"The appointments of the second and third respondents (Chamisa and Mudzuri) as deputy presidents of the MDC party were unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void. The appointment of second respondent (Chamisa) as acting president, and president of the MDC party were unconstitutional and, therefore, null and void,” said High Court Justice Edith Mushore.
"All appointments and/or reassignments and all actions of the second respondent in his purported capacity as deputy/acting or incumbent president were unconstitutional and,
therefore, null and void."
This is a mess of MDC’s own making because even those with one drop of democratic blood in the veins raised their eye-brows at the blatant disregard of common decency and decorum shown by Chamisa is seizing power after Tsvangirai’s death. The chickens have come home to root.
"Plainly speaking, therefore, … the duty to call (for) the extra-ordinary congress for such an election would have been that of the fourth respondent (Khupe). The constitution is specific about this requirement …," said Justice Mushore. She ruled that the said extra-ordinary congress should be called with in a month.
Nelson Chamisa’s reaction to the Court judgement has been confusion, to say the least. He has vowed that the party congress organised by him and not Khupe as stipulated in the judgement above will go ahead and thus is defying the Court ruling. He has also said he will appeal the Court ruling and thus suggesting he is recognising the power and authority of the Court. He clearly cannot made up his own mind! This is typical MDC blundering incompetency.
By participating in last year’s elections, knowing fully well that with no meaningful reforms in place Zanu PF will rig the elections, MDC and the rest of the opposition entourage gave the flawed and illegal process some credibility as David Coltart readily admitted in his book.
In his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the GNU, David Coltart, gave details of how Zanu PF flouted the electoral rules, it clear the upcoming 2013 elections would not be free and fair. Meanwhile talks of uniting the two MDC factions to fight the elections as one were going nowhere.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” explained Senator Coltart.
“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”
All the election observers worth their salt have condemned Zimbabwe’s July 2018 elections.
“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,” reported the EU Zimbabwe Election Mission final report.
“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.”
ZEC had failed to produce a verified voters’ roll, something as essential to elections as water is to fish.
The election process was full of irregularities and illegalities, the opposition parties and candidate to the man and woman should have all, unanimously, condemned the elections. Sadly, blinded by greed and incompetency, the opposition have unanimously endorsed the fraudulent elections and declared Mnangagwa legitimate; all that is, except Chamisa.
Chamisa has ignored all the flaws and illegalities noted by everyone else and picked one the one, he claims ZEC's vote counts for Mnangagwa and himself are wrong in giving the former more votes than himself. Elections are judge on the basis of the process, in this case given it “contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability”, as the EU Mission report state; the elections have been rightly condemned. Chamisa want the elections to be judged on result; if he is declared the winner the elections were free, fair and credible and otherwise if Mnangagwa is the winner. No one in their right mind would ever subscribe to such nonsense!
If all the opposition parties and candidates had joined everyone else in condemning last July’s elections as rigged elections, this have would focused pressure on Zanu PF to step down. The focused political pressure plus the economic pressure due to the worsening economic situation would have gone a long way by now in forcing Zanu PF to step down.
By participating in the flawed and illegal elections the opposition parties have given the process some modicum of credibility and by failing to condemn the process even in the face of the overwhelming evidence the process was flawed the opposition have mudded the political waters. Mnangagwa and his junta have benefited from the opposition's blundering incompetency and greed. The mess created by Justice Mushore's judgement will only distract MDC and the nation from the problems of problems of worsening economic situation and Zanu PF's illegitimacy.
Chamisa has declared Mnangagwa illegitimate but only as a negotiating tactic to get the latter to grant him a gravy train seat. “I have the key to unlock Mnangagwa’s illegitimacy!” Chamisa has often boated. Now that Chamisa is himself illegitimate, he has to unlock his own illegitimacy first.
MDC should sort out the leadership mess once and once for all the nation has the pressing matter of implementing the democratic reforms before 2023 to stop Zanu PF rigging those elections too. Given the confused stance of defying the Court ruling and honouring the Court's power by appealing the judgement this mess will not be sorted in a hurry. Time is the one commodity Zimbabwe can ill afford to waste!
