“Morgan Tsvangirai a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment,” wrote then USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell in a leaked cable.
"He is an indispensable element for opposition success … but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short … Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country's recovery.”
What Ambassador Dell said of Tsvangirai is equally true of all the other Zimbabwean leaders; Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, Robert Mugabe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, etc. They all have one thing in common; they are individuals of little intellect with bloated egos.
Put them into positions of power and their egos swell to the size of hot air balloon. The more power they have the more they want and once they have absolute power their ego swells to the size of the Zeppelin Airship full of flammable hydrogen. Their fall from power is dramatic and deadly just like the Hindenburg Zeppelin.
Someone who is “not readily open to advise, indecisive and with questionable judgement” also has no clue what they are doing, where they are, where they are going and how to get there! They just blunder from pillar to post. They will never admit they do not know what they are doing much less admit their failures, even in the face of a mountain of evidence to prove it. Their ballooning egos gets in the way.
It is painful to have to listen to these braindead individuals blubbering on and on, often repeating themselves like a scratched vinyl record.
“Opposition MDC leader Nelson Chamisa has vowed to increase pressure on President Emmerson Mnangagwa in the new year, revealing that 2019 is the year to implement the transformation agenda and resolve the country’s legitimacy crisis,” reported the Standard.
“We have to put a full stop to tyranny, dictatorship and be on the path to reform, nation building and peace building. It will be a turnaround year,” said Chamisa.
“It is a take-off year, remedying the ailment affecting our country.”
Mr Chamisa, the issue of legitimacy is a very important one but one you have clearly failed to understand.
“The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner,” reported EU Zimbabwe Election Mission in its final report.
“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”
There can be no question that Mnangagwa and his junta blatantly rigged the recent elections and therefore have no mandate to rule Zimbabwe. Zanu PF is illegitimate, period.
Your suggestion, Mr Chamisa, that Zanu PF and MDC should form the GNU as way to resolve the illegitimacy problem shows you still do not understand the concept of the people’s mandate as the only basis of legitimacy.
“The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.” To quote the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Zimbabwe’s recent elections were a mockery to what free, fair and credible elections should be. Zanu PF deliberately set out to subvert the democratic will of the people. The suggestion that MDC and Zanu PF should just come to some amicable political arrangement and legitimise the blatant vote rigging and usurping of the people’s inalienable right to a meaningful vote is not just absurd it will solve nothing!
It should be restated here, that you, Mr Chamisa, and your fellow MDC Alliance and the rest of the opposition parties and candidates who contested in the recent elections were warned NOT to participate in these elections without first implementing the reforms. You all paid no heed to the warning.
“MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” you, Chamisa boasted.
The opposition KNEW with no reforms in place Zanu PF would rig the elections and yet they still participated for the sake of the few gravy train seats they knew Zanu PF was giving away as David Coltart readily admitted in his book.
In his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the GNU, David Coltart, gave details of how Zanu PF was flouted the electoral rules and that it was clear the upcoming 2013 elections would not be free and fair. He admitted that talks to unite the two MDC factions to fight the elections as one were going nowhere.
“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 elections,” wrote 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.”
Coltart was talking about the 2013 elections. The main MDC factions did unite to form the MDC Alliance for this year’s elections and still they participated!
So the Zanu PF and MDC Alliance GNU would be to reward the illegitimate Zanu PF for blatantly rigging the elections and MDC Alliance for failing to “do the obvious - withdraw from the elections”. How anyone can ever argue that will produce a legitimate regime beggars belief!
One of the greatest mistakes this nation has ever made was that Zanu PF rigged the 1980 elections and the nation allowed the party to get away with it. (It is no secret that Zanu PF did not withdraw all its freedom fighters to assembly points as agreed. These fighters intimidated the people forcing them to vote for the party.) Once in power Zanu PF has used its position to erode the people’s democratic freedoms and rights to deny them their right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life.
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because for the last 38 years the nation has been ruled by a regime that has repeatedly rigged elections to stay in power. The economic situation in the country is now dire with unemployment soaring to dizzying heights of 90%, 75% of the people now live on US$1.00 a day and the economic meltdown is getting worse with the unending shortages of fuel, medicine, etc. The country needs a real solution, not a gimmick, to get out of this mess.
