“Muromo
hauzarurwi nerwizi!” (Nothing can stop those who talk too much, not even a
flooded river!) so goes the Shona adage. When you are dictator who is not
democratically accountable to anyone, there is no flooded river you cannot
cross.
The
people of Zimbabwe will always remember Robert Mugabe for his exuberance
passion and confidence in making every Zimbabwean prosperous, “Gutsva ruzhinji!”
(Mass prosperity!) The very fact that he brought mass poverty instead only
makes it even more memorable. “Big mouth!” many have often cursed the tyrant!
After nearly
50 years as Mugabe’s right-hand man, 37 years of which as cabinet minister in
successive Mugabe governments; if there is one lesson President Emerson
Mnangagwa has learned from Mugabe it is the art of being big mouth! President
Mnangagwa has set himself the task of reviving Zimbabwe’s economy and he is
beaming with confidence nothing is going to stop him achieving that goal.
Nothing!
The
immediate question he has conveniently brushed aside and will never want to
answer is: why has he done nothing, these last 37 years when he was in cabinet,
to stop the country going to the dogs? Worse still, he must have been cocksure Mugabe’s
“gutsva ruzhinji” dogma was working because is the one person who has
ruthlessly imposed Mugabe and Zanu PF on the nation. But let us put this aside for
a while.
“I
would want to commend the Buy Zimbabwe team which has continued to work closely
with both private and public sectors to drive the buy local message and
encourage the purchase of local products and services so that local businesses
can thrive, thereby, stimulating economic growth and creating decent jobs for us
to be a middle-income country by 2030,” President Mnangagwa told his audience recently.
Mnangagwa
said he had a vision to turn the economy into a cashless economy and urged
Zimbabweans to embrace plastic money since this was the global trend.
When
President Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe following last November’s military
coup his carrion call was “Zimbabwe is open for business!” He was cocksure he
was opening the flood gates for would-be foreign investors whose money would
help kick start the economy. There flood of investors has failed to materialize
because investors are shrewd lot, they can see that Zimbabwe is still a pariah
state which was why they had shied away all these years in the first place.
If President
Mnangagwa did not have these mister-know-it-all dictatorial tendencies, then he
would have listen to the voices of those who said it was pointless trying to
attract investors when the country has not resolved its pariah state status. How
can Zanu PF claim to be a democratic party when it was refusing to implement
democratic reforms, the pre-requisite for holding free, fair and credible
elections, for example?
He has
promised to end corruption and host other teething economic problems but has
singly failed to make any significant progress. It is no secret that Zanu PF
ruling elite are some of the richest individuals in the country including VP
Chiwenga and President Mnangagwa himself. It has all been talk but no concrete
action.
There
is no doubt that President Mnangagwa’s vision to make Zimbabwe a middle-income
nation by 2030 is just another “Gutsva ruzhinji!” that is doomed to fail.
President
Mnangagwa appealed to listeners and the people of Zimbabwe “to vote for him so
that he could achieve his vision for the country.”
Well,
Mr President there is the real crux of the matter! The people of Zimbabwe have
never had free, fair and credible elections and therefore a meaningful say in
who governed the country. Zanu PF has systematically rig the vote to stay in
power and is set to rig this year’s elections too.
“On the
back of the Nov coup, and the fact that Zimbabwe is under military rule, it’s
unreasonable to expect a Govt run ZEC to run free, fair & credible
elections. With securocrats managing its TECHNICAL operations, ZEC is a rigging
tool!
“Govt
has seconded to ZEC a team of Chinese BVR & cyber experts from the People’s
Liberation Army linked to a top Chinese university. Their remit is to
manipulate the voters roll through shadowy & virtual polling stations &
fake voters!”
Zimbabwe
is in this economic mess today because for 37 years President Mugabe wittered
on and on about “Gutsva ruzhinji!” whilst dragging the nation deeper and deeper
into this economic hell-on-earth. The people could see Mugabe was corrupt and
incompetent but they helpless to stop him and his Zanu PF thugs destroying the
economy because they did not have a meaningful vote.
These
elections are not about stopping you, President Mnangagwa wittering about your vision
of “Zimbabwe becoming a middle-income nation by 2030.” These elections are
about making sure the people of Zimbabwe gave you the mandate in a free, fair
and credible elections to pursue your vision and not you rigging the elections again
and impose your rule on the nation!
9 comments:
So ED's vision is to make Zimbabwe a middle-income nation by 2030. As long as Zanu PF retains its carte blanche powers to rig elections he will get away with delivering another hell-on-earth just as Mugabe got away with his "Gutsva ruzhinji" (Mass prosperity!) that landing us into this mass poverty! President Mnangagwa must deliver free, fair and credible elections as he promised or he must step aside and allow someone who will.
The only way to shut up big mouths with their pie-in-the-sky promises is to make them democratically accountable!
President Mnangagwa will meet other political leaders to discuss the code of conduct.
The meeting with political parties is no substitute for implementing the democratic reforms designed to give the Police, ZEC, etc. their independence and power to deliver free, fair and credible elections without fear or favour.
Robert Mugabe had his "gutsva ruzhinji" (mass prosperity) which turned into mass poverty as he destroyed the nation's economy. President Mnangagwa has been blowing his trumpet about "Zimbabwe is open for business!" and promising to turn the country into a middle-income nation by 2030. The flood of foreign investors he was sure would flood into the country have not materialised because investors do not do business with thugs who cannot even hold free elections. With no economic recovery there will be no growth to turn Zimbabwe into middle-income nation.
