC officials admitted their proposed solution to end Zimbabwe’s political culture of rigged elections would not work. The normal thing for ZEC would have been to praise the trial-run to the heavens and make a big song and dance about this regime is now totally committed to ensuring the next elections are free, fair and credible. 

 

As long as Mugabe and Zanu PF retain their octopus reach and control of all state institution like the Police, CIO, Army, Public Media, Judiciary, ZEC, etc., etc. there will never be free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe. After each rigged elections this regime has always promised to change the conduct of elections to address the opposition and critics’ complains and all it has ever done is tinker around with the structure of this institution or the process without changing anything. Indeed some of the tinkering was to hide its latest vote rigging tricks!

 

In Mugabe’s 35 years in power he has rarely used the same vote rigging dirty trick twice; he has always tweaked the system and left his challengers, particularly the simpletons Tsvangirai and Mujuru, scratching their heads in confusion. For example, it was not until noon of elections-day, 31^st July 2013, that it finally dawned on Tsvangirai that the elections had been rigged; everyone else had seen this coming and had even warned the MDC leaders but, of course, they never listen to anyone.

 

As a nation we were very slow off the mark in 1980 and thus allowed Mugabe to establish this Zanu PF dictatorship that has brought nothing but political paralysis and economic ruin. We had the opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the GNU but, once again, we were slow off the mark and failed to realize that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were too corrupt and incompetent to implement all the 2008 GPA democratic reforms, which every agreed were a necessary pre-requisite to meaning change and ending Zanu PF’s octopus dictatorial reach and control of state institutions.

 

We were, once again, slow off the mark throughout the GNU years; MDC failed to get even one democratic reform implemented after five years in the GNU. Not one! We should have seen MDC leaders for the corrupt and incompetent individuals they are.

Since the July 2013 rigged elections Tsvangirai has been pushing Zanu PF to implement wishy-washy electoral law reforms. He has insists that he “will force” Zanu PF to implement these electoral law reforms BEFORE the 2018 elections. We have wasted two years and have less than three years before the 2018 elections and still not even one of these reforms has been implemented. And still Tsvangirai maintains the reforms will be implemented on time. This is just the usual arrogance we have learnt to expect from him.

 

Tsvangirai insisted the 2013 elections would be free, fair and credible but, of course, we now know they were not; that is now a historic fact!

 

But more significantly, Veritas, a Zimbabwean think tank on legal matters, had examined the electoral law amendments before parliament and concluded that they are “inadequate and incomplete” and thus will never deliver the free and fair elections even if they were implemented.

 

The urgency of implementing the reform comes from the fact that the nation needs political reforms first before we can tackle the nation’s economic reforms necessary to end the country’s abject poverty brought on by worsening economic meltdown. Poverty is killing our people like flies cause in a fly-trap!

 

Zimbabwe’s extended family system of parents, brothers, sisters, uncles, cousins all chipping in to help a relative with paying school fees, buying food, etc. has served this nation well so far. The economic reality of 90% plus of the people out of work has left the overwhelming majority of the people so impoverish extend family system has now broken down because everyone is poor and in desperate need for help to consider helping someone else.

 

There is poverty in which one if forced to make do with one meal a day instead of the three, for example. The abject poverty in Zimbabwe today has now reached the level where millions have been forced cut back on even the bear essential to keep body and soul like food and medicine. Zimbabwe’s unemployment has remained a nauseating 80% plus for the last decade and the result years of poverty has taken a heavy toll on this nation; millions are economically impoverished, mentally and physically exhausted and weak and venerable to disease and illness.

 

Zimbabweans are dying of curable diseases like high blood pressure and flue because the country’s health delivery system has, like most other things, collapsed and many are too poor to pay for the poor service and the medicine. Zimbabweans are dying like flies in a fly-trap; abject poverty is fast becoming the country’s worst killer more potent that AIDS and Malaria put together!  

 

There is no known vaccine against abject poverty and the only known cure by ending the country’s economic meltdown fuelling the poverty.

 

This Mugabe regime has not only dragged the nation into this economic hell but it has stubbornly refused to carry out the necessary economic reforms to end the mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness at the heart of the country’s spectacular economic decline. Worse still the regime has created this de facto one party dictatorship which has meant that although the people have known the regime has failed them and have been desperate to remove the regime the nation has completely failed to do so for the last 35 years now.

 

The only legal and peaceful way to force this Mugabe regime to give up political power is by demanding the implementation of all the 2008 GPA democratic reforms.

 

We must reject MDC’s electoral law reforms which we now know are “inadequate and incomplete” and we must also reject Zanu PF’s endless tinkering with the voters’ roll, electoral process, etc. because neither of these will end Zanu PF’s octopus reach and control of the state institutions. We must demand the implementation of all the 2008 GPA reforms as the pre-requisite and guarantee for free, fair and credible elections.