If Zanu PF is still in power come the 2023 elections we can be 100% certain the party will blatantly rig that year’s elections extending the regime's corrupt and tyrannical rule. We must stop this happening and the only sure way to do so is for the nation to acknowledge that Chamisa and his MDC friends are no longer championing the common cause of implementing the democratic reforms. They are now part and parcel of the problem whose blundering incompetency and greed are undermining our efforts to bring about meaningful democratic change.
As much as some people will not want to admit it the truth is Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends are corrupt and incompetent political thugs no different from the Zanu PF thugs they are trying to remove from office. Yes of course, Mnangagwa is illegitimate but then is Chamisa and Mnangagwa knows it and will never remind Chamisa of this at every turn.
If we are serious about removing Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs from office then we must some other people to do it not Chamisa et al. Chamisa and his friends sold-out big time during the GNU and continue to do so to this day. Chamis is not only illegitimate as leader of MDC he is also corrupt, incompetent and a sell-out. As long as Chamisa and his MDC friends continue to spearhead our fight for democratic change Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies will know their continued rule is secure. Fact!
16 comments:
Chamisa boasted that he has the "key to unlock Mnangagwa's illegitimacy" now it is clear he is not only illegitimate himself but worse still he has no key to unlock his own illegitimacy. Mnangagwa is the principle beneficiary of Chamisa's illegitimacy and the chaos and confusion in the MDC A and the opposition camp!
Zimbabwe is desperate for meaningful political change leading to free, fair and credible elections and this is all on hold as long as MDC infighting is allowed to take centre stage. We need to wean ourselves of the corrupt and incompetent opposition parties like MDC because they will never deliver democratic change as their performance has shown.
@ A T Kadada
In South Africa one is not killed for belonging to his or political party of his or her choice nor do you hear of 'party thugs 'setting up bases in the rural. While the late Dr Joshua Nkomo could be turning in his grave, the late Nelson Mandela could be smiling in his grave. The former for democracy he yearned for, the latter for democracy enjoyed in the "economic giant of Africa".
In Zimbabwe democracy is a myth. Divergent views are not tolerated, supporting the opposition is an unwritten crime. This is why months down the line after a shame of an election the crusade against Chamisa is still on .If our elections were something to write home about surely we would not have a leader always reminding "bused" people he is the leader.
Zanu-PF has captured every state institution for it to stay in power. The same judiciary that you find their ruling on Chamisa "justice served" has always served Zanu-PF interests first before delivery of justice so as such their ruling is Zanu-PF ruling.
In South Africa elections are welcome by the people for they bring desired change. In Zimbabwe they bring more avarice driven leaders out to join the gravy train with Zanu-PF in driver's seat.
What you have said is true and you are one of the few Zimbabweans who have taken the trouble to think through what Zimbabwe’s problems are and have seen the complete picture and understood it. In a country in which the overwhelming majority have no clue what is going on this is a very significant milestone to be cheered and applauded. Thank you for sharing your insight and one only hopes that a few people out there will read your articles and open their minds.
Mnangagwa and Mugabe before him and their Zanu PF thugs are mortals but to see how the nation has cowed down before them one would think they are super-humans ruling from up high. The nation has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, especially during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, but have wasted them all. MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU because they were corrupt and incompetent.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections and yet there are millions of Zimbabweans out there to whom that is water off a duck’s back, for example. The country will never have free, fair and credible elections as long as the overwhelming majority do not even care that elections are rigged.
We, the people, failed in our duty to supervise and hold both Zanu PF and MDC leaders to account. Nations get the government they deserve, we certainly deserve these Zanu PF and MDC thugs and sell-outs! have paid dearly
"I think Ramaphosa's direction is going to be like Mnangagwa's direction of winning 50,8% or something if he wins. That is what ANC is doing," Malema told his host.
South Africa had a verified voters' roll the electoral process was free, fair and credible and the 50.8% would refer to real people with a butt to be kicked and soul to be damned. In Zimbabwe there was no verified voters' roll the election was rigged and so the 50.8% votes Mnangagwa received do not refer to real people but rather imaginary ones. And therefore for Malema to compare the two leaders is to completely miss the point!
