When former SA President Thabo Mbeki said: “I would fight
with any South African who stands up to say: ‘I, as a South African, say Robert
Mugabe must go… I say it’s none of your business. It is the business of the
people of Zimbabwe.”
He must have known he was setting off a whole truck load of
fireworks because the issue of how to remove Mugabe from office and the role
SADC has played in the past still remains a very raw nerve amongst the
Zimbabweans.
“Not so long ago South Africa was rallying for world support
to oust the apartheid regime. If he can apply his mind clearly without any bias
of skin colour does he see any differences between the apartheid regime led by
Botha et al and the ZANU PF led by Mugabe?” commented gynaecologist in New
Zimbabwe.
“The reality is that the Mugabe regime is far worse than any
oppressive colonial regime ever to rule in any parts of Africa. Zimbabweans
need world support to oust Mugabe more than South Africa needed to dislodge the
apartheid regime. Mugabe is a despot who can kill the people he is meant to
lead without any conscience. Anyone who protects him is complicit in his deeds.”
There is nothing to be gained by comparing Mugabe’s corrupt
and tyrannical dictatorship to SA’s apartheid regimes; this is not a beauty
contest. What matters here is no human being should have had to suffer the
racist torment under apartheid nor suffer the consequences of Mugabe’s corrupt
and murderous tyrannical rule.
Gynaecologist’s main bone of contention is that Zimbabwe
needs help to remove Mugabe and SADC, more specifically President Mbeki, failed
to give us that help.
“The people of Zimbabwe said Mugabe should go in 2008 but
you moron said he you should stay!” said Mukuru.
“In 2008, at the height of Zimbabwe's economic and political
challenges, Mbeki was the Sadc-appointed mediator tasked with resolving the
country's problems. Zimbabwe stood on a precipice with an inconclusive
electoral outcome spawning a tense standoff and necessitating a presidential
poll run-off which President Mugabe won convincingly after defeating his main
challenger MDC-T president Mr Morgan Tsvangirai,” wrote the Zimpaper Editor.
Both Mukuru and Zimpaper Editor are both wrong in their
interpretation of the events following the 2008 elections. SADC did not get
involved in Zimbabwe’s political crisis because the elections were “inconclusive”,
as the Zanu PF apologist would have us believe. SADC refused to accept Mugabe’s
electoral victory because of the wanton violence used to overturn his 73%
defeat in the March vote, by Mugabe’s own inadvertent admission, into a 84%
victory.
Tsvangirai has himself admitted that MDC had offered to
include some Zanu PF members in his cabinet when it was clear MDC would set to
win the March 2008 vote. Mukuru is wrong to suggest that SADC who wanted the
GNU.
Many Zimbabwean have been unhappy with Mugabe retaining the
post of State President in the GNU with the two VP position occupied by Zanu PF
and Tsvangirai reduced to the post of Prime Minister with no meaningful political
power – an office messenger with a fancy job title. What some people fail to
realise is that it was within MDC’s right to reject the role they were given in
the GNU. They accepted!
Probably the single most important issue that many Zimbabweans
have failed to accept is that it was not SADC’s fault that the GNU failed to
deliver on its key promise of implementing the raft of democratic reforms
designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. SADC leaders did their best to
remind Tsvangirai and company to implement the reforms but were ignored.
In June 2013, just a month before the Zimbabwe elections,
SADC leaders warned MDC leader not to contest the elections with no reforms in
place but, once again, they were ignored. The elections went ahead and Zanu PF
blatantly rigged the vote, as expected!
Since the rigged July
2013 elections, Tsvangirai and his MDC friends promised they would not contest
any more elections unless the reforms are implemented first. They have since
changed their minds; they are going to contest next year’s elections although
not even one reform has been implemented.
Tsvangirai’s claim that the new Biometric Voter Registration
(BVR) system to be use next year will stop Zanu PF “manipulating the vote” is
just a feeble excuse to justify contesting the flawed elections. The BVR system
is only as good as those who operate it; the unreformed and corrupt ZEC will
operate the system.
It is a historic fact that the people of Zimbabwe have had
many chances to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, with the golden opportunity
coming during the GNU. We have wasted them all! SADC leaders have told
Zimbabweans exactly what we needed to do to end the Mugabe dictatorship –
implement the raft of democratic reforms. We had five years of the GNU but
failed to get even one reform implemented. No one.
Indeed, instead of owning up to our own serious shortcomings
we ever have the chutzpah to blame SADC, President Mbeki, President Zuma, and
everyone else except ourselves for our political problems!