 

The worsening economic meltdown and the increasing human misery and deaths it is causing will concentrate the nation’s minds on political reforms because is national tragedy is socially and politically unsustainable. By rigging the elections, Mugabe has resisted regime change for 35 years but now the cup is full to overflowing; this nation has paid dearly in money and human suffered and lives to gratify his insatiable appetite for absolute power and wealth, the price going forward has now soared far beyond even what this subservient nation such as we are can endure without risking the complete breakdown of our every humanity!!

Zimbabweans are dying like flies, they will never elect Mujuru is a free vote!

“Zanu-PF outcasts are crafting strategies to sell Joice Mujuru as the ideal candidate to challenge President Robert Mugabe in the 2018 elections with messages revolving around her chances to be Zimbabwe's first female leader with liberation war credentials,” The Standard reported. I beg to differ!

 

 Zimbabwe is facing a very serious economic meltdown after 35 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by Mugabe and his cronies. ZimAsset, Mugabe’s plan to revive the economy died a still birth two years ago when it was launch because the tyrant failed to get anyone to bankroll the $27 billion hare-brain scheme; not even his “all weather friend” the Chinese would do more than give him a post-dated cheque for mega-deals that have failed to materialize.

 

The Zimbabwe economy has now decline for far pushing unemployment into the stratosphere of 90% plus and millions now live in abject poverty, the kind that kills. Not even Zanu PF Chefs have been spared as Heroes’ Acre is now filling up with Zanu PF chefs who should not be there. Nathan Shamuyarira, Enos Nkala and more recently Mudhumeni Chivende they all died paupers; it is poverty that killed them!

 

For a nation that has sunk this low; it would not be concerned about electing “first female leader with liberation war credentials”; that is the last thing in the people’s minds. Top in the nation’s mind is electing a leader who will take them out of this hell-on-earth a.s.a.p. Can Joice Mujuru be one such leader? Hell no!

 

Joice Mujuru is lazy, corrupt and incompetent and she has a 34 year record in government to prove that. She really is no different from the rest of the other Zanu PF leaders who have remained in the party. She was booted out of the party kicking and screaming; how that should be viewed as her “Damascene transformation”, as Tsvangirai called it beggars belief.

 

If the 2008 GPA reforms were implemented before the next elections – it is a big IF since MDC who should be pushing for these reforms are instead pushing for the electoral law reforms which Veritas, a local think tank on legal matters has dismissed as “inadequate and incomplete. Still, if the next elections were free and fair then Joice Mujuru will not win.

 

She is lazy, corrupt and incompetent; she will find it infinitely easier to shed off fifty pounds piled on during her 34 years of comfort and luxury on the gravy train than shedding off the lazy, corrupt and incompetent reputation. In a free and fair vote the electorate do not vote for someone who is lazy, corrupt and incompetent even for sentimental reasons of having a “first female leader (President) with liberation war credentials”

 

Mujuru was the “first female leader (Vice President) with liberation war credentials” and look where it has landed the nation!

 

Mugabe has made Zanu PF unelectable, Mujuru still remains Zanu PF in all but name, hence the reason why the tyrant has had to resort to wanton violence and vote rigging to stay in power. So if the next elections are not free and fair; then Mugabe/Mnangagwa will have the edge over Mujuru. He still has total control of the State institutions to carry out the wanton violence and vote rigging; thanks to Tsvangirai’s failure to implement even one of the 2008 GPA democratic reforms designed to end all the undemocratic and dictatorial controls.

 

So Mujuru’s only hope of “winning” the next elections is in using her supporters still in Zanu PF to stop Mugabe using violence and using any other dirty tricks to rigging the vote. Margaret Dongo used her inside informers to expose how Mugabe operatives had rigged the 1995 Harare South parliamentary elections. Mujuru can do the same; she still has a lot of her followers who are still Zanu PF card carrying members whose loyalty Mugabe has good reason to be worried about.

 

So if the next elections are not free and fair the contest will be between Mugabe trying to rig the elections and Mujuru threatening to expose all the vote rigging activities. In such electoral contestations the people are coerced to vote one way or else denied the vote and it is nonsense therefore to talk selling “Joice Mujuru as the ideal candidate”. The people will never ever vote for a lazy, corrupt and incompetent leader if they have a free and democratic vote specially with so many dying of poverty!

Ncube promised 10k graduates full "algorithm of national governance" yet failed to deliver same during GNU!

“We in the MDC, we want to instill a sense of hope among the thousands of young Zimbabweans. When a nation loses youthful enthusiasm to despair, it is merely preparing an army of agitated malcontents. Thus, our plan is to ensure that all young people fully participate in the algorithm of national governance, so they choose leaders whose behavior and vision resonates with their needs; leaders with whom they share aspirations and can identify with, not tired and spent ninety-year old men,” wrote Professor Welshman Ncube in his latest weekly appeal for votes.

