G40 going for jugular with "Blue Ocean expose" - we must do likewise, demand reforms N Garikai

A video exposé on Emerson Mnangagwa allegedly by Jonathan Moyo that he presented in a Zanu-PF politburo meeting on 19 June 2017 detailing how Mnangagwa was trying to succeed President Mugabe is circulating in the public domain.

The video talks of a nine-page document called Blue Ocean, authored by VP Mnangagwa, detailing how he and his named (over 400) supporters would seize state institutions and then seize power from President Mugabe thus fulfilling the group’s "successionist objectives". Zanu PF’s factional war is heating up and each side is going for the jugular vein and taking no prisoners.

Professor Moyo has gone to great lengths to expose and discredit the Blue Ocean’s dirty tactics although the same dirty tactics were used ouster Mai Mujuru; he did not lift a finger then. Moyo lauded how the petition calling for Saviour Kasukuwere, (a G40 faction leader and thus a target of the Mnangagwa Lacoste faction) be removed as Zanu PF party commissar lacked credibility, legitimacy, etc., for example. And yet the same tactic was used to purged Mai Mujuru’s supporters.

Mai Mujuru had managed to get 8 out of 10 provinces to support her bid to be elected VP, Mnangagwa, her challenger for the same post, got the other 2. Mugabe, fearful of elected as contrast to appointed leaders, had Mujuru booted out of the party before the elections could take place. He accused her of “factionalism”- a nonsense, how else was she supposed to canvass for support and why her alone and not her challenger! She was also accused of plotting to assassinate him; a charge that was quietly forgotten as soon as she was booted out of the party.

There is nothing legal or constitutional about what Lacoste has been doing just as there is nothing legal about what Grace Mugabe and the rest of the G40 have been doing. Zanu PF is imploding and its factional war is reaching its climax. Things are going to get dirty and bloody, of that we can be certain.

However, the ruthlessness the Zanu PF members are showing fighting each other should set alarm bells ringing in every thinking Zimbabwean’s mind; if these thugs are ruthless with each other how much worse will they be with us, povo, whom they have always treated with contempt all these years. Our crime, as far as the regime is concerned, was to dare demand our freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful vote.

Free, fair and credible elections are synonymous with regime change in President Mugabe’s Zimbabwe and that is “factionalism” at a national level. The tyrant has amassed the party and state machinery to crush all such political descend like scorpion under foot. Anyone, therefore, expecting next year’s election to be free, fair and credible is being naïve and irresponsible.

Zimbabwe is going to hold fresh national elections next year; Zanu PF has blatantly rigged the vote in the past and there is nothing to stop the regime doing so again. The ruthlessness with which they are fighting each other show their hunger for power is as keen as ever.

Are only hope of having free, fair and credible elections is for us, the people, to demand the implementation of the reforms BEFORE the elections.

SADC leaders advised MDC leaders not to contest the July 2013 elections with no reforms in place; they knew Zanu PF would once again rig the vote. Tsvangirai & co. did not listen. MDC leaders were themselves aware that Zanu PF was already rigging the elections and yet they still contested because of greed, as David Coltart, MDC Senator and Minister of Education in the GNU, readily admitted in his recent book.

“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,” explained 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.”

MDC went on to contest the flawed July 2013 elections which Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the vote, as SADC leaders had already predicted. It will be sheer folly for the nation to make the same mistake again and contest next year’s elections with no reforms in place.

For the last 17 years, Tsvangirai has complained that the elections were rigged, true enough Zanu PF has rigged the elections for the last 37 years. Well, we have a golden opportunity to break the vicious cycle of rigged elections and someone, sheepishly, complaining after the event that the election was rigged – when we all knew all along the elections will be rigged!

With no reforms in place Zanu PF will rig next year’s elections, of that we can be certain. There is really no point in taking part in any part of a flawed electoral process including voter registration and voting as this only help the regime claim some modicum of legitimacy.

Zanu PF is imploding, the factional war has left the party weak and divided; if we stand firm in our demand for democratic reforms BEFORE elections, we will finally secure free, fair and credible elections not just for ourselves but for posterity!