“AS the solution to
Zimbabwe's crisis remains elusive details have emerged on how Vice President Emmerson
Dambudzo Mnangagwa, colleagues and other political players have been
preparing for a post-Mugabe government which will accommodate Morgan Tsvangirai
and the whites and also reverse some of the aged leader’s policies,” said a
report in New Zimbabwe. “ED plots GNU: Whites, Tsvangirai, UK named” screamed
the headline.
“A report from Reuters quoted
a range of sources who include politicians and western diplomats as well as “a
trove of hundreds of documents from inside the CIO” all pointing to the alleged
behind the scenes activities by Mnangagwa and allies.”
Even if this story is based
on rumour and nothing more, it is heartening to note that the penny has finally
dropped and many people now realise the current political system in Zimbabwe is
unsustainable. Some of us have been saying this for years now. It is pleasing
that even some of the hardliners in Zanu PF are softening up.
The next challenge is to
remind the likes of Mnangagwa and Tsvangirai that they are as much part of the
country’s economic and political mess as Mugabe himself. After 37 years at the
heart of this Zanu PF government Mnangagwa can never ever wash his hands and
pretend he took no part, did not know and/or was helpless to do anything about
all the mismanagement, corruption, vote rigging, and murderous tyranny that has
characterized this Zanu PF regime.
Tsvangirai has been on the
opposition politics centre stage for 17 years, five of which in the last GNU,
and yet has nothing to show for it. Tsvangirai had the support of SADC in the
last GNU to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure the full restoration
of all individual freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair
and credible elections. He failed to get even one meaningful reform
implemented. Not one!
“MDC leaders were busy
enjoying themselves they forgot why they were in the GNU,” remarked one SADC
leader in disgust following Zanu PF victory in the 2013 elections. The regime
had blatantly rig the vote because of MDC leaders’ blundering incompetence in
failing to get any reforms to stop the rigging implemented.
It is a matter of historic
fact that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to get even one democratic
reform implemented because they are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent.
The suggestion than a new GNU
composed of Zanu PF and MDC leaders can chart the route out of the mess
Zimbabwe finds itself in today is a nonsense for three basic reasons:
- 1. Zanu PF and MDC leaders are the ones who landed us in this mess in the first place; if they are so competent to get us out why did they drag us into the mess up to our eyes in the first place. Besides, they have had many opportunities to get us out already and they wasted them all. What is there to make us believe they will do any better this time.
- 2. As the chief architects of the country’s economic and political mess both Zanu PF and MDC leaders cannot be trusted to address the root causes of the problem openly, robustly and decisively because there will not resist the instinctive and human temptation to cover up for their own past short comings.
- 3. The very idea that Zanu PF and MDC should meet behind closed doors and decide to postpone elections and form the new GNU and just present the rest of us with a fait accompli solution is, in itself, a failure. The nation is in this mess because for the last 37 years it has been ruled by a clique of individuals who did as they pleased stifling all debate and descend. They knew best and were expected to do as we were instructed and suffer the consequences of their failures in damn anguish.
The last 37 years have been tough, very tough, and many
people have lost all their lifetime’s work, many have suffered economic
hardship and from disease and many hundreds of thousands have lost their lives
unnecessarily whilst over 30 000 were butchered by the regime for political advantage.
The only recompense to make the many loses endurable is if every Zimbabwean
from henceforth have his/her freedoms and basic human rights and dignities
restored signed, sealed and delivered.
What better way to underline a clean and clear break from the
past than making sure the failed leaders of yesteryears are not involved in the
interim authority whose principle task will be to implement the democratic
reforms and ensure the next elections are free, fair and credible.
The current Zanu PF
administration in Harare has but less than a year to go. It is clear it is
incapable of delivering free, fair and credible elections and the opposition
camp has lost all political credibility. It is certain Zanu PF is going to rig
the vote just as it has done so many times in the past. It is almost certain
that SADC and the AU will join the international community and condemn the
election as a sham. Zanu PF will have no option then but to accept SADC, AU
and/or UN supervision to take the nation back to legality.
There is no doubt Mnangagwa
and other in Zanu PF can see the writing on the wall and are trying to
pre-empty the elections by offering the formation of another GNU with partners
of their choosing (who are corruptible and malleable) and outside supervisors
of their choosing too (Zanu PF can bully and blackmail).
