"A Commission of Inquiry into the August 1 shootings that occurred after the July 30 harmonised elections will resume today with MDC president Nelson Chamisa expected to testify,” reported Bulawayo 24.
Chamisa and the rest of the opposition were warned repeatedly not to take part in the recent elections until democratic reforms are implemented to make sure the elections are free, fair and credible. He would not listen, claiming "MDC had stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!" The stringent measures did not work against ZEC for Justice Chigumba and her fellow commissioners blatantly disregarded the law to secure a landslide victory for Zanu PF.
Chamisa boasted that he had assembled "the A-Team" to challenge the election result in the Con-Court. It Judges went on to confirm Mnangagwa as the winner ignoring all the evidence of serious disregard of the law under the pretext the evidence was not confirmed by "primary source evidence" in the sealed ballot boxes.
They knew the plaintiff's, Chamisa, request to have the ballot boxes opened was denied. Although the Judges could and should have demanded to have the ballot boxes opened, particularly since they were the ones insisting on primary source evidence. They did not make any such demand because they knew the same chaos, irregularity, illegalities, etc. found in the evidence before the court would also be found in the sealed ballot boxes.
It is fair to say the Con-Court started from the outcome, they had to confirm Mnangagwa as the winner, and so they task was to find a plausible excuse to justify their judgement. They would reject the damning evidence presented to the court by both the plaintiff and the key defendant, ZEC, on the grounds that it was not collaborated by primary source evidence - a convenient legal bolt hole!
It should be remembered that it was the same Judiciary that had ruled the the 15 November 2017 military coup was "legal, constitutional and justified"! Of course, it was naive to expect justice from a judiciary that is corrupt to the core!
Of course, it was very foolish of Nelson Chamisa and all the other opposition parties to agree to take part in an election process they knew from the word go was flawed and illegal. But having agreed to a corrupt and incompetent ZEC organising the elections and to an equal corrupt and compromised Con-Court to judge the electoral process; it is naive of Chamisa to think he can now refuse to appear before the Commission of Inquiry into 1 st August 2018 shooting on the grounds the Commission is biased.
It would be a real surprise if the Motlanthe Commission was not biased, corrupt and incompetent. No one in their right mind expects the Commission to accomplish much other than gloss over the shooting and the serious matter of the rigged elections, which triggered the protest. But that is all beside the point.
The point is that Chamisa accepted ZEC, the Con-Court and all the other corrupt and compromised state institutions' power and authority in handling the various aspect of the election process. Why, therefore, is he now refusing to accept the power and authority of the Motlanthe Commission? Chamisa is appearing before the Commission because he cannot cherry pick!
3 comments:
Chamisa did not want to appear before the Motlanthe Commission but they have done so in the end. This has become the norm with MDC leaders, they say they will not do a, b and c one day and then do all those things next day!
It must be said again, for the umpteenth time, MDC should have listen to the warning not to participate in the elections with no reforms in place. They were naive to participate and it is nonsensical to think they can call the shots!
@ Wafawarova
Meanwhile, in typical cobra style, Chamisa just woke up one day appointing people to various national executive posts, in the process relegating Tendai Biti to deputise the eccentric Thabitha Khumalo, whom Chamisa made national chair.
Of course, the idea was to place Biti in a place where he cannot be the threat he is, given his self-declared proximity to Western powers. Chamisa does not want the Mudzuris, the Mwonzoras or the Bitis of this world around him. He prefers the Khumalos, the Komichis and other weaker characters with no known intellectual prowess or political clout. These are the people the Cobra wants around himself.
Surprisingly, Chamisa's role model is Robert Mugabe, and he confides and says he copies his political style from the disgraced hero of Zimbabwean politics.
Indeed, Robert Mugabe always wanted to be the only shining star in an ocean of darkness. Everyone must be darkness, and the only light was Mugabe the Great. Chamisa does the same thing. He isolates shining lights and draws to himself characters of darkness.
The other thing about Nelson Chamisa is that everyone is expendable to him. This is why he disowned his own supporters who protested on his behalf on August 1. Just to try and impress the Commission of Inquiry on the violence that happened on that day, Chamisa disowned the MDC protesters and called them "stupid".
Those who have worked with Chamisa were not surprised. In fact, the word "stupid" was being directed at Biti who was central to the planning and executing of that fateful protest.
Chamisa longs for a Biti conviction on the violence matter, and he would not care any less. It is unthinkable that a character as insincere as Chamisa is allowed by our electorate to be runner-up in a presidential race.
Any political system that stifles meaningful debate and democratic competition will always drift to become a totalitarianism with one star leader surrounded by yes-men grovelling to please him at every turn. Merit counts for nothing, indeed, being competent is seen by the leader as a threat to him; blind loyalty to the leader is a safer bet to winning the leader’s favour.
So it is not only Chamisa who has copied Mugabe’s propensity to surround himself with utterly useless individuals; Tsvangirai, Mnangagwa and all the others have all done the same thing. It is for this reason that the likes of Chamisa and Mnangagwa will never implement all the democratic reforms and open the country to democratic competition. They do not want democratic competition in their own party and much less from outside the party.
It emerged yesterday that the planned protests have nothing to do with economic issues, but are meant to pressure President Mnangagwa and Zanu-PF to share power with Mr Chamisa and his party. Mr Chamisa told London-based international news magazine, The Guardian Weekly that his Thursday protests would call for a "transitional authority" to "move the country forward”.
Chamisa is desperate to get back on the gravy train and would use the ordinary people to help him achieve that just as Mnangagwa used the people last November. People must demand to know what kind of ‘transitional authority’ is Chamisa proposing.
Why would any Zimbabwean support another MDC-Zanu PF GNU when the last one failed to implement even one democratic reforms in five years! People must never again give any political leader a blank cheque! Never again!
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