Zanu PF is illegitimate, the party must step down. The suggestion to “legitimising” the regime by forming the GNU is a dangerous gimmick designed to extend the country’s braindead politicians’ stay in power to message their misplaced egos! Chamisa and Mnangagwa are the albatross round the nation’s neck just as Tsvangirai and Mugabe were a year ago!
The 2019 New Year resolution for the people of Zimbabwe: “We demand free, fair and credible elections as a birthright and not a privilege. And all those who rig elections or are complacent in flawed elections must be punished and never ever again be rewarded with high office!”
Indeed, after we have gone through these last 38 years, the people of Zimbabwe must commemorate free election day in much the same the Jews commemorate Passover just to remind themselves of the heavy price the nation has paid for allowing the illegitimate thugs and sell-outs to rule the land!
16 comments:
@ Tendai Bitit
“These include the fact that for many years our economy has been stuck in a recession characterised by low output. Since 2012, our economy has basically been on a downward spiral recording gross domestic product (GDP) declines,” you say.
“Apart from the challenge of low productivity, weak GDP figures, we have the challenge of fiscal ill-discipline reflected in a gross and acerbic budget deficit.
“That we have a budget deficit that is in excess of 15% of GDP is not acceptable but that is the order of the day.
“We also have a challenge, until recently, of weak and none aggregate demand unlike the crisis of 2007/8 where we had a crisis of under accumulation with all of us being billionaires and trillionaires but with hardly anything available to buy in shops.
“The current crisis has been characterised by shops that have actually been full of goods but people and persons that have not had the capacity to purchase goods and commodities.
“We have also had the challenge of currency and currency distortions, the shortage of cash and the challenges around the exchange rate.”
What you are saying is true and, if the truth be said, no one with half a brain was expecting this Zanu PF regime to get us out of this mess. The real regret here is we failed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship when we had the chance to do so, the best chances came during the GNU and you, Tendai Biti, and your fellow MDC leaders failed to implement even one democratic reforms. Not even one reform in five years of the GNU.
As long as we remain stuck with this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime there will never be any meaningful economic recovery. Never.
The problems of “low productivity, weak GDP figures, etc.” you mentioned above and the problems of rampant corruption, etc. which you did mention were there when you were Minister of Finance. You never even made an attempt to have them addressed because you, like the rest of the MDC leaders, had sold-out and did not want to upset Mugabe.
You would have done no better than Professor Ncube has done given the circumstances. You are upset that he is the Minister and not you.
Biti we all know that you are a sell-out. You are desperate for a ministerial position, that is all you are after. You will sell-out just as you lot have done before. We want a real solution here and not another gimmick. What we want from a sell-out like you right now is for you to shut up!
“We have to put a full stop to tyranny, dictatorship and be on the path to reform, nation building and peace building. It will be a turnaround year," says Chamisa.
Here is someone whose party has been on the political stage for the last 19 years and has failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform even when they had the golden opportunities to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. All Chamisa is fishing for is a seat back on the gravy train.
We need another GNU to implement the democratic reforms but neither Zanu PF nor MDC leaders can be members, they failed to implement any reforms last time it is nonsensical to expect them to do so now!
Bread Shortage Hits Masvingo City.
It never rains but pours and now it is raining cats and dogs!
Zimbabweans risked life and limb to elect Cross and his MDC friends into power so they can implement the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. The idiots have failed to get even one meaningful reform implemented in 19 years. all because MDC leaders sold-out - Mugabe entrapped them with the gravy train good-life and the forgot all about reforms.
Instead of apologising for selling-out Eddie Cross has chutzpah to lecture us on how we should dress and speak! Just shut your trap Mr Cross!
So you think Mugabe proved his "self worthy" by speaking Shona and havin a totem even as he continued to destroy the nation's economic and denying the populous their freedoms and rights including the right to a free vote and even the right to life? Your stupidity never seize to amaze Marailas Mechavio!
@ Biggie Ngadze
“Elections cease to be elections when people go into an election arm twisted to suite what mulungu wants-remove the liberation movements from power anything else akusebenzi.....we know where the real fight with the EU is-the colonisation has never departed your conflowee brains thus why you are hatching political unrest in Zimbabwe. Elections become free, fair and credible in your eyes when there is civil unrest wanton destruction of property then you are happy But we are a free people never to be shackled by the white superiority complex, please go and hang.”