Professor for a highly educated man, you are unbelievably stupid! Do you really think you can still con the people of Zimbabwe the way you conned them during the GNU?

You say your plan “is to ensure that all young people fully participate in the algorithm of national governance”. You saying this just because it is the right thing to say and you need these young people’s votes.

No fewer than ten thousand students graduated from the various universities and colleges across the land this year. Sadly most of these graduates will not get a job; they destined to join ever growing mountain of unemployed which is already as high as Mount Everest.

Professor Ncube is targeting these graduates not because he feels sorry for them and wants to help end their plight, he does not cares one bit they are joining the 90% plus out of work; he is looking at taking advantage of their suffering to boost his vote count come the next elections. If he can get all this year’s graduates alone to vote for him next time, he will more than double MDC’s nationwide vote count in 2013!

If Professor Ncube really cared about ending young men and women’s unemployment blues, after all their hard work and the great many sacrifices their families made to get them through all these years of school and college; then he and his MDC friends would have implement the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA.

By the year MDC was formed in 1999, the nation had reached a consensus that we needed democratic changes to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, first and foremost, before we can start addressing the economic problems behind the nation’s economic decline. Indeed the party’s name MDC, Movement for Democratic Change, was a reaffirmation of this sentiment. MDC also took to chanting “Chinja Maitiro! Change!” as their slogan.

Even now Professor Ncube is seeking to recapture the same spirit of change; his plan “is to ensure that all young people fully participate in the algorithm of national governance,” he said. He has been very coy when it comes to giving details of what this plan entails one does not need a university degree to figure out what is must entail. In a country where elections been routinely rigged thus denying, not just young people but all Zimbabweans, any meaningful say in the governance of that country that plan must necessarily include democratic changes to ensure elections are free, fair and credible.

The primary task of the 2009 to 2013 GNU, of whom Professor Ncube was a senior member of the MDC, was to implement the raft of democratic changes agreed in the 2008 GPA to ensure the next elections were free, fair and credible.

At the end of the five years of the GNU not even one single reform had been implemented. SADC Heads had reminded Professor Ncube and his fellow MDC friends to implement the reforms repeatedly but were ignored. There is no other logical explanation why MDC failed to implement even one reforms other than that the MDC leaders are corrupt and incompetent.

Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trapping of gravy train lifestyle in return for them to do nothing about implementing the reforms. Of course MDC leaders sold-out!

In other words Professor Ncube had the golden opportunity to ensure all Zimbabweans young and old, graduates or not had a meaningful vote not only in July 2013 but secure that right for generations thereafter if only he and his MDC friends had not sold-out and implemented the GPA reforms!

It is an insult to the nation that he should now be sanctimoniously promising to deliver the same democratic changes before he has even explained to this nation why he failed to deliver even one change in the five years of the GNU when implementing the reforms was a lot easier than it is doing so now!

Ever since Ncube and the other MDC leaders like Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, David Coltart, etc. came together to form the MDC in 1999, they have promised the people democratic change not because they truly wanted to see change but because they know it would help them get votes. Since the rigged July 2013 when many MDC politicians lost their gravy train seats in parliament and/or cabinet; Professor Ncube was a cabinet member entitled to a ministerial car, generous salary and allowances, etc.; MDC leaders have returned to the original message of promising change with renewed vigour and passion.

The 10 000 graduates who have just joined the unemployed mountain will soon know what it means to be desperate to find work; Professor Ncube and his fellow MDC leaders are equally desperate. I fell for the graduates and all the millions unemployed, your desperation is driven by need; I have no sympathy for Professor Ncube et al because their desperation is driven by greed! Having tasted the good life of the gravy train they are so desperate to get back they will promise the voters the moon on a silver platter. Once elected, they will not implement even one democratic change just as they did not during the GNU years and thus deliver hell on a silver platter.

The political lesson for the 10 000 graduates and the rest of the Zimbabwe populous must learn then from the GNU years is that it is not enough to wish for democratic change and shout Chinja! Chinja! at every rally. We had the opportunity to get all those changes done but were betrayed by Professor Ncube and his MDC friends in the first instance. But because we, the electorate, did not have a clue what these changes were MDC leaders not just got away with selling out but worse still they are now queuing to do the same again.

For all our claim to having one of the highest literacy rates in Africa and, no doubt, an equally impressive proportion of University graduate; we have, nonetheless, one of the most naïve and gullible electorate in the world. We have some of the most corrupt and incompetent politicians in the world, there is a mountain of evidence to prove it, and yet our politicians have conned the Zimbabwean voters again and again with bewildering easy.

