"Politics is a game of numbers" but against a conman, it is a different ball game! By W Mukori

Four Zanu PF wins! Surprise, surprise it is once again a four!

I for one was not fooled by Mugabe’s one-million man march, his is a loaded dice; but clearly some people were impressed.

“Critics say although the numbers were far less than 100 000, love him or hate him, President Mugabe showed he is a master at commandeering the full might of everything at his disposal to round-up the populace despite the bulk of the 13 million citizens wallowing in abject poverty,” said a Fingaz report.

The operative word here being “commandeering”!

Zanu PF spent a cool $2 million to stage the 7 April 2016 meeting of 10 000 war veteran members and Mugabe, according to the War Vet Minister’s own statement who organized and paid for everything. So for the 1 000 000 man-march the regime would have spent $200 million.

$200 million is a fortune to anyone but more so to a party like MDC-T that is broke it was asking its councillors to contribute to pay for a party rally in Kadoma recently.

To Zanu PF $200 million is small charge; this is a party that gave its parliamentary candidate in the 2013 elections brand new car plus $15 000, paid NIKUV $10 million to tamper with voters roll, etc. According to Partnership Africa Canada, Mugabe pocketed $2 billion from his share of looting of Marange diamonds in 2012 alone; of course the tyrant is loaded!

So with $200 per head to spend it is not surprising the one-million man march was well supported!

"Indeed numbers do matter in politics," says Maxwell Saungweme.

"Whether by hook or crook (President) Mugabe has shown he has support," he said.

"But numbers matter more if they are numbers of declining unemployment levels, declining poverty levels, increased household incomes, improved corruption perception indexes, improved human rights indexes, increased access to drugs, housing, among other things lacking in Zimbabwe," Saungweme added.

If unemployment can soar to dizzying height of 80% plus and stay there for donkey years as has happened in Zimbabwe and one is still able to have a landslide victory as Mugabe has done again and again surely that proves that as long as you can rig the vote nothing else matters!

“Politics is a game of numbers!” true; but only a fool confines himself to a simple head count at a rally, demo or cast vote because with a war chest full of cash there is no limit to the size of hired-crowd and come elections pay those who organize and count the votes and suddenly it is a totally different ball game!

Everyone has a right to meaningful say in the governance of one’s country, this is fundamental right not a privilege, and hence the reason the elections must be free, fair and credible. So if the count is suspect then the primary task must surely be to have this put right first and not be sucked into a head count contest of “by hook or crook” count.

The primary task of the opposition parties must be implementing all the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections; until this is done it is a waste of time to do anything else! Zanu PF does not want to hear anything about implementing democratic reforms because the party knows it will never win free and fair elections.

So the only logical reason why the opposition has still not implemented any meaningful reforms, especially during the GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so, is because they are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent.

Throughout the GNU years, Mugabe saw to it that Tsvangirai and his MDC enjoyed the gravy train lifestyles plus a $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, bribes to stop them implementing the reforms. There is no doubt the tyrant is still doing his best to keep the opposition occupied with demos, rallies, coalition building, anything except implementing reforms. He is even allowing them to hold demos and rallies without the usual accompaniment of Riot Police beatings and tear-gas and, just to stop the implementing of reforms, would even fund the demos and rallies. He is loaded!

The greatest challenge facing this nation today is implementing the democratic reforms and thus ensure the next elections are free, fair and credible; until this is done this nation will not do anything of substance. The economic meltdown the nation is facing and the tragic human suffering it has brought is the heavy price we are paying for having failed to carryout out this key task until now. The longer we drag our feet over this the harder the task becomes and the heavier the penalty we have to pay, the economic meltdown is getting worse!