“What came first, the chicken
or the egg?” A favourite school ground brain teaser. Now I am older and wiser
(no need to raise those doubting-Thomas eyebrows), and know the answer; I kick
myself for not having known the answer sooner to impress my school mates.
If you believe in Charles
Dawn’s theory of evolution, there are mountains of fossil evidence to prove
Dawn was right, then the answer is obvious. It was the egg that came before the
chicken. And it was a lizard that laid the egg.
The process of transforming a
lizard into a bird took millions of years and hundreds of thousands of
generations. When should we call the lizard, a bird is academic but whatever
the cut-off point is one thing is beyond dispute, it was a lizard that laid the
egg that became a bird.
To those who prefer the Bible’s
story of how God created the earth and everything in it, then it is the chicken
that came before the egg. Of course, the Lord could have created the egg first but
I, for one, doubt that. The good Lord did not create a helpless baby Adam for
the same reason He would not create an egg; He was far too busy to sit on the
egg to incubate just as He did not want the months of sleepless nights to feed
the baby and change the diaper.
“Babies are bundles of joy!” Yeah
right! Hard and very expensive work, is not exactly my idea of joy! We are
mortal creatures and, by having babies, we are trying to buy immortality and
the hard work and expense of bring up the next generation is the price for our
vanity. But I am digressing, back to brain teasers and puzzles.
“Should the people of
Zimbabwe participate in next years harmonised elections or should we boycott the
flawed election and stand firm in our demands for democratic reforms to
guarantee free, fair and credible elections?” This is the conundrum that should
occupy all Zimbabweans today wherever they are.
There is no question that
Zanu PF has failed to hold free, fair and credible elections. But it is futile
to engage Mugabe and his apologists on this point because they will counter with
countless examples of voting irregularities in other SADC countries and even UK,
USA and other established democracies of the world. So, the key question here
is not so much that Zanu PF has failed to hold free and fair elections but
rather whether the voting irregularities have become so serious it is madness
to continue to contest such elections.
There are four basic requirements
to free, fair and credible elections:
a)
all
those eligible to vote must be afforded every opportunity to register and to vote
freely
b)
all
those eligible and wishing to contest, must give every opportunity to do and
afforded the same opportunities meet and interact with electorate freely.
c)
it is
the task of public officials to ensure the electoral process is conducted is
free, fair and transparent manner to ensure the result is a true reflection of
the democratic wishes of the electorate and is beyond contestation.
d)
Any reported
irregularities must be thoroughly investigated and appropriate measures taken correct
the present situation and to ensure the same or similar irregularities are
avoided in future.
It is no secret that Mugabe
and his Zanu PF cronies wanted independent Zimbabwe to be a one-party (Zanu PF)
state. It is the 1979 Lancaster House constitution that imposed the multi-party
democracy complete with the demand for regular free, fair and credible
elections. So from the day Mugabe got into power following the 1980 elections,
he has set out to systematically undermine the country’s democratic institution
to deny the ordinary people their freedoms and rights including the right to
free and fair elections to create and retain his de facto one-party
dictatorship that has ruled the country since 1980.
In the beginning Zanu PF’s
vote rigging was subtle but as the party’s popularity started to fall with the
worsening economic situation (because of mismanagement and corruption) the vote
rigging became more and more widespread, serious, ruthless and significant. The
2008 elections showed Mugabe and Zanu PF would stop at nothing to win the
elections for two notable events:
1)
There
is no doubt that Mugabe and Zanu PF were defeated hands down in the March 2008
vote but forced ZEC to recount the votes. Tsvangirai’s 73% votes, according to
Mugabe’s own inadvertent admission, was reduced to 47% to force the run-off
after six weeks of cooking up the figures.
2)
The
presidential run off was marred by wanton violence directed at the electorate
to punish them for rejecting Mugabe in the earlier vote and to make sure the
voted for him in the run-off. “What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be undone
by the ballot,” he said to encourage his party thugs. Mugabe overhauled
Tsvangirai’s 73% victory in March with a 84% landslide victory of his own in
the June vote.