To all the hundreds of thousands of University and College graduates past, present and future unless you can apply your book knowledge to solve the simple problem of how to restore good governance then all your classroom education has been wasted. Your university degrees and diplomas are just expensive wall papers, no more useful to you or the nation than Grace Mugabe’s three-month “Speedy Gonzales” doctorate!!

"I am Grace Mugabe's Junior" is more that an admission than V P Mphoko crying for help!

“I am Grace Mugabe jr”, says VP Mphoko screamed the headlines. When Phelekezela Mphoko has plucked out of political obscurity and appointed second Vice President he was not so naïve as not know he would be called upon to sing for his supper. Still even in his worst nightmares he never found himself doing so much grovelling as he is doing right now.

 “I want to correct a misconception once and for all. Myself and Vice President Mnangagwa are just Vice Presidents and must only be addressed as Honourable but the first lady is as good as the President and must be addressed as her excellency,” he found himself explaining.

“We must correct these naughty newspaper writers who claim that I am being belittled when I am being asked to introduce the First Lady. When I took oath as Vice President I swore to be loyal to President Mugabe and that does not end with him only but his wife and family. I am serving at the mercy of the President and his wife and so am bound to respect her in that order,” said VP Mphoko.

Yes, and when you are “serving at the mercy” of a merciless tyrant and ever demanding wife you are in double trouble!

 

VP Mphoko has been co-opted into Grace Mugabe’s faction and so has had to drop everything and attend her factional rallies and not just introduce her but grovel and belittle himself before her and, worst of all, pretend he is duty bound to do so. Of course that is nonsense.

 

We have the State President who is also Commander-In-Chief of all the armed services; he holds the highest office in the land. He is assisted by first Vice President, who holds the second highest position in the land and when the State President is out of the country he assumes all the powers of State President. The second Vice President is the third most senior member of government and so on. This is all enshrined in our constitution.

 

The First Lady and the President’s family are not even mention in the constitution.

 

Grace is not a cabinet member, an MP or a civil servant; so why state resources such as two helicopters should be put at her disposal with a VP, 12 cabinet members, 50 MPs and God knows how many thousands of civil servants abandoning their tasks to attend her Zanu PF party rallies beggars belief! To understand what is going on here one has to understand that Zimbabwe is a lawless nation ruled by the whim of a tyrant.

 

When you live in a lawless society at the mercy of a tyrant we have to learn to predict his whim because there are dire consequences for getting it wrong as former VP Joice Mujuru would readily testify.

 

In 2004 Joice Mujuru was the beneficiary of Mugabe’s dictatorial whim in the he unilaterally and constitutional change the Zanu PF constitution to demand that one of the top four posts in the party must be occupied by a woman. Emmerson Mnangagwa who was poised to win the vacant position of VP then lost out.

 

Ten years later it was Joice Mujuru who was poised to win the VP position in the 2014 elective congress. She was accused of being “divisive and leading a faction”, all nonsense because all she had done is solicit support from party member same as everyone else would have done in the circumstance. In a lawless party like Zanu PF where Mugabe’s whim constitute the law and he and he alone constitute the judge, jury and executioner; Mujuru was accused, summarily tried and punished.

 

A tyrant’s whim is like the wind one cannot always be sure which direction it is blowing. Mai Mujuru benefited from the lawlessness in 2004 but come 2014 the wind suddenly changed direction and she was caught and blown off her perch.

 

No one in the party elected Emmerson Mnangagwa or Phelekezela Mphoko into their respective positions as first and second VP; Mugabe used his dictatorial power to assume the power to appoint whoever he pleased into those positions. This exactly what VP Mphoko meant when he said he is “serving at the mercy of the President and his wife”. And the two are merciless task masters.

 

Having accepted Mugabe’s lawlessness in 2004 because it helped her secure the VP position Joice Mujuru was powerless to complain when the same lawlessness was being used against her in 2014. Mnangagwa and Mphoko did not see anything wrong with taking away the voting rights of party members in the selection of the first and second VP; they got the posts and that is all that mattered, so they thought.

 

Grace Mugabe is going after VP Mnangagwa’s supporters harassing them and accusing them of factionalism and he is helpless to defend them; he cannot call for an end to this lawlessness now since he is the beneficiary of the same lawlessness. Mnangagwa is just a seating duck at the mercy of whatever Grace chooses to throw at him, at least whilst Mugabe is alive.

 

As for VP Mphoko he has to sit next to Grace cheering, applauding and grovelling knowing fully well that he is being used and when the time comes he too will be abused and discarded in like fashion.

