Friday 15 June 2018

"Do not underestimate Chanisa's resolve to boycott elections" says MDC - only when his life is on the line P Guramatunhu

“Hupenzi enyama yegakava!” (Idiots are stubborn and there is no one more stubborn than the certified insane!) so goes the Shona adage. Insanity comes and goes, it is triggered by the full moon in wild dogs and the smell of meat in hyenas.
Last Tuesday, 5th June, MDC Alliance leaders and supporters stage a demonstration demanding that Zanu PF must implement reforms before elections to underline the party’s usual “No reforms, no elections!” threat. Zanu PF completely ignored the threat and not even one reform has been implemented. Yesterday all the MDC leaders were running around like headless chickens making sure their nomination papers were submitted, crossing the red lines they had vowed not to cross only a week ago.
"Boycotting the election is the last resort but given the pain Zimbabweans have gone through we are preparing for the elections. Boycotting is a political possibility but at the moment we are concentrating on giving Zimbabweans an alternative in this election," Douglas Mwonzora, MDC-T Secretary General, tried for the umpteenth time to square the circle.
Nonsense, if elections are rigged, the winner is predetermined and therefore it is nonsensical to talk of the electorate having an alternative! MDC leaders are participating in these flawed elections out of greed, as David Coltart, former MDC Senator and Minister in the GNU has confessed.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” explained Senator Coltart in his recent book. 
“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”
Three of the MDC factions have since come together to form the MDC Alliance but there was no talk of boycotting the elections.
MDC leaders have often talked of “No reform, no elections!” but only to silence those questioning their folly of contesting elections they readily admitted are flawed and illegal. MDC leaders have found it impossible to boycott the elections and lose the gravy train seats Zanu PF was giving away.
Hyenas are rightly regarded as a cowardly animal because they rarely pick someone their size. However, once the hyena gets a whiff of the smell of meat it is transformed into a different animal.
The whiff of meat toggles the hyena from the coward to insane mode; he will salivate uncontrollable, his ears pricked up, his eyes glazed as he breaks into a canter, led by his nose.
Unlike lions or many other carnivals; hyenas eat everything, skin, bone, hoofs and all the good bits along the way. Hyenas are not picky because, believing they can eat a bull elephant in one seating, it is pointless picking if you are going to eat everything anyway.
The hyena will be totally focused on the meal and savour the sheer satisfaction of a full stomach to the exclusion of everything else. Every often the hyena will be forced to apply emergency brakes. His glazed eyes saw the lion and heard the crunching of bone, but in his insane state with greed, such information take forever to register. When it finally does register, instead of alarm clock bells ringing it is church bells, hence the emergency brakes.
"Our president said if the demands are not met there will be no election, and I would like to reiterate that. Do not underestimate our president's resolve and capacity to follow this through," Jameson Timba, a senior MDC-T leader, chipped in.
Zanu PF has the carte blanche powers to rig these elections and MDC has been powerless to force Zanu PF to implement the reforms. The MDC’s half-heart “No reforms, not elections!” have been nothing more that the granting of a hyena faced with super pride of lions at a kill.
We can be certain, Chamisa et al will all boycott these elections if their own lives are on the line; other than that, they will stay in the race to the bitter end. The opposition are no more than a park of hyenas circling a pride of lions on a kill all day and all night hoping for scraps.
Zimbabwe political system is a jungle in which the only rule that counts is survival of the meanest! The few mean and filthy rich ruling elite have ridden roughshod over freedoms, hopes and dreams of the impoverished majority. MDC leaders have wasted the best opportunities to end the de facto Zanu PF one-party dictatorship by failing to implement the democratic reforms.
The best outcome of these flawed elections is for them to be declared null and void, so we can revisit and implement the reforms agreed at the start of the 2008 GNU. By participating in these flawed elections, MDC are shielding Zanu PF from the anguish of the people by feeding povo the falsehoods of impending democratic change, in return being fed the scraps from Zanu PF’s table.