Mnangagwa and Zanu PF have a
simple choice: either accept that you cannot hold free and fair elections next
year as you are obliged to do and let SADC, AU and/or UN consult with the other
interested parties and decide on the course of action that should be followed.
Or go ahead and rig next year’s elections and face the consequences of having
the elections ruled illegitimate.
10 comments:
She is clearly hoping that quantity - 1958 rallies in all the 1958 wards in less than a year - will more than make up for lack of quality in whatever she has to say. If you cannot dazzle people like quality bury them alive with bull repeated over and over again.
"A puppy does not open its eyes the day it is born," Mujuru once said in reply to why she had done nothing in her 34 years in the ZANU PF government. With that kind bull, she has no choice but to bury the voters with bull!
This is Morgan Tsvangirai showing he is just a confused individual talking nonsense because he has no clue what he is talking about.
“The people of Zimbabwe are keen to express themselves in a free, fair and credible election.
“Any elite pact that seeks to avoid elections will be a betrayal of democracy and the legitimacy that stems from a credible electoral process in which the people freely express themselves.” His spokesman Tamborinyoka says.
Since when has Tsvangirai shown that he understands or cares about free, fair and credible elections? He was warned the July 2013 elections will not be free and fair with no reforms in place and he still took part in those elections regardless. His MDC Alliance is gearing itself up to contest next year’s elections knowing fully well not even one reform has been implemented. Obert Gutu was boasting of the party’s new Win In Rigged Election (WIRE) strategies; proof they know elections will be rigged but they will contest regardless.
Of course, we know the real reason Tsvangirai & co. are contesting flawed elections is for the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away, the bribe to entice the opposition to contest the elections and thus give the flawed process some modicum of credibility.
Towards the end of the last GNU, it was none other than MDC leaders who wanted it life extended.
Tsvangirai is “a flawed and indecisive character” former USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, said of the man. However, when it comes to having another chance on the gravy train, Tsvangirai will be very decisive – he will accept Mnangagwa offer even if he will be nothing more than a tea-boy with a fancy title of Prime Minister.
It is clear that Zanu PF is gearing to rig next year’s elections and the reason Mnangagwa wants to postpone the elections and form another GNU is fear. He knows that rigging the elections will be the easy bit but if the world reject the process as the sham, it is; Zanu PF will be in deep, deep trouble. Some form of GNU will be necessary but as the party that has just rigged the elections, Zanu PF will not be asked to play any part in that. So, it makes sense for Zanu PF to pre-empt the election and go into the GNU of its own making.
Yes, there is absolutely no point in holding elections with no reforms in place to ensure they are free and fair. The country will need a GNU of some sort to implement the reforms and prepare for free and fair elections. What the country does not need is to have Zanu PF and/or MDC leaders messing around in that GNU.
Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because of four decades of failed leadership, Zanu PF and MDC leaders are the failed leaders. They are the problem and therefore they cannot be the solution too!
VP Mnangagwa is smart enough to know that the world is sick and tired of Zanu PF rigging elections, particularly SADC leaders who have had to bear the burden of hosting Zimbabwean economic and political refugees. SADC are smart enough to know Tsvangirai has no political credibility and that another rigged Zimbabwean election next year will result in political instability in that country which will spill over into the rest of the countries in the region. They will not allow that to happen.
It is almost certain that SADC will condemn Zimbabwe’s next year’s election.
It is all very well for President Mugabe to pretend he can do as he please and he is even taunting SA’s leaders, with his Mandela jibes. He does not care because he knows his time is up. Mnangagwa has to be practical as he still hoping to be leader and postponing the elections in favour of a GNU is his best option right now.
A Zanu PF and MDC GNU would be a disaster for Zimbabwe, these people accomplished nothing in the first GNU and will do no better now.
Just because Zimbabweans were denied a voice and a vote does not mean the people are incapable of self-government. The coming political changes in Zimbabwe must be about giving the ordinary people their vote and voice back!
@ Makonese
Zanu PF is still beating up people, ZPP reported of 149 cases of political violence last month alone. What vote education are you promising that will trump the one these Zanu PF thugs are giving out there!
@ CZ
“COMRADES, as a committed pan Africanist, I am deeply disturbed by the very sad developments taking place in Kenya in the name of democracy. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see the dirty hand of the evil West in all this. The Kenyan judiciary has, no doubt, been infiltrated and influenced into going against the wishes of the people,” you said.
