There is “no chance of Zimbabwe holding free and fair elections next year,” says Derek Matyszak, Senior Research Consultant for the Institute for Security Studies in Zimbabwe.
It is madness for anyone to expect elections to be free, fair and credible without implementing the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF’s carte blanche powers to rig the vote and use violence to augment its more subtle vote rigging schemes if need be. Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were confident they were going to go on and win the 2013 elections when without implementing one democratic reform.
“We were sure there MDC vote was so massive, it would overwhelm all Zanu PF vote rigging shenanigans,” admitted Morgan Tsvangirai after the July 2013 elections. He was the one who started complaining of how Zanu PF had “stolen the vote” even before the results were announced, overwhelmed by the audacity and scale of the blatant vote rigging he had witnessed.
Having foolishly failed to implement even one democratic reform throughout the five years of the GNU and ignored SDAC leaders’ advice to implement the reforms, failure to do so, not to contest the elections with no reforms; MDC lost all political credibility. It must be said that most MDC leaders, even today with the benefit of hindsight, still have no clue what the reforms are about much less how they were going to be implemented even during the GNU, when the task was straightforward.
Although most opposition parties have joined in the call for reforms to be implemented with some even passing a “No reform, no election!” party congress resolution; they have all quietly dropped the demand. It was getting to be embarrassing being told by the Zanu PF leaders that there would be no reforms implemented. Not that the opposition knew what reforms they wanted implemented.
“There is no possibility of a free and fair election in Zimbabwe under current conditions,” explained Derek Matyszak.
“Zanu-PF controls all the key institutions of state, including those which are nominally independent. This control extends to the ZEC, the judiciary, the police, military, all electronic media broadcasters and local government. The last is particularly important, as Zanu-PF's influence over traditional leaders helps to secure the rural vote, which constituted 70% of the voting population in the 2013 elections.”
Everyone in the opposition camp has accepted that with not even one democratic reform in place Zanu PF will rig the vote, that is fiat accompli. Morgan Tsvangirai group has even been boasting of having devised Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE for short) strategies.
One of the strategies is clearly to mobilize as many of the opposition supporters to register as voter in the on-going BVR exercise. This will be augmented with another drive to get the supporters to vote coming voting day. This is not a new strategy but rather the same mass party vote “to overwhelm all Zanu PF vote rigging shenanigans” of the 2013 elections. It did not work then and it is clear already it will not work.
The regime has delayed the start of BVR exercise, there is no way ZEC will be able to register the expected 7 million voters in four months and produce a verified voters’ roll in time for the elections, even with the best political will in the world. To make matters worse, voter registration in opposition stronghold has been a frustrating affair with ZEC officials running out of the VR9 forms. Without a verified voters’ roll the sky is the limit to what the vote rigging shenanigans the regime will employ!
Of course, it is insane to keep contesting elections knowing all along that the process is flawed. The only reason the opposition parties are determined to contest regardless is because they know Zanu PF gives away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to take part. It is these few seats the opposition are after and do not care that the price of these scraps is forfeiting implementing reforms and holding free, fair and credible elections, as David Coltart, an MDC Minister of Education in the GBU, readily admitted in his 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.”
The people of Zimbabwe risked life and limb to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friend of the understanding that they would deliver the democratic changes including free, fair and credible elections the nation has been dying for, literally. Not only has MDC failed to bring about even one democratic change in the party’s 17 years on the political stage but worst of all, they are now helping Zanu PF to deny the people the vote by giving the regime’s flawed and illegal election processes credibility by participating against all the advice not to!
5 comments:
@ Chimombe
It seems to me that your anger is totally misdirected!
Are you angry with Derek for pointing out that without reforms the elections will be rigged? Are you angry with him because you think he is lying or is it that you cannot deal with the truth. Well Derek is right; with no reforms the elections will be rigged; that is a fact!
“What do you want done then?” you asked.
Sorry to say but that is a stupid question because the question has been answered again and again; the whole GNU was formulated for no other reason but to answer this very question: what must be done to stop Zanu PF rigging elections as the regime did in 2008. The answer was and still is today: implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship and stop the vote rigging.
