"Open for business will be determined by free media," argue Chinono - yes, but now not after elections

Let me start by thanking you brother Hopewell Chinono for the thoughtful articles on Zimbabwe in Zimeye and Nehanda Radio. I hope many Zimbabweans out there will take the time to read and digest them.

“Mugabe punched above his weight and with disastrous economic consequences to the country and citizens,” you said in one of the articles.

“Our government has been talking politics for far too long. It now needs to talk business, commerce and trade.  …. It is only commerce and trade that will see the realization of a new and successful Zimbabwe. That is the only language our political actors should be talking for now. We have had 17 years of experience to know that ideological outburst are just that, outbursts.”

There will not be many Zimbabweans out there would disagree that former President Robert Mugabe punched way above his weight; one blast of ideological nonsense after another, mostly; with disastrous economic and political consequences to the nation.

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has seen the country fall from its perch in 1980 as the jewel of Africa with robust economy, the breadbasket of the region and with the potential to be the South Korea of Africa. Today the country cannot even feed its own people, unemployment has soared to 90%, most basic services like education and health have all but collapsed, etc. ¾ of our people now live on US$1.00 or less a day.

Zimbabwe people are the poorest in Africa!

The only reason why Zimbabweans could not shut Mugabe up even when we all knew the “ideological outbursts are just that, outbursts”, is because the tyrant had usurped the people’s basic freedoms and human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life!  

The people of went out in the street to celebrate on 18 November 2017 when they learned Mugabe had resigned; just the thought that they will never again have to hear any more of the nonsense was a welcome relief! But that was nothing more than everyone celebrating the first rains to mark the end of a particularly long drought. We have work to do!

Whilst I acknowledge that we need to do everything to revive the economy as quickly as possible I am, however, minded to point out our economic meltdown itself a consequence of our failed political system. We could not remove Mugabe and his cronies from office even when it was self-evident the regime was corrupt and incompetent. For us to therefore focus on the economy and fail to address the political dimension will get us nowhere!

“The President’s clarion call is that Zimbabwe is open for business, how he will deal with the German issue (farms seized from the German nationals) will show whether Zimbabwe is indeed open for business. Most western diplomats are convinced that Zanu PF will win the upcoming general elections. It is what it will do with that mandate that will determine whether we have indeed put the Mugabe years behind us,” Chinono argued.

“Open for business will be determined by a free media, respect for the rule of law, an independent judiciary, adherence to constitutionalism, prosecution of corrupt government officials and so on. Capital is afraid of flowing where all the above are missing.”

I agree that capital will shy away if the country does not address the democratic deficiencies that has earned Zimbabwe the pariah state status all these years. The point is we should insist in having all these democratic deficiencies addressed now and not after the elections.

President Mnangagwa has promised free, fair and credible elections and yet he has done nothing ever since coming to office to make this possible.

He was not just a senior member of Mugabe’s government for 37 years, he was the tyrant’s second in command when it comes to the political shenanigans to undermine the country’s democratic system and he carried out most of the vote rigging, political violence and the looting to finance the regime’s dirty political activities. President Mnangagwa does not need reminding on what democratic reforms are required to ensure free and fair elections; he knows them all!

If President Mnangagwa does not implement the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair election, then the people of Zimbabwe must refuse to participate in yet another flawed and illegal electoral process. There is only one reason why President Mnangagwa and his Junta partners will not want to implement the reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections – they, like Mugabe before them, do not want the people to be held them to democratic account!

The people of Zimbabwe must demand the full restoration of their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of Zimbabwe.

Economic recovery is tied to good governance which in turn is tied to free, fair and credible elections. How President Mnangagwa deals with the German issue is important but, without the reforms, that would be wilfully inadequate.

Zimbabweans have waited for good governance and the first free and fair elections for 38 years they is no excuse why they should have to wait for another day!

"2018 elections are winnable on issues," says Kagoro - nonsense, not if rig the vote.

One of the things that has held us back as a people is our failure to grasp a problem, even one that should be obvious. After wasting a lot of time and money, the penny finally drops, we finally understand the problem. We have to go through the whole laborious process to get to the solution. It has taken Zimbabweans at least 15 years to come to the conclusion that Zanu PF was a corrupt and incompetent regime and it too another five years for us to accept we would never remove the regime from power because it rigged elections.

People agreed on the need for democratic change. Tsvangirai and company seized on the popular sentiment and formed a political party which they gave the name Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Sadly, no one, not even the MDC leaders themselves had a clear idea what the democratic changes were.

It was SADC leaders in the 2008 Global Political Agreement who came up with the raft of democratic reforms which the GNU were tasked to implement. The reforms were to take away Zanu PF’s excessive dictatorial powers to ensure the next elections were free, fair and credible. And not a repeat of the 2008 elections which Zanu PF had blatantly cheated and use wanton violence to win.

At the end of the GNU, it was clear that not even one democratic reforms had been implemented. SADC leaders had tried their best to get Morgan Tsvangirai to implement the reforms throughout the GNU but their nagging was ignored. Mugabe has bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office, ministerial limos, generous salaries and allowances, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. In return, the MDC leaders had kicked the reforms into the prickly pear thicket; they knew Mugabe did not want his dictatorial powers taken away.

SADC leaders did not want the 2013 Zimbabwe elections to go ahead, not until the reforms were implemented as Dr Ibbo Mandaza explained.

“Of course, they (elections) can be postponed.  In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Mandaza told Violet Gonda in a interview.

“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, and 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’”.

As we all know the MDC leaders ignore SADC leaders’ advice and contested the 2013 elections. Zanu PF, just as SADC leaders had foretold, blatantly rigged the elections.