Chamisa keeps blabbering about bullet trains, spaghetti junctions, turning the $10 GDP economy into a $46 billion in five years, etc., etc. There is nothing technical impossible about all these things except that these things will never happen as long as nothing is done to remove Zanu PF from power by stopping the party rigging elections. After nearly 20 years of MDC being cheated out of power by Zanu PF one would have hoped MDC leaders now finally understand that nothing of substance will ever be achieved without first dealing with this problem of vote rigging.
Zanu PF is set to rig these election just as they have done in the past, so what is the point of talking about MDC bringing bullet train when MDC will never win power?
Artur Jovo
You are right we have allowed Mugabe and his Zanu PF to ride roughshod over our freedoms, human rights, hopes and dreams for the last 38 years and now they think it is their right to do so. "Zanu PF is not going to reform itself out of office," Professor Jonathan Moyo once boasted. He was at the height of his political influence then, today he is the victim of the monster he helped create!
Mnangagwa's message at Chegutu is simple: a vote for Zanu-PF is a vote for economic growth. The average income in Zimbabwe will increase four, five, 10 times in coming years, he promises the crowd, but that requires foreign investors.
"What builds clinics, roads, schools, clean water? What makes jobs? It is business … Zimbabwe is open for business," he says
As long as Zimbabwe continues to be ruled by thugs who have to rig elections to stay in power the country will never be "open for business" because investors do not do business with thugs!
@ Kennedy Kaitano
"Emmerson Mnangagwa got the nickname Crocodile from his colleagues in Zanu PF who are privy to his underhand dealings, and his propensity to shed crocodile tears - that is Emmerson Mnangagwa for you, and you can never take that away from him. As a United Nations official, you can check from the United Nations how Emmerson Mnangagwa, working with Zimbabwe National Army mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo, was mentioned in the shoddy diamond deal. To prove that he is a lie, ask him about that involvement today, and he will dismiss you as if nothing ever happened," you said.
"While preaching the gospel of peace during the elections, a position which some gullible international officials have believed, on the other hand he is planning with some in his party to employ dirty tricks to get him and his party to win and turn a blind eye to the election crimes and continue to preach peace on public platforms."
The real tragedy for most third world countries like Zimbabwe is that the opposition and internal civic organisations are either corrupt or incompetent and sometimes both and so fail to defend the voiceless majority who are regularly abused by the ruling elite. And so, it is to the international organisations like the UN that most people in the third world turn to. It is therefore most disheartening when it turns out the UN representative such as Mr. Parajuli, in this case, turns out to be just as corrupt and incompetent as the local leaders.
Mr Parajuli's praise of President Mnangagwa and his junta regime as worthy of international support was totally unfounded as it ignored the reality on the ground. President Mnangagwa is rigging these elections just as blatantly as he has done with Mugabe in the past, nothing has changed here!
It is all very well for President Mnangagwa to only now give an under taking to accept the outcome of the elections when he has pointedly refused to implement even one meaningful democratic reform designed to stop him rigging the elections. These elections are not going to be free, fair and credible and he knows that.
We are not going to accept the outcome of an election process we know was not free, fair and credible and are saying so here and now without having to wait to know who "won" the rigged vote!
Earlier, the High Court had ordered Zec to release the provisional voters' roll to the Elections Resource Centre (ERC).
In delivering the order on Thursday High Court judge Justice Tawanda Chitapi said Zec was mandated by law to present the roll to any voter who needed it.
"The respondent is under legal obligation upon request by any person for a copy of any voter's roll, to provide such copy in electronic of printed form, as the person might request, subject to the condition that the person requesting pays the prescribed fee," Justice Chitapi said.
The court dismissed arguments by Zec that the Electoral Act only mandated the body to release the final voters' roll and not the provisional voters roll, saying this was dealt with by the Constitution.
"Sections 62 (1) and (2) provide the right for every Zimbabwean, permenant resident or juristic person, to access any information held by the state or any of its organs at any level provided that information is required in the interests of public accountability or in the excise or protection of a right.
"It does not appear to me that the provisional voters' roll requested by ERC falls outside the scope of what could be classified as any information," part of the judgment read.
There many other issues that make these elections a mockery such as Zanu PF's unfettered access to looted national wealth which the party then uses to bankroll its vote rigging activities, one-sided public media, ZEC's failure to register nearly 25% of the voters because the BVR was started very late, etc.
These elections must be ruled null and void so the country can revert back to the reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU and make sure all the reforms are implemented this time!
@ Marailas Mechavio
"Wilbert Mukori You can witter all you want but that will never make the foreign handheld mercenaries rule Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai akaidza akatosiya yakadaro. After wishing Mugabe dead, including roping in so called prophets to speed Mugabe's demise, it was Mugabe wjo wrote Tsvangirai's obituary. Iparty yepasi ZANU PF. Muchaijaira zvenyu vana Wilbert. Mati madini," you say.
This is about making sure these elections are free, fair and credible and everything else you are blabbering about is chuff!
Zanu PF has ridden roughshod over the people of Zimbabwe's freedoms, basic human rights, dreams and hope. You and the regime want to talk about foreigners, the opposition and blame them for all the nation's ills, they are scapegoat for you to hide behind. President Mnangagwa has refused to implement even one reform to ensure these elections are free and fair - that has nothing to do with sanctions, MDC, etc.
President Mnangagwa promised to hold free and fair elections and now he must deliver or ship out!
After 38 years of rigged elections this nonsense must now end. These elections must be declared null and void and the nation revisit and implement all the reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU.
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