For umpteenth time Dr Moyo, 'will of the people' alone will dislodge Zanu PF

When Dr Nkosana Moyo agreed to contesting in next year’s elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF rigs elections and that not even one reform was implemented since the last rigged elections of July 2013; he must have known he was putting his credibility on the line. Many people have already started dismissing him as a “Zanu PF project”. Whether the mud being thrown at him will stick or not will depend on how he answered the following key questions:

1)    Did he not know that Zanu PF has been rigging elections for decades?

2)    Did he not know that the GNU was about implementing a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the de facto Zanu PF dictatorship and thus stop the vote rigging? And did he no know that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU and post the July 2013 elections?

3)    With no reforms in place to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections, it is obvious the regime will rig the elections. Indeed, many people believed the rigging is in its advanced stage with other claiming it is done and dusted already. The question then is why would anyone contest an election he/she is 101% certain will be rigged?

There is no doubt Dr Moyo landed himself in a big hole the day he decided to contest Zimbabwe’s flawed elections because the obvious and logic thing to have done was to step up the demand to have the democratic reforms implemented without further udo! There is really no excuse why Zimbabweans have been denying their basic and fundamental right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country; first by the white colonial regime and, since April 1980, by this Zanu PF dictatorship.

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt,” said former US President Abraham Lincoln.

Dr Moyo has made a complete fool of himself by deciding to contest flawed elections when the obvious and logic thing was not to contest until reforms are in place. And each time he has opened his mouth to justify his foolishness he has dug himself even deeper into hole.

“I believe there is no force in the world that has the power to stop the will of the people when the time has come. You all remember how powerful the apartheid regime was, but South Africa still got its independence. Here at home, we got our independence despite the mighty of the (Ian) Smith regime,” Moyo said.

This is nonsense! What is worse, the nonsense is coming from the man aspiring to hold the highest office in the land!

The one notable thing about the March and June 2008 elections is they exposed Zanu PF’s vote rigging machinery in its full ugliness and ruthlessness. In the March vote the regime ordered a recount to overturn Tsvangirai’s 73% victory, by Mugabe’s own admission, to a 47% - short of the 50% plus one – to Mugabe’s 43%. It took ZEC six weeks to recount because the commission had to revisit all the polling stations across the length and breadth of the country to cook up the figures.

There is no doubt that the March results were false because it is well known that Joice Mujuru and her supporters are carried out a clandestine scheme called “Bhora mushango” in which supporters voted for Zanu PF parliamentary candidate but vote Tsvangirai president. Mugabe has himself publicly complained of Bhora Mushango and how it costed him the 2008 elections. He could not have picked that from 4% difference in “cooked” results!

In the June Presidential run-off Mugabe used a military style operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) to punish the electorate for having rejected him in the March vote. The violence was so wanton and brutal millions lost their homes and property and others were forced to go into hiding. Hundreds of thousands were beaten and/or raped. Over 500 opposition supporters were murdered in cold blood in the months of madness.

“What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” boasted Mugabe, encouraging his party thugs!

The wanton violence worked; Mugabe overhauled Tsvangirai’s 73% victory and turned it into his own 84% landslide victory.

The whole international community, including SADC and AU, refused to accept the elections were free, fair and credible; not after all that blatant vote rigging and wanton violence. SADC stepped in the Zimbabwe crisis and forced Mugabe to agree to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging future elections.

The 2008 elections took place at a time when Zimbabwe was facing its worst economic crisis ever; inflation had soared to 500 billion percent and the Z$ was not even worth the paper it was printed on. People lost the life time investments. Shops shelves were empty. Many companies closed throwing thousands of workers on the growing mountain of unemployed, etc.

So, if it was just a matter of people having the “will” then in 2008 the people showed they had the burning will; they risked life, limp and treasure to vote for political change, as we have seen. They failed to get the political change because Mugabe blatantly rigged the elections. If Dr Moyo is telling us the people did not get change because they did not show the will or that it was not the right time then he is talking nonsense.

We know why the people failed to get political change in 2008 and 2013 – MUGABE BLATANTLY RIGGED THE ELECTIONS. How many times does Zanu PF have to rig elections before people like Dr Moyo finally accept this simple political reality!

What Dr Moyo is also failing to appreciate is that be participating in the elections, knowing all the time that the process is flawed; we, inadvertently, give the process credibility because no one in their right mind would contest an election they know will be rigged.

When Tsvangirai complained of Zanu PF “stealing” the 2013 elections no one paid attention to the renting of a madman because he was warned a thousand times this would happen. No doubt Dr Moyo will complain of Zanu PF stealing the elections next year and no one will listen.

Zimbabweans are now the poorest people in Africa according to a recent New World Wealth report. Millions of our people live in grinding abject poverty today. Decades of poor housing, poor food, poor health care and poor everything have taken their toll, many susceptible to diseases and death. The only way the country is going to stop this man-made economic meltdown is by electing a good and accountable government and for that to happen we must have free, fair and credible elections.

If anyone had any doubt about Dr Moyo’s suitability to be Zimbabwe President there can be no such doubt now. If he does not have the common sense to know Zanu PF has been rigging elections all these years much less to implement the democratic reforms.  And finally restore the freedoms and basic human rights, including the right to free and fair elections, of every Zimbabwean once and once for all. Then he is certainly not presidential material!