“I came here to say this on my own. I, Douglas Mwonzora, have agreed with President Chamisa that at the congress the President will be Chamisa,” announced Mwonzora.
“We also agreed that I will try to get the position of Secretary General of the party. President Chamisa will complete what he started and I also want to finish what I started in my position.”
This would be laughable if the political ramifications of the MDC perfidious carry-ons were not so disastrous to the party and the nation at large!
So thanks to Mwonzora's withdrawal from the race, Nelson Chamisa will now be rubber stamped leader of the party without ever being grilled on what he stands for, what he hopes to achieve, what went wrong in the past, etc., etc.!
“We spoke and agreed that each would play in their position. I was given this jacket by the late President Morgan (Tsvangirai) and we have agreed that I should wear it,” Nelson Chamisa replied, addressing the same crowd.
Mwonzora's own position as Secretary General is secure too without him having to say what he has ever achieved in the last five years and hopes to achieve in the future.
A meaningful democratic contestation will give the electing members a meaning choice. The contestants are particularly good at scrutinising each other record and holding one to account; giving the electorate an important insight on candidates and thus from this wealth of information elect the right candidate.
Both Chaimisa and Mwonzora have been in leadership position ever since the formation of the MDC nearly 20 years ago now and, if the truth be told, the party has accomplished very little of note.
It should be remember that the Zimbabwe people have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding the party would delivery the democratic changes the nation has been dying for. In all the 19 years and many golden opportunities to do so, the party has failed to implement even one democratic reform. Not one! Proof there is a lot of deadwood in the party.
Mugabe was renowned for his political machinations turning elective Zanu PF party congresses into a total waste of time. His name was always the only one in the hat for the top job and so instead of an election it was always a coronation.
Mugabe imposed the candidates he wanted and congress then rubber stamped his choice. In the 2004, for example, Emmerson Mnangagwa was set to win the post of VP following the death of Simon Muzenda. Mugabe unilaterally changed the party's constitution to demand that one of the top four presidium post must be a woman. So Mnangagwa was forced to withdraw leaving the field open for Joice Mujuru.
Ten years latter in 2014, Mujuru was set to retain the VP post in her own right and Mugabe stepped in to foil that. She was accused of plotting to assassinate Mugabe and was "baby dumped”, as Grace Mugabe boasted. The charges against Mujuru were dropped without anyone being arrested as soon as it was clear she was no long a political threat to Mugabe.
Sadly, MDC leaders have copied Mugabe's undemocratic and dictatorial practices. The late Morgan Tsvangirai used spurious powers to extend his own stay as party leader beyond the maximum two five-year term, to appoint Chamisa and Mudzuri VPs, etc.
When Tsvangirai died in February 2018, Chamisa seized the top post without giving the other two VPs of the party a chance to challenge him for the position.
MDC should be taking full advantage of next month's elective congress to do some serious spring cleaning and get rid of the deadwood and tie up the loose end in the party constitution that have allowed leaders to abuse their position in the past. Chamisa and Mwonzora's quid pro quo has killed all hope of any meaningful debate, competition and change stone dead.
The post May 2018 MDC will just as corrupt and incompetent as the MDC of the last 19 years! We can be certain that MDC will participate in future elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process happen to be, for example, just as the party has done these last 19 years!
Of course, it is very disappointing that MDC has just wasted a golden opportunity to self-renewal itself and finally play a meaningful role in the dragging the nation out of the hell-on-earth we find ourselves stuck in.
Still, the sooner the people of Zimbabwe wake-up to the political reality that MDC leaders are corrupt and incompetent the sooner the nation can start searching for a way out of this hell-hole!
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Patients and their relatives have also alleged that hospital staff was leaving dead bodies in the wards until their collection by funeral homes.
Investigations also revealed that no proper attention is given to the bodies when one is certified dead by the doctors. Last Friday, the body of a road accident victim was left lying in a pool of blood for hours after doctors had certified that the victim had died.