“As Africans, we cannot afford to stand aloof in the face of this affront. The very future of the continent is under threat. Democracy itself, as we know it, is under threat. Once this dangerous precedent is allowed to stand, that would be the end of democracy … that I can assure you!”
You are panicking, I can see, well you should, my corrupt and tyrannical dictator president. The current AU chairperson, President Alpha Conde of Guinea, has since applauded the Kenya supreme court ruling as “good for democracy and Africa”!
Remember the AU election observer team said Zimbabwe’s failure to produce a verifiable voters’ roll for the 2013 elections was a concerning “irregularity”. We both know the voters’ roll was the smoking gun to Zimbabwe’s rigged 2013 elections. One does not need the crystal ball of a fortune-teller to know Zanu PF will rig next year’s elections and therefore cannot afford the luxury of releasing a verifiable 2018 voters’ roll.
By repeating the same vote rigging irregularity, Zanu PF will be daring the AU to give a thumbs down to your Zanu PF’s landslide victory! No doubt, the Kenya court ruling will only encourage AU leaders to be bold. No one would allow you to go into yet another GNU, humiliating though that will be for you CZ!
I am looking forward to next year’s elections!
Tsvangirai is corrupt and incompetent and that is why he has failed to bring about even one democratic change in all his 17 years in frontline politics. Failed leaders are the ones who play the divide and rule card and will divide the nation along tribe, gender, race, etc. If other do the same, these failed leaders always go to town in condemning such things even to the extent of shadow boxing.
Tsvangirai send his thugs to beat Mai Khupe and her supporters this is the real issue here which Tamborinyoka has said nothing about. Tsvangirai is not a democrat!
The single most important thing in Zimbabwe today is to deal with this thorny issue of bad governance once and once for all.
We would not be in this mess in the first place if President Mugabe and his followers had not betrayed the very values and principles such as freedom, justice, one-man one-vote, etc. the nation had fought for and many died for. The country had many opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and restore all those values and principles but all the opportunities were wasted by the opposition who, in turn, have become corrupt.
Why the country had suffered for 37 years and sunk this deep, economically and politically, is a measure of how corrupt, greed and totally useless both Zanu PF and the army of opposition parties really are. If we are serious about change then we must elect other players to bring about that change and not the same corrupt and incompetent ones who got us into the mess!
@ Dr Masimba
“While multiparty politics has become a norm across the African continent, electoral contests have frequently been accompanied by violence. The violence is mostly caused by the opposition who will be so scared to lose and will cause violence so that they can convince the world to declare the elections not free and fair. There is a need to explore the causes, dynamics and consequences of electoral violence in comparative perspective,” you said.
Nonsense! If the ruling party was so sure of winning free and fair elections then why is it refusing to implement the democratic reforms to ensure such elections?
@ Conway Tutani
“The standoff between MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai and one of his three deputies, Thokozani Khupe, over the political trade-offs with other opposition parties to form a coalition under the banner of MDC Alliance, has escalated,” you say.
Why are you concerning yourself with people who sold-out?
What has anyone in MDC ever accomplished in all these years in power? Nothing. Tsvangirai, Khupe and the rest were all in the GNU and instead of implementing the reforms they were all busy lining their feathered nests. MDC leaders are waste of time, the sooner you get that into your head the soon this nation can start the difficult task of rebuilding.
Many of our politicians on both sides of the political divide are so incompetent they really have no clue what the democratic reforms we need to implement are. Many of the MDC leaders have no clue what those reforms are even to this day. They have joined the chorus calling for reforms because it is the fashionable thing to do. Ask them to explain one reform they want implemented and it is lights out.
Many opposition members are still talking of getting reforms implemented before next year’s elections, proof they do not know what they are talking about. If they did, then they would know that the process of getting meaningful reforms implemented, even with all the political will in the world will take a ½ year to draft and then ½ year to implement in the field; we have less than a year to go to next year’s elections.
If there is one thing we must get right it must be implementing the democratic reforms fully and properly and finally set the nation on a solid democratic footing. We have wasted the last 37 years trying to make a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship work for us. It is water under the bridge still we must learn from the past the folly of having weak government institutions that are easily corrupted.
To trust the likes of Tsvangirai, Mnangagwa and their colleagues to implement the democratic reforms will only show that we have learnt nothing from the past. These men and women have already shown beyond all reasonable doubt that they are corrupt and/or incompetent; only fools will entrust such a critical task to such individuals expecting it to be done!
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