"Engage every Zimbabwean" Manyika tells ED - fishing for gravy train seat, reward for selling-out N Garikai

“In an open letter to Mnangagwa dated September 11, (Noah) Manyika said there was need for the country to avoid the trauma of disputed elections in future to ensure whoever is elected can govern with the full co-operation and goodwill of the citizens,” reported News Day.

"I submit that the reason we need electoral reforms urgently is not to favour one party or another, but to make sure that whoever is elected can govern with the full co-operation and goodwill of our citizens and our friends," said Manyika.

It is rich that these opposition opportunists are now coming out blabbering all this nonsense of “disputed elections” now when they are the ones who provided Zanu PF with the smoke screen to hide the blatant vote rigging. Have they just heard about these electoral reforms now!

As one of the opposition candidates in the recent elections he played his role of giving credibility to a flawed and illegal process by participating. Everyone knew that with no democratic reforms in place Zanu PF would rig the elections but these opposition politicians participated in the elections regardless because they also knew that Zanu PF would be giving away a few gravy train seats. It was these seats they were after. For Noah Manyika, he had his days under the limelight and he can now add “Zimbabwe presidential candidate” to his CV too.

"Zimbabwe can become a high-performing economic tiger if we decide to need each other, and engage every Zimbabwean at home and abroad (beyond appointing a few to Cabinet) in the urgent business of building our nation," Manyika wrote.

"The reality is that some critical ideas that will enable you to tackle the country's immense problems will come from outside your party and from many citizens who love their country but did not vote for you."

Spare us the sauce and just get to the chase, you are applying for a seat on the gravy train! Having played you part in giving the flawed and illegal process credibility by participating, even when ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, you soldiers on, and now you too want a reward. Well, join the queue buster, there are 22 other presidential hopefuls alone, who too sold-out and are lobbying hard for the same scraps!

Nelson Chamisa was cocksure MDC Alliance would win the rigged elections. “MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” he boasted.

Zanu PF  blatantly rigged the elections and Chamisa is crying foul, he could not prove anything not with no such basic documents as a verified voters’ roll. In the court challenge of the election result, the partisan Con-Court co-operated with ZEC to make sure the dodgy voters’ roll, the smoking gun, was never released. No one will ever shed a tear for Chamisa, he invited this upon himself by ignoring the warning not to take part in these flawed elections.

It is the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have paid dearly for these rigged elections. 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule has left the country’s economy in total meltdown and millions now live in abject poverty. Another five more years of this misrule is simply unthinkable and yet that is exactly what will happen now!  

Meanwhile Chamisa has given up hope of getting a gravy train seat for himself and some of his MDC Alliance friends, over and above the few they have won, for their part in giving the flawed election process credibility. Chamisa has now decided to have himself sworn in as president! This could turn out to be worse than the wooden spoon for Chamisa; the Zanu PF dictatorship may well decide to hit him with the spoon.

Now that Zanu PF has discovered that as long as it allows the opposition to win a few gravy train seats the latter will never boycott the elections; there is no hope of getting Zanu PF to give its carte blanche powers to rig the election. It does not matter how flawed and illegal the elections process gets there will be the Nelson Chamisas, Noah Manyikas, Nkosana Moyos, etc., etc. all tripping over each other to contest!

The real challenge now is to show the world that these Nelson Chamisas, Noah Manyikas, Nkosana Moyos, etc., etc. are just political opportunists fishing for gravy train seats even at the cost of selling out on the common cause of ensuring elections are free, fair and credible.

“Without doubt the election has been cleverly rigged but even worse is the fact that it is the military that is behind the regime and they are now unleashing a similar fear and terror campaign on leading opposition activists and curbing all protests by killing and arresting innocent Zimbabweans,”  wrote UK MP, Kate Hoey. She was in Zimbabwe to observe the recent elections.

“The courage and self-sacrifice of the Zimbabwean people is humbling to behold. We, in the international community cannot accept the result of the election and the UK government must take a lead to ensure that the Zimbabwean government is seen for what it is a mark 2 Mugabe regime and one that deserves no support whatsoever.”

The targeted sanctions on the Zanu PF junta must now be extended to include Zimbabwe’s ever growing army of opposition sell-outs. It is these sell-outs’ continued participation in these flawed elections that is making it easier for Zanu PF to rig elections and get away with it.