 

In a lawless society like Zimbabwe one has to lick one’s finger every day and read the direction the political wind blows. It is very dangerous to have the wind blowing in your face and be the one accused of division and factionalism. But with the succession race hotting up the ruthless tyrant and his ambitious wife’s whims are like a whirlwind, it is near impossible to keep one’s back to buffeting the wind.

 

No one in Zanu PF is safe from becoming the next victim of its lawlessness!

 

“I am Grace Mugabe’s junior,” said VP Mphoko. This was more than an admission, this was a cry of one who knows they are caught in a trap and there is no escape. The First Lady’s factional rallies have only just started, she will not stop until she is President Grace Mugabe; VP Mphoko has his work cut out! If he had known he would be babysitting Grace, I doubt if we would talking of VP Phelekezela Mphoko today!

"We will take over government in 2018" says Musewe - the devil is in the detail, how!

“There we go again!” started Vince Musewe’s report of his recent radio debate with Minister Patrick Zhuwao.

 

“In the typical ZANU (PF) fashion, he (Minister) hasn't listened and has come out guns blazing on creating another rent seeking behaviour where companies must pay an empowerment levy,” continued Vince.

 

Vince was spot on to have “Zhuwao’s destructive exuberance” as the title of his article and to start it with a sigh of despair. Minister Zhuwao has failed to accept the simple reality that ever since Zanu PF passed its indigenisation law in 2008 foreign direct investment (FDI) has dried up.

 

51% of zero FDI + 10% levy on zero FDI = zero empowerment + zero jobs + $0 m trust fund

 

Zhuwao is Mugabe’s nephew and ever since his appointment as Minister of Youth and Empowerment has been exuberant and cocky; all “destructive exuberance” of course because the reality of the above equation was not changed one iota!

 

Patrick is following his uncle Bob’s footsteps; Mugabe promised the nation that his 2013 ZimAsset economic recovery plan would create 2.2 million new jobs in five years. The plan is dead in the water because the tyrant failed to get anyone, not even the “all weather friend” the Chinese, to bankroll his $27 billion hare-brain scheme.

 

Two year into the five years the regime has failed to create any new jobs, indeed the Zimbabwe economy has continued to shed jobs like a tree shedding leaves. Unemployment has soared to nauseating heights of 90% plus and millions now live in abject poverty. Zimbabwe’s poverty has reached a new level hundreds of thousands are dying of poverty! And yet Mugabe still talks of ZimAsset as if the plan is working its magic. There is exuberant and very destructive arrogance for you!

 

As Vince continued, it was my turn to sigh, “Here we go again!”

 

“It is my opinion that in principle President Mugabe has not been wrong in the need to empower Zimbabweans. What he has failed to do is to cast a strong enough and compelling inclusive national vision for the country that takes a scientific approach in achieving the stated objectives of the ownership of assets by Zimbabweans,” continued Vince.

 

“He has dismally failed to transform Zimbabwe through building the necessary non-partisan inclusive institutional framework but has relied on the old colonial architecture of control and command by a political centre. This has marginalised millions from contributing and created a massive brain drain and widespread poverty.  Indigenisation is one of those policies which is contributing to the decline. We will certainly reverse that when we take over in 2018.”

 

Yes Vince, Zhuwao is as thick as two concrete bricks, he thinks because he is Minister he alone knows what is best and so will not listen to anyone and ignores the reality on the ground. But Vince so are you!

 

“We will certainly reverse that when we take over in 2018,” you talk as if this is a done deal. How are you going to take over the reins on power considering we have a regime that is cock sure of its own economic policies as you have seen from Minister Zhuwao and, more significantly, has the machinery to ensure there is no regime change!

 

Zhuwao can claim to generate $93 million a year for his community trust funds just as his uncle Mugabe claimed he would create 2.2 million jobs or you, Vince, claim to win the 2018 elections; you can claim all you like. The devil is in the detail; unless Zhuwao can deal with the reality of zero FDI, Mugabe can deal with zero funds for ZimAsset and you Musewe can deal with the reality that Zanu PF rigs elections then all your claims nothing but hot air.

 

Zimbabwe is in serious economic and political trouble and we need to find a way out.

 

It is the destructive exuberance of people like Mugabe, Zhuwao and now Musewe who claim to know everything and yet all they ever contribute is hot air how have dragged us into this mess and, if we do not silence them, will keep us in this hell.

 

Tyrants like Mugabe can bellow out all the hot air they wish about his ZimAsset working it should be for the people of Zimbabwe to decide in a free, fair and credible election whether they believe him. What is wrong with the present system with its “no regime change” ethos is that we, the people, have no meaningful say. We are stuck with Zhuwao and his indigenisation law, with Mugabe and his ZimAsset plan and, if we are not careful will be stuck with Musewe and his re-engineering if all we changed are the faces in government but not the system.  

