There will be no reforms before 2018 admits Biti - enough to finally open voters's eyes. By Nomusa Garikai

Tendai Biti admits the opposition parties are not going to get any meaningful reforms implemented before the next elections. The interesting question is the admission enough to open Zimbabwe’s naive and gullible electorate’s eyes to finally see MDC leaders for what they really are – useless, corrupt and incompetent to the man and woman?

“The biggest crisis facing this economy is a breakdown of trust, a breakdown of the social contract — people don't trust in the government, people don't trust and believe in President Robert Mugabe, people don't trust and believe in Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa and people don't trust and believe in Zanu-PF,” Tendai Biti told DailyNews senior assistant editor Guthrie Munyuki.

“So, more than anything else, what has collapsed is confidence. There is a kwashiorkor of confidence in the national psyche, in the international psyche and we find ourselves in this deep structural problem. And part of the structural problem which we are facing is that we are not producing.”

It is easy to see why the ordinary people have lost all confidence in President Mugabe and Zanu PF; they are the ones responsible for the country’s economic meltdown that has seen unemployment soar to new world record of 90% plus and force 76% of the people into a life of abject poverty and hopelessness.

If the truth be told, it is an absolute necessity that it is said because it is necessary in our search for a way out of this mess that we deal with the truth as the only currency, the nation with not have President Mugabe and Zanu PF still in government if MDC leaders including Mr Tendai Biti had not betrayed the people.

The people lost their confidence in Zanu PF years ago but they have failed to remove them from office because the regime rigs elections and it has even murdered many people just to stay in power. However in there desperate effort to end the economic hardship and brutal oppression by the regime the people have risked life and limp to get meaningful democratic changes to ensure there are free and fair elections the pre-requisite for good and accountable government.

The country’s best chances to implement the reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship were, by far, during the GNU. President Mugabe committed himself to the democratic reforms by signing the 2008 GPA. SADC heads of State, as the guarantor of the GPA, wanted to see the reforms implement and end the political and economic crisis in Zimbabwe which was causing so much suffering to the people of Zimbabwe and cause so much social upheaval in the whole region. MDC leaders were tasked to implement the reforms and in five years failed to implement even one reform.

It was MDC’s failure to implement even one reform that allowed President Mugabe to rig the 2013 elections and remain in power to cause the economic and political chaos the nation is experiencing today.

Mr Biti is right to say the international community has lost confidence in President Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs but that is only half the story. The international community particularly SADC leaders have lost all confidence in the MDC leaders because they failed to implement any reforms.

Yes many Zimbabweans have lost confidence in President Mugabe and his cronies but only some of the people have lost confidence in MDC leaders but that is so because they have never understood what happen during the GNU and even with the benefit of hindsight they still fail to understand that MDC betrayed the nation and sold-out to President Mugabe on reforms.

MDC leaders “were too busy enjoying being in the GNU they forgot why they were there,” remark SADC leaders in sheer frustration.

The truth is that the Zimbabwe electorate are so naïve and gullible they not only elected President Mugabe, an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant, it too them twenty or so for them to finally see him for the tyrant he is. They rejected Mugabe to embrace Tsvangirai et al and regardless of the mountain of evidence of the latter being corrupt and incompetent the people still continue to follow Tsvangirai, Biti, Ncube, blindly like sheep.

Whilst it is true that President Mugabe is responsible for landing us into the political and economic mess we are in today the ultimate responsibility is ours, in that we are the ones who have paid the heavy price for the mess paid in lost treasure, human suffering and even human lives. We were naive and gullible and thus failed to see him for the corrupt and murderous tyrant he is. Just as ignorance is no excuse for breaking the law; being naïve and gullible is no excuse for electing a tyrant.

Similarly whilst it is true that MDC leaders are response for all the wasted opportunities to get us out of this political and economic hell-hole. However ultimately it is once again ours, the electorate, who paid dearly for it and must should the final responsibility for wasted opportunities. We are the ones who are naïve and gullible to elected the corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders.

As long as we have a naïve and gullible electorate so slow to learn it took nearly twenty years for most of them to finally see a corrupt and murderous tyrant like President Mugabe, although by the end of the first five years he had already murdered over 20 000 in the Gukurahundi massacres, it is hard to see how we will ever get out of the hell-hole we now find ourselves stuck in. We are still counting on MDC leaders like Tsvangirai and Biti to implement the reforms and get us out and yet they have failed to do so already when the task was a lot easier during the GNU.

“I don't think so,” admitted Biti when he was asked if the reforms will be implemented before the next elections. “Not with Zanu-PF. I don't see Zanu-PF reforming itself out of power. There is no class that commits suicide and there is no elite that commits suicide.

“So we have to push for reforms, we have to demand reforms and that is why one of the fundamental imperators (is) that the opposition has to get together now so that it can begin with one voice, to push for these reforms.”

MDC wasted the five years of the GNU and failed to get even one reform implemented; history is repeating itself, they will not implement even one reform before the next elections. Will that be enough to finally convince the naïve and gullible Zimbabwe electorate that MDC leaders like Tsvangirai and Biti are corrupt and incompetent? My money is on a 5 to 10% shift at best; as I said they are very slow learners!