As long as Zanu PF dangle a few gravy train seats MDC leaders will continue to contest the elections regardless how flawed the process. Neither Zanu PF nor MDC will ever implement the democratic reforms regardless of desperately poor the nation becomes; greed has made them as insane as a hyena.

5 comments:

Patrick said...

Full list of the presidential candidates who were duly nominated after successfully filing their papers:
1. Busha Joseph Makamba of FreeZim Congress
2. Chamisa Nelson of MDC Alliance
3. Chiguvare Tonderai Johannes of People’s Progressive Party
4. Chikanga Everisto Washington of Rebuild Zimbabwe
5. Dzapasi Melbah of #1980 Freedom Movement Zimbabwe
6. Gara Mapfumo Peter of United Democratic Front
7. Hlabangana Kwanele of Republicans Party of Zimbabwe
8. Hove Mhambi Divine of National Alliance of Patriotic and Democratic Republicans
9. Kasiyamhuru Blessing of Zimbabwe Partnership for Prosperity
10. Khupe Thokozani of Movement for Democratic Change-T
11. Madhuku Lovemore of National Constitutional Assembly
12. Mangoma Elton Steers of Coalition of Democrats
13. Manyika Noah Ngoni of Build Zimbabwe Alliance
14. Mariyacha Violet of United Democratic Movement
15. Mnangagwa Emmerson Dambudzo of Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front
16. Moyo Nkosana Donals of Alliance for the People’s Agenda
17. Mteki Bryn Taurai and Independent
18. Magadza William Tawonezvi of Bethel Christian Party
19. Mujuru Joice Teurai Ropa of People’s Rainbow Coalition
20. Munyanduri Ambrose of National Patriotic Front
21. Mutinhiri Ambrose of National Patriotic Front
22. Shumba Daniel of United Democratic Alliance
23. Wilson Harry Peter of Democratic Opposition Party
What I do not understand is whether all these people are contesting because they believe the elections are free, fair and credible or they know but are hoping to win rigged elections. Either way they are stupid!

Zimbabwe Light said...

Why should Chamisa boycott elections when he failed to implement even one reform when MDC had the golden opportunity to do this during the GNU? Chamisa and his fellow MDC friends are quite happy with getting a few gravy train seats Zanu PF is offering that is why they have not boycotted an elections except the by-elections. The only thing that will force Chamisa and company to boycott elections is if their lives are in danger - anyone else they would not care!

Zimbabwe Light said...

"Our president said if the demands are not met there will be no election, and I would like to reiterate that. Do not underestimate our president's resolve and capacity to follow this through," Jameson Timba, a senior MDC-T leader, chipped in.

MDC leaders are not just corrupt and incompetent but are breathtakingly so! By far the most important task MDC leaders were asked to do was to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. They were given five years to implement the reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented. SADC leaders did their best to remind Tsvangirai and company to implement the reforms and thus "follow the Global Political Agreement roadmap" but their warnings fell on deaf ears.

"MDC leaders were busy enjoying themselves in the GNU they forgot why they were there!" said one SADC leaders in sheer frustration at the reality that MDC leaders had failed to implement even one reform in five years.

MDC leaders are corrupt and incompetent, there were bound to be some bad apples. It came as a shock that the MDC basket was full of bad apples rotten to the core so rotten that none of them even recovered even for a day in five years!

"We certainly underestimated just how breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders are!" to paraphrase Timba.

Chamisa and company are in this rat race for the scraps and nothing short of direct threat to the individual's life will force them to withdraw. After last November's military coup President Mnangagwa is as keen as mustard to make sure these elections are peaceful. So far, he has managed to keep his thugs on the leash and kept the peace.

Since the 2013 elections, Zanu PF has invested time and billions of dollars in developing other subtle ways of rigging elections with the minimum use of violence. Zanu PF has war veterans, Chiefs and 5 000 soldiers quietly reminding the people that the wanton violence of 2008 will return if Zanu PF lost these elections, a rich harvest of fear!

Indeed, President Mnangagwa is so desperate to sell these elections as free, fair and credible on the ticket of maintain the peace, he will have his double agents in the MDC double up as Chamisa's security details.

