Dr Moyo's hope to emulate Macron is misplaced narcissist ego - no free elections in Zimbabwe N Garikai

Dr Moyo and his APA party wants to be the Emmanuel Macron of France who started his own En Marche party from scratch and a year later was swept into the Elysee Palace, defeating all the established traditional parties with a landslide 66% victory. Dr Moyo is so engrossed in what he would do as the great statesman the world has ever seen; he is promising to “fix” Zimbabwe’s economy in five years; it is not clear, whether the “fix” will take us back to where we were 10 years ago or, better still, in 1980.

He says he has a plan to defeat Zanu PF in next year’s election but, again, he will not say what this master plan is.

“We would not be doing this (contesting the elections and win) if we did not have a plan,” answered Dr Moyo. “But what we not going to do and continue to refuse to do, is put it on a public platform so that everyone else can dismember it!”

A clever answer but it will not wash! The electorate, whose votes you are after, are supposed to judge you worthy of their vote on the basis of something concrete and not just your word. Anyone; even those with a proven track record of blundering incompetence and failures, like Morgan Tsvangirai, Joice Mujuru and President Mugabe himself; will promise the moon on a silver platter only to deliver hell-on-earth.

On the economic front, Dr Moyo will probable do a hell lot better than what Zanu PF has done; indeed, ever Tsvangirai will probably do better than what Mugabe has done. Given Zimbabwe’s present position with 90% unemployment rate, vast material and human resources and economic potential, a competent government should easily achieve an average yearly economic growth rate 15% plus in the first two decades.

If the dysfunction GNU of Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai could achieve such impressive economic growth rates of -9.9% in 2008 to 5.3%, 11.4%, 11.9% and 10.6% in 2012 with the scrapping of the worthless Z$ in late 2008 and one or two policy changes. A government with a bit more common sense will do a lot better.

The challenge before us in Zimbabwe is not so much one of failing to get a regime with common sense to replace this Zanu PF regime but rather the failure to remove this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe regime. We are stuck with Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs; have been these last 37 years and counting!

In his almost narcissist zeal to emulate President Macron, Dr Moyo has forgotten that Zimbabwe is not France is one very important aspect – elections in Zimbabwe are not free, fair and credible. Zanu PF rigs elections and has been doing so for the last 37 years. Dr Moyo is not only being naïve to ignore this political reality but, worse still, he is being down-right criminal because of the political, social and economic consequences of his failed political adventure is yet another Zanu PF rigged election, another five years of chaos, misery and hopeless despair.

“Over the last three elections, only about 43% of eligible voters have turned out to vote,” argued Dr Moyo. “Our approach to politics is to get those who have been staying away. Who have been saying ‘There is no option out there that I find attractive.’”

But that is exactly the point, Dr Moyo, you are assuming the elections were free, fair and credible which nonsense because the elections were rigged.

Yes, many Zimbabweans have failed to vote in the past but not because they did not consider whatever opposition there was a viable alternative to Zanu PF. Many people would rather vote ‘for a donkey than Mugabe’, Professor Jonathan Moyo once said; just to underline how desperate the people of Zimbabwe have been for regime change. Mugabe has been rigging the vote to deny many Zimbabwean a meaningful vote.

There is documentary evidence showing that the voter registration in opposition strongholds was slow and laborious and so many did not register. Last time, near one million people were denied the vote because their details were not in the constituent voters' roll they expected. The regime stubbornly refused to release the voters' roll at least one month before voting day as is required by law. Many of the voters would have discovered the mix up in time for them to vote, which is why many believe the mix up was a deliberate act.

The 2013 voters roll has not been released even to this day! The regime must know a close scrutiny of the voters roll will uncover the extend of the vote rigging, the voters’ roll is the smoking gun.

There is less than a year to go before next election and yet the task of voter registration has not even started, for example. The regime is dragging its feet on this to justify a stampede later. No doubt many people will once again fail to register, there will be many irregularities in the voters roll, etc. In short, the vote rigging has already started!

Dr Moyo cannot just assume that everyone who voted for President Mugabe in his 62% victory did so out of their free will and that the vote count is true. Zanu PF has used its tried, tested and trusted carrot and stick vote rigging trick to win elections for years. The trick is a blend of vote buying; giving away food and farming inputs to povo and cars and bicycles to traditional leaders with the left hand, whilst wielding the stick in the right hand.

Many rural voters were frogmarched to attend Zanu PF rallies and then to vote for the party candidates in the past and this continues to happen even now. Indeed, Dr Moyo has said he would not hold any public rallies himself because he fearful of these attending his rallies would be beaten by Zanu PF thugs or worse.

In the 2013 elections, the number of polling stations was increased from 2 000 to a staggering 9 000 just days before voting day. Everyone has seen YouTube videos of hooded Zanu PF youths bussed from one polling station to the next to vote. Again, nothing has been done to stop this happen again next year.

There are many, many other ways giving Zanu PF the competitive advantage over everyone else such as the party have the total monopoly of the country's public media; having unfettered access to the country's resources and State machinery; etc. Zimbabwe’s electoral field is definitely tilted in favour of Zanu PF.

The cost of nation going through next year’s election is that Zanu PF will rig the vote and another five years of the economic chaos and political tyranny is a nightmare. But worse still the nation would forfeit yet another chance to get the reforms implemented and put to bed this scourge of vote rigging at the heart of the country’s political paralysis and economic meltdown.

Dr Moyo have no plan to stop Zanu PF rigging the vote. And so, he is working on the assumption that Zimbabwe elections are free, fair and credible; we will be foolish to go along with that because that is the one thing we should know by now is not true. The last thing we want is Dr Moyo admitting at the press interview the day after the elections that the elections “were stolen” just as Tsvangirai did after the July 2013 elections.

We know the 2018 elections will be stolen unless we implement the reforms BEFORE the elections. After 37 years, it is madness to keep contesting elections knowing fully well Zanu PF will rig the vote and expecting a different result!