Zimbabwe’s situation with its economy
in total meltdown and political paralysis as the ruling party implode and there
is total confusion in the opposition camp is “worrisome”, as my brother Tendai
Ruben Mbofana rightly said in his article “South Africa's naïvety towards
Zimbabwean crisis worrisome”. What makes our situation so desperate is that we
are stuck. Indeed we would have never sunk this deep in this hell-hole if we
were free to change course. We have been forced down this ruinous route because
Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship ruled by a corrupt,
incompetent and murderous tyranny we have tried in vain to remove from office.
We have new elections coming up in
2018 and all signs are that Zanu PF will rig those elections as before and,
without outside help, there is nothing Zimbabweans themselves can do to stop
Zanu PF. We definitely need help.
However, if we are going to get help
from SADC we must stop blaming those from whom we asking for help for
Zimbabwe’s problems.
“Recent comments by South Africa's
International Relations and Cooperation Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, to the
effect that her government would not intervene in the Zimbabwean crisis, as the
people of that country could sort out their own problems through the 2018
elections, exhibits the most worrisome height of naivety and disingenuity, not
to be expected of a regional power, as it is a very serious abrogation of its
responsibility,” wrote Mbofana.
“So the question to both Zuma and
Nkoana-Mashabane is: as this crisis has happened before in Zimbabwe, and SA
responded in the same passive manner that you are responding today, have you
not learnt anything from the previous blunders made by Mbeki?”
This line of question can only be
adopted by one who has himself/herself learnt nothing from history. The simple
most important lesson many Zimbabweans have failed to learn from the GNU of
2008 to 2013 is that it provided a golden opportunity for the country to
implement the far reaching democratic reforms the country needed to finally end
the Zanu PF no-regime-change mantra. It was MDC leaders’ fault, in the first
instance, that not even one reform was implemented in five years.
We, the people, are not walking Scott-free
because if we should have never elected corrupt and incompetent people like
Tsvangirai and then failed to properly supervise them. We failed on both counts
because we have never taken the trouble to understand what our role is in a
healthy, functional democracy. We say we want democratic change but have never
bothered to find out what must change starting with us changing from being naïve
and gullible electorate to an informed and diligent one.
There are many things Zimbabweans can
complain about the role SADC leaders played during the GNU but we cannot, in
all honest, blame them for that fact that no meaningful reforms were implemented
because they did their best to remind Tsvangirai and company to implement the
reforms but were ignore. Soon after the results of the Zanu PF rigged July 2013
elections were out SADC leaders issued a statement criticizing MDC leaders for “enjoying
themselves and forgetting why they were in the GNU” is sheer exasperation.
The second point is if we,
Zimbabweans, are going to ask others to help us get out of this mess then it is
imperative that we know exactly what we want them to do. Given that this is the
second time we are calling for help soon over the same issue, one would expect
us to have a clear view of what we want!
“The suffering people of Zimbabwe are
merely requesting SA to use its leverage on the Zimbabwe government to respect
and uphold its own Constitution,” started Mbofana.
“On Friday, 26th August 2016, a
coalition of opposition parties will be holding a mega peaceful protest against
the current flawed electoral and political landscape, which should tell the SA
government something - that if the current situation prevails till the 2018
General Elections, the results will be disputed, leading to a repeat of 2008.”
SADC leaders must heave a sigh of
hopelessness and despair to read this! They heaved the same sigh of despair
when the GNU partners released Zimbabwe’s the draft new constitution in 2012
because anyone with half a brain could see immediately that this was not a
democratic constitution that will deliver free and fair elections. MP Paul
Mangwana, the Zanu PF co-chairperson on the committee tasked to write the new
constitution, boosted that Mugabe “dictated” the new constitution and it
showed.
Tsvangirai claimed the new
constitution was an “MDC child” and promised that it would deliver free, fair
and credible elections. If failed to do so as Mugabe went on to blatantly rig
the July 2013 elections.
Since the rigged July 2013 elections,
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have been demanding “the alignment of existing
laws to the new constitution”. They insist the alignment will stop vote rigging
although many experts in the field have said otherwise.
“Out of the 299 Statutes in our
books, we have so far aligned 159 statutes. We have identified about 200 Statutes
requiring alignment and out of that number, 159 have been completed and
processed through this House, through the General Laws Amendment Bill (GLAB) and
other independent Statutes," VP Emmerson Mnangagwa, who is also the
Minister of Justice, Legal and parliamentary Affairs, told the Senate in June
this year.
Tsvangirai and his opposition friends
have not produced any comments on the GLAB or details of any additional
re-alignment they want to see. MDC have been advised that the country needs to
implement all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA as the only way
forward but, reminiscent, of the GNU days has ignore the advice.
One can understand why SA or any
other outsider will be worried about the chaos ensuing in Zimbabwe and how it
could easily spill over and affect the whole SADC region and yet be loathed to
be involved. It is bad enough to be involved in other nation’s affairs but it
to do so knowing from the word go nothing will be accomplished is downright stupid.
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