“Of course, it’s a competition and anything can happen but looking at our preparedness as a party and how organised we are, it’s clear that we are set for an outright win,” said former Minister Tshinga Dube.
Asked if his confidence was emanating from the fact that Zanu PF’s long time headache, MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai’s health was failing, Dube said: “We don’t look at what happens in other parties, we look at what we have done that can make the electorate vote us back into power.”
Zanu PF’s confidence that the party will remain the party of government even after 38 years of ruinous and murderous rule emanates from the party’s carte blanche powers to rig elections. Zanu PF has spent the last 38 years making Zimbabwe politics a “dirty game” only thugs would want to play and since it is a party of thugs, it has thrived!
When has Zanu PF ever held free, fair and credible elections? Even in this, supposedly new Zimbabwe after last November’s coup with President Mnangagwa promising free elections that is all hot air. The regime has stubbornly refused to implement even one reform.
Whilst it is true that the opposition is in “shambles”, as MDC-T MP Eddie Cross has already admitted; the truth is Zanu PF itself is not in good shape either. The factional war has left the winning side badly wounded and, even more significantly, the party still have to accept its ruinous record in power. The very fact that the opposition is in such shambles they still cannot take advantage of all Zanu PF’s weakness speaks volumes of the rottenness of the country’s political system which has failed to produce an quality leaders in both the ruling party and the opposition.
Zanu PF, a totally discredited party as it is, is still cocky and confident of winning the elections only because the corrupted political system gives it carte blanche powers to rig the vote. The political system is so stifling it was not allowed quality leaders to emerge in both Zanu PF and MDC and so the election has been reduce to a theatrical farce, a contest between Tweedle Dee vs Tweedle Dum.
If the country is ever to get out of the economic and political hell-hole we are stuck in then we must put an end to this circus of flawed and illegal elections in which the difference between the candidates on offer is academic given they are all greed, incompetent and corrupt. The only sure way to do this is to demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms BEFORE elections.
“Politics is a dirty game!” If I have heard that said once, I have heard it said a million times. What is more, it is true. Zimbabwe politics is a dirty game and Zanu PF thugs have fostered this on the nation and, unless we dismantle it, they will do their uttermost to make sure it so remains.
As long as Zanu PF thugs retain the carte blanche powers to rig elections they will rig elections and continue to enjoy their long cherished objective of the party ruling until the cows come home.
“Zanu PF ichatonga! Igo tonga!” (Zanu PF will rule! And rule!) as President Mnangagwa has said often. His cocky confidence is that of one who has rigged elections, used violence and even stage a military coup to stop MDC assuming power in 2008 and will do the same again without a moment’s hesitation!
What the people of Zimbabwe have failed to realise is that as long as the nation’s politics remains “a dirty game” the country will continue to corrupt and incompetent leaders. It is naïve to expect quality, competent and honest to goodness leaders to emerge from a dirty political system. Just as one will get scum, not cream, from a jar of dirty and contaminated milk – in Zimbabwe’s case it is more appropriate to talk of a jar of sewage with a few spoons of milk. If we want cream then we must make sure we a jar of wholesome milk! We implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the de facto one party dictatorship and replace it with a healthy and functional democratic system.
If Zanu PF was to implement the democratic reforms, have a clean free, fair and credible election; former Minister Dube’s confidence of winning the election would disappear like mist in the morning African sun. With unemployment rate in his Makokoba constituency a nauseating 90% and 72.3% of the voters living on US$ 1.00 or less per day; who would freely vote for more of the same!
If this year’s elections are held without first implementing the reforms then they process with be flawed and illegal, it will be the usual “dirty game” in which the usual suspects, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum will compete. We should not be contend with complaining that Zanu PF rigs elections, we know Zimbabwe politics is “a dirty game”, we must be more pro-active and demand a clean democratic system of government.
3 comments:
“During debate in the National Assembly on the National Budget, he tried to dismiss former president Robert Mugabe who revealed in a televised interview in February 2016 that diamond revenue worth over $15 billion could not be accounted for,” reported Bulawayo 24.
“Chinamasa felt duty bound to do a pitiful public relations job on behalf of those who presided over the Chiadzwa resource at the time by saying it was impossible that Zimbabwe could claim to have lost $15 billion when the whole world's diamond sector produces $15 billion worth of diamonds annually, with Africa's biggest diamond producer, Botswana, producing about $2 billion worth of the gems annually.”
Minister Chinamasa’s statement did not make any sense for a number of reasons:
1) Mugabe never said the $15 billion was all “swindled” in one year, he said it was a number of years.
2) Chinamasa does not deny that Zimbabwe has been and indeed is still being swindled out of diamond revenue because the minister of mines soon after the Mugabe interview said the diamond mining in Chiadzwa was being re-organised to stop the irregularities. Chinamasa complained later that he was still getting 1/6 of the diamond revenue he expected.
3) There is documentary evidence showing that Mai Mujuru and her late husband tried to sell $15.8 billion worth of diamonds.
4) If there is wholesale looting in Chiadzwa and, naturally, the swindlers are hiding the evidence how then does Chinamasa know the true value of the diamonds Zimbabwe is losing?
Minister Chinamasa’s comments are typical of a regime that knows a lot more that it is letting on. Considering Zanu PF has used billions of dollars looted from places like Marange and Chiadzwa to bankroll the party’s vote rigging schemes, this is high treason, Zimbabweans should be taking the problem of looting very seriously.
We have no hope of holding free and fair elections whilst Zanu PF has so much money with which to pay others to do mischief.
As long as nothing is done to take away Zanu PF's carte blanche powers to rig elections, I agree, the party will rule until the cows come home regardless how they are performing and what the ordinary Zimbabweans feel. Zanu PF has usurped the people’s power to have a meaningful say in who rules the country and the people’s failure to appreciate this simple fact has Zanu PF in an unassailable position in the voters are always trying to win rigged elections.
The voters themselves have become their own worst enemy in that they do not want to believe the reality before their own eyes – that Zanu PF rigging elections. You can choose to close your eyes to what you do not want to see, that will not change the reality one bit.
We need to clean up our very dirty political system or we will forever live in this s**thole!
“Parliament intends to summon all the people who were directly and indirectly involved including former President Robert Mugabe to give evidence on the missing diamond revenue or to clarify the origin of the US$15 billion figure.”
If they do this and get to the bottom of this messy business of wholesale looting of the nation’s bounty then this would be one of the very few things this useless parliament has ever done in five years!
It is not just the money that we must be concerned about, but also how some of the looted cash is now being used to bankroll Zanu PF’s vote rigging schemes!
“Totenda dzamwa, dzasera nebadzi!” (We should only be thankful when the cows come home after leaving a dimwit to look after them!) as one would say in Shona!
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