Dzamara there nothing "positive" about coalition - Mujuru, with no Zanu PF regalia, is still a thug. P

Dear Dr Dzamara

“ZANU PF’s mismanagement and profligacy has landed Zimbabwe in economic doldrums. All economic indicators point towards a state that is on a life support system,” you rightly said in blaming Zanu PF for the country’s sorry economic state. See the Nehanda Radio.

“The backbone of any economy in the 21st century is industrialisation. There are virtually no prospects of our country reindustrialising under the current regime which has enacted several draconian laws leading to investor apathy.”

There is clearly no faulting your analysis of what is wrong with Zanu PF and, more significantly, why we should not place any hope of the regime getting us out of the hell-hole. However, when you move to talking about the opposition you immediately lose that clarity.

“This week, the Leaders of the two main opposition parties, Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and Joice Mujuru (NPP) signed a memorandum of understanding on behalf of their parties to establish a pre-election alliance enroute to the establishment of an extrapolated coalition government. Yesterday, Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC-T) and Professor Welshman Ncube (MDC) also signed a memorandum of understanding. These are positive steps towards establishing a broad alliance.

“Indeed, it is time to unite and mobilise everything and everyone not just in opposition against ZANU PF but towards a better Zimbabwe. My own personal philosophy has always revolved around team work and unity of purpose – not losing the bigger picture. I believe that the coming together of the opposition political parties is a step in the right direction but it must not end there.”

You, like many other Zimbabweans, have clearly learnt nothing from our own past blunders. We are in this mess because for years before and after independence we refused to see President Robert Mugabe and his cronies for what they were incompetent, corrupt and ruthless tyrants.

One can forgive the ordinary Zimbabwean in 1980, who knew every little about Mugabe and company were and therefore had no choice other than assume they had the nation’s interest at heart. But even then povo were very slow in opening their eyes as many continued to give their support to the Zanu PF dictatorship well into the 1990s; well after there were mountains of evidence of the economic collapse and the Gukurahundi massacres.

If we had been diligent in our selection of quality leader, at least leaders with some common sense, Zimbabwe would not be in this hell-hole President Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs have landed us. It is sheer folly for us to make the same mistake again of electing individuals with no common sense and expect them to not only take us out of the hell-hole but to a better and prosperous Zimbabwe – which is exactly what you, Dr Dzamara, are proposing to do.

The individuals, Joice Mujuru, Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube, you are proposing to lead the nation post Zanu PF we not only know that they have no common sense but, worse still, they are corrupt and incompetent.

Joice Mujuru was at the very heart of the corrupt and murderous Zanu PF regime which you have rightly condemned. It is nonsense that the painful process of being booted out of Zanu PF was enough to cleanse her and all her followers of their corrupt and thuggery mentality. She is just as corrupt and incompetent as ever; she is fighting tooth and nail to get back on gravy train so she take up with her looting from where she left off in 2014 when she was booted off the gravy train.

Indeed, NPP members see their vast experience as political thugs as a great asset and their contribution to the opposition camp. Senior party members have been boasting about Mujuru’s 2008 operation “Bhora musango” (Kick ball into the bush), in which her supporters were instructed to vote for a Zanu PF parliamentary candidate but vote Tsvangirai instead of Mugabe for president. Tsvangirai got 73% of the vote by President Mugabe’s own admission. The tyrant force ZEC to “cook” the vote count to reduce Tsvangirai’s tally to 47% to force a presidential run-off.

NPP leaders are promising other vote rigging tactics similar to “Bhora musango!” to counter Zanu PF’s vote rigging juggernaut. Even if NPP members are indeed that strategically competent, which is a big if, and the opposition win the next elections as a result; who is going to stop these thugs using the same tactics in future?

We should be seeking to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and replacing it with a healthy and functional democracy and not with another Zanu PF dictatorship in all but name.

As Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube, these are the two leaders of the MDC factions in the GNU who failed to get even one democratic reform implemented in five years. NOT EVEN ONE! What else, for Pete’s sake, do these two have to do to finally convince you Dr Dzamara, that they are corrupt, incompetent and treasonous sell-outs to boot?

I do not accept the self-defeatist argument that we should concentrate on removing Mugabe even if it be by someone corrupt and incompetent like Tsvangirai with the view of voting him out after five years. The problem is he will not implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure quality leaders can emerge and thus we will end up being stuck with a corrupt political system that will produce mediocre leaders.

Tsvangirai is as corrupt and incompetent as his fellow trade union leader Frederick Chiluba of Zambia. Like Tsvangirai, he promised to transform Zambia after 27 years of Kenneth Kaunda misrule but failed; look at the sorry state of that country. Surely we should aim for doing a lot better than become another Zambia voting out one mediocre regime but only to replace it with another.

There are those who argue that we must accept Tsvangirai, corrupt and incompetent as he is – mole and all, because there is no other competent leader on offer. What these people fail to appreciate is that the present political system of stifled debate and totalitarian autocracy will never produce quality leaders but the corrupt, incompetent and thugs we see. If we want quality leaders we must first dismantle the dictatorship by implementing the democratic reforms to create the healthy democratic environment conducive to open debate and democratic competition.

Dr Dzamara we are never going to get out of this hell-hole we are stuck in today replacing the corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe dictatorship by recycled corrupt and incompetent individuals like Mujuru and Tsvangirai. If you have not learnt even that after all the 37 years of Zimbabwe blundering from pillar to post then you have not learned the single most important lesson of all! Tsvangirai and Mujuru are nothing more than vomit, not even a stray-dog would feed on its own vomit!  

It is not the opposition coalition we want but rather to implement the democratic reforms and make sure we have free, fair and credible elections. All these opposition politicians want is to get back on the gravy train and they are using the formation of coalitions to cover up for why they have done nothing to implement reforms since the rigged July 2013 elections and in the past. Open your eyes my brother, Dr Dzamara, Joice Mujuru is still a thug; it was not wearing the Zanu PF regalia that made her one!

Best regards

Patrick Guramatunhu