Free elections are not important in the "Chinese model" - they do not want never did

Zimbabwe is already a de facto one-party state and it was none other than President Mnangagwa and his coup junta have been at the very heart of Zanu PF’s looting, vote-rigging and political intrigue that have established and retain the dictatorship. The junta tried to take the illegitimacy-sting off following the November coup by promising to hold free, fair and credible elections. No one with half a brained believed that nonsense and it did not take long for the regime to confirm that by stubbornly refusing to implement the democratic reforms.

For the last five months the junta regime has been on a charm offensive to woo investors and lenders with its “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call. The call has been loud and haunting like the Southern Hornbill’s call. Instead of investors flooding into the country they have, instead, kept their distance and invested in other countries. The haunting call scarred away investors like lizards running away from captain hornbill and his marauding gang.

Investors are a shrewd lot and they were the first to dismiss as nonsense the notion that the removal of Mugabe and a few elements around him was enough to transform Zimbabwe from a pariah state ruled by thugs into a democracy. The same old corrupt and vote-rigging thugs masquerading democrats with zero tolerance on corruption to fool the naïve and gullible. Investors were not hypnotized by the hornbill’s multi-coloured wattle and voted with their feet by staying out of Zimbabwe. Investors do not do business in a nation ruled by thugs.

It has taken five months for the Zanu PF junta to get the message that investors were not fooled by whitewashing the corrupt and vote-rigging dictatorship as a democrat per excellence! So, the regime has changed tact; it is not going to hide it is a de facto one-party dictatorship and sell itself instead as a regime set to replicate the success of China – a successful one-party dictatorship.

“One of the hallmarks of the remarkable turnaround of the Chinese economy since that country launched sweeping economic reforms in 1978 has been the strict discipline enforced by that Government and zero tolerance to corruption. There is absolutely no room for lethargy in the Chinese bureaucracy and corruption is frowned upon to the extent that many top ex-officials in Government are serving lengthy prison terms for graft while some have been executed,” argued the Chronicle.

“Slothfulness is not tolerated and the efficiency of the Chinese system of governance is marvelled at by the entire world. China opened its economy to the rest of the world but has maintained its communist ideology - successfully merging Western capitalism with its own brand of communism.

“It is by no coincidence that it is the world's second biggest economy and Zimbabwe - China's all-weather friend - can learn a lot from the Chinese economic model.”

In short, the Chronicle is proposing that Zimbabweans should accept giving up all their freedoms and human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life and simple accept the de facto Zanu PF dictatorship as now a fait accompli de jure one-party dictatorship. The trade-off is that Zanu PF will drag the nation out of the economic hell-hole, it must be emphasized here that it was the party that landed us in this hell-hole in the first place.

It must be pointed out too, that as far as this year’s elections are concerned Zanu PF is set to rig the elections, as before, and will take the election result as proof the people of Zimbabwe want a de facto one-party state to continue. They do not care that the elections were not free, fair and credible.

No Zimbabwean with any common sense would ever ACCEPT giving up their fundamental freedoms and human rights. Being denied one’s freedoms and rights, as we have been denied by Zanu PF and the white colonialists before them, is bad enough; accepting the reality of being treated as a second citizen or worse to whom the freedoms and rights others take for granted can be denied at the whim of a tyrant is something no human being will ever accept.

Mr Chronicle Editor, did the Chinese ever have a free, fair and democratic say in who ruled China or was it that Chairman Mao imposed the Communist Party of China on the people?

Even if there had been a free, fair and democratic vote and the nation elected to have a one-party dictatorship in China. Chairman Mao’s generation had no right to deny future generation the inalienable freedoms and rights including the right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the nation.

What evidence is there that China would not have merged into a prosperous nation long before 1978 if the country had granted all its citizens their fundamental freedoms and rights?

As you, Mr Editor, rightly admitted China has remained an impoverished nation until 1978 when it “launched sweeping economic reforms”. Until then millions of Chinese people have lived in abject poverty and many have died; they know the dumb anguish of being stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and oppressive one-party dictatorship. Zimbabweans know that too; we are in this economic and political hell-hole because for the last 38 years and counting the nation is stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and murderous regime.

It is not that a one-party dictatorship cannot do anything right, the CPC has shown that it can; the point is the dictatorship, like every other human system, will also fail. In a healthy and functional democracy, leaders are held to account every step of the way so that mistakes are often picked and corrected and, if need be, leaders and regimes removed from office. In a one-party dictatorship mistakes are swept under the carpet allowing them to grow and spread like a cancer.

The ordinary people who are at the coal face suffer in dumb anguish, stuck with leaders and regimes that no longer represent the nation’s commonwealth.  

Even with China now enjoying unparalleled economic prosperity and millions of ordinary Chinese being rescued from abject poverty; I will bet my bottom dollar, the Chinese people will vote to end the CPC dictatorship today, if they were ever granted a free vote. They know they will be back in hot soup if some brainless thug was to become leader! China very lucky to have the visionary Chairman Deng Xiaoping and there is no guarantee all future leaders will be like him!  

Comrade Chronicle Editor, you can compare President Mnangagwa with every other demagogue you wish but you cannot compare him to Chairman Deng Xiaoping. Chairman Xixian’s, as the Chinese leader was courteously known, “It doesn't matter if a cat is black or white, so long as it catches mice!” was a visionary insight and a key to China’s successful acceptable of capitalism and China’s economic miracle.

It is nonsensical to compared it to ED’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” when he has done nothing to end the corruption, thuggery, vote-rigging, etc. that had caused the country’s economic meltdown in the first place! ED’s top draw priority is to maintain Zanu PF’s iron grip on power; any economic recovery is a bonus.

“Zanu PF ichatonga! Igotonga! Imi muchingo hukura! Nohukura!” (Zanu PF will rule! And rule! Whilst you (calling for free elections) bark! And bark!) was the first message Mnangagwa told his Zanu PF supporters on his return from exile after the 15 November 2017 coup.

What the Chronicle is asking Zimbabweans to do is to accept that these elections are not going to be free, fair and credible; Zimbabwe is now a de jure one-party dictatorship. We should just focus our effort on ED’s effort to replicate China’s 1978 economic miracle in Zimbabwe.

The Chinese people would reject the CPC one-party rule today because, whilst they celebrate the economic boom of the last decade, they cannot forget the nightmare decades that came before and know these nightmares will easily return should another thug become leader. We in Zimbabwe have a chance to stop Zimbabwe becoming a one-party dictatorship; all we must do is make sure this year’s flawed and illegal elections are declared null and void!

Zimbabwe is not China just as Mnangagwa is not Xiaoping. We do not want Zimbabwe to be a one-party state and be stuck ever again with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical dictatorship!