Do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong with Nelson Chamisa’s 800 km/hour bullet trains (faster than the current world record holder 431km/hour maglev train), spaghetti junction at every growth-point, Wi-Fi for goats and every village will have its own airport! Many provinces much less village have a barely functioning hospital but who needs a hospital or clinic when every village has an airport!
“They have helped to fire people’s imagination!” many have argued. There is nothing wrong with firing one’s imagination as long as that does not become the excuse for burying one’s head in the sand in the vain hope that ones’ problems will all go away. They never go away but only get worse!
In 1980, when the country attained her independence, Zimbabwe was one of the top five richest countries in Africa with all the potential to do even better. Today we are the poorest nation in Africa with unemployment rate soaring to dizzy heights of 90%, ¾ of our people live on US$1.00 or less a day, etc. The root cause of our economic meltdown is because, for the last 38 years and counting, the country has been stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime that has systematically rigged elections to stay in power.
After the two decades of blundering from pillar to post the people of Zimbabwe finally came to the consensus decision in the late 1990s that the nation needed democratic changes designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. The people have risked life and limp to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends in power on the ticket they would deliver the democratic changes the nation was dying for. Sadly they have failed to bring about even one democratic change in their 20 years on the political centre stage!
MDC leaders are the golden opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when all they had to do was implement the democratic reforms SADC had managed to force Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies to sign onto. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years.
SADC leaders wanted the 2013 elections postponed until reforms were in place. “If you go into next month’s elections, you will lose; the elections are done!” they warned Tsvangirai and the rest of the MDC leaders.
As we now know, MDC leaders participated in the July 2013 elections and, as we also know, Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections, as SADC had predicted.
Initially MDC leaders have said they will not take part in any more future elections until reforms are implemented. “No reform, no elections!” they said repeatedly. True to their party resolutions no MDC faction has ever contested any of the many by-elections from 2013 to date. However they have all decided to contest the national elections although not even one reform was implemented.
Nelson Chamisa is on record claiming MDC has “stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” He has failed to name even one such measure; it is all hot air, to impress the naïve and gullible! Still the question of why was MDC taking part in the elections they know will be rigged kept coming back again and again.
However, ever since Chamisa started talking about bullet trains travelling from Bulawayo to Harare, a distance of 400km, in 35 minutes; spaghetti junctions at every growth-point, etc.; he has certainly captured and captivated many people’s imagination! They have all but forgot about the immediate need to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections as the pre-requisite for any meaningful political and economic change.
Zimbabwe is in a real serious economic and political mess and the only way out of the mess is for the country to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Chamisa and his MDC friends have failed to carry out this important task but rather than admit they a corrupt and incompetent to carry out the task they want to divert the people’s attention away from the important and urgent task in hand and talk of the imaginary sugar-candy-mountain where elections are free, fair and credible.
On the morning of 31 July 2018, the people of Zimbabwe will wake up to the news of another Zanu PF landslide election victory because in the real Zimbabwe, as contrast to Chamisa’s sugar-candy-mountain imaginary world, Zanu PF will blatantly rig the elections. So let us talk of the real Zimbabwe.
What the Zimbabwe needs right now are competent leaders who will accept the country needs to implement the democratic reforms and address the problem head-on with the single-minded and unwavering resolve the matter demands.
Ever since the nation decided the nation needed democratic reforms in the late 1990s the choice before us has not changed. Either, we bite the bullet and implement the reforms and thus give ourselves and posterity a real chance of getting out of this hell-on-earth Zanu PF has landed us. Or, do nothing about the reforms, content with twiddling our fingers and listen to MDC’s empty promises, and thus condemn ourselves and generations to come to Zanu PF misrule.
“The 19th century German thinker Karl Marx, the founder and primary theorist of Marxism, had an antithetical and complex attitude to religion, viewing it primarily as "the soul of soulless conditions", the “opium of the people” that had been useful to the ruling classes since it gave the working classes false hope for millennia,” explained Wikipedia.
