Musewe, Mugabe's tyranny is NOT born out of "historical experiences" but insatiable greed absolute power.

“Now we need a second chapter, a second revolution driven by the big idea of total freedom characterised by a prosperous and free society unhindered by any man or woman but we must all own that vision, personalise it and do what we must as others did in the past,” wrote Vince Musewe in his latest epistle from sugar-candy mountain utopia.

In this epistle he has downgraded his prosperous new Zimbabwe from $ 1 000 billion economy in 30 years he has projected in all the previous articles to a $100 billion one! Or was it a typing error; he meant $ 100 trillion and not $ 100 billion!

  

The reality in Zimbabwe, Mr Musewe as contrast to your sugar-candy mountain utopia, is the nation is facing serious economic meltdown that has seen unemployment soar to nauseating heights of 90% plus and it is getting worse not better. The challenge or “second revolution” must address this reality in a practical and tangible way than the wishy-washy let us all embrace “the big idea” and all will be well!

Even if every Zimbabwean signed up to your sugar-candy-mountain vision and spent a whole week pledging their unwavering faith in it as a way out that would have done nothing to remove one sentence from the obnoxious Indigenisation Law, for example. Minister Patrick Zhuwao would have still gone ahead and demand it implementation, as he has done!

Our problem is not that people have lacked a vision or belief in a peaceful, free and prosperous Zimbabwe; they have had that dream all along and it was that dream that fired them to fight to end white colonial oppression and exploitation. When the nation attained her independence the people’s hopes and dreams were promptly pushed aside and forgotten by Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies who had imposed their own selfish demand for absolute political power to gratify their insatiable greed for power, influence and material wealth.

We have an incompetent, corrupt and murderous regime that has denying the people their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to reject the regime in free, fair and credible elections. The nation has been hurtling down this path of economic ruin and political chaos for the last 36 years not because people did not see the danger. They saw it but they were helpless to stop it because they are stuck with this Zanu PF dictatorship.

There is no lack of economic ideas to revive the Zimbabwe economy, there problem has always been that none of these ideas were ever tried. Mugabe saw anyone offering fresh ideas as a threat to his hold on power and so he has ruthlessly stopped this ever happening.

Indeed, if Mugabe had allowed meaningful democratic debate and competition then the country’s economy will certainly never sunk to the depths it has. But then any meaningful democratic change would have led to demand for more democratic change and ultimately regime change – any anathema to Mugabe!

In many of Musewe’s previous wittering, he has made it clear that his vision will not seek any democratic reforms ending with free, fair and credible elections. Mugabe will never win free and fair elections and hence will never accept such reforms, he has maintained. As long as Mugabe remains in power he would want Zanu PF policies implemented to the letter! Only the king of sugar-candy mountain would see a booming Zimbabwe economy founded on such obnoxious economic policies and laws as Mugabe’s indigenisation laws!

Musewe, like Tsvangirai and his MDC friends during the GNU, is trying to achieve economic recovery without implementing any political reforms so the dictatorship remains untouched. The economic recovery throughout the GNU was stifled by the lack of meaningful political change. Zanu PF hooligans continued with their violent njambanja farm invasion, for example, underlining the reality that there was still no rule of law in the country. No one would want to invest in a country where there is no rule of law.

The solution to our problem is to demand the implementation of democratic reforms so that anyone with an idea what is good for the nation will be free to present his/her proposals to the people. It is for the people of Zimbabwe and them alone to decide who will rule the nation in free, fair and credible elections. Mugabe’s no-regime-change mantra is an undemocratic imposition and a violation of common sense and all the people have been fighting for in an independent Zimbabwe.  

“ZANU (PF) and especially President Mugabe are just doing what they know best - struggling against detractors because it has been a life of struggle politics. We must not expect them to have the same vision that some of us have of what Zimbabwe can become. They are naturally limited in what they can imagine by their time and space, especially by their historical experiences which have shaped their mind-set of who they are today and what they think Zimbabwe is,” you tell us.

Music to the tyrant’s ears but a down right insult to every thinking Zimbabwean out there! What “struggle” and against what “detractors”? Mugabe and his cronies have looted $15 billion from Marange diamonds in 7 years (and the looting continues - saques contínua) was that the epic struggle! The regime was murdered over 20 000 innocent Zimbabweans during the Gukurahundi years alone to lay the foundation of this oppressive de facto one-party dictatorship, the mile-stone weighing the nation down, who were the detractors then?

Musewe you can witter all you want about your sugar-candy mountain utopia; it is an annoying distraction the nation can do without but I can live with that. What is totally unacceptable is for you, or anyone to insult the intelligence of the living and tarnish the memory of the dead by glossing over Mugabe’s tyrannical betrayal of the nation and time honour struggle for freedom and justice. Zimbabwe is in this political chaos and economic mess because of Mugabe’s insatiable greed for power and wealth, it was nothing to do with his “historical experiences”.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess became Mugabe and his cronies have placed themselves above the law. In free and progressive society; no one is above the law. We will not accomplish anything of value until this political oddity is uprooted and destroyed; removing one tyrant is not good enough because another one will emerge to replace him as long as the dictatorial system is still there. 

Age has nothing to do with competence - G40 have youth but is the worst of a bad lot

During the constitution writing process there was a lot of talk of introducing the upper age limit for president. The idea has grown on from there and now some Zanu PF idiots think it is a selling point with this generation 40 (G40) faction. How stupid is that!

The problem with Mugabe and his cronies is not so much that they are old but rather that they are corrupt and incompetent. And having tried to get rid of the tyrant and failed for the last three decades, the nation was now so desperate we wanted it written into the constitution just to block Mugabe from becoming president again.

Mugabe was not always a dotting 92 year old hair-dyeing egotistic tyrant; he was a spring chicken too once upon a time. Back in 1980, Mugabe was 56 years old and Joice Mujuru was a 24 year old. Even back then, they were incompetent and corrupt; the seeds of the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and the murderous tyranny that have cripple the nation today were sown way back in 1980s.