MDC is reportedly running out of funds to finance its campaign. President Mnangagwa is so keen to give the impression this was a hotly contested race, he will fund MDC, there are 1001 clandestine ways to do this.

Just to be absolutely certain Chamisa stays in the race, Mnangagwa may even agree to Chamisa's overture of there being a GNU after these elections. Chamisa is desperate for a ministerial limo, he is pulling all the stops to get it!

As for implementing the reforms, Chamisa knows that there is no way any meaningful reforms can be implemented now. In any case when you are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent you too do not want to be held to democratic account. MDC and Zanu PF different in many areas but when it comes to resisting making Zimbabwe a democratic nation they are united.

Zanu PF is blatantly rigging these elections and the party is counting on the international observers concentrating on the absence of wanton violence alone in judging these elections free, fair and credible.

Zimbabwe Light said...

Brian Gomo


You need to reconcile yourself with a fundamental political reality of a rigged election. Like it or not, when elections are rigged the vote is devalued, it is not worth what it is supposed to be worth. The more serious the vote rigging the more the vote will lose its value just like money loses its face value in the face of inflation.

In the 2008 elections, for example, Zanu PF thugs force ZEC to recount the March vote whittling down Tsvangirai's 73% vote to a mere 47% and force a run-off. In the run-off that followed the party thugs, supported by security services, declared war on the populous to force them to vote for Mugabe. In the March recount the people's vote was suddenly devalued and by the time of the run-off the people had lost the vote, it was not theirs to do with as they pleased.

The 2008 elections were a watershed moment in Zimbabwe history in that they proved beyond all meaningful debate and doubt that Zanu PF's vote rigging ability was now so unassailable the result was pre-determined and holding elections a mockery. SADC forced Zanu PF to sign a Global Political Agreement, agreeing to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and take away its carte blanche powers to rig elections. Zanu PF also agreed to the formation of the GNU which was tasked to implement the reforms.

Holding elections without first implementing the reforms is a futile exercise because one does not expect a different result when it is already clear the result is pre-determined.

Albert Einstein said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result!"

Participating in flawed and illegal elections is silly but to continue to do so after 38 years is insane. In Zimbabwe, we sure have more than our fair share of mentally challenged citizens. Our economic descent from being one of the top five richest nations in Africa in 1980 to be the poorest nation on earth in three decades is testimonial to the nation's intellectual poverty.

Zimbabwe Light said...

"Some civil servants will be working for the party, but will be paid by government. Government departments will also be utilised for logistics and will provide vehicles and fuel in some cases," a government official said.

"Security officers will be deployed at every polling station, like in previous elections. They will be disguised as polling or election officers and will be given Zec (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) badges and identification. Their job is to monitor voting details and trends."

Another official noted security officers will be assigned to do all sorts of dirty jobs, including stuffing ballot boxes if necessary in polling stations where the opposition has incompetent or no election agents.

"This involves security agents in civilian clothes and is a major cost item and the source of 'rigging' in the sense of manipulating the voting process in favour of Zanu-PF.

Many of these are recruited as Zec officers. They do all sorts of things such as under-counting of votes of the opposition (where the piles are supposed to be 10-10, the opposition pile can have 15 votes counted as 10; conversely there can be over-counting of Zanu-PF votes where a pile of seven is counted as 10."

One official said: "Zec should be forced to declare who the presiding officers and, especially election officers who do the counting, are by publishing their names, their profession and place of work to enable opposition parties and other stakeholders to verify that information so people can know security agents have not been embedded as their officers. The number of election officers required is huge and that must be known and audited before election day."

If there is one consistent story coming out from any close examination of this year's election, it is that Zanu PF has countless opportunities to rig these elections. With such a vast array of vote rigging opportunities it is impossible to see how the party can rig the vote and, somehow, lose the elections!

These elections should have never taken place without first implementing the democratic reforms.

The election process is so flawed and illegal the only logical this to do now is to have the whole process ruled null and void without further undo!