“@ Dzimiri
Chamisa is clean. His hands are clean. He is a young clean boy who has never asked anyone to kill any Zimbabwean on his behalf.”
Yes Chamisa has not "asked anyone to kill any Zimbabwean on his behalf" but that does not mean he is clean. Chamisa, like the rest of the other MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which would have ended Zanu PF's dictatorial powers and the curse of rigged elections. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years because they are corrupt and incompetent.
Zimbabwe is in this mess because we have had the great misfortune of having corrupt and incompetent leaders on both side of the political divide and, worst of all, naive and gullible voters who have followed leaders blindly like sheep to the slaughter. This article was penned by someone who will not see Chamisa for the corrupt and incompetent individual he is and that is not going to help the nation get out of the hell-hole we are in!
“A Zanu aligned Court pronouncement will only multiply Chamisa's popularity!” Nonsense, there route Chamisa took to become MDC President following Tsvangirai’s death was what one would expect Zanu PF thugs to take! To pretend it was a democratic process is what a thug would say, not a democrat. Zimbabwe is desperately trying to rid itself of the Zanu PF thugs and I will be damned if we are not going to replace them with MDC thugs!
Nelson Chamisa's allies are sharpening their knives against MDC Secretary General Douglas Mwonzora whom they link with the High Court ruling that nullified Chamisa's appointment.
Reports on Thursday had alleged that Mwonzora has allegedly gone into hiding amid reports that party youths are baying for his blood over his links with the High Court ruling that nullified Nelson Chamisa's appointment.
The reports say that a group of party youths, popularly known as the Vanguards, have also been seen surrounding party vice President Elias Mudzuri's Milton Park home in Harare, singing derogatory songs. The youths accused Mudzuri of undermining Chamisa, saying Mudzuri sponsored the High Court application by a Gokwe MDC official which resulted in yesterday's ruling.
If any of this is true, it will only serve to confirm that MDC is a party of cut-throat thugs no different from the Zanu PF thugs who used brute force again and again to cow the nation into submission. Zanu PF has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain the de facto one-party dictatorship and millions have suffered all manner of harassment, beating and rape. Their suffering and deaths will only make sense if it helped to bring about democratic change. It would be a betrayal of those who have suffered and died if all we do is remove Zanu PF thugs only to replace them with MDC thugs!
Moyo added that Mnangagwa will never solve the crisis with the likes of Madhuku.
"National dialogue is not a pastime for all and sundry. It always follows a crisis. The crisis is that Mnangagwa has legality without the legitimacy and confidence of society and the economy. Mnangagwa will not solve this crisis with Madhuku; while ignoring Chamisa's 2,6 million votes. Sovereignty belongs to the people and not the State, especially a rogue and murderous one."
Professor Jonathan Moyo is right in calling the Zanu PF regime “a rogue and murderous one”. He is wrong in thinking a national dialogue with a rogue state even one involving Chamisa will solve anything.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta are illegitimate because the electoral process was flawed and illegal and ZEC’s result had “contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability”, as EU Election Mission stated in its final report.
Chamisa claims to have won the elections but has failed to produce the evidence to show where the 2.6 million votes came from, just as ZEC has failed to do with Mnangagwa’s votes. Chamisa’s argument that the elections judged free, fair and credible if declared the winner is a nonsense.
The nation needs a political dialogue to move from the political crisis created by the rigged elections that failed to produce a legitimate government. The idea that those involved in causing the political crisis by failing to deliver free, fair and credible elections should play a leading role in charting the way forward is laughable because the suggestion fails to appreciate that the reality that they are the problem!
Zimbabwe needs real political change and not another gimmick. Zanu PF and MDC leaders are the ones who landed the nation in this political and economic mess they will never get us out because they are the ones who landed us in the mess and have everything to gain in keeping us stuck in the mess.
@ Coltart
You tell the case should have been dismissed for many reasons but fail to many even one!
Writing on his Twitter portal, on Europe Day, Olkkonen said, “Violence and human rights violations in January resulted in the loss of lives and suffering, tarnished Zimbabwe’s image abroad and were a setback in EU-Zimbabwe relations. I hope we don’t see these events repeated!”