If you are sick you seek a medical doctor. If the ailment is one requiring specialist knowledge you would inquire about the doctor’s experience and expertise in the field because that is more relevant to your needs than knowing their age, sex, race, etc.

Zimbabwe is in a serious political and economic mess after decades of misrule by Mugabe and his cronies. For years Mugabe has con the nation into electing him by promising us the moon on a silver platter but has delivered hell-on-earth. We must learn to elect our leaders with greater care and not to be so easily conned.

For Zimbabwe to get out of the hell-hole Mugabe landed us in we need far reaching political reforms to enable us to reform failed leaders as soon as we have found out they are corrupt and incompetent. We need to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship that has allowed Mugabe to rig elections and stay in power regardless of the wishes of the electorate.

Our failure to understand what the democratic changes we needed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, for example, has resulted in us being conned by Tsvangirai and his MDC friends. Tsvangirai did not have a clue what the reforms required were and so no reforms were implemented during the GNU. We are stuck with Zanu PF today because we missed the opportunity to end the dictatorship.

If we do not implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure next elections are free, fair and credible then we will be stuck with the Mujuru faction, Mnangagwa faction or G40 faction; which faction wins the rigged elections will be a matter of indifference, to me they are all Zanu PF through and through, three variants of the same corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF. Still, if push came to shove, one will have to say the G40 faction is the worst of the bad lot.

G40 faction has Minister Kasukuwere and Minister Zhuwao, the two individuals who have done the most to promote the obnoxious indigenisation law. As for Grace Mugabe, the faction’s leader, she has shown that she is a foul-mouthed individual with no common sense. President Grace Mugabe will be the nightmare scenario! Youth is on G40 faction’s side but when it comes to competency they are the least competent because, as stated above, age has nothing to do with one’s leadership qualities.

Those obsessed about age are just too lazy to think of what they want the leader to do and judge them on their ability to deliver and instead decide on the basis of something total abstract and irrelevant! We are in this hell-hole because for the last 36 years we have failed to elect competent leaders as long as we allow ourselves to be distracted by trivial matters like age, sex, race, tribe, etc., we will never get out of the hole!  

Mnangagwa will never ever win free elections - not with that "GUKURAHUNDI" tattoo!

“Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is going to finish off President Robert Mugabe’s term in office, amid top secret disclosures that, a cross-section of International players are reportedly embracing and endorsing Mnangagwa, behind the curtains to bring economic stimulus to Harare,” Spotlight Zimbabwe reported.

No thinking man or woman will have any problem with Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe to the 2018 finish line. The takeover will be good for the country, if for nothing else, in that it will end the dangerous and very destabilizing factional war that has raging on and on in Zanu PF for the last two years.

What Mnangagwa’s backers must understand, however, is his takeover to 2018 is one thing going beyond that is another matter.  The people of Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged elections; we must have the democratic reforms and the free and fair elections. Mnangagwa will never implement the reforms and deliver the free and fair elections because he is unelectable, not even a guaranteed Chinese style two digit economic growth rate can ever change that. Since Mnangagwa cannot win free and fair elections and the 2018 election MUST be free and fair, it follows that he cannot be president after 2018.

President Mnangagwa will scrap the indigenisation law and a basketful of Mugabe’s many other misguided and unworkable laws and policies, he will rein in some of the looting and plunder that have sucked the life-blood out of the nation, etc. There is no doubt he will impress the IMF and many of the other international players who have been itching to return and invest in Zimbabwe.

Given Zimbabwe’s present rock-bottom economic position, it is very possible to record noticeable economic recover after a few months. The economy showed the new growth after the formation of the GNU and the electorate was bowled over, it is not inconceivable to achieve the spring growth and bowl the people over once more.

The big question President Mnangagwa and his backers will have to answer is: Will the signs of economic recovery, no matter how impressive they happen to be, ever be enough to make   Mnangagwa believe he can ever win free and fair elections?

What Mnangagwa and his backers must understand is that there are many Zimbabweans who totally believe that it is in the short, medium and long term interest Zimbabwe to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p. and replace it with a healthy and functional democracy complete with the guarantee of free, fair and credible elections. The 2018 elections must be free, fair and credible that objective is not negotiable!

So to rephrase the above question: Will Mnangagwa ever have the confidence, between now and 2018, to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure 2018 elections are free and fair? If President Mnangagwa’s challenge was delivering economic recovery alone, then he would have a fighting chance; sadly he such a dirty past that not even the most skilful spin-doctors can ever conceal it.

36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and looting and murderous political oppression by Mugabe and Zanu PF have taken a heavy toll on the nation; the people do not only   mistruth the regime they hate the tyrant and his cronies with a burning passion. When Joice Mujuru and her supporters were booted out of Zanu PF; they thought all they needed to do was denounce Zanu PF and rebrand themselves as a caring people orientated outfit and povo will embrace them once again as their liberators as happened in 1980. Wrong!

Joice Mujuru has found herself being bombarded with hard-hitting questions about her Zanu PF past. “My hands are clean!” she screamed like a startled fork-tailed drongo, when she was quizzed on corruption.

Mugabe admitted recently that the regime has looted $15 billion worth of diamonds in the last 7 years. The true amount must be $150 billion, at least; given Mugabe alone pocketed $2 billion in 2012, according to Allan Martin of Partnership Africa Canada, a respected research organization fighting the trade in “blood” diamond. Everyone knows that the Mujurus have amassed a big fortune, she is a simpleton with no known talents; she was the second highest ranking member in the regime whilst all this wholesale looting of diamonds was going on. She is on record denying there was no corruption in Zimbabwe!

Even if one was to accept the drongo’s “clean hands” denial she should have known about the looting and stopped it; if anyone loot billions under her very nose without her knowing then surely she is just too incompetent to be president.

