Listening to Tsvangirai is like listening to a five year
old telling a joke way out of his depth of comprehension and thus lose track of
the punch-line and yet goes on to laugh totally unaware what he said does not
make an sense!
"We are preparing to participate in the 2018
elections and we are very categorical about it," Tsvangirai told
journalists at the Bulawayo Press Club on Friday night.
"What we are saying is that when we go to that
election, it must give the people the confidence that the election will not be
usurped like the 2013 one." OK we definitely want free and fair elections;
go on!
"We are participating in the 2018 elections and we
are very confident that obstacles that were placed in our way before will be
removed by the time we go to the polls.”
Implementing the reforms during the GNU was a relatively
easy task because MDC had the majority in parliament and cabinet, had the
backing of SADC and Mugabe had his hands tied behind his back since he had
agreed to the reforms by signing the 2008 GPA. Sadly MDC failed to get even one
reform implemented. Not one!
Now that the GPA has expired and Zanu PF has more than a
commanding two thirds majority in both parliament and the senate the task of
getting meaningful democratic reforms implemented now is a real challenge. If
implementing the reforms during the GNU was climbing an anthill it is climbing
Mount Everest now! So Tsvangirai’s “very confident” claim to have the task done
is clearly the five year old in him talking although he has no clue what he is
talking about!
Last year, 2015, MDC-T Secretary General, Douglas
Mwonzora told New Zimbabwe that the party will force Zanu PF “kicking and
screaming” to implement the reforms before the end of the year. It was MDC-T
doing what they know best –posturing and grand-standing with no end product. We
are nearly half way through 2016 and still not even one meaningful reform has
been implemented!
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends should have implemented
the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA designed to end the Zanu
PF strangle hold on Police, ZEC, Public Media, Judiciary, etc. freeing them to
carry out their public duties freely and effectively. MDC failed to get even
one meaningful reform implemented in five years of the GNU. SADC and other
people warned MDC leaders of the critical importance of the implementing the
reforms but they paid no heed.
MDC did not see the need to implement any reforms because
the party was confident of winning the elections “regardless of any Zanu PF
election shenanigans”, Tsvangirai latter admitted. MDC had grossly underestimated
Zanu PF’s ability to rig elections!
If anyone thought that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had
learnt an important lessons about implementing reforms after Zanu PF went on to
blatantly rig the July 2013 elections; he/she was wrong, MDC learnt nothing. Since
the rigged elections MDC has grudgingly accepted that for free and fair
elections the nation must implementing reforms but trust the five-year old in
Tsvangirai to get totally confused on which reforms to implement.
Instead of sticking with the structural reforms agreed in
the 2008 GPA, MDC-T has been wittering about electoral law reforms! MDC have
been calling for ZEC to take over control of the voters roll from the Registrar
General, for example. Without the structural reform necessary to ensure ZEC’s
independence it is obvious Zanu PF will still interfere with the compilation of
the voters roll as before.
"As an electoral management body official, it is
good news as it reflects a vote of confidence in the electoral reform processes
done so far. We have taken charge of the voters' roll from the registrar
general," commented ZEC Official, Qhubani Moyo.
"We have also introduced marker pens and not ink
dipping. We are preparing for biometric voter registration. That is how far we
have gone so far, but we still have a few more things to do and we are happy
that people are already happy."
The comment must be dismissed with the contempt it
rightly deserves. As ZEC Official he should know the 2013 elections were
blatantly rigged under the noses of ZEC officials. The number of Polling
Stations were increased from 2 000 to 9 000 just two day before polling day.
There is no doubt that even ZEC was surprised with that move since some of the additional
Polling Station had no ZEC officials!
If ZEC was serious about making sure the elections were free,
fair and credible then why did the Commission allow the elections to go ahead
without a voters roll? Even to this day, nearly three years after the July 2013
elections there is still no complete voters roll.
What is required to restore confidence in ZEC are the
structural reforms designed to end the presidential powers to appointment and
firing of commissioners, starve ZEC of funds, etc. and restore its independence
and accountability. None of the reforms Moyo is talking about here will restore
ZEC’s independence and accountability in any way!
What the people of Zimbabwe must understand is that we cannot
afford yet another rigged election in 2018 because that will mean the economic
meltdown we are currently facing will continue. Only a government elected in
free, fair and credible elections will have the mandate to tackle the teething
national problems of mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness and will have
the confidence of the international community that Zimbabwe is now stable and
law abiding nation they can do business with.
