Mugabe swears he was "elected by the people" and yet has always rigged elections. By W Mukori

Robert Mugabe has cheated, lied and had his political critics, opponents and ordinary Zimbabweans intimidated, harassed, beaten, raped and had over 30 000 murdered for his selfish political gain. It is therefore rich for him to now claim he has been in State House because the people “elected” and he respects the constitution!

“If Zanu PF says I should go I will … For your own information, I never canvassed for any position, I rose up to my position … let the people judge for themselves … We don’t want imposition (of leaders) at all,” Mugabe said.

He is the man who has never allowed “the people (to)judge for themselves” because at each elective congress he saw to it that only his name was in the hat for the top job. So instead of members electing him it always ended up being a coronation exercise.

“Let me refer now to the unending problem of division within the party. We want a party which is tight … The party, as I said, is based on a party constitution and the party constitution provides how people can get elected from one position to another,” he said.

Again, this is pure nonsense; he is the one who changed the party’s constitution to foil the election of Mnangagwa VP in 2004. He unilaterally changed the constitution adding a clause demanding that one of the top four presidium post must be a woman. The changed worked in Joice Mujuru’s favour.

Ten years later, 2014, Mujuru was set to win the VP position fair and square and it was none other than Mugabe himself who stopped her by falsely accusing her of plotting to assassinate him. He also changed the constitution again giving himself the power to appoint the two VPs contrary to the constitution which said members who elect whom they wanted to fill these positions.

After imposing himself on his own party, Mugabe has been even more ruthless in imposing himself on the nation.

“What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” said Mugabe. He was justifying his military style 2008 operation “Mavhotera papi” (Whom did you vote for!) He used wanton violence, the worse electoral violence in the country’s history which left over 500 dead in three months (Gukurahundi was the worst political violence with its over 20 000 murdered in five years) to force people to vote for him after he lost the earlier vote to Tsvangirai.

The day Zimbabwe finally has its first free, fair and credible elections and get rid of this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship the country must establish a thorough judiciary investigation to the conduct of past elections and establish once and once for all the full details of how Zanu PF has been rigging elections. The illegitimacy of Mugabe as the democratically elected president must be put beyond question.

All his life he has disregarded the law when it suited him and when it suited his purposed he was the greatest advocate for the rule of law; now people know this is his dirty game. No one is falling for it! All his life, he has weaved a spider’s web of liars and lawless intrigue; he now snared in his own web!

Mugabe is a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous tyrant; we owe to ourselves, posterity and to history to make sure the real and true Robert Mugabe hidden under layers of misinformation and damned lies is uncovered for all to see!