“Multi-party democracy has been entrenched in Zimbabwe, yet the system has been missing one crucial part - dialogue among political parties and players,” wrote Herald Editorial.
“We note that President Mnangagwa is pretty much awake to this fact, and that explains why he has kicked off dialogue among political parties that participated in the July 30, 2018 elections.”
If multi-party democracy was “entrenched in Zimbabwe” then why has the country failed to hold free, fair and credible elections in all its 38 years post independence history?
When Mnangagwa seized power from his boss, Robert Mugabe, in the November 2017 military coup; he was cutely aware that the world would dismiss his claim that the coup had transformed Zimbabwe into a “new dispensation”. To give his claim some credibility he promised to hold free, fair and credible elections. He did not promise to hold “dialogue among political parties and players”, as the Herald is now claiming.
Those of us who knew Mnangagwa as a corrupt, power hungry and murderous thug knew the promise to hold free and fair elections was one Mnangagwa would never ever keep. Never ever!
Indeed, within weeks of making the promise Mnangagwa was distributing 52 twin cab Isuzu trucks to the Chiefs, the first batch to the country’s 282 Chiefs. Zanu PF has corrupted the Chiefs and other traditional leaders turning them into little more than its political commissars tasked to frog march the rural voters to attend Zanu PF rallies and vote for the party and keep the opposition at bay. The Isuzu trucks was to assure the Chiefs and all the other Zanu PF vote rigging partners that Zanu PF was NOT giving up any of its carte blanche dictatorial powers to rig elections.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged last July’s elections and all the election observers worthy of that role said so.
“Major shortcomings in the pre-election environment impacted on the free expression of the will of electors, state resources were misused in favour of the incumbent and coverage by state media was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party,” said the EU Election Observer Mission in their final report.
“Further, the electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. 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.”
The “excessive use of force by security forces and abuse of human rights in the post-election period” the EU report was referring to above was the 1st August 2018 violence. The same excessive force was used once again in the orgy of violence in the last two weeks of January this year. The sole purpose of the violence was to cow the nation into submission to silence all dissent against the rigged elections and the country’s worsening economic meltdown.
So we have Mnangagwa promising to hold free and fair elections to address a democratic deficit he knew existed. He then blatantly rigs the elections and brutalise the people to stop them talking about the rigged elections, the corruption and the worsening economic meltdown.
And to silence the increasing international criticism of his regime, he calls the corrupt, incompetent and the totally useless opposition; whose continued participation in flawed and illegal elections has served him well in giving the modicum of credibility to the rigged elections; to a meeting so Mnangagwa can sell himself as a “listening and democratic president!” But just to rub it in, the first thing he tells his invited political stooges is that last year’s elections were free, fair and credible and he is the legitimate president.
Mnangagwa has just flown to Ethiopia for the AU summit; one only hopes that Africa’s leaders will not see Zimbabwe as a nation with healthy and functional “multi-party democracy”. But as a dysfunctional nation under the clutches of a corrupt and ruthless dictatorship. Zimbabwe is the “sick-man” of Southern Africa whose misrule has held back development in Zimbabwe and the region and has dragged the country to the very edge of precipice.
The AU and SADC leaders have had many warnings about Zimbabwe’s corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime but have again and again failed to take decisive action. Now with Zimbabwe standing on the very edge of the precipice and threatening to drag the rest of the region down with her; one only hopes that the African Leaders will finally have the guts and resolve to tell Mnangagwa that he rigged last July’s elections and he must step down!
“Zimbabwe is going through a major shift in its economic and political trajectory, and this demands the participation of everyone, including political leaders,” argued the Herald.
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs there will be no meaningful economic recovery and political stability. Meaningful change will come from the restoration of all individual freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections.
The will of the people, expressed in free, fair and credible elections, shall be the only basis of the authority of government. This Mnangagwa regime does not have the people’s mandate to govern and must step down.
