The voter registration exercise which started 14 September 2017 and chalked to end 15 January 2018 has been extended by a month.
“ZEC acting chairperson Emmanuel Magade told ZimEye.com in Harare on Monday that the country’s election body wanted to ensure that no political party complaints about its supporters being left out of the voter registration process,” reported Zimeye.
“Commissioner Magade said he wished to preside over an undisputed election where losers would shake hands with the victors as opposed to all the previous polls whose outcome would be highly contested.”
The failure by our politicians and public officials to take their set tasks with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands is one of the root causes of why Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess. ZEC is tasked with the very important task of delivering free, fair and credible elections and in the last 38 years the commission has yet to deliver one free and fair election. Instead of ZEC members redoubling their efforts to make sure this year’s election are free and fair the acting ZEC chairman is treating the whole matter as some stupid joke!
Of course, commissioner Magade’s suggestion that this year’s elections will be “disputed” just because ZEC has extended of the voter registration period by a month is a sick and foolish joke. To guarantee free and fair elections there is a raft of democratic reforms to free the public institutions such as the Police, Army, Public Media and ZEC itself that must be implemented; reforms to stop the wholesale looting of national resources to bankroll Zanu PF’s vote rigging schemes; etc.
Commissioner Magade should know that it will take more than extending voter registration period by a month, just to focus on what ZEC alone must do to deliver free elections, to register all 7 million expected voters. A few weeks ago, ZEC officials said they expected to register 5 million even with the month extension. The only reason ZEC is failing to register all expected voters is because the registration exercise was, deliberately, started very late. The situation was made worse by the chaos of ZEC officials taking two hours to register one voter instead of the expected five minutes, lack of VR9 forms, etc.! What is there to gloat about an election process that disenfranchises 2 million of 7 million voters, nearly 30%, just because the authority deliberately delayed the voter registration exercise?
ZEC’s next big challenge is to produce a verified voters’ roll. Even with all the political good will, there is no way ZEC is going to consolidate the field data, issue draft voters’ roll for the voting public to cross-check, update and produced a verified voters’ roll in the remaining four months for July elections.
The law demands to release of a verified voters’ roll at least one month before voting day.
ZEC failed to produce verified voters’ roll in 2013 and opened the door to all manner of vote rigging shenanigans. There will be NO verified voters’ roll again this year! Of course, an election in which the authorities failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll is open to rigging and the result must be discarded.
President Mnangagwa has repeatedly assured the nation this year’s elections will be free, fair and credible and yet he has not implemented even one democratic reform. As a senior member of the shadowy Joint Operation Command (JOC); the Junta comprising the top brass members in the Army, Police, CIO and Zanu PF headed by Mugabe with Mnangagwa as his assistant; Mnangagwa knows only too well it is impossible to hold free and fair elections without first implementing the reforms. It is JOC that has masterminded and executed all the vote rigging, political violence and the 2008 coup to stop Tsvangirai entering State House. It is JOC that has helped keep Mugabe and Zanu PF in power all these last 38 years.
It was none other than JOC members headed by Mnangagwa and Chiwenga -minus Mugabe, Police Commissioner Chihuri and one or two others - who masterminded and executed the 14 November 2017 coup to remove Robert Mugabe. “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword!”
If nothing is done to implement all the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections then Zimbabwe is setting itself up for violent street protests, another coup d’état anything to stop the vote rigging and to force through the desperately needed regime change.
Zimbabwe is a divided nation of the filthy rich ruling elite few, on the one hand. And on the other hand the filthy poor majority. Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90% plus and 72.3% of the population now live on US$1.00 or less a day. The situation is socially, economically and politically unsustainable.
Mugabe refused to implement the democratic reforms and he ended up falling on his own sword. We need the reforms implemented to make sure this year’s elections are free, fair and credible or we too will be forced to violence as the only option to achieve political change and economic recovery.
Commissioner Magade’s suggestion that extending the voter registration exercise alone will deliver free and fair elections must be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserves. He is campaigning to be appointed the new ZEC chairman and all the perks that comes with the post; he could not care less that the elections flawed and illegal and the tragic human misery being stuck with a corrupt and incompetent regime has brought.
8 comments:
Patrick Zhuwao, writing in an opinion editorial published over the weekend, said "coup conspirators" and "terrorists" had wrested power from Mugabe, who represented the interests of the country's majority – the youth.
