“Zimbabwe should not look to outsiders to solve its problems. Lasting solutions can only come from Zimbabweans. International intervention is unnecessary and generally ineffective. Regionally, SADC and the AU have both failed us before. Let us Zimbabweans take control of our own destiny for once and find our own solutions. We cannot keep going back to Lancaster House whenever we have a crisis,” wrote Justice Benjamin Paradza of ZUNDE.
I agree with you, Paradza, that SADC leaders have let the people of Zimbabwe down by their acceptance of this Mnangagwa regime as legitimate.
Of all people, SADC leaders had shown real resolve and foresight in trying to get the 2013 Zimbabwe elections postpone until the democratic reforms, meant to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections, were implemented. “If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!” they had warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders.
Not even one reform was implemented before the 2013 elections and, as SADC leaders had rightly predicted, Zanu PF rigged those elections.
We also know that Mnangagwa refused to implement even one democratic reform in pursuance of his promise to hold free, fair and credible elections in 2018. So it was no surprise that Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the July 2018 elections too. The real shock was that SADC leaders have tacitly (have not yet explicitly) endorsed the elections as having been free, fair and credible; a volte-face of their own “the elections are done” position!
SADC leaders have since taken it upon themselves to call for the lifting sanctions imposed by the West on a select few Zanu PF leaders. Everyone with half a working brain knows that Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown was not cause by sanctions but mismanagement and corruptions. The nation has failed to deal with these problems for 38 years and counting, in which the two have grown and spread to the killer cancers they are today. The nation is stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime that has rigged elections to stay in power all these years.
It is all very well for you to say, “Let us Zimbabweans take control of our own destiny for once and find our own solutions.” The question you must answer is: Who has stopped us doing so all these last 38 years?
The simple answer to the rhetorical question above is that it is insatiable greed of our corrupt and incompetent political leaders on both sides of the political divide that has stopped us. Zanu PF leaders landed the nation into this mess but MDC leaders have played their part in keeping us stuck in the mess.
For the last 38 years it has been hard to get Zanu PF and these MDC politicians to admit they have failed and to allow meaningful debate and competition so quality leaders can emerge and rescue the nation. The task is even harder now because the country’s dire economic situation, for one thing, has made these politicians even more desperate than ever to hang on to power at all cost!
Zimbabwe needs to implement the democratic reforms to dismantle the stifling Zanu PF autocracy. We know from the 2008 GNU we cannot trust MDC Alliance much less Zanu PF leaders to implement these reforms. And on our own, the ordinary Zimbabweans, will never force Zanu PF and MDC leaders to give up political power even for a day to allow the reforms to be implemented.
We will need all the help we can get to pressure this Zanu PF regime to accept it has no democratic mandate govern and therefore must step down. The Americans, EU, Commonwealth and many, many other key nations and organisations have already condemn last July’s Zimbabwe elections as a farce; we must build on this and push ask for concrete and decisive follow-up action.
The British are proposing to extend the target sanctions on Zanu PF leaders. We should calling for those working with the illegitimate regime and the opposition sell-outs who continue to participate in the flawed elections to be included in the sanction list.
“ZUNDE calls on Nelson Chamisa to show his good faith as well as political maturity by ceasing his protests against the legitimacy of the President and accepting that he has to enter into meaningful discussions with Mnangagwa and his government,” continued Paradza.
“ZUNDE wishes to see the creation of a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe characterised by good governance and the rule of law. We strive for ideals and accept realities. We work for an outcome that is better than it would have been if we did not get involved. Politics is the art of the possible.”
So you believe rewarding the vote rigging Zanu PF regime with absolute power is “striving for ideals and accepting reality”? Even after 38 years of appeasing Zanu PF with the tragic consequences we see all round, it is shocking that there are still naive and stupid people who still believe appeasement will work!
Zimbabwe is in this hell-on-earth because the country has had the great misfortune of having corrupt and incompetent politicians and having more than her fair share of naive and gullible voters has only made a bad situation even worse! With “thinkers” like Justice Paradza it is hard to see how the nation is ever going to escape out of this hell-hole!