It is not just Robert Mugabe who has developed the art of blaming
everyone else for the country’s problem even when it is self-evident he is to
blame. A year ago, he admitted that $15 billions of diamond revenue were “swindled”.
To date no one has been arrested and not a single dollar recovered.
A few months ago, Finance Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, told
parliament government was only receive revenue from the declared one million
carats diamonds out of the expected six million carats. In other words, the wholesale
looting behind the $15 billions is still going on. And yet Robert Mugabe continues
to blame the targeted sanctions imposed by the West for all the country’s
economic problems.
What nation on earth can sustain much less prosper whilst
haemorrhaging billions of dollars a month particularly one with a mere $10
billion GDP like Zimbabwe!
"The colonial system was exactly about taking away the
possibility for us to determine our own (destiny)," continued former
President Mbeki.
"Now, I sit here as a South African and me, I’m going
to say to the Zimbabweans: ‘You shut up. I’m going to decide for you who your
leader is' ... It is wrong.”
Of course, he is right!
Even today, Zimbabweans still have the power to tell Mugabe
to go and to determine our own destiny; we must demand the implementation of
the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections and refuse
to participate in any more flawed elections.
Tsvangirai & co. should have implemented the reforms
when they had the golden opportunity to do so, they are the ones dragging us
into these flawed elections on false promises for their own selfish purpose of
winning the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away. Deny Zanu PF the smoke
screen of the opposition contesting the flawed elections and the regime will be
forced to accept the need for democratic change!
It is for Zimbabweans to tell Mugabe to go, we have the
power to do so and it is no one else’s fault that we have failed to realise
this and to use it. Zimbabweans are today the poorest in Africa; it is clear
our economic poverty is in fact a by-product of our deep rooted intellectual
poverty!
We want a democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe but lack the
common sense to implement the democratic reforms to end the corrupt and
tyrannical de facto one-party dictatorship. After 37 years, we still contest
the elections knowing Zanu PF will rig the vote but hoping against hope the
regime will lose the election. How insane!
9 comments:
The integrity of next year's elections is already in question, as it emerged that Israeli company, Nikuv International Project, could be roped in through the backdoor to manage, store and compile voters' data ahead of the 2018 general elections, a development likely to raise eyebrows and questions about the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's (Zec) much-hyped biometric voter registration (BVR) exercise.
Top secret documents compiled by Laxton Group Limited's chief legal officer, Paul Bellin, and shared among the company's board of directors and security chiefs in Zimbabwe, expose highly irregular issues in the manner in which Zec will handle voters' data.
Chief among the fears expressed by Bellin are data security, accountability, technical compatibility and time risks, which Laxton Group says could soil their reputation.
"This is a highly alarming risk. Zec does not appear to have this infrastructure in place and when Laxton raised this issue, it fell on deaf ears.
Only a week ago, Tsvangirai came out to say the BVR system will stop Zanu PF ‘manipulating’ the vote!
Of course, the Chinese knew all along that any system is only as good as the people operating it. They knew that Nikuv or anyone else so employed could deliberately corrupt the system. They are raising these issues now so that when it finally emerges that the vote was rigged they can say “We warned you about this!”
In 1980, we had the second highest income per capita in Africa – did not mean much because of the inequalities in our society and the generally low levels of income that prevailed in Africa at the time. Today I am told we are at the very bottom of the pile and have the honor to be one of the poorest people in the World.
Last week the UN Agencies working in Zimbabwe rated us as having 30 negative indices and only 9 positive indices – among the negatives, undernourishment, stunting, child mortality, maternal mortality, tuberculosis, subjective wellbeing, life expectancy, homicides, corruption, government efficiency and property rights.
Among the positives – Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP, Municipal waste management (we are all surprised by this) and CO2 emissions (we no longer have much of an economy left).
Very interesting MP Cross except you did not mention that since 1999 the country has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship but wasted them all. MDC leaders, yourself included, wasted the chances because you are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent!
MDC had the opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which would have ended the Zanu PF vote rigging and with it the regime’s reign. You lot had five years to implement the reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
Right now, MDC is gearing to contest next year’s elections although with not even one reform in place, Zanu PF is set to rig the vote again. You have been warned it is insane contesting these flawed elections but you refuse to listen because all you care about is for you to retain your gravy train seat. You are gearing to contest again, no doubt!
We know the country is in a mess, you seem to relish telling us this. The tragedy is the country will never get out of the mess as long as we have a corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition such as the MDC!