Zhuwao talks a lot of nonsense, unemployment is sitting at 90% and how did Mugabe represent the majority by making them unemployed?
The Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC), has put Highfields West legislator Psychology Maziwisa, broadcaster Oscar Pambuka and former NetOne chief executive officer Reward Kangai on the wanted list.
The trio is allegedly fleeing from justice.
Maziwisa and Pambuka are wanted to assist with investigations on allegations of fraud after they were dubiously awarded a public relations tender on the influence of former Energy and Power Development Minister Samuel Undenge.
An impeccable source from ZACC told ZBC News that the former NetOne CEO is also on the run.
The source said Kangai is wanted to assist with investigations of corrupt deals involving awarding tenders to his cronies.
Well, well! Was it not Psychology Maziwisa who said Zanu PF created the 2.2 million jobs “including vendor jobs”! Now we find out why he was mocked the 90% unemployed just to defend the Mugabe regime; the regime was giving him plenty of cash over and above his MP gravy train salary and allowances.
After doing some hard time in Chikurumbi you can come out and be a vendor, Maziwisa!
I agree, even if ZEC managed to get all the would-be voter to register, there is still a lot that ZEC itself and the regime must do to guarantee free, fair and credible elections. Both President Mnangagwa and commissioner Magade know there is a lot each must do because they both know exactly how previous elections were rigged, the former as the man who did the rigging and the later as the ZEC official who rubber stamped the rigged result!
"Commissioner Magade said he wished to preside over an undisputed election where losers would shake hands with the victors as opposed to all the previous polls whose outcome would be highly contested."
Yeah right! He has officiated in rigged elections and yet insisted they were free, fair and credible in the past; nothing has changed here! He is sending a clear message to President Mnangagwa; “Appoint me ZEC chairman, and I will do as I am instructed!”
@ Jacky Seroke
“He (Mnangagwa) is a courteous, amiable, honest to goodness person, who is now on a new mission to fix what needs to fixed in his home country so that Zimbabwe can become an asset yet again in the geopolitical region of southern Africa - just as many compatriots would want it to be,” you say.
“With his comrades in the Zanu-PF leadership, last November they averted an impending social disaster for Zimbabwe and SADC in the way in which they handled the "military assisted transition".”
Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa an “honest to goodness person”? Since when? The Mnangagwa who was Mugabe’s dirty-jobs man was the corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thug. It was him and others like now VP Chiwenga who have masterminded the vote rigging and looting, to bankroll the vote rigging schemes, which have helped keep Mugabe and Zanu PF in power all these 37 years.
The military coup in November last year was an act of high treason and calling it a “military assisted transition” does not change the fact that it was a coup and high treason!
Are you denying that Mnangagwa was involved in the Zanu PF corruption, vote rigging and politically motivated murders? If you are denying he was involved then you are lying. If you agree that that Mnangagwa was the thug who carried out all the corruption, vote rigging and coups (the first coup was in 2008 to stop Tsvangirai going to State House), then you must tell us when exactly did he become a good guy?
Mnangagwa has been hunting down all the G40 supporters and slapping them with corruption charges, I do not doubt that most of them are guilty as charged but what is clear is that he has not arrested any of his Lacoste supporters. Of course, Lacoste supporters have been looting just like G40 supporters including VP Chiwenga and Mnangagwa himself. By arresting G40 members only he is proving once again that he is a thug.
By promising free and fair elections and yet refusing to implement the democratic reforms to make this possible he is yet again showing his contempt for the long suffering povo whom he has ridden roughshod over their hopes and dreams of freedom, liberty and human dignity all these last 38 years and is determined to continue.
"Before independence," a Nigerian acquaintance once admitted, "failing to pay tax or any act of corruption to deny the British colonial regime revenue was praised. It is just that after independence the corruption did not stop. Indeed, it got even worse with those in high office (meaning President Abacha, who was in the news for looting billions of dollars) leading from the front!”
Sadly, the culture of viewing holding public office as an opportunity to enrich oneself as much as possible and as quickly as possible has become the norm. What has made it worse is the majority of the ordinary people, people like our very shallow minded Sarah here, see nothing wrong with it. They do not see how Tsvangirai being given $70 000 for his hospital bill or even him getting the $4 million mansion affect them. Extend this to Mugabe eight or more trips to Singapore @ costing $3 million, his $4 billions Blue Roof mansion, 14 farms, etc., etc. and still these simpletons cannot see the linkage between the ruling elite growing filthy rich at the expense of the majority who are growing filthy poor!