Mai Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF leaders are having a real tough time shaking-off their rotten Zanu PF past and they were considered the doves in Zanu PF compared to the blood-thirsty hawks like Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The people of Zimbabwe hate Mnangagwa and for very good reasons too. Zanu PF has been unelectable for donkey years but has nonetheless managed to stay in power regardless because Mugabe resorted to all manner of dirty trickery including vote rigging and wanton use of violence to stay in power. Through it all Mugabe has had Mnangagwa as his right-hand man, his most trusted henchman.

Now that Mugabe is riding into the sunset, Mnangagwa must also accept the spotlight and blame for the regime’s treasonous crimes like the Gukurahundi massacres will shift from the tyrant to him. Mnangagwa has since mounted a concerted effort to distance himself from their shared past but to no avail. He has not only denied ever saying the cheap popularity statements he made at the time, for example, but has even threatened to sue former MDC Senator David Coltart for quoting the statements in his book. The threats have opened the flood gates; even more articles about Mnangagwa and the role he played in the massacre have come to light.

Gukurahundi is one of the darkest chapters in Zimbabwe’s history; over 20 000 innocent people were murdered in cold blood. It is no exaggeration to say Mnangagwa has GUKURAHUNDI tattooed in florescent ink on his forehead. With such a cursed reputation, there is no way he can ever win a free, fair and democratic election.

Mnangagwa's crocodile nickname is well earned and Mugabe has rewarded him for doing the tyrant’s dirtiest jobs. But if Mnangagwa ever thought the people of Zimbabwe will forget or forgive him for all the human misery this tyrannical Zanu PF regime has inflicted on them all these years, then he must be very naïve indeed. In a free and fair election no one will vote for him because, given half a chance to end this dictatorship forever, only a fool would waste it.

Mnangagwa; no freeman or freewoman would ever want a crocodile for president! No one!

The fight for a democratic Zimbabwe stalled after Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends betrayed the nation by failing to implement even one democratic reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU. The fight stalled but it did not stop; the need for meaningful change is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford to have another rigged elections and the fight to get all the GPA reforms implemented before the 2018 elections will intensify.

Mnangagwa will never implement any meaningful democratic reforms; he was stupid enough to do Mugabe’s dirties jobs but he is smart enough to know he will never win free and fair elections. If any of his handlers think he will implement and democratic reforms then they are naïve. As for the people of Zimbabwe we are determined to have meaningful democratic change because we now know that whatever economic recovery we achieve without political reforms will be as short lived as the recovery during the GNU years. 

I hope Coltart's book is candid about Gukurahundi and GNU - as demanded by history and modernity.

Senator David Coltart's work during Gukurahundi is commendable and anyone who knows anything about those dark days in Zimbabwe's history will know the Senator played a key role in seeking some restorative justice to the victims of the madness. He has been relentless in his demand for those responsible for this outrage to face justice and rightly so too because this matter can never be laid to rest and the wounds heal until justice is done. 

We must never rest in our pursuit justice because in doing so we are sending a clear message that this nation will never ever sweep dirty, especially when it is committed by those in positions of trust, under the carpet. All those who commit serious human rights violation or betray the nation in anyway will be held to account regardless who they are, what office they hold and no matter how long has taken to get them to face justice. 

"Mhoswa hairovi!" as they say in Shona. (The victim may die but the crime will live on!)

Sadly the Senator has soiled his good name by allowing himself to be corrupted by Mugabe during his years in the GNU. As a senior member of the MDC the Senator cannot deny that in failing to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU, MDC sold-out.

 Zimbabwe would not be in this political and economic mess, the tyrannical rule of Zanu PF would have ended with free, fair and credible July 2013 elections, if MDC leaders like Senator Coltart had implemented the reforms. They had five years to implement the reforms, SADC leaders reminded them repeatedly to implement the reforms and they paid no heed. They failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!

Just as the Zanu PF leaders whose hands are red with the innocent blood the shed during Gukurahundi have refused to apologized to the nation for their heinous crime; Senator Coltart and his MDC friends have too refused to apologize to the nation for failing to implement the reforms.

I have bought my copy of Senator Coltart’s book : THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES – 50 YEARS OF TYRANNY IN ZIMBABWE. I hope the Senator was as open and candid in recounting our struggle as justice, history and, most important of all, the modernity of lessons learned as demanded of him and as it is demanded of us all! For him, a heartfelt apology to the good people of Zimbabwe for his part in MDC’s betrayal of the nation during the GNU will be a must! I hope for both our sakes that the Senator has not short changed me, I hate being cheated!

War vets raise stakes through the roof by demanding Mugabe fire 8 key G40 leaders.

Last week Mugabe agreed to meet the war vets who have found themselves being kicked round like a football in Zanu PF’s factious factional wars. The war vets have set Mugabe an impossible task ahead of the meeting; the want him to fire VP Phelekezela Mphoko and seven other top G40 faction leaders including Mugabe’s pompous nephew Minister Patrick Zhuwao!

"The war veterans are the owners of Zanu PF. Zanu PF cannot afford to ignore its forces in as much as Zanu and Zapu could never have ignored Zipra and Zanla," said Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans' Association (ZNLWVA) spokesperson Douglas Mahiya.

"We are the foundation of the party and the party must take what we say very seriously. The vote of no-confidence has been passed and must be executed, that is what we expect."

Ever since the demise of Joice Mujuru and her supporters when Grace Mugabe and her G40 faction turned their attention on Mnangagwa and his faction the dog-eat-dog fight has been fierce but never has the stakes been this high! Ever since Mugabe unleashed the Police with tear-gas and water cannon on the war vets led by then Minister Chris Mutsvangwa, a known Mnangagwa loyalist, the war vets have been on a war footing, itching for a fight!

Robert Mugabe now has a hell of fight in his hands; his own continued rule is at stake here!