Each nation and each generation has always found its own opium allowing them to escape into their sugar-candy-mountain and justify their false hope for millennia for the people of Zimbabwe – Chamisa bullet trains and spaghetti junctions has sure hit the sweet-spot of given to escapism!
5 comments:
Chamisa is wasting time, money and the golden opportunity to bring about meaningful political change by talking about bullet trains when the big issue before us is making sure there are free and fair elections. If Zanu PF is allowed to rig these elections we are not going to get out of this hell-hole of the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.
Chamisa is like someone who keeps talking about how great life will be on the other side of the river but refuse to address the problem of how to cross the flooded and crocodile infested river. We know Chamisa and his MDC friends wasted the golden opportunity to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections during the GNU. MDC do not know what to do now and so they want to pretend Zanu PF will not rig these elections.
We will be very foolish to let Chamisa witter about bullet train and not tell the village idiot we know what he is up to and must therefore shut up!
Runaway bullet train Chamisa is now promising to bring the World Cup and Olympic games to Zimbabwe. No doubt, he is thinking of the 90% unemployment who will be able to sell the vuvuzela and other cheap Chinese trinkets!
I agree, Chamisa is talking about bullet trains just to draw the nation's attention away from the vexing problem of how to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. The MDC wasted the opportunity to implement the reform designed to stop vote rigging during the GNU.
The nation can pretend vote rigging is not a problem but that is only burying our heads in the sand. On the 31 July, the day after voting is done, Chamisa will be complaining that Zanu PF stole the elections. He will forget about the bullet train and focus on the political reality of vote rigging is doing so much to pretend does not exist!
We must make sure the international community do not lose sight of the reality of Zanu PF rigging the vote and they condemn this flawed process. We want these elections declared null and void!
Yes, Zimbabwe is a one-party state and Zanu PF is blatantly rigging these elections to deny the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
USA Senator Chris Coons has reportedly accused Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa of making "empty promises" and "deliberately delaying the implementation of electoral reforms in order to disadvantage opposition parties in the forthcoming polls".
President Mnangagwa and his junta thought that they would get away will all manner of vote rigging antics as long as there is no blatant violence. They are surprised that they are being put under increasing pressure to honour their promise to hold free, fair and credible elections. This is clearly a bridge too far for the junta that has survived this far by rigging elections.
Even this early in the elections there is already a mountain of evidence proving these elections are being rigged. The American are not the only ones who can see that the regime is not honouring its promise to hold free and fair elections, everyone with eyes can see it! It is already clear that it will near impossible to judge these elections free and fair. By dismissing the election process as fraudulent the international community will allow Zimbabwe to revisit the 2008 raft of reforms and make sure they are implemented this time!
Nelson Chamisa's MDC Alliance took its march to President Emmerson Mnangagwa's doorstep. Chamisa marched side by side with Jim Kunaka the former leader of the Zanu-PF youth militia Chipangano.
Has Kukana renounce the use of violence or is Chamisa recruiting him to boost MDC's own violence gang activities! We all know how hard Chamisa has tried to woo some of the rogue war veterans like Jabulani Sibanda and Victor Mahiya to join MDC after they fall out with their Zanu PF master, Robert Mugabe. The fact that many of the war veterans were responsible for the beating and even murder of innocent MDC members did not bother Chamisa in any way.
The MDC members and supporters who have been praising MDC's demo are showing just how shallow thick and slow they are. Ask them whether they really expect even one of the reforms the people were demanding to be implemented this late into the election and not even one of them will say yes, not with any conviction. Ask anyone of them if they believe MDC leaders will boycott the elections if any of these red line demands are not met. Again, none of them will dare say yes because they all know MDC leaders will not boycott the election regardless how flawed the process.
So what was the purpose of the demo other than give the leaders another chance to drum their chest like a big silver back gorilla.
The truth is the country cannot afford to have yet another rigged election. We should not be holding these elections, not before we have implemented all the democratic reforms to ensure the elections are free, fair and credible.
We know Zanu PF is rigging these elections and we want this flagged up here and now and not have to complain about it after the voting is done. We want these elections declared null and void because it is impossible to have free and fair elections without implementing the reforms.
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