This presents a real dilemma for Mnangagwa if he does not use brute force he knows the public protest will get out of hand because there are a lot of very angry people out there hungry for real change. If he uses brute force there is no doubt his isolation and criticism of his regime will only get worse!
Change is certainly coming what we want is orderly change, not violent change.
SA has so far managed to hold free, fair and credible elections long may this continue to be so!
In Zimbabwe, we started on the wrong foot. Zanu PF used the threat of the civil war continuing to force the people to vote for the party. The party has cheated and used violence to stay in power ever since!
ICG Capital and Finance Corp this week told the Independent that two years after submitting its US$5 billion debt restructuring and refinancing bid to Zimbabwe, the Harare authorities have dithered on the deal, while no other immediate solution appears in sight.
“We have been waiting a year-and-a-half to get the mandate signed in order to start the debt restructuring and re-financing process. Since ICG originally submitted its proposal in 2017, Zimbabwe’s Sovereign Debt (SD) obligations have doubled and are now currently standing at approximately US$20 billion,” said the London-based consultancy, which specialises in mobilising finance for private and public sector development projects and procuring credit for sovereign governments.
“It seems that for some unknown reason, the Ministry of Finance is not co-operative and are reluctant to work with ICG, unlike the governor of the Reserve Bank.”
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. The country’s credit ranking will be “junk” and interest rates on any loans will be very high. The nation should focus on ending its pariah state status before going out and borrow money. ICG is not acting in the best interest of Zimbabwe is pushing hard for the nation to borrow the money and whilst ignoring the country’s junk rating. The nation must do everything to recover the money the company steals from the nation.
There is no doubt that Zimbabwe is in a serious, serious political and economic mess. Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90% and ¾ of our people are now living in abject poverty and many are dying for want of food, clean drinking water, medicine, etc. This has all happened because for the last 39 years the nation has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime that has rigged elections to stay in power.
The country has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but has wasted them all because the men and women entrusted to implement the democratic reforms have turned out to be corrupt and incompetent. The country had yet another rigged elections last year and instead of the nation standing up as one and demand that Mnangagwa and his junta step down it is none other than the corrupt and incompetent opposition who have jumped the gun and declared the illegitimate Zanu PF regime legitimate.
It took 20 years or so for many Zimbabweans to finally accept that Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs were corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. The people then risked life and limb to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends on the ticket they will bring about the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. They sold-out and have failed to implement even one reform.
MDC have settled into this cosy political arrangement in which Zanu PF will retain the dictatorial powers including the carte blanche powers to rig elections as long as the regime gives away to the opposition a few gravy train seats. This Judge Mushore ruling declaring Chamisa’s seizure of power last year as unconstitutional will create confusion and MDC leaders will now take their eyes off the ball of the worsening economic situation and the fact that we have an illegitimate regime to remove from office before 2023!
Not only has MDC proven corrupt and incompetent to be trusted to implement the democratic reforms but worse still they are now helping to prop up Zanu PF. Having accepted MDC as the champion fighting for democratic change, many people are clearly finding it very difficult to accept MDC are now a hindrance to democracy just as happened with Zanu PF. It has taken over 20 years already of MDC blundering from pillar to post and the nation is now on the very edge of the precipice, the people must open their eyes to this reality now or it will be too late!
@ Simbi
"You can't con people, at least not for long. You can create excitement, you can do wonderful promotion and get all kinds of press, and you can throw in a little hyperbole. But if you don't deliver the goods, people will eventually catch on..."
Donald J. Trump,
My Advice to Chamisa has always been use political capital when you have it at the highest. Spending too much time in one position will expose some flaws. Just obverse and analyse the type of question you now being asked thus the same old answers we were rigged hee legitimacy no longer hold. People are now looking for goods (solutions).”
Well President Trump was right that one can’t con people forever but he was wrong that they will eventually catch on; not so in a dictatorship where those in power are not accountable to the people. Here in Zimbabwe the people have been stuck with the Zanu PF dictatorship for 39 years and counting.
If the truth be told the people have failed to hold MDC leaders to account too. MDC leaders sold-out during the GNU by failing to get even one reform implemented but, thanks to the party’s naïve and gullible followers, the leaders have got away with it.