Zanu PF is imploding because the party has become so autocratic it has moved from a one-party dictatorship to a one-man dictatorship and, as if that was not bad enough, the one-man dictator has become nothing more than a ventriloquist dummy in his very ambitious wife's hands. Ever since Grace Mugabe burst on the political stage in August 2014, she has made no secret that she wanted to succeed her husband as president and she will be telling what to do to ensure her dream comes true.

Grace told her husband to "baby dumped" Joice Mujuru and her supporters in 2014 and he did.  With Mujuru out of the way Grace and her newly formed G40 faction turned their attention on the next threat to her presidential ambition, Emmerson Mnangagwa his allies. Sadly after a year and half of hurrying and harassing Mnangagwa and his allies, the G40 faction has still remained too weak and feeble to deliver a knockout punch on their rivalry faction.

The Mnangagwa faction, unlike the Mujuru faction before it, has been able to fight back again and again. The war vet’s vote of no confidence against VP Mphoko and demand for seven senior G40 leaders to be fired from the party is without the Mnangagwa faction’s cleanest and heaviest direct body blow on G40 and indirect blow on Grace and Mugabe himself. Depending how Mugabe hands this, it may well prove to be the KO punch for G40, Grace and Mugabe himself!

Grace Mugabe has surprised many people at how close she has come to seizing the presidency in the short period of two years. Her meteoric rise through the ranks was because she came riding the dragon, Robert Mugabe,  whom every in Zanu PF feared and did not dare question why everyone else had to take the torturous high road to office whilst she did not.

Grace has come close to inheriting the crown but she will never wear it. She has a loud and foul mouth but no brain hence the reason why she has failed to attract any followers in her G40 faction. Grace’s Achilles’ heel was that she failed to realise that people feared the dragon she was riding but had nothing but contempt for the one riding it.

Indeed, when the people realized it was her telling Mugabe what to do they even became emboldened by their fury. The nation will never forget Jabulani Sibanda’s contemptuous dismissal of Grace’s attempts to launch her political career as a “bedroom coup”. And now the war vets are publicly slapping Mugabe in the face with this unprecedented demand for him to destroy his wife’s G40 faction!

If Mugabe was to fire Mphoko and the other G40 members that would constitute the greatest political climb down of his political career and, worse still, he will not have a single ally left in the party and government. He will be left with no choice but to resign!

On the other hand the war vets will lose face and influence if Mugabe was to defy their demands and refuse to fire any of the G40 leaders; it will be said Mugabe mollified the war vets with a piece of meat just as he did with the Zanu PF Youth and Women’s League members before their respective  2014 conference!

Zimbabweans are "insane" to bank on corrupt Mujuru to delivery democratic change!

“Insanity,” the great Scientist Albert Einstein, “is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.”

For the last 36 years Zimbabweans have elected leaders who are incompetent, corrupt and/or tyrannical who have taken the nation down a steady course of political chaos and economic ruins. The nation has had many chances to take a different course by electing competent leaders; the people have again and again elected incompetent and corrupt leaders. Indeed, many a time the people have elected the same individuals with a well know track record of failure and betrayal, latest crazy being the political euphoria following the launch of Mai Mujuru and her Zimbabwe People First (ZPF).

So time after time the people of Zimbabwe have elected incompetent and corrupt leaders who, without failure, have dragged the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth and still the people have not lost hope these leaders will to lead them into the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. That proves Zimbabwe has more than its fair share of people Einstein would consider “insane” with the electoral vote – whether they use it wisely or not is a separate matter.

“I support Mai Mujuru and her ZPF party because they offer are the only realistic chance of defeating Mugabe in the 2018 elections,” argued a Zimbabwean friend of mine. “The top priority for Zimbabwe right now has to be removing Mugabe from office!”

My friend had to grudgingly admit that Mai Mujuru and many of her top ZPF ex-Zanu PF leaders are corrupt and incompetent and, worse still, that many of them are tyrants. It is inconceivable that someone like Joice Mujuru would have played no part in the wholesale looting of $15 billion of Marange diamonds, for example; particularly when she and her late husband had no successful legitimate businesses to justify they amassed fortune.

“Once Mugabe and Zanu PF are out of the way; we can remove Mujuru and company is we are disappointed with their performance,” was my friend’s argument. “Who else is there who is competent that the people can get behind?”

Mugabe  has raised the stakes of being involved in politics; be it as a political critic, concerned citizen and, worse still, a politician or political activist; to risking one’s livelihood, personal safety and even one’s very life! He has done this deliberately to stifle meaningful public debate and to political competition.

What my friend and many like him have failed to understand all these years is the reality that as long as the nation has an oppressive political system with no meaningful democratic discourse there will never be quality leaders. The Zanu PF politicians; including those like Joice Mujuru who were members for donkeys until they were booted out of the party; do not want a democratic system of government complete with free, fair and credible elections  because they know with their track record of failure and corruption they will never win.

The country’s opposition leaders have a love/hate relationship with democracy; they call for democratic change as long as it helps them get into power but disown it as soon as it meanings holding them to democratic account. MDC leaders did not implement any of the democratic reforms designed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship because they were convinced they would win power without creating the democratic system that will hold them to account; they did not want to be held to democratic account, if they could help it.

What my friend is hoping is that once elected back into power Mai Mujuru and company will not stifle public debate and democratic competition just as Mugabe is doing. Of course he is being politically naïve; Mai Mujuru will do everything she can to consolidate her hold on power; she already knows how the Zanu PF has stifled all political competition and she will be doing the same.

So come 2023 the nation will find itself in exactly the same situation it is in right now stuck with a political system designed to produce incompetent and corrupt leaders.

So after 36 years the Zimbabwe electorate are still electing incompetent and corrupt leaders; spawned by the repressive dictatorship and whose political survival is totally dependent on the continued existence of the dictatorship; hoping against hope that the leaders will be foolish enough to dismantle the dictatorship! Mujuru and company are incompetent and corrupt but not that incompetent to freely seek their own political demise!

