Thursday 6 October 2016

Desperation is no excuse for electing failed leaders - we must learn from the past. By Nomusa Garikai

“AT the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T)'s 17th anniversary celebrations last week in Bulawayo, party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was in high spirits,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“He exuded a spring to his step which has not been seen in a long while and his shoulders were held up high.

The worsening economic situation has made the people of Zimbabwe become desperate for change so desperate they will vote for anyone as long as their name is not Robert Gabriel Mugabe; they will not look at the candidate’s past record. Of course if you are someone like Morgan Tsvangirai or Joice Mujuru whose political CV reads like of the devil’s Chief of Staff’s CV full of failures, corruption and betrayal of the innocent; you would be pleased to hear that your past record will never be considered.

 The latter bit is bound to rouse a great deal of interest in someone like Tsvangirai given his political CV is a catalogue of failure, corruption, betrayal, incompetent, etc.

"It's multiple factors at play; people have short memories and we have forgot about those shenanigans or flirtations with different women. In light of the imploding economy, people will not be preoccupied with such issues," was UZ Professor Eldred Masunungure’s explanation for Tsvangirai’s renewed political vigour. He is spot on there!

The Zimbabwe electorate have very short memories of simply get easily swept away by the occasion; a fatal weakness. The people were swept off their feet in the euphoria of independence in 1980 the could not wait to remove the racist white colonial regime they did not even give the CVs of the black nationalists whom they elected to take over as much as a cursory check.

We are stuck in this hell-hole today because the nation has had the great misfortune of being ruled by a corrupt and tyrannical gang of thugs. We elected in a hurry and for the last 36 years and counting we have been stuck with the regime unable to dislodge them from power.

 The 36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have taken a heavy toll on the country’s economic wellbeing sending it into a terminal economic meltdown. The worsening economic hardships haven given the up to now docile populous the voice to demand change. Even the ruling elite have not been spared the ill-effects of the worsening economic depression; Zanu PF is imploding as party members fight each other over the shrinking national cake like starving hyenas fighting over scraps.

The worsening economic meltdown has forced President Mugabe and Zanu PF to loosen their iron grip on power. For the first time since independence in 1980 there is real chance for meaningful political change and regime change! The million dollar question is: what kind of change will it be this time?

Both Joice Mujuru and Morgan Tsvangirai have already proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are incompetent and corrupt; to elect them leaders will only prove that we have learnt nothing from the mistake of 1980! As a senior member of the Mugabe’s Zanu PF regime for 34 years the former has played her part in landing us into this economic and political mess. As for Tsvangirai, by failing to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU, he has forced us to to remain stuck in the hell-hole.


If there is to be one lesson Zimbabweans must learn from the tragic, tragic national events of the last 36 years then it must be the realization that no matter how euphoric the moment or desperate the situation we must always be diligent and thorough in our selection of leaders. It will be sheer folly for the nation elect corrupt and incompetent leaders to replace Mugabe especially those with proven track records as failed leaders no matter how desperate the present situation happens to be.

3 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

The people who ranked Zimbabwe so highly must be talking of a different Zimbabwe from that I know. After years of denying that corruption was not a problem, Mugabe admitted in February this year that $15 billion in diamond revenue was "swindled". No was ever arrested. Last month the country's Minister of Finance confirmed the diamond production is only one million carat out of the expected output of six million carat, proof the looting has not stop!

How a country with such institutionalised looting can be said to have good governance beggars belief! Has the bar been brought down so low that anything is now being seen as a significant improvement! How patronising!

Zimbabwe Light said...

The people of Zimbabwe are in a truly intolerable situation here caught as they are between Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs whose misrule have left millions desperately poor and yet powerless to extricate themselves out of the situation because Mugabe has commandeered the vast diamond wealth to bankroll his satanic scheme to stay in power at all cost. The situation has become so intolerable that the people are seeing Tsvangirai and Mujuru as their saviours when all the two care about is how to get back on the gravy train. They do not care about the suffering masses and have never cared.

It is tempting to see Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs as the people's public enemy number one are they are but that does not make Tsvangirai and Mujuru the people's friends. The later are the people's public enemy number two. Mugabe is nothing more than the hyena aggressively digging one end of the rabbit's burrow as posing immediate danger to rabbit. Tsvangirai and Mujuru are the wolves guarding the rabbit's bolt-holes, only a naive baby rabbit that has never encountered the wolf would see the wolf as a friend. 

The people of Zimbabwe know Tsvangirai and Mujuru are corrupt and incompetent that any Zimbabwean should even be an MDC or Zim PF member only goes to show just how naive and gullible the people of Zimbabwe are. We are in this economic and political mess because all along the people have proven to be naive and gullible. We will never ever get out of this mess as long as the people are naive and gullible.

How can anyone with any working brain elect a corrupt and incompetent leader, knowing fully well that the individual is indeed corrupt and incompetent, and expect the village idiot to be the nation's saviour! What could be more foolish and insane than that!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Bigboy

Get real my friend! Mugabe has been in power for the last 36 years who has stopped him showing that he is committed to "good governance"? All he has done in those 36 years is undermine the institutions we need for good governance to create this de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship.

At the core of the dictatorship is the ethos that the dictator is the only one to be trusted to lead. We are in this economic and political mess because of 36 years of misrule by none other than Mugabe but when it comes to how should lead us out of the mess, Mugabe has Bigboy's vote.

At the core of democratic rule is the ethos that no one has the monopoly of knowledge and therefore the right to rule; the people, in a free, fair and credible election should decide who will govern.

Mugabe's no-regime-change mantra can only be achieved by denying the people their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a free and meaningful vote. Mugabe has claimed that all Zimbabwe's past elections were free and fair that is a nonsense because it is impossible to impose his no-regime-change mantra and still have free and fair elections.

The democratic reforms are designed to dismantle the dictatorship and thus end the no-regime-change setting. Mugabe can throw his hat in the next elections and you Bigboy can give him your vote if you so wish but the rest of the people must be free to vote whosoever they wish.

In other words the fight is not to stop Mugabe contesting in future elections but to stop him rigging future elections to impose his no-regime-change mantra!