"Everybody just arrives in our townships and rural areas and set up business without licences and permits. We are going to bring this to an end! And those who are operating illegally must now know," warned SA President Cyril Ramaphosa.
Within hours of him saying this there was widespread xenophobia violence on black foreigners in SA. In Cape Town a family of 9 Zimbabweans were burnt alive in one such attack. 7 dead and two children were admitted to hospital with life-threatening burns.
At the heart of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown and political paralysis is decades of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. Millions of Zimbabweans are in South Africa as economic or political refugees or both. The solution to Zimbabwe's economic and political mess is for the country to hold free, fair and credible elections.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections in 2018 but failed to keep his promised. Most election observers include the EU, the Commonwealth and many others condemned the elections.
“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,” said the EU Election Observer Mission final report.
SADC and AU observers confined themselves to praising how "peaceful the elections had been compared to past elections". They did not dare to say anything about anything else.
Of all the SADC leaders President Ramaphosa is the only one who said the elections were fine!
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is worse now than it was before the elections. By rigging the elections Mnangagwa confirmed Zimbabwe was still the same pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. Why President Ramaphosa gave his stamp of approval of Zimbabwe's rigged elections beggars belief.
By approving Zimbabwe's rigged elections President Ramaphosa has only helped postpone Zimbabwe's economic recovery and thus generate more economic and political refugees, the same refugees he will be pleased to hear are being burnt alive!
At a time when Zimbabwe desperately needed SADC to help it got out of the hell-on-earth Mugabe and Mnangagwa landed the nation into the last time we wanted is a mediocre leader like Ramaphosa in SA.
I pity my South African brothers and sisters, Cyril Ramaphosa will not a blessing but a curse to your beautiful nation!
6 comments:
Zanu Pf has romped to victory in the recently held council by election in Cowdray Park Bulawayo.
The party’s candidate Kidwell Mujuru beat closest contender Nomagugu Mloyi of MDC Alliance by 670 votes after polling 1 899 votes
So Zanu PF spent 60 tonnes of maize meal and 30 tonnes of rice in buying votes only to get less than 2 000 out of 23 000 registered voters! The voters took the freebies and gave the party the middle finger salute!
Vote-buying comes to its own in the rural areas where Zanu PF’s power over the voters is comparable to the medieval landlord’s power over the serfs who dwell on his land.
It is pleasing to see that the electorate also gave the opposition the middle finger. The people are wake-up to the reality that Zimbabwe elections are not free, fair and credible elections. The voters’ roll used here was never verified and ZEC officials were under strict orders to make sure copies are not smuggled out of the polling stations. The regime knows that any close scrutiny of the roll would open a can of worms. Mnangagwa and Zanu PF’s illegitimacy is still an open wound and proof of a cooked up voters’ roll will only break the bone.
The people of Zimbabwe must wake up to the reality that they cannot trust MDC to deliver free and fair elections because they are compromised. MDC leaders will continue to contest these flawed and illegal elections as long as Zanu PF allows them to win a few gravy train seats. A small price to pay as far as Zanu PF is concerned!
Chamisa told New Zimbabwe.com in an exclusive interview Saturday after meeting visiting European Union managing director for the European External Action Service (EEAS) Koen Vervaeke that genuine dialogue remains Zimbabwe's only hope.
"Most importantly we also discussed our attitude towards dialogue with Zanu-PF and Mnangagwa. The discussions also included political and economic reforms. We are clear that Mnangagwa has power but does not have the consent of the people," said Chamisa.
"We discussed peace building and national healing as well as economic reforms.”
What Chamisa has clearly failed to understand is that the EU had election observers in Zimbabwe and they have dismissed the whole election process as a sham because of the flaws and illegalities.
“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,” said the EU mission final report.
The EU’s position is an election process that has numerous errors, not traceable, etc. cannot produce a meaningful result and hence refused to accept Mnangagwa’s claim as the winner. It beggars belief that Chamisa expects the EU to accept him as the winner of the same flawed and illegal process.
Without first implementing the democratic reforms, Zanu PF will always win at least 2/3 of the seats. The party knows that as long as it gives away a few gravy train seats the opposition will participate regardless how flawed and illegal the process get. People like Chamisa, Biti and the rest in the opposition they are quite happy winning the scraps and do not care that elections are rigged or, worse still, the rigged elections means the country being stuck with a corrupt and tyrannical regime!
MDC and the rest in the opposition camp are paying lip service to calls for free, fair and credible elections, good governance and ending the suffering of the masses. MDC are hunting with the hounds and running with the hare; the day the people wake-up to this political reality will be the day Zimbabwe will finally see real democratic change.
"My brother ED (Emmerson Dambudzo) is bizarrely delusional and thoroughly mistaken," Chamisa said on Twitter, reacting to a picture of leaders of the minority parties at State House.
But then so are you, Chamisa; so are you! You agree the elections were rigged and Mnangagwa is illegitimate and yet are calling for dialogue with the illegitimate Mnangagwa on the basis that you can end his illegitimacy. How?
By participating in flawed and illegal elections, you gave the process some modicum of legitimacy and credibility. And now by calling for these inter-party dialogues you are mudding the political waters. The illegitimate Zanu PF should just step down to allow for the appointment of an interim administration!
@ Gombe
A tooth for a tooth and an eye for an eye and turn the country into a nation of toothless and blind zombies! For a nation with already 3/4 living in abject poverty with no regular job, whose basic services such as supply of clean water and health care have all but collapse, etc. one would have thought Zimbabweans have more than enough trouble without adding having to lose their teeth and eyes too! Tit for tat!
@ Kasuve
What we are asking President Ramaphosa to do is to be honest and call a spade a spade. We all know that Zanu PF rigged last year's elections and are shocked to hear him say the elections were fine! Zimbabwe's economic recovery is dependent on the country having a competent and accountable government and by supporting the vote rigging Zanu PF dictatorship Ramaphosa is undermining our fight for a democratic and prosperous Zimbabwe.
There would not be so many Zimbabwean economic and political refugees if Zimbabwe was a stable and prosperous nation. By supporting the voting rigging Mnangagwa, Ramaphosa is denying us a chance to achieve meaningful economic recovery and thus forcing more Zimbabweans to be refugees. Having forced Zimbabweans to be refugees Ramaphosa is then encouraging South Africans to burn the refugees alive! That kind of duplicity and stupidity cannot be tolerated and must be condemned in no uncertain terms!
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