"We will continue to rule over you!" boasted ED - cocksure of victory long before voting day N Garikai

All those who had been foolish enough to believe, even for one split second, that President Mnangagwa would hold free, fair and credible elections; must now accept that they were naïve and gullible! More evidence to prove they were naïve is now pouring in.

“Addressing a Zanu-PF campaign rally at Mubaira growth point in Mhondoro, Mnangagwa said the law would deal with any malcontents bent on disturbing the peace obtaining in the country ahead of the polls,” reported Newsday.

"As political parties, we signed a pledge for peace ahead of elections. All 55 parties taking part in the elections signed, but to my surprise, some little boy and a small party turns around to say he wants to shut down Harare,” said President Mnangagwa.

“Oooooh, my father Shumba! How does he want to achieve that? As who? Getting support from where?

"If you (Chamisa) act in a peaceful manner, we will not touch you. You will stay in opposition doing your things while time moves and we will continue ruling over you. We can't close out opposition because we need it. If it's not there, then we won't have anyone to rule over."

This is certainly not the language of democrat but rather that of an arrogant and ruthless thug used to getting what he wants and would stop at nothing to get it. He certainly is not one to care a damn about the democratic wishes of the people and such niceties as free and fair elections!

No one, absolutely no one, remotely familiar with Zimbabwe’s history would take President Mnangagwa’s threats as just hot air.

Emmerson Dambudzo (ED) Mnangagwa, his VP Chiwenga and a number of his cronies have been the body and soul of the Joint Operations Command (JOC), the secretive and unelected junta, that has masterminded and executed all the political shenanigans, vote buying and rigging, all the politically motivated violence including the beating and murderers in Zimbabwe these last 38 years. JOC has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans in cold blood!

8 months ago, ED and junta carried out their most notorious dare-devil act ever – staged the coup to depose Robert Mugabe. Mugabe is a cunning, mean and ruthless thug as ED himself would testify having been partners in crime until they started fighting each other over the control of the party.

ED and company did not flinch in staging the coup against one of their own or be it a ruthless tyrant. Why would they now hesitate to rig elections to secure their own hold on absolute power, the very thing their had just risked all to wrestle from Mugabe? After all, rigging elections is something they have all done all the time as JOC members; that is JOC’s primary task.

The coup was illegal and per se the regime born out of the coup was illegitimate. President Mnangagwa promised to hold free and fair elections just to take the sting out of illegitimacy label. He had no intention of keeping the promise and has pointedly refused to implement any of democratic reforms everyone agreed were necessary for free and fair elections.

If MDC or anyone had pressured President Mnangagwa to implement the reforms, they would have felt the full force of ED’s fury there and then. There has been peace so far but only because MDC has been content to pay lip service to calls for reforms and free and fair elections.

However, MDC leaders are just now waking up to the political reality that, by participating in yet another rigged election, they are going to lose the little political credibility they had left. They lost most of it when they failed to get even one reform implemented during GNU.

“MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging elections!” Chamisa has often boasted.

“Tsvangirai made the foolish mistake of going into the 2013 elections with no voters’ roll,” Chamisa admitted, grudgingly since he too was involved in making that foolish decision. “We are not going to make the same foolish mistake again!”

Poor Nelson Chamisa had had wasted a lot of time wittering about bullet train and spaghetti junctions and ignore the most immediate and critical task of all – stopping Zanu PF rigging the elections. What is the point wittering endlessly about what you will do on the other side of the river and ignoring the warning the river is alive with crocodiles!

No one with any common-sense and self-respect would concede to taking part in an elections without something as basic as a voters’ roll. MDC are doing just that and it is not for the first time either!

MDC leaders and the rest in the opposition camp will be eating humble pie on Monday, 30 July 2018, voting day. By noon that day, they will all finally acknowledge that Zanu PF rigged the elections. They had no “stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging” and all their other strategies were just hot air!

"This (ban) is totally unfair and uncalled for. It's a ploy by Zanu-PF to slow us down," said MDC-T Secretary General, Douglas Mwonzora.

"Given this latest development, our party national executive will meet tomorrow (today) to review the political environment as well as participation in the election."

Even if MDC Alliance was to withdraw from these flawed and illegal elections now, what difference would that make. The damage, of giving the flawed process credibility, has already been done by participating this far!

The nation must now look to the international election observers to salvage something good out of this election mess. One hopes that they will condemn these elections as a theatrical farce and demand that Zimbabwe must revisit the 2008 raft of democratic reforms and make sure they are finally implemented as the only way out of this vicious cycle of Zanu PF rigged elections!