Even with the benefit of hindsight on how Tsvangirai has failed to get even one democratic reform implemented, which was the primary task MDC was supposed to do during the GNU, idiots like Sarah Mahoka and Cde Nyasha still see nothing wrong! It is all water off a duck’s back!
You hold any of these corrupt and incompetent leaders to account and nincompoops like Nyasha and Sarah will be all over you like a caterpillar-induced rash.
With an electorate that is so naïve, gullible and down-right stupidity it is impossible to see how the country can ever have a healthy and functional democracy. Such a foolish electorate will never hold the leaders’ account. Never!
“It is an expression of compassion, an expression of responsibility which the president as a father figure of the nation is expected to show … That basically is significant. I know that the reflex of many people is to see to party political terms but I don’t think that’s the impulse that drove the new president to the meeting,” said George Charamba. He was talking about President Mnangagwa’s recent visit to Tsvangirai’s home.
This is nonsense, since when has Mnangagwa learnt there is such things as compassion and responsibility? Here is the man who has been Mugabe’s bogeyman, the tyrant counted on him to do all the dirties where having a cold heart, no compassion for the suffering of others be they political opponents or innocent, defenceless and totally helpless people was a must have. Where was Mnangagwa’s compassion and responsibility when he masterminded Zanu PF’s vote rigging, brutal repression and corrupt activities to steal money used to finance the party’s criminal activities?
Mnangagwa must have forgotten his sense of responsibility in his jacket when he staged the coup to stop Tsvangirai becoming president in 2008. No doubt, the same thing happened again when he and his fellow Joint Operation Command thugs stage the second coup to ouster Mugabe in November 2017.
We know, President Mnangagwa is desperate to regain political legitimacy, he is illegitimate right now following the coup, and one way for him to do so is for him to hold free, fair and credible election. We also know that holding free elections is the one luxury he and his cabal cannot afford given their checked track record. Zanu PF got away with another rigged election in July 2013 because Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to contest. Mnangagwa needs Tsvangirai and MDC to do the same again this year.
The visit was to assure Tsvangirai he is still a member of the exclusive Zimbabwe ruling elite if he played ball! President Mnangagwa has no intention of implementing even one democratic reforms to allow free and fair elections and you, George Charamba, want us to believe that is proof the thug is responsible!
@ Sarah Mahoka
Whatever good will the people are showing Mnangagwa following the removal of Mugabe will wear-off like white-wash in the rain as people realise he is the same thug of the old Mugabe days. Mnangagwa and his coup cabinet are NOT going to implement even one reform to allow free and fair elections - a died give away that the dictatorship is alive and kicking.
Implementing the reforms and holding free, fair and credible elections is the only peaceful way out of this mess for the people of Zimbabwe. Opposition members who continue to contest flawed elections are not interested in what is good for the country, they are selling out to Zanu PF in return for the few gravy train seats the regime offers to entice them to contest.
@ Sarah Mahoka
What security sector reforms are you talking about? Since the November coup the shadowy Joint Operation Command has moved out of the shadows into cabinet, we have more Junta members in cabinet now than during Mugabe’s time. The coup plotters have already shared out the spoils of power amongst themselves; Mnangagwa is to serve two terms and hand over the presidency to Chiwenga who will service his two terms and hand over to the next military general, yet to be named, etc. There is no mention of holding free and fair elections anywhere in their plan!
The Junta members are the ones who have masterminded and executed all Zanu PF’s vote rigging and use of brute force to ensure no regime change. Now that they are in power in their own right do you really think for one second they are going to abandon their tried and proven methods of rigging the vote and use brute force to drive their point home and risk losing power by holding free and fair elections? No chance.
This year’s elections are not going to be free, fair and credible, these coup thugs will never ever concede to taking such a gamble. The challenge for President Mnangagwa is to hold the elections without even one democratic reform in place and pretend, as in the past, that the process was free and fair. He will get away with it inside the country given the opposition will take part in the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process. He will not get away with the international community including SADC.
Another rigged election will mean Zimbabwe’s economic situation getting worse, SADC leaders know they cannot afford to see Zimbabwe sink into economic chaos and drag the rest of the region with her! SADC will reject another rigged election as a sham and thus force Zanu PF to finally accept the implementation of the reforms!
President Mnangagwa and his illegitimate coup cabinet are going nowhere!
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