There is nothing to discuss with Zanu PF, the party is illegitimate and must step down. All those Church leaders, etc. who have been clamouring for “political dialogue” are naive and misguided! It is 38 years of appeasing Zanu PF that has landed the nation in this mess. It should be as clear as day that more appeasement will NOT get us out of the mess but drag us deeper and deeper instead.
3 comments:
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has left Harare this Friday afternoon for Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he will join other heads of state and government from the continent for the 32nd Ordinary Session of the African Union (AU).
The AU summit has kicked off in Addis Ababa and will run up to Monday the 11th of February, under the theme: ‘Refugees, Returnees And Internally Displaced Persons: Towards Durable Solutions To Forced Displacement In Africa’.
Zimbabwe is home to more than 11 000 registered refugees and asylum seekers from a number of countries including the Congo, Mozambique, Rwanda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Mali, Uganda and Somalia among others, some of whom are housed at Tongogara Refugee Camp.
Interesting theme given there are as many as four million Zimbabwean economic and political refugees in SA, Botswana, UK, USA and many other countries in the region and beyond. As many as 130 000 Zimbabweans flooded into SA following the street protests starting 14 January 2019 and the barbaric response by the state security forces.
38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule has turned Zimbabwe from a middle income nation in 1980 into the poorest nation in Africa. Although the people of Zimbabwe have known that Zanu PF was dragging the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth they have been totally helpless to stop it because Zimbabwe is de facto one-party state in which Zanu PF has carte blanche powers to rig elections.
Mnangagwa rigged last July’s elections and has been using excessive state security violence to cow the people into submission to stop them complaining about the rigged elections and the country’s the worsening economic situation - the root causes of the tide of Zimbabweans leaving the country. Zimbabweans are waiting to see if the AU summit is ever going to take Mnangagwa to task on the rigged elections and tyrannical repression!
AU leaders must act to end Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical rule and stop the tragic human suffering in Zimbabwe and to stop the regime dragging the whole Southern African regime into economic and political turmoil!
@ Tutani
“Understandably, some people were disappointed that the uprising failed, but let's put things into proper and honest context and perspective that it was supposed to be another final push, not a peaceful demo merely over the doubling of the fuel price as claimed by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), who overtly organised the protests. The truth of the matter is that there was a covert side to it as revealed in a front-page report by the Zimbabwe Independent (January 18, 2019) in the aftermath of it all,” you argue.
“The masterminds were #Tajamuka/Sesijikile and so-called civil society organisations who, following the failed rebellion, were quoted in the Zimbabwe Independent giving the government a 30-day ultimatum before unleashing another blietzkrieg, a military-style tactic calculated to create psychological shock and resultant disorganisation in enemy forces through the employment of surprise, speed, and superiority in numbers - as happened on January 14 when mobs sent police and soldiers packing.”
You are claiming the moral high ground and accuse those critical of the security forces’ heavy handed handling of the street protest, rioting and looting starting 14 January of failing to acknowledge the hidden double agenda to remove Zanu PF from power by such protest organisers as #Tajamuka. And yet you are guilty of the same failure yourself. You have failed to acknowledge the Zanu PF regime’s hidden agenda in using excessive violence to drive home the point the regime will continue to act above the law in its resolve to hang-on to power at all cost.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged last July’s elections and we should not be surprised the security forces are using excessive force to clearly designed to silence all dissent against Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical rule. Zanu PF is once again using the unlawful acts of a few, #Tajamuka and others, as a smokescreen to cover its own unlawful dictatorial oppression. We have seen this happen during the Gukurahundi when the presence of a few dissidents was used to punish and kill over 20 000 innocent civilians and force PF Zapu to join Mugabe to form the de facto one-party dictatorship.
How naive! The real big issue here is the curse of rigged elections. Even if Mnangagwa was to withdraw the soldiers from the suburbs that will not change the political reality that Zimbabwe is a pariah state.
The single most important issue here is that Zanu PF rigged the elections and the only solution to this now is for the regime to step down. If Mnangagwa withdraws the soldiers and do everything else but remain president and Zanu PF remains in office then nothing of any substance will change! It is disappointing that these opposition leaders are so naive and incompetent they cannot see they are being short-changed here!
Post a Comment