If Zimbabweans are serious about getting competent and quality leaders then it is up to us the electorate to demand the implementation of the democratic reforms necessary to allow the free flow of information and ideas, public debate and democratic competition amongst all those aspiring to be leaders. A healthy and functioning democracy will separate the chaff from the grain, the incompetent and corrupt from the competent and visionary, guaranteed; that is its forte!

Zimbabweans have just over two years to demand the implementation of all the 2008 GPA democratic reforms and thus ensure the nation replaces the oppressive dictatorial system of government with a democratic one in time for the 2018 elections. Indeed, if the electorate had been paying attention during the GNU then they should have pressured MDC to implement the reforms so that the 2013 elections would have been free and fair.  

The electorate are not demand the reforms now out of laziness, it is easier to elect Mai Mujuru and her ZPF, incompetent and corrupt as they are, and hope they will perform the miracles of an oppressive and wasteful dictatorship transforming into a health and competent democracy. For the last 36 years the nation has slipped deeper and deeper into this political and economic hell whilst waiting for the miracle to happen. One thing is certain; this nation going to continue slipping deeper and deeper in this man-made hell whilst waiting for the miracle that will never happen! 

Zim is in hell-hole which every way OUT is uphill - implementing the GPA reforms.

There is no thinking Zimbabwean out there who would dispute that the country is in serious political and economic trouble. The economy is in total meltdown with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus and 76% of the population now living in poverty with over 3 million of them so poor they cannot afford even one decent meal a day! Zanu PF is imploding and 36 years of political repression has made it impossible for a competent opposition party to emerge.

So we are facing a double tragedy here; an economy in total meltdown and have no working political system to chart the way out of this hell-hole! Wait, correction, Vince Musewe has a solution!

“I, therefore, propose a gathering of coalition forces,” he wrote in his latest article (Time to save Zimbabwe) “where all political parties come together to give Zanu PF notice that unless we enter into substantive negotiation on a political transition now, we will bring Zimbabwe to a standstill until change comes.

“For me that is the only power we have and it’s time to use it. There is no doubt that we all want the same things, we all want Zanu PF to go and it is time we put aside our differences and save our Great Zimbabwe.”

To the regular readers this is nothing new, we have all heard Mr Musewe’s hare-brain plan before and know exactly what he will say next!

“I continue to insist that those who continue calling for political reforms (implementation of the 2008 GPA reforms, to be exact) without offering us the practicalities of it are really wasting our time. These are times for solutions and not change rhetoric,” wrote Musewe.

For those not too familiar with the GPA forms, these were the democratic reforms everyone in 2008 agreed should be implemented to ensure the rule of law, human freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections and the right to life itself. The principal task of the GNU was to implement the democratic reforms so that the madness of the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence of the 2008 elections will never ever be repeated.

 The task of implemented the reforms fell on Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti (who is the president of PDP of which Musewe is Secretary for Finance and Economic Affairs) and the other MDC leaders in the GNU. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not one!

Soon after the rigged 2013 elections which saw Mugabe reclaim the presidency and his party secure the two thirds majority in parliament (MDC has since increased these a few more freebees) SADC complained that MDC leaders “were busy enjoying themselves in the GNU and forgot why they were there (to implement the reforms)”. MDC leaders have never owned up to their betrayal of the nation in failing to implement the reforms.

Mr Musewe’s smart-Aleck jibe about “those who continue calling for political without offering us the practicalities of it” is just part of the MDC leadership’s attempt to falsify the facts about the GPA reforms. MDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU not because it was not practical but because they sold-out!  

Vince Musewe is not the only who has been calling on the opposition parties, civic society and all the other stakeholders in Zimbabwe to unite and confront Mugabe and Zanu PF demanding an end to the tragic misery the economic meltdown has brought to the nation. The coalition has never materialized because people would not agree on what exactly they would be demanding from Mugabe, amongst other things.

Tsvangirai and his MDC-T followers plus a few other opposition parties wanted to demand the implementation of the electoral law reforms, wishy-washy watered down variation to the GPA reform. Veritas, a local think tank on legal matters, have dismissed the reforms as “inadequate and incomplete”!

Musewe has dismissed the demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms because Mugabe will never accept any. So Musewe is proposing that we demand the formation of “political transition”, a second GNU, and to make this attractive to Mugabe, he will be assure that there will be no democratic reforms leading to free, fair and credible elections at the end of the transition.

If we are going to confront Mugabe then we must demand of him something worthwhile; if not an immediate end to the corrupt and oppressive dictatorship and the holding of free, fair and credible elections then a clear roadmap with solid rock guarantees that the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair election will be implemented this time without failure! To ask people to risk life and limp to demand the implementation of useless electoral law reforms or the formation of yet another GNU which will leave Zanu PF with its dictatorial powers untouched is not just a waste of time but it is downright stupid!

We are in this hell-hole because for the last 36 years we have been bending over backwards to appease Mugabe. Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders did not implement even one democratic reform during the GNU because Mugabe would have been most displeased if they had done so! Even now with the nation is serious economic and political trouble people like Musewe still continue to discount the only viable solution out of this hell because Mugabe will not approve of it.

Damn it Musewe; are we looking for a solution out of this hell-hole or a solution to appease Mugabe it regardless of whether it works or not! The dictatorship is the problem here and it must be dismantled. We cannot have a healthy and functioning democracy, which we all agree is absolutely essential in solving our teething economic problems, and still keep the dictatorship just to appease Mugabe, the dictator.

We are in a hole; we can pick the direction to take but, if we want the way out, then they will all be uphill. There is no such thing as an easy downhill route out of a hole, it is an oxymoron. For 36 years we taken the easy downhill path and allowed Mugabe to do as he pleased. We must now confront him with the truth; his no-regime-change mantra is not just unworkable it is destroying the nation and it must be dismantled, period!