 

We must demand the implementation of all the 2008 GPA democratic reforms so that all Zimbabweans have a meaningful say in the governance of this nation. We want the right to free, fair and credible elections.    

Nkrumah was right povo should seek the political power first we did not and have paid dearly for it!

"Seek ye first the political freedom and everything else shall be added unto you" is a myth, a monumental lie, a delusion that assumes political power will necessarily result in economic freedom and development. That will not happen until we re-imagineer what we can be,” you said.

 

Who, may I ask, is “we” who is doing all this re-engineering of society and will define the roadmap that we lead us this Great Zimbabwe complete with $1 trillion GDP by 2045?

 

So with the economy now at $15 billion you are saying the Zimbabwe economy will grow 13.6% minimum average for 30 years under your mystic regime’s stewardship. After 35 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and ruthless tyrannical oppression that has left the nation impoverished and destitute these mystic economic gurus could not have come at a better time. Who are they?

 

Meanwhile, let me tell you about what happened back in 1980 when the nation attained her independence. We did have men and women who claimed to be jack of all trades and masters of them all led by none other than Robert Gabriel Mugabe himself; the man who really believes he is infallible and even at the advanced age of 91 years and sickly he still believes he is the only person competent to be president. He is helped greatly by the fact that he rigs both national and his own party, Zanu PF, elections to stay in power.

 

Back in 1980 Mugabe was convinced he will deliver mass prosperity, “Gutsa ruzhinji!” as he never tired of telling the nation. Like you, Vince, Mugabe did not care about freedom, liberty and human rights; these were luxury demanded by the “petty bourgeois” to side-track him from his set agenda of delivering gutsa ruzhinji! 

 

You may argue, and rightly so too, that Mugabe’s re-engineering and/or self-belief did not attain the correct energy and refinement level that your mystic geniuses have attained and that is why Mugabe failed and you will succeed. The thrust of my argument is not just that Mugabe failed to deliver of economic prosperity but most important of all that having eroded the people’s political rights the nation was stuck with the regime for 35 years regardless its track record of failure, corruption and brutal repression and even political murders!

 

“Chero tikaisa gudo tikati ndiro ratada, ndiro ramunovhotera." (If we (Zanu PF) nominate a baboon, you (the people) will be obliged to vote for it!) Boasted the late Zanu PF VP Simon Muzenda, just to underline how little say the ordinary people had in the governance of the country.

 

You are reading things back to front and that is why you have completely misunderstood President Nkrumah. The myth, which our own experience of the last 35 years has disproved beyond doubt, is that one can still expect economic prosperity even though they have lost all political power. We are poor and destitute today precisely because for the last 35 years Mugabe and Zanu PF have had the political power to do as they pleased.

 

Yes we have had regular elections but Mugabe has made it clear all along that there would be no regime change. The vote is the ultimate democratic means in the hands of the ordinary person he/she can use to force those in positions of power and authority to listen to him but only if that vote counts. Election in which there will be no regime change is an oxymoron and an insult to the electorate.

 

What we have now is a situation where it is those who are in power who not only do as the please but even hold the people to ransom. It is the dog that should wag the tail and not the tail wagging the dog!

 

After 35 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule the national economy in total meltdown, unemployment a nauseating 90% plus, millions living in abject poverty, millions are suffering the inconvenience of 18 hours a day with no electricity, etc. As long as Mugabe and Zanu PF remain in power the economic meltdown is set to get worse because Mugabe cannot end corruption, for example, without dismantling his own power base. Zimbabwe’s ruling elite have mutated into a cancerous tumour that must now be surgical removed.

 

The best way to remove Mugabe and Zanu PF from power is by implement all the 2008 GPA reforms and thus restore the people’s democratic freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life. Mugabe will never win a free, fair and credible election.

 

I can guess who your mystic geniuses are whom you claim will deliver the $1 trillion GDP by 2045. Are you lot going to produce yet another economic blueprint, the latest crazy in Zimbabwe politics these days. We have JUICE — Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and Environment from MDC-T; BUILD - Blueprint to Unlock Investment and Leverage for Development from People First; ZimAsset - Zimbabwe Agenda for Sustainable Socio Economic Transformation from Mugabe and Zanu PF; etc.

 

Unless we implement the GPA reforms your super-duper economic blueprint will never see the light of day because Zanu PF will just rig the elections to stay in power.

 

There is a possibility with Zanu PF imploding the party will not be able to rig the next elections and thus allowing you and your mystic geniuses to get into power. I for one will continue to campaign for the GPA reforms to be implemented because should you fail to deliver on your mouth-watering 13.6% minimum economic growth rates; the nation must be free to kick you out of office without you too rigging elections to stay in power just like Mugabe.

 

Even if you delivered the miracle economic growths year after year I would still demand that the reforms be implemented but the only way the nation can be sure that you delivery year after year is when you that any slip up and you will be kicked out!