Zanu PF has never trusted the ordinary people with the right to a meaningful vote the nearest the nation has ever come to a meaningful free vote was in 2008 and we all know what happened next!
It is not white supremacists that have made life hell for the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans these last 38 years it is something just as deadly yesteryear’s black liberators turned corrupt and murderous tyrants! They are using the old and tried dirty tactic of warning against whites recolonising the country to justify denying everyone else their basic freedoms and rights.
Zanu PF dictatorship is imploding, the centre cannot hold. The thugs are determined to remain in power even if that means dragging the nation into the abyss with them. It is would be insane to allow them to do this but if the thugs will not step down peacefully then the nation will be forced to look at other means. Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, etc. are some of the other tyrants who refused to step down peacefully but were forced to one way or the other.
“Free people!” Yeah right! Zanu PF has get rigged the elections and you talk of the people being free. Free to be cheated and robbed blind? Zanu PF’s reign of terror is over! The tide of change is coming and you cannot stop it!
@Elton Makonese
“You can not blame ZANU for trying to turn elections their way when opposition does the same thru sanctions and blatant biased reporting from so called independent media....why do we insist on holding ZANU to account and not the opposition as a people/nation?”
Of all the feeble excuses for Zanu PF rigging the elections that takes the biscuit.
@ Cde cde
“Proof of rigged elections iripi . Nonsense!”
Do you know what constitutes free, fair and credible elections? You clearly do not know or pretend not to know because you would not be asking for proof when it is there for all to see.
"The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” reported the EU, for example. ZEC failed to release the verified voters’ roll a month before nomination day, this is a legal requirement. There is still no verified voters’ roll even to this very day. ZEC has failed to release all the V11 forms giving the summary of the vote count at each polling stations, another legal requirement. So the EU observers are spot on in saying the elections result could not be verified or traced!
How can anyone claim the elections were free, fair and credible if the results cannot be verified or traced!!!!
The elections were blatantly rigged and no one in the right mind is interested in Zanu PF’s foolish game of “Produce the evidence we rigged the elections!” especially the investors. Investors have given their verdict on what they think about the elections by shying away from Zimbabwe.
The years of Zanu PF rigging elections and getting away with it are over. The economic meltdown is serious and the threat of Zimbabwe descending into economic and political chaos, if nothing is done to revive the economy, is real. Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta will be held to account for the hardship and the chaos because they rigged the elections to stay in power against the nation’s democratic free will!
@ Don Chigumba
“Two month ago I wrote a piece warning president ED Mnangagwa that he may not last for six months if an inclusive government is not formed. The country is no longer having economic energy to progress. What we are now witnessing are the last kicks of a dying horse. The news that Delta Zimbabwe closes plants in Zimbabwe should be a signal that president ED Mnangagwa has dismally failed to run Zimbabwe. Therefore, this piece seeks to support the view that the days of president ED Mnangagwa are numbered if ZANU PF is not going to take a drastic action to serve his sinking ship.”
I do agree with you that Mnangagwa’s days are numbered!
I do not Agree that forming an inclusive government now or soon after the rigged July 2018 elections would have saved the country from the economic meltdown. By rigging the elections Mnangagwa confirmed Zimbabwe is still a pariah state which the root cause of the economic meltdown. Opting Chamisa and a few MDC Alliance leaders into the GNU was not going to change the political dynamics, Zimbabwe would still be a pariah state.
Zimbabwe’s only hope for meaningful economic recovery is for Zanu PF to step down a.s.a.p. so the nation can appoint an interim administration to implement the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. BothZanu PF and MDC Alliance must play no role in the new Admin. None!
Chamisa is desperate for a seat on the gravy train and that is all he is after! IF Zimbabweans are serious about ending the worsening economic meltdown then they must ask why MDC has done nothing all these last 19 years to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!
Indeed the party had its best opportunities to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections during the 2008 GNU and ye they failed to implement even one reform. NOT EVEN ONE! Zimbabwe would not be in this mess if MDC leaders had not sold-out of reforms.