3 comments:
“What Zimbabwe desperately needs is a truth-telling,” Coltart said. That is very true and if Senator Coltart really meant it then he should have admitted in his book and in all his talks on Zimbabwe that the country had its best chance to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and he and his fellow MDC leaders waster the chance. They failed to implement even one meaningful reform in five years of the GNU because the “sold-out” as Music legend Thomas Mapfumo said.
Senator Coltart has admitted in his book that the country’s 2013 constitution has failed to provide the checks and balances against the dictatorial presidential powers. So why is he now “stressing that implementation of the country’s constitution—which he said offered real opportunity for meaningful reform—is paramount to any international approach to the country.”
Zimbabwe can align every existing law to the last phrase this will not make Zimbabwe a democracy because the new constitution is weak and feeble. Veritas, a Zimbabwean think tank on legal matters have said the same thing.
Senator Coltart is conducting all these world tours to sell his book but he must know that he selling-out Zimbabwe just as he did during the GNU by lying to the world that the country can get out of the mess it is in by implementing a weak and feeble constitution!
Tsvangirai has himself acknowledge, or be it belatedly that coalition of not the opposition will not win the next elections without implementing the democratic reforms. Sadly he does not know what these reforms are since he keeps wittering about electoral law reforms which anyone in the know will tell you they will change nothing.
Zimbabwe's greatest challenge is that it has an electorate that is naive and gullible and given to follow leaders sheepishly. Tsvangirai will never offer a way out of the hell the nation is stuck in but it will take a few more years for that message to sink in - time the nation does not have!
@ Machacha
MDC was formed to bring democratic change and thus end the Mugabe's dictator-ship. The changes we needed were clearly identified and agreed in the GPA as a raft of democratic reforms to be implemented and the drafting of a new democratic constitution.
All MDC had to do was to implement the reforms and in five years of the GNU they failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
There are people like you who, habitually, never ask any questions of their leaders and prefer to follow like sheep. You deeply resent those who refuse to follow your example. Well tough s***t! I refuse to be like you because man is a creature of reason with a brain to think for himself. I will not only ask questions of Tsvangirai, Mugabe and whoever else holds or aspire to hold public office but better still, I will ask the awkward questions that are making you cringe and blow hot and cold!
You do not want Tsvangirai asked why he failed to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU because you know the true answer is because he is breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent! You hate this basic truth because the consequences of it are devastating. It exposes you for the mindless sheep you are who was easily conned all these years by a corrupt and incompetent village idiot! Worse still you still continue to put your trust in Tsvangirai even with the mountain of evidence he is a village idiot. What does that make of you? I leave you to answer this one yourself; assuming that you still have some functional gray stuff between your ears and it has not all turned fatty tissue.
My greatest concern is the consequence to the nation of having a corrupt and in-competent leader in government. You and all the other MDC sheep out there can follow Tsvangirai and vote for him come the elections, it is your democratic right and I respect it. My duty, which I take very serious and hence the reason I take no prisoners, is to make sure you all know Tsvangirai is a breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent village idiot who failed to deliver democratic change when he had the golden opportunity to do so and will never ever deliver change.
“Form your (own) party!” you say. I have heard that said to me a million times and now forth million and one time I will dismiss it with same contempt as typical mongoose mentality.
If a mongoose comes across an ostrich egg it knows there is plenty of quality food inside; the challenge is how to break the egg. It cannot bite the egg and so it digs, rolling the egg back and forth but getting nowhere. The Egyptian vulture has learnt to use a stone to break the egg, the mongoose will dig!
You have learnt that if you have a problem of bad governance, you form a new political party. In the 2013 elections Zimbabwe had no fewer than 28 different political parties and yet the problem of bad governance has got even worse not better. You with your mongoose mentality still believe the answer is to be found in forming more political parties.
Given that there are no more than three or four political parties if other countries with very good and progressive government; common sense would dictate that our solution is not in more political parties but in answering why those we have, have been ineffective. Our problem is not one of quantity but rather one of lack of quality!
We need a discerning electorate as contrast to the mindless sheep who can separate the competent and visionary leaders we want from the throng of corrupt and in-competent village idiots who too are as keen as mustard to be leaders.
From henceforth you, Machacha, must remember that you are a village idiot programmed to follow blindly whatever village idiot is put before you; I have, thank God, retained my human characteristic to think for myself. You must therefore never ever be so presumptuous as to instruct me what to say or do!
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