 

Oh yes, the people must seek and secure their right to a free and meaningful vote because it is the only whip they will ever have with which to ensure those holding public office serve them, the public, and not in office to enrich themselves at public expense. Yes President Kwame Nkrumah was right we, the masses, povo, must “seek ye first political power and the rest will follow!” QED!

Electoral law reforms MDC demanded are "inadequate and incomplete" says Varitas

For the record there some of us who passionately argued that Zimbabwe’s 2013 new constitution was weak and feeble; it would never deliver free, fair and credible elections. Tsvangirai, Biti, Ncube, Coltart and all the other MDC leaders said it would deliver free and fair elections and that nation should vote yes to approve in the March 2013 referendum. Tsvangirai went so far as to call the new constitution an “MDC child”!  

The nation approved it by a staggering 95%. According to Tendai Biti up to 15% of the Yes Vote in the referendum was fraudulent; this was the first sign how much Mugabe and Zanu PF wanted the new constitution approved. The second sign was the boasting by MP Paul Mangwana that it was Mugabe who had “dictated the new constitution”.

So the new constitution was not the democratic constitution every expected it to be, not an “MDC child” but rather a tyrant’s creed.

SADC Heads of State aware that the new constitution was weak and feeble argued MDC to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA. They even warned MDC not to take part in the elections before the reform are implemented but Tsvangirai and others ignored the warning.

The July 2013 elections proved beyond all doubt that the new constitution was indeed weak and feeble as Mugabe and Zanu PF managed to blatantly rig the vote!

Ever since the rigged July 2013 elections the three MDC factions, MDC-T, MDC (Ncube) and MDC Renewal and now calling themselves People Democratic Party (PDP), involved in the GNU said they would not take part in any future elections until “existing electoral and security sector laws are aligned to the new constitution”.

Given that the new constitution is weak and feeble, whether MDC leaders care to admit it or not is irrelevant what matters is that it is, it was therefore obvious the realignment would not produce the desired results of free, fair and credible elections and all the freedoms and human rights we are seeking. It really did not make any sense wasting time and money pursuing this route.

The best and only option was to revert back to the raft of reform in 2008 GPA and implement all these reforms.

The first supporting evidence that the realigning the existing laws would not deliver the democratic changes came from Tawanda Chimhini the Director of Electoral Resource Centre (ERC) who together with 17 other local Zimbabwean NGOs supported the realignment route. They had been lobbying parliament to amend the necessary laws.

"As a democracy, we need to grow and the electoral reforms that we are proposing are not a threat to anybody," explain Tawanda Chimhini when quizzed on what kind reforms ERC was seeking.

The raft of democratic reforms proposed in the 2008 GPA were definitely a serious threat to Mugabe and Zanu PF because they were designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship which had usurped the people’s democratic freedoms and rights for selfish political gain including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life. So the reforms ERC and MDC are pushing for will not “a threat” to Mugabe and Zanu PF only if they will not dismantle the dictatorship!

If there were any doubting Thomas still out there who still believed there was anything to be gained from re-aligning the existing laws as contrast to implementing the raft of reforms in the GPA this extract from Angus Shaw’s report in The Zimbabwean should finally settle this matter.

“Proposed amendments to the crucial Electoral Act now before the Zimbabwe parliament are “inadequate and incomplete,” reports the admirable group Veritas, an independent  local think tank on legal matters,” reads Shaw’s report.

“On the existing media laws, Veritas says it is doubtful that they can ever be aligned with the constitution. “What is certain is that the General Laws Amendment Bill does not even try to do so,” says the group. Ideally, laws that make “abuse of freedom of expression a criminal offence” should be repealed and completely redrafted to comply with the new constitution.

“Amendments proposed in the Defence Act mean it will “remain unconstitutional in several important respects,” says Veritas.

“The list of flaws in the General Laws Amendment Bill is legion. Since those disputed elections in 2013, no-one in Mr Mugabe’s ruling party, it appears, can either be bothered or find the will to adhere to the nation’s supreme law.”

The title of Angus Shaw’s article is “Dysfunctional Zimbabwe” and in all honesty, who can deny that.

If MDC had implemented all the GPA reforms and drafted a wholesome democratic constitution we would have had free, fair and credible elections in July 2013 and everyone would be enjoying their freedoms and basic rights. It is most unfortunate that Tsvangirai et al failed to implement even one single 2008 GPA reform in five years of the GNU.

What matters now is that we realize the choices before us; either to go down the route of re-aligning the existing knowing fully well, Veritas has confirmed this, that these reforms will never deliver the democratic changes we want. We will per se accept our present status as a dysfunctional nation and worse still condemn future generation to the same.