There is no point in participating in an election process you know will be rigged, after 37 years of rigged elections anyone other the insane or greed would have realized that by now. People like Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow banded mongooses in the opposition are contesting knowing fully well the elections will be rigged, they are after the few seats they know Zanu PF gives away.
Your anger with Derek and/or Patrick is born out of your insanity or greed; either way it is not to be tolerated because there is too much at stake here. The fate of the nation rest on the next elections being free, fair and credible and it would be foolish to let that happen just to accommodate the mentally challenged or worse still the selfish few!
General Chiwenga has held a press conference to complain about Mugabe’s purge of those who fought in the liberation war in favour of the new upstarts in G40. The purge started with Joice Mujuru and now is affecting Mnangagwa.
Commenting on the development Communist Student, Nqgabutho Mabhena said, “This statement is in defence of one political faction in ZANU(PF); 2. It assumes that Zimbabwe is a one-party state therefore, the military must be partisan.
“In a multi-party democracy, the military must divorce itself from party politics but protect everyone Zimbabwean from any threat irrespective of party affiliation.”
Mabhena is spot on there but what he and every thinking Zimbabwean must acknowledge as an irrefutable political fact and reality is that Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party, Zanu PF, cum one-man, Robert Mugabe, dictatorship. It has been so for the last 37 years.
People like former VP Joice Mujuru and even more so former VP Mnangagwa, war veterans like Chris Mutsvangwa, General Chiwenga and many, many others in Zanu PF have all played their part in creating and retaining the de facto corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship. They have all said nothing against the dictatorship when they were getting their share of the absolute, the lion’s share of the looted wealth, etc. It is only when Mugabe, the supreme dictator, threatened or actually boot them off the feeding trough that they have ever complained of his dictatorial powers. These people are being foolish in that they are the ones who created the monster gave him the carte blanche powers and whilst he did not affect them when he flexed his dictatorial powers and povo suffered and they benefited, they cheered the tyrant on. Now that his dictatorial excesses are affecting them too, they are crying foul!
What Chiwenga, Mnangagwa and the rest are failing to understand is that they owe the nation an apology for creating and having been part and parcel of this de facto dictatorship. More significantly, they must now understand that we need to cut down and uproot everything that constitute the dictatorship and burn it. They want to remove one dictator to replace him with another, that is simply not good enough!
Whilst it is true that the instability in Zanu PF is destabilizing the whole country it must be said that Chiwenga and all the other Zanu PF leaders are to blame for the mess because they are the ones who helped to impose the Zanu PF dictatorship on the nation. He is not after ending the dictatorship but only want to replace one dictator with another. We want the dictatorship scrapped, we want a democracy!
“It would be very unwise for Mugabe to undertake such comprehensive expulsions. He is likely to be more cautious. He knows he cannot be alienating himself from too many provinces,” said Eldred Masunungure.
“He may select a few of the most troublesome for expulsion but over 90 of them may survive.”
The trouble with failing to fire all Mnangagwa supporters now is that Mugabe will then have to deal with too many moles especially if Mnangagwa should form his own political party. Mnangagwa supporters, unlike Mai Mujuru’s supporters are particularly dangerous because they know how the regime has been rigging elections. Having a mole in your midst is bad enough at normal times it is a nightmare when you are rigging elections!
Chiwenga make his four demands:
• To stop reckless utterances by politicians from the ruling Party denigrating the military which is causing alarm and despondency within the rank and file.
• The current purging of which is clearly targeting members of the party with a liberation background must stop
• The known counter revolutionary elements who have fermented the current instability in the Party must be exposed and fished out.
• As the Party goes for the Extra-ordinary Congress, members must go with equal opportunity to exercise their democratic rights.
The only demand that Chiwenga should have made to Mugabe and his G40 faction member and one I would make to G40 and to General Chiwenga himself is a simple one; accept the implementation of the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible election! Frankly the four condition above of no consequence to the nation.
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