Zimbabwe’s only hope out of the mess find ourselves stuck in is for the nation to appoint an interim administration to implement the democratic reforms agreed at the on set of the 2008 GNU. Zanu PF and MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented and it is naive to expect them to do so now!
"The year 2019 will be the year to reclaim our stolen Presidential vote." Hwende said. "History will not forgive us from the sin of omission if we fail to make the people's vote count. Mnangagwa must do the right thing and surrender the Presidency to the real winner.”
Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections. The election process was both flawed and illegal it is nonsense to talk of such a process producing a meaningful result. MDC Alliance were warned the elections would be rigged and the only reason they ignored the warning is because they did not care the ordinary people were denied a meaningful vote as long as they get a share of the spoils of power.
Zimbabwe will still be a pariah state with or without Chamisa added to this Zanu PF regime. We want to end the dictatorship and not waste time on gimmicks!
… Is it not true that members of the executives and ministers seek medical attention outside the country? If the hospitals are good, why are they not treated here? Is it not in the public domain that government is running around seeking medicines for the hospitals?
Very true!
Firing the doctors asking for a salary review after their wages have just been cut to 1/3 as the Bond Notes exchange rate of 3:1 to US$ would testify is an outrage.
I agree, Chamisa and Mnangagwa are corrupt and incompetent individuals and the danger of allowing such characters to occupy high office is they will want to make up for their inability by seeking to increase their power and influence. This becomes a really big problem in a country like Zimbabwe whose democratic institutions are weak, if they exist at all!
Mnangagwa rigged the recent elections and getting him to step down is going to be a serious problem.
Poor Chamisa is caught in a trap of his own making; he agrees Mnangagwa rigged the elections because the process was flawed and illegal and yet he claims himself the win of the same flawed and illegal process. Getting him to step aside will not be easy either.
Still, for Zimbabwe to get out of the mess it is stuck in, theb country has to dump the two failed leaders. Zimbabwe must not allow herself to be held to ransom by the very individual who have betrayed the whole nation all those years for selfish gain!
Both Chamisa and Mnangagwa have proven to be total failures but I have yet to hear other of the two gentlemen ever admit to doing anything wrong. Zimbabwe is in this mess because of 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule by Zanu PF. Mnangagwa, of all the Zanu PF leaders has certainly played a major role in the establishment and retaining of the Zanu PF dictatorship and yet is giving the impression he had nothing to do with what happened.
MDC has been on the political stage for 19 years and has failed to implement even one democratic reform but to listen to Chamisa one would be forgiven for thinking that all happened before he was even born.
Both Chamisa and Mnangagwa believe they are God Almighty's gift to Zimbabwe and hence the reason they must lead Zimbabwe no matter how bad their past track record. The concept of failed leaders being removed from public office is completely alien to them. They have used all manner of dirty tricks to get into power and once there they used even more dirty tricks to consolidate their position. Get rid of such thugs is easier said than done hence the reason they can easily be the albatross round the nation’s neck!
A top UN envoy says most youths based in the country’s rural areas were not able to express themselves in proper English while many more have surrendered their future to alcoholism.
United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) Zimbabwe deputy country representative Yu Yu was speaking at a media briefing on the recently launched Demographic Dividend study report
Decades of under-funding has taken its toll on the country’s education, health and other basic services; it is therefore no surprise that the quality of education has dropped so low that many with 13 years or more of formal education can still not even express themselves. Zimbabwe is storing up for itself a huge problem!
Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends sold-out on implementing the democratic reforms during the GNU. The party's refusal to admit their own shortcoming was bad enough, they crossed the line when they tried to blame SADC and others for their own incompetence. Ever since the end of the 2013 GNU SADC leaders have ignored MDC leaders and will continue to do so to this day - who would want to be blamed for another GNU failure!
It is hard to have a meaningful discussion even on a serious matter such as the rigged elections with some one whose agenda is to trivialize the subject matter and everything said. The whole Zanu PF controlled public media was geared not to inform and promote debate but to silence all dissenting voices at all cost.
After nearly four decades of brainwashing by Zanu PF, it is going to be an uphill fight to get some of these Zimbabweans to debate in good faith and for the sake of knowledge and truth!
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