15 comments:
"ZUNDE calls on Nelson Chamisa to show his good faith as well as political maturity by ceasing his protests against the legitimacy of the President and accepting that he has to enter into meaningful discussions with Mnangagwa and his government," you say.
This is plan foolish!
We can agree to differ on matters of opinion or any of the many subjective matters but not on matters of historic facts. Zanu PF rigged last July's elections; that is a well established and historic fact. Mnangagwa is therefore illegitimate.
The only reason you want to falsify a historic fact is because you want to appease Mnangagwa. After 38 years of appeasing Zanu PF by reward the regime with absolute power with the tragic economic and human consequences we can all see; you still want to pursue this foolish policy of appeasement.
No wonder Zimbabwe is in a real mess, with people like you for citizens the nation was doom!
@Saruchera
“The United States of America has the capacity to change the situation prevailing in Zimbabwe for the better - if it just back off and take their illegally imposed sanctions with them," you say.
You should know that the Zimbabwe economy was already in serious trouble by the time the West imposed the sanctions in 2001. Zimbabwe had already gone through two five-years economic reform programmes in 1990 to 1995 and 1995 to 1999 in the hope of reviving the nation's economy but without success. So your suggestion that the Zimbabwe economy will recover if the sanctions are lifted is just nonsense.
The sanctions are the one tool we have to pressure these vote rigging Zanu thugs to accept they have no democratic mandate to govern the country. It will therefore be foolish to give up the sanctions especially in the face of increasing Zanu PF arrogance and brutality.
Mnangagwa is using brute violence to cow the nation into submission and accept the rigged elections. He used the same dirty tactic to force Mugabe to give up power in November 2017 and is at it again. No nation in its right mind would ever give in to blackmail because common sense will tell you Mnangagwa will demand an inch and take a mile and will be back tomorrow to take even more.
For the last 38 years Zimbabwe has tried to appease these Zanu PF thugs and it has not worked and the policy of appeasement is dead!
Every thinking Zimbabwean out there is 100% behind the Western sanctions and we want them extended to include the sell-outs and apologists working with this illegitimate Zanu PF regime!
@Blessing Mugwagwa
For every dollar lost due to sanctions, a thousand dollars, at the very least, were lost due to corruption. Zimbabwe's economy was already in the gutter in 2001 when the sanctions were imposed, you dimwit!
GOVERNMENT's announcement that it is ready to pull the plug on one of the most notorious vestiges of former President Robert Mugabe's regime, the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) is cause for celebration, especially for those in the media industry and Zimbabweans generally.
This is just wishful thinking. Why has Mnangagwa waited a year and half to do this?
@ Pedzisai
Zimbabwe has recently been on an onslaught from the West, who have been using local opposition parties and Non-Governmental Organisations in attempts to destabilise the country. The actions of the opposition, particularly MDC and some notable NGOs have clearly pointed out to Western sponsored and influenced regime change agenda.
As President Mnangagwa mentioned in his interview with France24, regime change attempts are not new as this has been happening in the country for the past 18 years. Western countries involvement has not been peculiar to Zimbabwe but to most African countries, as they thrive to exercise dominance over developing countries.
Nonsense, Mnangagwa rigged last July’s elections and is now using wanton violence to retain power at all cost. It is the people of Zimbabwe themselves who want regime change and they will get it, the present regime is illegitimate and it must go!
There is one thing about some of our politicians, they are arrogant. Minister Mthuli Ncube is travelling half way round the world to tell the Americans they must lift the sanctions imposed on Zanu PF leaders. I agree, the Americans should ask our pompous Professor if HE believes the Zimbabwe elections were free, fair and credible. And hear what he has to say.
The greatest favour the Americans and the Western nations can do for the people of Zimbabwe is to slap people like Ncube and many other apologists and sell-outs with sanctions. The sanctions will be symbolic for many of them but that does not matter, it will help to highlight what they are doing is wrong.
It is tragic that people like Professor Ncube were expected to bring some sanity to the Zanu PF regime have turned out to be a curse instead. Ncube is going after the vendor earning a meagre $30 per month in a country whose breadline is $650 per month but would not touch those looting billions of dollars every month.
Poverty in Zimbabwe is now so bad people are dying and those like Ncube behind the poverty pretend not to even notice!