It is the confused messages coming from the likes Tsvangirai and Musewe which have allowed Mugabe to hang on to power this long; why would he want to give up his dream of no-regime-change if he is being told he does not have to. However the economic meltdown will continue and get even; it is the economic mess and/or the social consequences flowing from it that will, in the end, force Mugabe to accept free and fair elections and regime change.

"We are prepared to die for the people," says Bhasikiti - rich, they killed just as readily!

Kudakwashe Bhasikiti is just a confused and greed individual who is so desperate to get back into power and the gravy train he is displaying the most common characteristic behaviour of villain; “Sell –out your fellow villains for whatever you can get; they will do the same for you!”

There is no doubt that Bhasikiti knows a lot of dirty about Zanu PF; even a simpleton would get to know a lot after a few years at the heart of power given the depth of corrupt and murderous intrigue that has been going on in the party. It is impossible to loot $15 billion in seven years, rig a nationwide election, murder over 30 000 innocent people, etc. and think the details will never leak out.

Now that the leaking has started Mugabe must know that there is no stopping it now. It will be drip, drip, drip, splash, splash, splash; with the only variation being in interval between each drip or splash and the severity of the damage inflicted! Not even the tough Robert Mugabe with the political skin as thick as a hippopotamus’ hide will survive this Chinese torture.

Mugabe told Bhasikiti that he was in the “wrong basket” a cruel play at words with his name before he booted him out of the party and government for belonging to the Mujuru faction. When Grace Mugabe started her campaign to “baby dump” and to “just unemployed” Mai Mujuru and her supporters she never thought she would never see or hear from them ever again.

When USA President Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency, he thought of appointing someone else to head the FBI but in the end kept J Edgar Hoover. When he was asked why he plied “It's probably better to have the son-of-a-bitch inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.”

Mugabe is going to get a lot of s***t from all these all these Zanu PF members he is purging from the party on a weekly basis; he would have many occasions to reflect on what President Johnson said on what to do with one’s political enemies!

"It is a revolution that we have dedicated ourselves to see to the bitter end, being killed is no longer an issue of option," said Bhasikiti, to justify why he was now spilling the beans on Zanu PF.

"We have just dedicated our loyalty to the people, the masses, and that is why we are called People First. We are prepared to die for the people."

Hold it one minute here! Mr Bhasikiti, you are a Zanu PF villain and thug who played his party in creating and retaining the incompetent, corrupt and murderous dictatorship; your hands are red with the blood of innocent victims you shed; your took your share the spoils in political power, influence, farms and very much treasure!

For 34 years, until the day you were unceremonious booted out of Zanu PF, you showed that there was nothing you would not do for the party. You have harassed, beaten and even murdered innocent people, the very people you now say you are “prepared to die for”, for selfish political gain.

Mr Bhasikiti, whatever you and your many ex Zanu PF bigwigs, did before independence it was not out of love for freedom, liberty, justice and povo; for the last 34 years you have proven beyond all doubt that you do not care about any of these things, you do not have any human compassion for the suffering of others. All you care about is absolute power and the prestige and wealth it brings. Your appetite for absolute power is insatiable and you have shown that you would stop at nothing; you even killed innocent people; to get more and more of it.  

Now that Mugabe kicked you out of Zanu PF and the gravy train you have decided to tell the truth of the corruption, murder and other dirty you and the party got up to in the hope of winning back the people’s trust and confidence in you so they will elect you back into power. The truth about Zanu PF tyrannical rule is coming out with or without your help. As for winning the public trust to be elected back into power; that will never happen, take my word for it! You are too dirty to fool anyone with half a brain into believing you are clean; the change of name from Zanu PF to ZPF will not fool anyone!

MDC lost 2013 elections because no reforms were implemented - a folly not to be repeated in 2018

“Former Zanu-PF bigwig, Temba Mliswa, has predicted the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will once again win the 2018 elections even if he does not reach an electoral pact with former Vice President Joice Mujuru,” reported the Daily News.

“At the same time, and with Zanu-PF drowning from its seemingly unstoppable factional and unstoppable wars, Tsvangirai himself is taking advantage of the mindless bloodletting in the governing party, traversing its former strongholds around the country with little interruption.

Yes Zanu PF is imploding but only a naïve and conceited individual like Temba Mliswa would jump to the conclusion that means Tsvangirai and MDC electoral victory. In 2013 Tsvangirai made a similar miscalculation with disastrous consequences for us all. We must not allow pretentious people like Mliswa raise our hopes again of democratic change and of finally getting us out of this political and economic hell-hole only to be disappointed yet again.  

Tsvangirai was confident of winning the 2013 elections; so confident, he did not implement even one democratic reform agreed in the 2008 GPA. Even when SADC leaders warned him and his fellow MDC leaders not to take part in the elections with no reforms, they paid no heed. As we now know, Mugabe went on to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections; landing us all in this nightmare scenario where we are still stuck with an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous regime and, having wasted the GNU chance to end the dictatorship, are at a loss what to do now to remove it from power.

Tsvangirai has since admitted that MDC did not implement the reforms because the party had the majority of the voters behind it to guarantee them victory regardless of Zanu PF vote rigging “shenanigans”. Since 2013 MDC-T has lost a lot of support following the party’s poor showing and its own in house fighting and dividing. None of the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections have been implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections.

So Mliswa predicts a Tsvangirai victory in the 2018 elections regardless the fact MDC-T has lost many of its supporters and, more tellingly, nothing has been done to stop Zanu PF blatantly rigging the elections as happened in 2013. Tsvangirai is a spent force and Mliswa is just a naïve and conceited person talking nonsense!

Mugabe is renowned for promoting idiots it has been his strategy for staying in power all these years; he has insisted there was no one competent to takeover and, looking at Simon Muzenda, Joice Mujuru, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Didymus Mutasa etc., who would argue. Sadly these idiots sometimes get big headed and they start to think their elevated position in the party was a reflection of their competence; Mliswa is one of these big headed Zanu PF “bigwigs” masquerading as political gurus saying a lot but most of it nonsense.