“The question remains when is enough, enough?” You may well ask MP Cross. But before we can ask that of Zanu PF we must ask that of the MDC because, like it or not, they are the ones who have kept Zanu PF in power the last 17 years!
“The peace campaign seeks to encourage community members and leaders to uphold peace ahead of the 2018 elections,” says heal Zimbabwe.
Is this not the same as someone who keeps hoping to be cured but will not take the medicine to cure his illness? We all know that for the country to have free, fair, credible and peaceful elections we must implement the reforms. The nation had the golden opportunity to do this during the GNU and yet failed to get even one reform implemented.
SADC leaders warned the nation not to participate in the 2013 elections with no reforms but, of course, no one listened. Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the vote and drag the nation into this economic and political mess.
We have not implemented even one reform and yet the nation is once again going to have another election and some one hopes that a football tournament will stop the vote rigging! How naïve!
While it is true that President Mbeki and SADC could have done more to help Zimbabwe get the democratic reforms implemented what cannot be denied is the historic fact that MDC leaders sold-out. SADC leaders did warn Tsvangirai of the need to implement the reforms and the futility of contesting the 2013 elections with no reforms in place; MDC leaders ignored the warning because they had already taken President Mugabe's bribes.
The failure by the Zimbabwean populous to accept what happened during the GNU is proof we are not ready to be masters of our own destiny.
Even if SADC had forced President Mugabe and Zanu PF to give up power after 2008 with such a weak and scatter brain opposition as we have in MDC and a naive and gullible electorate; it would not have taken Zanu PF thugs to worm their way back into power!
There have been many opportunities for Zimbabweans to end this Zanu PF dictatorship we have failed to do so not because we needed help but because we are, politically, incompetent and immature to do so. South Africans can scream all they like that Mugabe must go but until we are smart enough to elect a competent leader he will not go. Even if he finally goes, as he is just as mortal as everyone else, we are just as likely to have someone as bad if not worse! What then SA!!!!!
Nikuv leaks vindicate the PDP, says Jacob Mafumo.
PDP should just stop making long speeches full of sound and fury but signifying FA!
We know ZEC is corrupt and with not even one reform in place it is not going to be anything else but the corrupt body it is. What we want to hear from PDP is not going to contest another flawed election and not hear another stupid lecture on the subject!
Nikuv, BVR ‘rigging’ plot exposed.
Many people believed the MDC lie that the 2013 elections would be free, fair and credible. Not so this time around, most people do not believe the elections will be free and fair. And reports like this just help confirm something the people already knew was a certainty - a rigged election.
Zimbabweans have been flirting with rescue when one has no intention to be saved, in the classical sense of the phrase.
@ Themba Mthethwa
“The power sharing approach is not how we do our business in ZANU PF government. It is for this reason that we will continue to use our 2013 election rigging template again in 2018 elections to attain another resounding victory,” you said.
You must have been the fly on the wall that not only listened to all President Mugabe’s vote rigging meetings but could even hear what the cunning tyrant was thinking day and night!
The one thing President Mugabe has learnt following the 2008 elections and the GNU that followed is that Zanu PF can continue to rig elections and have no legitimacy issues to worry about as long as it allows the opposition to win a few seats.
“Let them spend all their time forming NERA and CODE and conducting protests against us. It is good for us as this reduces scrutiny on our rigging activities,” you said.
The main reasons Tsvangirai and company are obsessed about NERA, coalition building, voter mobilization and all the other trivial matters that will have no effect in stopping Zanu PF’s vote rigging is because they need to convince their wildebeest followers that they are still relevant. They know they have failed to get even one reforms implemented since the rigged 2013 elections and so they need an excuse for contesting the flawed 2018 elections and NERA, CODE, etc. are they excuse.
The real shock here is the Zimbabwe electorate themselves who have conned by Mugabe and are now being conned by a village idiot called Morgan Tsvangirai. It was very foolish of the electorate not to have forced MDC to implement the reforms during the GNU and doubly foolish to allow these corrupt and incompetent idiots drag the nation into the 2013 elections with no reforms. It would be sheer madness if the people will allow themselves to be led by the nose by Tsvangirai into yet another flawed 2018 election.
Zanu PF has been rigging elections since 1980 and the only way to stop them is to demand the implementation of reforms BEFORE elections. It is for the people themselves to make these demands of Zanu PF and to accept that MDC have long stopped serving the people’s interests.
@ Top
Zanu PF has never been a party for the Shonas only just as Zapu was never a party for one tribe or region. President Mugabe has created a one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship and that is not a Shona dictatorship. Your tribal agenda is not in anyone's interest.
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