Or demand the implementation of all the 2008 GPA reforms and finally secure our freedoms and rights including the right to our first free, fair and credible elections and the right to life itself. Our ability to finally do something to address the corruption, mismanagement and lawlessness behind the economic meltdown is totally dependent, first and foremost, on us ending the country’s corrupt and tyrannical system of government.

We must demand that Mugabe and Zanu PF step down to allow the implementation of the 2008 GPA reforms. The regime has had two years since the rigged July 2013 to implement the watered electoral reforms and yet it has done nothing, the regime not bothered or lacks the will. It will be very naïve therefore to expect the regime to find the will to fully implement the tougher 2008 GPA reforms. Mugabe and Zanu PF must be pressured to step down so an independent body is appointed to implement the GPA reforms.  

"Seek ye first the political kingdom" said Nkrumah vs "Forget politics" said Musewe

“You will not get any marks for answering the question YOU wanted asked so please read the question carefully, twice or thrice if necessary, before you start answering it,” pleaded my High School Teacher before the start of each examination. If he is still alive today, he must be despairing at what he sees; Zimbabweans have developed the knack for answering the question no one asked.

“I want here to cast a vision that Zimbabwe can be the Singapore, Taiwan or tiger of Africa with a trillion dollar economy in 30 years’ time by 2045. All we have to do is to believe in that idea,” asserted Vince Musewe.

“Africa has been stagnant at the philosophical, the genesis, and the creative level and is stuck with an old paradigm with old philosophies which were not designed to prosper Africa. This has become the ultimate African nemesis” and so says my dear friend Hannington Mubaiwa, the visionary from whom I have borrowed the ideas herein..” he explained.

“Zimbabweans must realize that unless and until we crash the old and re-entrepreneur, (thinking of the next great possibilities), re-engineer, be creative and rebrand ourselves, we cannot innovate our market value on the global free enterprise market place to tap into capital. This capital is not from governments but in the free market.”

His whole argument, or “paradigm and re-engineering” was based on the assumption it is us, the individuals, who needed to change and to believe in our own abilities and that there is absolutely nothing wrong with our political system and our political leaders.

“Let’s forget the politics. That is a side show merely designed to satisfy short sightedness and the selfish ambition of both the local and international predatory cabal with little interest in creating sustainable societies in Africa,” he said.

Of course he is wrong, hopelessly wrong; politics is important everything evolves round politics.

Zimbabwe is facing serious social and economic disruptions right now because of the protracted power cuts by ZESA, for example. Why? Politics!

ZESA is not able to meet the nation’s electrical power requirements because the power sector, like every other sector of the nation’s economy, is in a deplorable state of rot and decay because of 35 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. 35 years of misrule by this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime. The nation has been stuck with this economic mess unable to force the regime to end the criminal waste of material and human resources or, better still, remove the regime from power because we have a de facto one party dictatorship. Regime change is taboo.

With this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship, no amount of Mr Musewe’s paradigm re-engineering or self-belief would have save us from the economic mess we now find ourselves in! Indeed we are in this mess precisely because we have gone out of our way to forget politics because we did not want to confront the tyrant Mugabe and his thugs with the truth that politics is important and we must deal with it.

For the last 35 years we have failed to deal decisively with the issue of free, fair and credible elections at the very heart of the nation’s political problem of the de facto one-party dictatorship and we have paid dearly for this. Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess where the nation is facing economic meltdown with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus, millions are living in abject poverty, millions are starving whilst prime farms are not utilized, etc. on the one hand. And on the other hand we know we need to end the Zanu PF dictatorship to end the economic meltdown but are too naïve to admit it.

 “Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you…,” said African Visionary and Ghana’s First President Kwame Nkrumah.

Tyrants like Robert Mugabe accepted this political ethos before independence with the slogan “One man one vote!” They soon corrupted it by adding “Only if the vote is a vote for Zanu PF!” to secure their “no regime change” mantra.

People like Vince Musewe has sought to appease the tyrants by trying to work within the confines of the political framework tyrants like Mugabe set for them in which they can change everything else but the political status quo. Politics became the sacred cow. So people like Musewe have been trying to re-invent the wheel that is not round and coming up with interesting new shapes like triangle or something equally useless!

Politics and, more specifically, the right of every Zimbabwean to a democratic and meaningful vote are very important. To pretend otherwise is nonsense!

In Zimbabwe we must seek therefore the implementation of all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA design to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and restore the democratic right of every Zimbabwean to a free and meaning vote. It is only when we have secured this right that we can force Zanu PF to address the problems causing the economic meltdown or replace the regime with one that will address the problems. Implement the reforms and we will stop the economic meltdown, something Musewe’s re-engineering will not do and yet promises to grow the nation’s $15 billion to $1 trillion by 2045!