Zimbabwe wasted a golden opportunity to bring about meaningful democratic reform and free and fair elections in 2013 by failing to implement the democratic reforms necessary for these changes. Tsvangirai did not implement the reform because he foolishly believed he would win the elections without the reforms.

Since the rigged July 2013 elections, over two and half years ago now, the country has still done nothing to implement the reforms. We have not yet agreed on the need to revisit the GPA reforms (Tsvangirai and others are still wittering about electoral law reforms which are inadequate and will accomplish nothing), on the mechanism to implement all the GPA reforms, etc. and we have less than two and half years before the next elections in 2018.  

It will be an unforgivable act of national folly if we go into the 2018 elections still with no democratic reforms implemented on the basis of a fool like Temba Mliswa’s prediction that Tsvangirai will win these elections regardless! 

Mugabe "ordered" 2008 wanton violence, Bhasikiti said - the truth is coming out.

Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, the form Masvingo Province Resident Minister until he was booted out together with Mujuru and others in the new party ZimPF, has started to spill the beans on Mugabe. Bhasikiti told VOA Studio 7 that it was Mugabe himself who ordered the army to spearhead the orgy of political violence designed to reverse the presidential run-off election result after the tyrant lost the initial March 2008 vote.

Mugabe ordered the army to be involved in the elections. “Mugabe is the commander in chief of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces and the army cannot leave the barracks without his authority,” explained Bhasikiti.

“What happened is that there was full realization that the people had lost confidence in the Zanu-PF leader and then the only way to salvage the disappointment and embarrassment was for him as the commander in chief to command the military to salvage the loss…members of the opposition had stopped voting, they just went into hiding including their leader, and then, you cannot say there was an election, even the Government of National Unity was not warranted.”

The truth cannot be hidden for long, it will always come out and when it does, watch out!

Mugabe has the headache of the worsening economic meltdown; three and half decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions have taken a heavy toll on the national economic it is now in a nose dive. His ZimAsset economic recovery plan is dead in the water no donor, not even his “all weather” Chinese friends were prepared to bank-roll the $27 billion hare-brain scheme.

As if the economic meltdown was not enough of a headache for the tyrant, Zanu PF is imploding as party members engage in a factional war for control of the party after his death – they can all sense that the end is near.

As if the economic meltdown and Zanu PF imploding was not enough trouble for the old and sickly tyrant now his former party members, the likes of Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and Didymus Mutasa, are spilling the beans about his dirty past. Now the leak has started there is no stopping it and each new revelation will be more damaging than the last.

There is no doubt that Bhasikiti knows a lot more that he has said so far; he was actively involved in the transporting some of the thugs who carried out the violence in Masvingo. Mugabe appointed him Minister as a reward for “a job well done!”

Mugabe is an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant but for the best part of his 36 years in power he has been lucky to successfully hide the true Robert Mugabe and project himself as the cunning Pan Africanist statesman. At 92 years of age he is the only person I know with jet black hair; it is thinning especially at the top but still jet black. Sadly he has not been as successful at hiding his murderous persona as he was at hiding his silver white hair!

His long life has been a curse and not a blessing; he will go to his grave knowing that the whole world now knows that he is an incompetent and murderous tyrant! 

"I was not protected by the law!" charge Mukoro - "I was sworn to secrecy" is Mutasa's feeble defence.

Jestina Mukoko reminded the people of Zimbabwe not to be so easily fooled by ZPF leaders like Didymus Mutasa forgetting who these individual really are. She was speaking at the commemorative service of Itai Dzamara who was abducted by State operatives a year ago and has never been seen again.

Jestina was abducted in December 2008 by State operatives and Didymus Mutasa refused to name the people responsible.

“When my lawyer wanted to know the identities of the people who did this (tortured me), minister Mutasa issued a ministerial certificate which said those people were not going to be identified because they were on State business,” Jestina told the audience.

“The new face does not change anything. It does not rub that I was abducted. I was tortured and I was not protected by the law and the people who did this to me have had their identities protected.

“It does not change anything that he (Mutasa) is no longer with Zanu PF and he is now with People First. He is still Didymus Mutasa,” Mukoko charged.

Indeed the very fact that people like Mutasa, Mujuru and all the other form Zanu PF leaders are now seeking to be elected back into high public office regardless of their tarnished past speaks volumes; they have clearly failed to comprehend the seriousness of their crimes against the people of Zimbabwe.

Asking Mujuru, Mutasa and the other ZPF leaders is like asking to the Nazi criminals at the end of the Second World War; the latter admitted doing nothing even when they took part in the mass murder of six million Jews, they were “following orders”.  Mujuru and her ZPF friends are hiding behind the oath of office and their fear of being prosecuted under the Official Secret Act.

“I had little choice but to withhold the (Mukoko) file because I was sworn to secrecy,” Mutasa told the Daily News.

The regime has rigged elections and murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans, amounts some of its many serious crimes; it is hard to see how anyone can ever justify saying and doing nothing to stop the slaughter of so many innocent people because they are taken an oath of secrecy. Did the oath not include swearing to uphold the country’s constitution and defend its interests and treasures – what greater interests and treasures are there for a nation than the live of its citizens!

One of these fine days the country will conducted a thorough investigation of the country’s past elections and establish once and once for all that Mugabe and Zanu PF rigged elections. The investigation will also establish beyond doubt that officials like Mutasa and Mujuru knew the regime had rigged the elections and therefore was illegitimate.

Leaders like Mutasa and Mujuru will then be asked to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a court of law. They will they be asked again to tell us what really happened during their years in Zanu PF.

The Official Secrets Act, like every other law, Mr Mutasa, was enacted to promote and protect national interests and not to protect those undermining public good and destroying the nation for their selfish gain. Investigating the excesses and blatant abuse of the state laws and institution by Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime is an important step in the process of restoring this country to legitimacy and rule of law.

