"Mnangagwa and Chamisa have stake in elections" - foremost stakeholders are povo N Garikai

At the heart of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown; which has send unemployment rate soaring to dizzying height of 90%, left 3/4 of the population living in abject poverty, etc.; is the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions. At the heart of the decades of corrupt and tyrannical misrule is the Zanu PF dictatorship. 

The nation has had many golden opportunities, notably during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but they have all been wasted. The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the promise they will deliver the democratic changes necessary to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. After nearly two decades on the political centre stage, MDC leaders have failed to bring about even one democratic change. They are a corrupt, incompetent and confused lot! 

“For (inter-party) dialogue to take place, the convenor must be neutral and must be seen to be neutral. What is at stake is a conflict mainly between Mnangagwa and President Adv Nelson Chamisa. As a consequence, conflict transcends to the supporters of the MDC and Zanu PF,” wrote Jacob Mafume, MDC Alliance spokesman.

“It was clear from the ZEC processes that the numbers kept changing. Observer missions made the point that results were unverifiable and untraceable.

“What concerns the MDC is that illegitimacy issues around Mnangagwa are holding the country back.

“The people of Zimbabwe are suffering, the wheels are coming off on the economy, social service delivery is abandoned and lives of citizens are being unnecessarily lost in hospitals that have been turned into death traps.”

MDC Alliance are a confused lot alright and their confusion is mudding the political waters making it hard for the nation to see the way forward out of the mess. There a number of points Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance are failing to grasp:

1. first and foremost, national elections are, as the name implies, national matters going beyond the individual contestants and their respective political parties and supporters. Last year’s election process had so many flaws and illegalities it is clear that many ordinary Zimbabwean voters were denied a meaningful free, fair and credible vote. A flawed and illegal election process cannot produce a legitimate result and so neither Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF nor Chamisa and his MDC Alliance can ever claim to have the people’s mandate to govern. 
2. It is not a matter of last year’s elections failed to produce a clear winner but, worse than that, it failed to produce a legitimate winner and loser. Whilst the former is easily resolved by formation of a coalition or a minority government. In the latter case none of the contestant have any legal basis to claim power. 
3. Whilst everyone would agree to the need for dialogue to chart the way out of the constitutional dead-end the country finds itself in as a result of the rigged July 2018 elections. Still, only some one who is politically naive would accept those responsible for the rigged elections and thus landing the nation into the mess playing a role, much less a leading role, in the proposed dialogue. Both Zanu PF and MDC landed us in this mess and they must play no part, especially since they failed to deliver any meaningful reforms last time the nation had a similar political impasse in 2008.
4. Sure enough, Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown causing untold human suffering and deaths in Zimbabwe. However there will be no meaningful economic recovery as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by vote rigging thugs. It is very presumptuous of MDC to think they can wave away Mnangagwa’s illegitimacy problems and fool the world into believing Chamisa’s inclusion in the Zanu PF regime transformed the pariah state into a democratic one. Everyone remembers how utterly useless MDC was in the last GNU and know this is one leopard that will never lose its spots. The economic situation in Zimbabwe demands a solution to the country’s political and economic mess and not a gimmick!

“Mnangagwa stands to benefit from genuine dialogue. Sadly, he has chosen to be the sole impediment to its convening. He has no right or authority to declare how dialogue should happen, pretending to be conducting dialogue to save face,” concluded Mafume. 

I give you 5% for that! For 100%, the conclusion should simply state “Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies and Chamisa and his MDC Alliance sell-outs have no right or authority to declare how dialogue should happen, pretending they have anything of value to offer when it is them who dragged us into this hell-hole in the first place!”