People will catch on but only those with a working brain and thus capable of listening to reason and can think for themselves. Zimbabwe is in this mess because the people have been denied a meaningful say in the governance of the country but also because they are a naïve and gullible lot. Even if Zimbabwe was to get rid of the Zanu PF thugs it is clear the nation will only replace them with yet another bunch of corrupt and incompetent thugs.
Only a first class idiot would deny there was nothing democratic about the way Chamisa seized power following Tsvangirai’s death! Only a first class idiot would deny that MDC sold-out during the 2008 GNU by failing to implement even one democratic reform. Only a first class village idiot would deny MDC is a party of thugs who are corrupt and incompetent.
Dr Thokozani Khupe has just confirmed that she reclaiming the leadership of the MDC as per Justice Mushore’s judgement. She is now inviting Chamisa to discuss how the judgement can best be implemented. Like it or not the fight is on and Chamisa and his MDC A will now be spending all their time, energy and resources fight Mai Khupe. Whatever little time MDC A, as the country’s main opposition party with seating MPs and Senators, had spent on the burning national issues such as the worsening economic meltdown and the fact that we must remove this illegitimate Zanu PF regime BEFORE 2023 will now be cut to zero.
What is annoying here is that country is now looking down over the edge of the precipice and we should be spending all time, energy and treasure in ending the Zanu PF dictatorship before it is too late. This opposition cat fight is a distraction that we cannot afford.
Worse still this is a distraction of Chamisa’s own making; no one with any common sense can ever deny that Chamisa used dirty and undemocratic tactics to seize power last year following Tsvangirai’s death. The chickens are coming home to roost the tragedy is that the nation is being dragged into the mess!
No one with half a brain can ever pretend that what Chamisa did in seizing power last year was a democratic process. Chamisa was taken to task on this by BBC HardTalk presenter Stephen Sackur.
The trouble with some of our people is their inability to look at facts and deal with them in a rational way. MDC national executive members should stopped Chamisa before he implemented his palace coup; they did not. Party members should have screamed the coup plotters down, they did not. This is a mess of MDC leaders and members alike so own making.
Chamisa and his MDC A have been blundering from pillar to post already before this mess of the leadership came up. Ever since last year's rigged elections MDC A has failed to show the nation how it was going to get the nation out of the mess we are stuck in. Chamisa was foolish to accept the rigged elections and was now fighting for a seat of the gravy train for himself. The fight with Khupe will only mean he and his MDC A are taking their eyes off the nation agenda of removing this illegitimate Zanu PF regime.
The people of Zimbabwe must now accept that Chamisa and his MDC friends are no longer fighting in the people's corner but in Zanu PF's corner. The greatest beneficiary of the Chamisa vs Khupe fight is Zanu PF and the greatest losers are us ordinary Zimbabweans. We must now engage Zanu PF in our own fight and ignore Chamisa and Khupe, they are a decoy.
Police shoot vendors in Harare.
The economic meltdown is the one problem Zanu PF would want to wish away but cannot. The party knows that as long as the economic meltdown continues to get worse there will be street protests because human beings are not sheep would will suffer and go to the death and never protest regardless of the ever increasing state brutality.
When the choice is either to stay home and starve or to go on the street and try to earn a living as a vendor it is clear what many will choose. There will be vendors on the street, shooting or no shooting! It is totally unacceptable that the people should ever be forced into such a hard corner worse still by an illegitimate regime with no democratic mandate to govern.
ANC may have lost its share of the vote but the one thing it has not done is to try and boost it by rigging the elections. Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs rigged the nation's first post independence elections and has rigged all the elections that have followed.
Indeed, the root cause of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown and political paralysis is the nation's failure to exorcise the demons of rigged elections. MDC leaders had the golden opportunities to implement the reforms during the 2008 GNU but failed to get even one reform implemented. Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and company with the trappings of high office and the rest is history.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has failed to impress, he is not corrupt but that is all one can say about him. What SA is crying for is a competent leader and Ramaphosa does not even have common sense. It should come as no surprise if ANC was to lose the next elections. The party has ruled for a long time and has lost direction and a few years on the opposition bench will give it time to regroup.
No single party has the divine right to govern, that is as it should be in a healthy and functioning democracy.
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