The Batoka Gorge Hydro-Electric Scheme, a game changing project, is coming to life. The updating of feasibility studies is now expected to be complete by the end of the first quarter this year, which will pave way for real resource mobilisation. With investors lining up from across the globe for this exciting project; we expect significant progress in the coming weeks on the scheme. Likewise, the Hwange 7 & 8 Expansion Project, comprising two units of 300MW each, at a cost of 1,5 billion US dollars, is underway. The project is on schedule to be completed within 42 months from the start date of August 1, 2018.
It is great to have the licence to say whatever you wish and know no one will ever hold you to account. Minister Ncube, like everyone else in Zimbabwe knows that Zanu PF is democratically accountable to no one. Still, for the record the Batoka Gorge project you are wittering about Minister has been on the cards for the last 50 years! The white colonial regime had completed the feasibility studies and work on the project would started in the 1970s if it was not for the civil war.
So Batoka Gorge is long overdue!
When you took up your post as Minister of Finance you said you will “attract” investors, in the contest of Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call. You all joined in the call and you colourful scarf uniform looked like noisy ground hornbills. I do not need to remind you the flood gate of investors has never materialise.
You are telling us “investors are lining up from across the globe” but was careful not to name even one such investor.
Minister Ncube, you certainly know Zanu PF’s modus operandi - party is free to say and do anything confident it will never be held to democratic account by anyone. Zanu PF is like a poison frog confident in its delivery and daring any one to even touch it!
Ncube knows that Zanu PF is not a democratic regime and accountable to the people and is taking full advantage of himself.
We want a democratic dispensation and that is why we must have free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections and is therefore is illegitimate.
The only reason why people like Professor Ncube support this illegitimate Zanu PF regime is because he is benefiting from it.
TOP Al Jazeera correspondent for Africa and Zimbabwean journalist Haru Mutasa has been denied a UK Visa.
This comes just a week after she accused a UK newspaper of publishing fake news about the army crackdown on protesters in Zimbabwe.
Many of us saw the videos on social media and TV of the Police, Soldiers and other State Agents beating and kicking people and shooting at people. We have heard and read first hand accounts of the victims of the brutality. It is therefore upsetting that someone would say the army crackdown was “fake news”.
If Haru Mutasa was talking of a very specific case of a army fake crackdown then that is different. But even then she must have realised that the Zanu PF regime would exploit that report and use it to deny the many, many documented cases of army brutality. If she did not realise that then she is very naive and foolish.
"ZUNDE wishes to see the creation of a free, democratic, peaceful and prosperous Zimbabwe characterised by good governance and the rule of law. We strive for ideals and accept realities. We work for an outcome that is better than it would have been if we did not get involved. Politics is the art of the possible.”
It is laughable that political parties like ZUNDE should call themselves democrats, claim they care about “good governance and the rule of law”, etc., etc. and yet chicken out every time they are called upon to stand up and be counted. Of course, ZUNDE guys know Mnangagwa rigged last year’s elections they, like so many others in the country’s opposition camp, do not have the political spine and intellectual fortitude to ever admit Mnangagwa is illegitimate.
By accepting the vote rigging Zanu PF dictatorship you are only helping to perpetuate the lawlessness. It does not how much one tries to make it sound like a pragmatic move, it is downright foolish! The more so now after 38 years of trading the same path of appeasement!
“We strive for ideals and accept realities!” The only reality that counts here is that Zimbabwe is a failed state because it has the great misfortune of having more than its fair share of corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless individuals on both sides of the political divide!
Reality has yet to dawn on many of these MDC supporters that not even one democratic reform has been implemented after 19 years of the launch of party! Such lack of ambition is a curse to the nation!
“Welcome back National Organiser…It was a great pleasure receiving Honorable Amos Chibaya after three weeks of detention on unjustified charges by the junta . They can
arrest us , kill us , but they will never break us,” said Tendai Biti.
The regime bribed you with the trappings of high office and for five years of the GNU MDC failed to implement even one democratic reform. Indeed, you Mr Biti was busy praising Mugabe, you have no time for reforms. “Mugabe is the unflappable father of the nation, the fountain of wisdom,” you said.
