“This is a foolish idea!” I wrote on 17 November 2017, to discourage the ordinary Zimbabweans planning to march in support of the military coup the following day.
“The ZDF coup is about the factional war that has been going on in Zanu PF for the last four years. When President Mugabe fired VP Mnangagwa last week it was a huge victory for the G40 faction. The Lacoste faction knew they had to come up with their counter move or they were toast! They did, they staged the coup,” I explained.
“There are many Zimbabweans out there who, desperate for change, want to see the coup as a fight for democratic change. It is not. Those in the Lacoste faction will only be too glad to see the ordinary Zimbabweans join in the planned march to drive their factional victory home.
“The Army and the war veterans have their own agenda - to remove Mugabe and replace him with Mnangagwa, period.”
The planned march did take place, hundreds of thousands of ordinary Zimbabweans came out in support of the coup. Some went so far as calling 18 November Zimbabwe’s “real independence day” and the soldiers were treated as heroes and heroines.
The Mnangagwa factions wrestled power from Mugabe and the corruption, mismanagement, vote rigging, etc. have continued much the same as during Mugabe’s days. The economic meltdown has got progressive worse and when the people have complained they have met with the same brutal repression as before. Today, a year two months latter, the army is tear gassing and shooting with live ammunition the same euphoric public of yesteryear!
“We are being butchered in the townships by soldiers,” complained MDC Alliance MP Chalton Hwende. “Internet has been shutdown to prevent the world from helping us. This is an appeal for help to the international community.”
Mnangagwa and his Lacoste faction got what their wanted out of the November coup, the ordinary people did not; this is why it was a “foolish idea” for povo to support coup.
The ordinary people had supported the November coup without a full appreciation of what they wanted out of the coup beyond the vague notion of democratic change. Indeed, democratic change was so vaguely defined that Mnangagwa had no problem selling the removal of Mugabe as the totality of the democratic change they wanted.
We have all seen the violent street protests coming, the people were not going to remain silent forever in the face of the worsening economic situation. Unemployment has soared to 90%, 3/4 of the people now live on US$1.00 or less a day, etc. The real surprise is that they have not protested sooner!
The country is going through yet another spell of very painful birth process, millions of dollars of property have been destroyed, millions of people have been tear gassed, hundreds arrested and hundreds of thousands have suffered serious injuries. Some reports put the death tally of those shot by the security services at 25 and the death tally will go up a hundred fold if count those who died because they could not get medical help because the communication services were shut down or some such indirect cause.
So what must happen to make sure the ordinary people are NOT once again short changed after the sacrifice the nation is making in these on going street protests? One thing! Whatever happens next, it must delivery the democratic changes leading to the restoration of all the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections.
In other words the ongoing street protest must lead to the appointment of body; being it a GNU, an interim administration call it what you wish; that will implement all the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and replace it with a healthy and functional democratic system of government.
Zanu PF created the dictatorship and the system has worked well in helping the party keep its iron grip on power, the party will fight hard to preserve as much dictatorial powers as it can. Beside the party rigged last July’s elections, just as it has rigged past elections too; the party is illegitimate. So the only logical explanation for including Zanu PF in the GNU is to appease the party leaders.
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because for the last 38 years the nation has been stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF. No one had the guts to tell the party thugs they lost the elections and they must step down. With the nation now standing right on the edge of precipice, it will be unforgivable to push the nation over the edge for the sake of appeasement, especially now with all the benefit of hindsight of just how disastrous this policy has been.
Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance will fight hard to be involved in the post-protest political matrix. MDC has been on the political stage for the last 19 years and they have failed to bring about even one democratic change. The party had its golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, the party leaders sold-out and failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
Zimbabwe would have escaped out of this mess years ago if MDC leaders had not proven beyond all doubt that they are corrupt, incompetent and sell-outs. Including MDC in the administration tasked to implement the reforms will be risking the country emerging with many of the reforms badly implemented, if at all.
Many have argued that Zanu PF and MDC leaders must the entrusted with the implementing the reforms because there are no other candidates to do it. This is true but it is important to understand why. There are no alternative candidates because the country’s political system is so corrupt and oppressive that quality leaders have shied away from all public life. Zimbabwe’s political pond is a sewage pond in which only slugs, frogs and crocodiles can survive and thrive.
