"No reform, not elections!" Chamisa threatened - not bluffing, wheels are flying off the bullet train P Guramatunhu

Chamisa threatens to withdraw from the elections; he has bluffed in the past but this time events beyond his control are force him to withdraw - the wheels are flying off the Chamisa bullet train!

MDC leaders have been their own worst enemy with their double talk. It is all very well rattling the party’s red-line reform demands and insisting “there will be no elections unless our demands are met; but we will not boycott the elections”, to their simpleton MDC supporters. The later have always followed like sheep to the slaughter, no questions asked. It is different matter rattling the same nonsense to the many international elections observers now in the country.

After patiently asking the MDC leaders to explain what exactly this double Dutch meant in practice and getting no sensible answer; the observers must have rightly concluded that MDC leaders were just a bunch of pretenders posturing with no clue what they were doing.

How can anyone with even half a brain agree to take part in an election process with no free public media, no clean and verified voters’ roll, etc. The very fact that MDC leaders and the rest of the opposition candidates were doing so has forced the observers questioning the sanity of these politicians.

In June 2013, just a month before that year’s Zimbabwe elections, SADC leaders wanted the elections postponed because they were convinced Zanu PF was going to rig the vote. “If you take part in next month’s elections, you will lose; the elections are done!” they warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends.

If the international election observers would repeat the same warning if they believed anyone in the opposition camp would listen.

Still, it is what the international observers are going to do next that finally got attention of Zimbabwe’s opportunistic opposition politicians. With no such basic requirement as free media, no clean and verified voters’ roll, etc. it is as clear as day that the international observers are going to condemn these flawed elections and declare the process null and void.

Of course, MDC leaders have gone into these elections knowing that with no reforms in place Zanu PF was going to rig the elections. Still, they joined the rat race regardless, because they also knew that to make the process look credible Zanu PF was giving away a few gravy train seats. It is these bait seats they are after, as David Coltart, MDC senator and Minister in the GNU, readily admitted in his book.

“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. 

“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.”

But with the international community now set to declare the process null and void, the MDC leaders know the few gravy train seats will be of no value.

Worst of all, being named as one of the opportunistic opposition candidates who participated in the sham elections will be curse that will force one to take early retirement from politics. A savvy political opponent in future races will remind the electorate that participating in the sham elections one had helped to give the flawed electoral process credibility and to forfeit the nation’s chance to bring about real political changed.

If these elections are declared null and void, the country will be forced to revisit the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GNU and, this time, get the reforms implemented. It will be tough enough to survive in a new open and democratic political dispensation; it will be impossible to do so for anyone with the albatross round their neck of having sold out by participating in the sham past elections. This is a political reality is dawning even in the sloth-minded ones in Morgan Tsvangirai House, MDC Alliance HQ.

If there are no gravy train seats to be had then boycotting these elections even at this the eleventh hour and, hopefully, get rid of the albatross makes a lot of sense. The scramble to be the MDC candidate of two weeks ago may very quickly turn into rout as opposition candidates withdraw from the race!

As MDC leaders lose the little political credibility they still had the Chamisa bullet train express will lose its wheels, as election candidates withdraw, followed by many of its simpleton passengers, even they know a train with no wheels will go nowhere!