You have been campaigning hard for the new GNU so you can have a more comfortable seat on the gravy train than you current MP one. Anyone who expect any meaningful reforms to be implemented then is naive, is all I can say!
The political impasse between Zanu PF leader Emmerson Mnangagwa and MDC A leader Nelson Chamisa remains unresolved as the two rivals maintain their positions on the legality issue.
Zimbabweans must be among some on the most naive and gullible people on earth, the worsening economic situation has made many desperate and forced them to sink to new depths of naivety. All people talk about is the need for Chamisa and Mnangagwa to hold their political dialogue. There is nothing of substance that will ever come out of these talks because the two are now an obstacle to progress.
Mnangagwa rigged last July’s elections, he and his Zanu PF junta are illegitimate and they must step down.
As for Chamisa all he is after from the talks is a seat on the gravy train. With or without Chamisa the Zanu PF regime is still illegitimate. with or without Chamisa this Zanu PF regime must step down. The talks will fill the naive with false hopes of economic recovery just as millions were filled with unfounded optimism after the November 2017 coup!
“Drug and sundry costs have gone up by over 300 percent while hospital fees have increased by at least 100 percent. The Scheme has been absorbing the costs while continuing to engage service providers in an effort to find a viable solution,” said First Mutual Health.
“However, we have noted that our members still face challenges with card acceptance and shortfalls. In addition, we are cognisant of the fact that our service providers are also facing the same escalating costs and it is our desire to reimburse them in a fair and sustainable manner.
“In view of the need to continue offering service that meets your expectations, we will increase contributions by 35 percent with effect from March 1, 2019.”
Some doctors and hospitals initially rejected medical aid cards in favour of US dollars. But after Government intervention, the service providers simply pegged their charges on the parallel market rate for the US dollar.
This is a nightmare, health care and medicine is now a luxury many cannot afford. In other word life is a luxury many can no longer afford!
People, we need a real solution to the country’s political mess. The proposed dialogue between Mnangagwa and Chamisa will resolve nothing. We need to appoint an interim administration that will implement the democratic reform and get the nation back on a stable democratic footing.
Zanu PF is illegitimate and should step down and stop wasting time. Ask yourself how much time do all those who are not members of any medical aid society because they cannot afford it have left this side of the grave? Would they want that time wasted on another Zanu PF and MDC GNU gimmick?
If the two parties failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the 2008 GNU it is naive to believe they will do so now!
Professor Ncube the reason why Zimbabweans have been fighting for free, fair and credible elections is because Zanu PF has promised them many things but failed to delivery. The party has rig elections so the people were helpless to remove them from office.
You have been wittering about your Transition Stabilisation Programme and how it will make Zimbabwe an "Upper Middle Income" nation by 2030. What if all the austerity brought on by your programme fail to deliver the recovery? What then?
The reason why people want the full restoration of their democratic right is so they can have a meaningful say in how this country's economy is managed. Your programme is taxing the poor to death and has done nothing to stop the wholesale looting that is the root cause of our economic mess.
Professor Ncybe you are just an egotistic academic with no common sense. Zimbabwe needs democratic change so the people can elect leaders with some common sense at least!
MDC A leader Nelson Chamisa has said he will not rest until he reclaims the people’ s victory that was “stolen ” by Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa.
Chamisa the whole election process was so flawed and illegal the result did not make any sense. You agree there was no verified voters' roll and so many of the voters who should have been on the roll, like the 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora, were not on the roll. No one know who was on the roll, who voted, how many were able to cast multiple votes, etc.
There were many other flaws and illegalities such as the failure to declare and make public some of V11 forms, the summary of candidate and vote they receive. Chamisa claims that he got over 2.5 million votes and yet has failed to produce all the V11 forms to account for that total.
Yes Mnangagwa and Zanu PF's victory is illegal because the electoral process was so flawed and illegal the results did not make any sense because there errors and nothing could be verified and traced. The opposition candidates' figures too could not be verified and traced and so Chamisa's claim of victory is illegal too.
The very fact that Chamisa is will to overlook the flaws and illegality in last July's elections, as long as he is declared the winner, only confirmed he is no different from Mnangagwa since he too is doing the same thing. This proves the nation is wasting its time looking to the two gentlemen to chart the democratic roadmap out of the mess we are in!
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