“Rinemanyanga hariputirwi!” so goes the Shona adage! (There is no hiding the truth; it will be uncovered sooner or later!) Zanu PF’s incompetent, corrupt and murderous past cannot be hidden not even under the cover of the Official Secrets Act!

As Zim's political violence flares, the politicians pay the usual lip-service but none really care.

Pluralism, political tolerance of opposing opinion, respect of other people’s right to a meaningful vote, etc.; these are not in our Zimbabwean political culture. Our political culture is founded on the view that those not with us are against us and they must be crashed politically and physically with whatever we have at our disposal! This is why Zimbabwe’s culture of political motivated violence was there before independence and has remained with us to this today, 36 years after independences.

The violence flares up, especially during elections. The worst case was during the presidential run-off elections in 2008 in which millions of people were subjected to harassment, beatings and/or raped and over 500 were murdered in an orgy of wanton violence carried out by Zanu PF thugs, war vets and State security personal. The fierce factional war consuming Zanu PF shows that whichever faction wins will be determined to win the national elections. Meanwhile the worsening economic situation has galvanized the electorate to seek regime change as the only way out of this hell-on-earth.

So we have Zanu PF ready to use wanton brutal force to defend its no-regime-change mantra, on the one hand and on the other the electorate prepared to risk life and limp to get meaningful change and an end to the economic meltdown. We are set for yet another violent election in 2018, a repeat of the 2008 or worse!

The right to a meaningful vote; to free, fair and credible elections is the foundation of good democratic and competent government; we are in this political and economic hell-hole precisely because for the last 36 years we have been stuck with an incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical regime. So just get out of the hell-hole the people have to risk life and limp but it does not have to be this way. The right to a meaningful vote is universally enjoyed and without having to risk all.

It is the political leaders who have created and sustain Zimbabwe’s culture of political violence for their selfish political gain. Our political leaders; across the political divide being it the ruling party Zanu PF or the opposition parties MDC, ZPF, etc.; have all shown that they are incompetent and corrupt. And so they have all without exception advocated for democratic change as a means to get into power and as soon as they are in power they have done everything in the power to stop undermine democracy including denying the vote the meaningful vote and even resorting to using violence to achieve their objective.

Over the weekend Zanu PF youths attacked ZPF supporters and nine needed hospital treatment. Two weekends ago it was MDC-T supporters who were attacked and twenty of needed hospital treatment. It is the political leaders who instigate the violence or else pay lip-service to ending the culture of violence.

Mugabe lost the presidential vote in the March 2008 elections and he instigated the operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) unleashing the worst wanton violence against the electorate to force them to vote for him in the presidential run-off, the July 2008 vote.

“What was achieved by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” Mugabe said repeatedly throughout operation Mavhotera papi. This was carte blanche licence to his party thugs, war vets and State Security personal, schooled in violence, to do as they pleased.

There is no question of Mugabe and Zanu PF wanting to implement the GPA democratic reforms that would dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship behind the culture of violence. The tyrant and his party lost their populous’ support years ago they need the system to remain in power.

“We condemn such barbaric acts in the strongest terms. It should never be allowed. This is a modern society and people should be able to express themselves without coercion,” said Rugare Gumbo, the ZPF spokesman, in response to the weekend attack of ZPF supporters.

“Zanu PF is violent and for us it is the way of the struggle. We have said, and will continue to say it, we are a non-violent party and we want to be allowed to hold our programs peacefully.”

Nonsense of course; Joice Mujuru, Rugare Gumbo, Didymus Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF leaders were in Zanu PF until 2014 and for 34 years they have criticized Mugabe’s used of violence to achieve selfish political advantage! They all accepted the “barbaric acts” as “the way of the struggle”, as Mutasa has confirmed in his interview with Richard Chidza of the Standard newspaper.  He was asked if he believed people should NOT fear government’s terror machine.  

“Yes I do,” answered Mutasa. “But do not blame us for people being afraid. Blame those who are afraid. Let us encourage them to stand up and be counted.

“If they continue to be afraid of the State machinery, there will be still state machinery under ZPF and people will still be afraid. So the change we are promising them will not take place if people live in fear.”

Now that they are no longer in Zanu PF and with the benefit of hindsight; one expected ZPF leaders to be regretting that no GPA reforms were implemented to end the culture of violence.  Sadly that is not the case. As far as these ZPF leaders are concerned the machinery such as the Police, CIO, etc. who have not only failed to end the culture of violence but have even taken part in the orgy of violence will remain. Mutasa’s solution is to “encourage people to stand up” to the dictatorship.

So if ZPF were to get back into power there will be no meaningful democratic reforms implemented and the culture of violence will continue as before.

MDC had the golden opportunity to implement the GPA reforms during the GNU and end the culture of violence. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years and so MDC supporters, as with the rest of other innocent souls, are in for some more harassment, beatings, rape and, no doubt, many will be murdered in political violence.

What Zimbabweans have been slow to appreciate is that our political leaders are, without exceptions, incompetent and corrupt; they all know that they would not stand a chance of winning the elections if Zimbabwe had a healthy and functioning democracy. The present dictatorial system of government has led to mismanagement and corruption and economic ruin, to political violence and denial of freedoms and basic human rights, etc.

Still, if it was not for the dictatorship Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies will not have remained in power for 36 years, Tsvangirai and his MDC friends would have never tasted power, MDC and ZPF leaders will not have any hope of being elected back on the gravy train, etc. This is why neither Zanu PF leaders nor the opposition will ever want the democratic reforms implemented. That people are risking life and limp in getting them elected into office is a small price to pay.

If the people are serious about ending the worsening economic meltdown, ending the culture of violence, etc. and restore all their freedoms, human rights and democratic governance then it is the people, not the political leaders, who will have to fight for the implementation of all the GPA reforms. The political elite are not interested!