Tsvangirai told 1 000 times BVR alone will not stop vote rigging - must be told trillion time again. P Guramatunhu

When Tsvangirai told his supporters in Gweru that the new Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) kits from China would stop Zanu PF rigging the elections next year the official MDC-T position was that Zanu PF was already rigging the vote.

"I want to tell you, BVR will not be manipulated," Tsvangirai said.

"These Chinese were chosen by the United Nations and have done work in other countries. Do not be scared or doubt them just because they are Chinese."

Here we go; after all the months and countless articles explaining just the one point that the BVR kit on its own, regardless how good the system will not guarantee free, fair and credible elections particularly when those operating it are still corrupt to the core. It is clear Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have understood nothing! What makes this particularly sickening is we have been here before, this is déjà vu.

“In the run-up to the 2013 general elections, Tsvangirai said he had confidence in Zec and its chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau, only to turn around following his defeat and accuse the election management body of having tampered with the poll results in connivance with the military,” Newsday reminded the readers.

“Asked if such vacillation would not affect the image of the party, (Obert) Gutu said the party had learnt "hard lessons".

But that is just the thing; Tsvangirai and his MDC friend do not listen to advice and they are incapable of learning from even their own glaringly obvious mistakes! Contesting the 2013 elections with not even one reform in place was the height of insanity and yet they are gearing to repeat the same mistake by contesting the 2018 elections still with nothing done to stop the vote rigging. 

“Morgan Tsvangirai a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment,” wrote then USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell in a Wikileaks cable.

"He is an indispensable element for opposition success … but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short … Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country's recovery."

One of the biggest mistakes the Zimbabwe electorate have made was to have risked life and limp and vote for Tsvangirai & co. in droves. Instead of MDC using their mandate to implement the reforms and deliver democratic changes they promised the party has use the mandate to drag the nation from one blunder to the next.

How was it possible that President Mugabe was able bamboozle not just a handful of the MDC leaders but all of them into forgetting the reforms and for five years! It is either President Mugabe is a political genius or else that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent! It is clearly the latter since there is overwhelming evidence already proving that President Mugabe is a corrupt, murderous tyrant and a blundering idiot – not a genius.

Thanks to President Mugabe’s 37 years of voodoo economics, Zimbabweans are today the poorest people in Africa! We used to be the bread basket of the region but for the last 17 years, since the violent seizure of white owned farms to give to Zanu PF loyalists, the nation has relied on imported food aid most of the time! Zimbabwe is, for all intend and purposes, the Garden of Eden and we are starving in the Garden of Eden. There is the testimonial to our genius leader, President Robert Mugabe!

Tsvangirai and MDC friends failed to implement the reforms during the GNU because they sold-out. They were very foolish not to heed SADC leaders’ warning not to contest the 2013 elections with no reforms in place and David Coltart, MDC cabinet member in the GNU, told us why.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” w Senator Coltart.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

The nation would not need any democratic reforms if Zanu Pf had not corrupted our state institutions to create the de facto one-party dictatorship in the first place. And after winning the rigged July 2013 elections and winning total control of the institutions of government, the regime has made it crystal clear that it will not implement any reforms.

"You can’t expect us to reform ourselves out of power,” boasted Zanu PF thugs like Professor Jonathan Moyo and VP Emerson Mnangagwa.

Zimbabwe is in a very serious economic and political mess and with unemployment a nauseating 90% and the country now the poorest in Africa there is no doubt the country needs a competent government desperately. The only sure way to get a competent government is for the country to hold free, fair and credible elections. The country cannot afford the luxury of yet another rig elections and another five years of Zanu PF misrule.

We need the democratic reforms implemented to guarantee free and fair elections BEFORE the elections. So, we must find a way to get the reforms implemented regardless of Zanu PF’s selfish objections. The most obvious way to do this is for the opposition to boycott the flawed elections.

As David Coltart corrected pointed out above, by participating in the flawed elections the opposition are going the illegal electoral process “credibility”, political oxygen. Stop the opposition from contesting the flawed elections and deprive process legitimacy. Deprived of the political oxygen, Zanu PF will have no choice but to accept the reforms or else suffocate.

It was the loss of political legitimacy that forced President Mugabe agree to the 2008 Global Political Agreement, accepting the formation of the GNU and its mandate to implement the raft of the democratic reforms. SADC leaders would not have accepted Zanu PF’s legitimacy if the opposition had boycotted the 2013 elections; after all this is exactly what they were advising MDC leaders to do.

 “In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza told Violet Gonda in a recent interview.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws, and after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

The futility of contest an election knowing it is going to be rigged is unquestionable!

On the other hand, we also know that the likes Morgan Tsvangirai and Joice Mujuru are their respective followers are desperate to get back on the gravy train and they, as happen in 2013, they will forgo the push for free and fair elections in exchange for the few bait seats Zanu PF is offering. Ambassador Dell was right, once in power, Tsvangirai has certainly become an albatross round the nation’s neck!

Tsvangirai has already costed the nation two golden chances to end the Zanu PF dictatorship; first by failing to implement the reforms during the GNU and then by contesting the 2013 elections when the obvious and logical thing to have done was to boycott the elections. It would be sheer folly to let Tsvangirai waste this present golden chance too by contesting yet another flawed election in 2018!

 As for Mai Mujuru, she is Zanu PF in all but name and her resolve to contest the flawed elections even when many others in the opposition have withdrawn would only serve to confirm what we already know – that she is in politics to recast the Zanu PF dictatorship in her own image and not to dismantle it!

So, the one character who is now key to the implementation of the reforms is not Mugabe much less Mujuru; it is Morgan Richard Tsvangirai. We have already explained to him that BVR alone will not stop Zanu PF rigging a thousand times and he did not hear. We will have to explain that to him a million times, a trillion times, whatever it takes to stop him contesting the next elections until the reforms are implemented!

For the last 37 years we have contested flawed elections knowing Zanu PF will rig the vote but hope against hope the regime rig the vote but lose the elections. We must end the madness and demand the implementation of the reforms BEFORE the next elections.