The 2008 elections were an
epoch; they proved beyond all doubt that Zanu PF’s vote rigging machinery was
unbeatable and contesting future elections, without dismantle the machinery
first, was futile. If elections were a game of dice, 2008 elections showed that
Mugabe was not just using a loaded dice but one with six on all six sides. Only
a fool would bet against him failing to throw a six!
The whole international
community, including the AU and SADC known for accepting dodgy election,
refused to accept Mugabe’s victory as a true reflection of the democratic will
of the people of Zimbabwe.
SADC forced Mugabe to sign a
Global Political Agreement agreeing to the implementation of a raft of
democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and ensure
future elections are free, fair and credible. Mugabe and Tsvangirai formed the
GNU which was tasked to implement the reforms.
Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and
his MDC friends, the partners in the GNU expected to implement the reforms,
fail to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU. MDC leaders
turned out to be breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent and Mugabe bribed them
with the gravy train lifestyles; limos, generous salaries and allowances,
former white-owned farm and a $4 million mansion for Welshman Ncube and
Tsvangirai respective, etc. The MDC leaders showed their gratitude to the
tyrant by kicking the reforms into the tall grass.
So, with no reforms in place,
it was clear to SADC that Mugabe, still wielding his dice with six on all six
sides, will blatantly rig the 2013 elections. They wanted the elections
postponed and said so.
“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before
the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed –
the SADC summit,” explained Dr Ibbo Mandaza, in a interview with Violet Gonda.
“I went there. 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.
“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’.”
Tsvangirai & co. did not
listen to SADC leaders’ warning and contested the flawed elections regardless because of
greed, as David Coltart, MDC Minister of Education in the GNU, admitted.
“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,” confessed Senator Coltart in his recent
book The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe.
“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 three main MDC factions
have since come together and joined by four other opposition parties to the
form of the MDC Alliance. There is no talk of boycotting next year’s elections;
if anything, the coalition has hardened their resolve to contest the elections
regardless the certainty of Zanu PF rigging the vote.
Only the other day Tendai
Biti was talking of staying in the Alliance “come rain come thunder” and to
contest next year’s flawed elections. And yet a few weeks ago he admitted that
with no reforms the “opposition will never dislodge Zanu PF from office”. He is
contesting for the sake of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away to
entice the opposition to continue contesting the flawed elections.
The coalition will not stop Zanu
PF’s blatant vote rigging to ensure a base vote to give it the 2/3 majority and
the presidency. The opposition coalition is designed to share out the winnable 1/3
or so opposition seats so they do not split the opposition vote and thus allow
Zanu PF to win even more seat with its base votes in these areas.
The opposition politicians
will never admit that they have sold-out on free, fair and credible elections –
MDC leaders know they wasted their best chance of getting the reforms
implemented during the GNU – and they are contesting the flawed elections for
the few bribes Zanu PF is giving away. If the opposition was to win next year’s
elections it would be because Zanu PF has imploded to the point the party
cannot rig the election.
A default opposition victory
would not be a blessing for the nation because Tsvangirai and company will
never implement the reforms to ensure future free and fair elections. The
people of Zambia thought the late Fredrick Chiluba would implement the reform
when he took over from Kenneth Kaunda. Chiluba adopted the same oppressive
dictatorial powers of Kaunda to consolidate his own hold on power. Successive
regimes have all done the same.
The failure to implement the
democratic reforms at the end of Kaunda’s rule before Chiluba is the root cause
of Zambia’s weak democratic institutions and failure to produce competent
regimes. Zimbabwe will too be stuck with mediocre regimes if reforms are not
implemented before the next government assume power.
If we are serious about
restoring our freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and
fair elections, Mugabe has robbed from us over the years, we must demand the
implementation of the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA. It is madness
taking any part in an election we know will be rigged.
SADC leaders will reject next
year’s election result as sham just as they rejected Zanu PF’s 2008 election
victory but they will only do so if we, the people of Zimbabwe, accept their
advice and refuse to take part in the flawed and illegal elections. ZEC will
never produce a verifiable voters’ roll for next year’s elections, for example;
proof the vote rigging has already started.
No comments:
Post a Comment