Of course, Zimbabwean would be foolish to disregard SADC leaders’ advice again and participate in this year’s elections when not even one democratic reform was implemented since the July 2013 elections. It is insane to repeat the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.

“The 2018 election is winnable on issues and strategy, but the opposition must make no assumptions about a clear and easy victory. Historically, all great moments of great oppositional momentum have been thwarted by either violence, out and out rigging, or poor judgment on the part of the opposition,” wrote Brian Kagoro.

In 2013, Zanu PF increased the number of Polling Stations from 2 000 to 9 00, a staggering 450%, just days before voting commenced. On voting-day we all saw hooded Zanu PF youths being bussed from one Polling Station to the next, casting multiple votes.

A month ago, President Mnangagwa started dishing out brand new Isuzu twin cab trucks to all the country’s 282 Chiefs, a down payment the Chiefs will repay by frog march rural voters, 60% to 70% of the voters, to vote for Zanu PF.

These hooded Zanu PF youths and frog marched rural voters are not voting for Zanu PF because the party has convincing argument on any issues or strategies! That is nonsense!

The 2008 elections have shown that Zanu PF has already demonstrated that the party’s use of “violence and out and out rigging” is such that the opposition has no chance winning. SADC leaders did not tell Tsvangirai and his friends the 2013 elections were “winnable”. “If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” they said.

If we are serious about holding free, fair and credible elections, a pre-requisite for the country’s economic recovery, then we must demand the implementation of the democratic reforms and stop wasting time and money contesting flawed elections we already know are rigged.  

"We have $98m instead of $146m," complain ZEC - enough for free elections, yes or no! N Garikai

Zimbabwe is in economic mess; with unemployment soaring to 90% plus, ¾ of our people living on US$1.00 or less, etc., etc.; because for the last 38 years the nation has been stuck with a regime that has allowed mismanagement and corruption to grow and spread into life-threatening cancerous tumours. Although the people came to the conclusion two decades ago, at the latest, that Zanu PF leaders are incompetent and corrupt, they promised mass prosperity, “gutsva ruzhinji”, but were delivering mass poverty. Still the people have since realised that they could not remove the Zanu PF thugs from power because they rig the vote.

The 2008 elections showed the nation and the world at large the extend of Zanu PF’s vote rigging ability. In the March vote Tsvangirai polled 73% of the votes, by Mugabe’s own inadvertent admission. The party ordered ZEC to recount the votes and after six weeks Tsvangirai’s votes were whittled to 47%, forcing a run-off.

In the run-off Mugabe unleashed its party thugs and war veterans backed by the Army, Police and CIO personal to punish the people for having rejected him and Zanu PF in the March vote. Millions of people were harassed, beaten and/or raped and over 500 were murdered in the wanton and barbaric violence that followed.

“Zanu PF has declared war on the people,” said Tsvangirai as he announced his forced withdrawal from the race.

The 2008 elections were a watershed in Zimbabwe; after all that blatant cheating and wanton barbarism there was no question of Zimbabwe ever holding free, fair and credible without first taking away Zanu PF’s carte blanche powers to rig the vote.

  

Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had the golden opportunity to implement the raft of democratic reforms, proposed by SADC leaders in the 2008 Global Political Agreement, which would have stripped away Zanu PF’s dictatorial powers allowing State Institutions like ZEC, Police, etc. to carrying out their statutory duty of ensuring free, fair and credible elections. The nation held the 2013 elections with no reform in place and, as expected, Zanu PF rigged the vote. In like manner, Zanu PF is set to rig this year’s elections and people like the new ZEC chairperson, Justice Chigumba, know it.

“ZEC had submitted a budget of about $148 million to fund the elections and Treasury has committed to giving ZEC $98 million. There is a budget deficit and ZEC can only do that which is possible to do within the limited funds that it has,” Justice Chigumba told delegates attending a workshop hosted by the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Justice. The workshop will come up with resolutions which the committee with get parliament to act on and thus ensure free, fair and credible elections.

“We appreciate all the efforts made by Government and Treasury to avail resources,” she said.

Section 325 of the Zimbabwe constitution is very clear and someone like Justice Chigumba, with all her legal training, should have no problem understanding what the law says.

“325 Funding of constitutional bodies and other institutions

1)     The Government must ensure that adequate funds are provided –

a)     To the Commissions and other institutions established by this Constitution, to enable them to perform their functions effectively;”

It is no secret that in the 2013 elections the number of Polling Stations was increased from 2 000 to 9 000, for example. There were reports that there were no ZEC personal in attendance at some of these Polling Stations. How can ZEC be certain the conduct of the voting at these Polling Stations were above board when there are no ZEC staff to supervise the process?

So, Justice Chigumba, if Government and Treasury DOES NOT avail the $148 million, ZEC will once again find itself inadequately resourced to carry out its duties.

For the record, it is clear that it was not ZEC who increased the number of Polling Stations from 2 000 to 9 000; no prizes for guessing who did and why. The opposition were only told of the additional Polling Stations just days before voting and so they had to scramble to get a presentative.

The regime has always found the additional manpower to man the additional Polling Stations, for example, proof the money is there. The important thing to note here is that the work ZEC is supposed to do is being done by people the commission has no control over.

How can the nation have any confidence in ZEC delivering a free, fair and credible election when the commission has only got control over 64% of its budget and is forced to farm out so of its duties Zanu PF (one of the contestant in the election) who even have the cheek increase the number of Polling Stations willy-nilly, just to suit the party’s vote rigging schemes!

It is not so much that we do not know that it is impossible to hold free, fair and credible elections without first implementing the democratic reforms; we know that, the 2008 elections settled that beyond debate. The only reason we continue going through the motion of holding elections whose result we already know has been rigged is because we have officials like Justice Chigumba who are paid, and paid well, to sustain the fraud!