The more reason the interim administration must be staffed exclusively by outsiders with clean hand, clean past and clean and democratic minds.
The ordinary Zimbabweans must be clear what they want at the end of the violent street protests which have brought so much suffering and deaths already - implement the democratic reforms and drain the sewage swamp born out of 38 years of Zanu PF de facto one party state. Nothing short of that will do!
4 comments:
Mawarire has called it "heartbreaking" to see the new government acting like that of former leader Mugabe, who stepped down under military pressure in late 2017 and was succeeded by former protege Mnangagwa.
In what critics have called an attempt to cover up abuses, the government in the past few days has imposed an internet shutdown across the country.
"Our country is going through one of the most trying periods in its history," the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference said last week, lamenting the government's "intolerant handling of dissent" and its failure to halt economic collapse.
Anyone who had believed that the November 2017 coup had transformed Zimbabwe from a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship to a democratic one was being naive. The Zanu PF dictatorship was more than one individual, Robert Mugabe, and so his replacement with another dictators did not change anything.
Zimbabwe's plan to seek an emergency financial package from South Africa suffered a big blow after the region's economic powerhouse cited budgetary constraints as it prepares for its next general elections in May, it has been learnt.
Zimbabwe’s Minister of Finance spoke to the European Parliament a few days ago on his way to Washington to meet IMF and WB official for the purpose of begging financial assistance. He got nothing. Now he is having another go at anyone else from whom the regime think it can get money. If anyone ever said the stray dog had money, Minister Mthuli Ncube will round-up the stray dogs begging money from them!
Zanu PF will never accept that the party has run out of ideas on how to fix the country’s worsening economic meltdown. Never! The tragedy is that the nation is stuck with the regime since it is able to blatantly rig elections and falsify its mandate to rule.
The solution is for the people of Zimbabwe to stand up and not allow Zanu PF get away with another rigged elections. We must demand that since the regime is illegitimate it must step down.
MDC leader Nelson Chamisa on Saturday attended the burial of Kelvin Tinashe Choto, a 22-year-old man shot by the military during fuel protests on January 14, before declaring: "Change is nigh!"
Chamisa said President Emmerson Mnangagwa had "crossed the line" by deploying troops to quell protests over a 150 percent increase in the price of fuel which he decreed, before leaving on a five-nation trip to Eastern Europe.
"We have lost a young and promising life. Kelvin was not a politician, he was not an activist, he was not partisan. He was an exceptionally talented footballer set to go for trials in South Africa after getting an emergency travel document only last week," Chamisa told mourners.
"Kelvin was targeted by callous soldiers who put a bullet through his head as he stood by the gate after buying a mango just outside his very own home in which he tendered for his young wife and seven-month-old baby”
If the truth is told then one must add that the economic and political chaos and suffering the nation has suffered since 2013 could have been avoided if MDC leaders had implemented the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections during the 2008 GNU. They failed to implement even one democratic reform because they sold-out.
Mugabe offered Morgan Tsvangirai, Nelson Chamisa and all the other MDC leaders the trappings of high office, ministerial limos, very generous salaries and allowances, a $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. In return the MDC leader forgot about the reforms, they knew Mugabe did not want to lose any of his dictatorial powers.
Zanu PF is to blame for getting the nation into this mess but MDC leaders would have got the nation out of the mess if they had not sold-out!
"Zimbabwe's international re-engagement project appears somewhat off course. What is the cost benefit of this trip?" Pigou queried, before further stating in another tweet that, "Mugabe was repeatedly criticised for endless foreign travel.
"ED's (Mnangagwa) travel plans were ostensibly tied to his re-engagement strategy.
"But in light of the situation in Zimbabwe one understandably wonders what the cost benefit of all those air miles must be.”
Failing to hold free, fair and credible elections last July was the final nail in Mnangagwa’s coffin. All those who had wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt as a reform were left in no doubt that he was no such reformer. By rigging the elections Mnangagwa confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt and lawless thugs or be it with a new dictator.
There was no chance of any meaningful economic recovery because investors do not do business with thugs!
Mnangagwa should just step down, after all his regime has no mandate to rule, it is illegitimate. The only reason he is hang on to power is because he is holding the nation to ransom, typical of tyrants! The people must stand firm and demand that the regime steps down!
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