Staff member interviewed last week said the situation was unbearable for patients.
"All the people dying here are covered with blankets and they remain in the wards with patients until their next of kin claims the body. The situation becomes more complex when some bodies spend two to three days unclaimed," the nurse said on conditions of anonymity.
This is heart breaking. The country’s health care services have completely collapsed. This did not happen overnight or last week or month but has happened in the last 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. We have witnessed all this madness unfold before our own eyes. Every Zimbabwean, wherever you are, must hang your head in shame that this is happen in your home country.
Of course, this is a man-made tragedy, 39 years corrupt and tyrannical ruinous rule. All man-made tragedies are per se within mortals’ power to stop. We must now take a hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves what have ever done to prevent this tragedy. More significantly, what are we going to do to end this madness?
@ Eddie Cross
“For the second time in a decade our savings have been wiped out, values turned upside down and markets thrown into chaos with a dramatic decline in net disposable income. If you are on a fixed salary or pension (like me) then you are now earning a quarter of what you earned in real terms just a year ago. But prices do not stay constant – fuel and transport charges are up 3 times, in the retail stores prices are all over the place but on average perhaps 4 to 5 times what they were a year ago. Many people must now be on the edge of destitution.”
If I remember correctly, it was you, Mr Cross, who said last year that Zimbabwe was going in the right direction and by March this year the country’s economy would be booming. There is no hope of an meaningful economic recovery much less an economic boom as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs.
Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections but has since learned that they cannot rig economic recovery. The only way out is for Zanu PF to step down and allow the nation sort out this mess.
Mark my word, the IMF is going to bankroll Zanu PF under the pretext that it is providing social protection to the country's poor!
Zanu PF is illegitimate because the party blatantly rigged last year's elections. And Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because of 39 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. And, as long as Zanu PF is allowed to rig elections and get away with it the country will remain stuck in this hell-on-earth.
What part of Zanu PF is corrupt, incompetent, murderous and vote rigging thugs is the IMF failing to understand?
The IMF can provide the funds Mnangagwa needs to pay for the hire luxury jet, pay for the health trips outside the country for the ruling elite, buy weapons to kill protesters, etc., etc. Meanwhile there regime will continue to ignore the poor and their suffering. IMF people should know that the country's health care has all but completely collapsed.
Doctors are going to hospitals to certify the died, they can do little else with no medicine and equipment. There are reports of corpses being left in the ward for three days because the mortuary is full/not working/ power cuts/ etc., there are no staff to remove the corpse because staff shortage/ their pay is not enough cover transport cost/ etc., shortage of even the basic things like gloves and washing soap, etc.
We desperately want to remove this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF government it beggars belief that organisations like the IMF staffed by people like Ms Lagarde who would never allow such a regime n their own country are the ones imposing the regime on us! Even after 39 years of misrule with the country drowning in misery she still wants Zanu PF to remain in power! How selfish is that!
Mnangagwa will never uproot corruption because he is the godfather of the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF Mafia. And as long as the cancer of corruption remains there is no hope of any meaningful economic recovery. This is a fundamental reality that Zimbabweans have ignore at their own peril!
People written volumes and talked for man-years in one year alone about what the country needs to do to achieve the Zimbabwe we want and yet have said and done nothing to end corruption! What a waste of space and humanity!
@ hama
I am saying MDC is no more a democratic party than the DRNK is a democratic nation. It is the lack of democratic competition within the party that has allowed a lot of deadwood to get into leadership positions and once in power they stifle debate and competition to safe guard their position. This is exactly what Chamisa and Mwonzora are doing here!
Of course, Chamisa and Mwonzora are corrupt and incompetent, the two were senior members in the MDC during the GNU when the party failed to get even one reform implemented in five years! More recently, they participated in last year's elections and did not even have the common sense to demand the release of a verified voters' roll. Only a village idiot would participate in an election in which only his opponent knows who is on the voters' roll because that alone gave Zanu PF many, many ways to rig the vote and they did!
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