"We are grateful that the leadership of Zimbabwe has established the dialogue voluntarily," commented Mphakama Mbete, SA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, at the official launch of Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD).
"This is a demonstration by an African country working on an African problem to get an African solution. The success of the dialogue will have far reaching consequences to the region.”
Nonsense, POLAD is a waste of the nation’s time, opportunity and money.
Zimbabwe’s problem is one of bad governance, a problem not unique to the country or the continent. It is a problem as old as human history and the best solution was proposed by the Greeks 2 500 years ago; democracy; government by the people for the people. We do not need to reinvent the wheel!
Ever since Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980 Zanu PF has systematically denied the ordinary people their basic freedoms and democratic rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life itself. When Mnangagwa seized power in the November 2017 coup, he promised to hold free, fair and credible elections and thus acknowledged the desperate need for good governance. Sadly he has lacked the wisdom and vision to honour his promise and deliver the free and fair elections.
Everyone who observed last year’s elections has dismissed them as a farce.
“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,” stated the EU Election Mission in its 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.”
The whole election process was so flawed and illegal ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. The only reason Zimbabwe’s opposition parties participated in the flawed and illegal elections is greed. Zanu PF has learned that as long as the party gave away a few gravy train seats the opposition will participate regardless how flawed and illegitimate the process got.
“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 (2013) elections,” admitted Senator David Coltart in his book. He was an MDC cabinet member in the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
“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.”
A number of the MDC factions did come together to form the MDC Alliance in 2018 and still they participated in last year’s elections; proof the failure to form a coalition in 2013 was just a feeble excuse for failing to “do the obvious - withdraw from the elections”!
All the other opposition parties and candidates in last year's elections have endorse the elections as free, fair and credible, after participating it would be hypocritical not to. Chamisa has endorse the parliamentary elections but not the presidential but that is because he is fishing for a gravy train seat for himself.
Chamisa's claim that he would revive the country's economy is nonsense. The inclusion or otherwise of Chamisa in this Zanu PF regime will not alter the reality of the regime being a corrupt and tyrannical. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state the will be no meaningful economic recovery.
Emmerson Mnangagwa has taken full advantage of the greed in Zimbabwe’s opposition camp to claim legitimacy when he knows his regime is illegitimate because the election process was flawed and illegal. He has launched POLAD as the solution to the country’s 39 years old and counting problem of rigged elections and bad governance.
Mnangagwa has made it clear that all participants in POLAD must first accept last year’s elections as free, fair and credible and himself and his party, Zanu PF, as legitimate. The talks will focus on how to revive the country’s worsening economic meltdown, getting such things as the sanctions imposed of the regime lifted.
In short, Mnangagwa launched POLAD as the solution to Zimbabwe’s teething economic meltdown and political paralysis of the last 39 years. There was not meaningful debate on POLAD as a way forward, all those who voiced their objections were ignored.
Indeed one can say that POLAD was imposed on the nation with the usual Zanu PF arrogance; RainBow Towers auditorium was full of invited guests to be transported, housed, wined and fed, no expense spared (big hospitals like Mpilo has no bandages and pain killers but the regime the hundreds of thousands of dollars spend on this one event). There was the usual silverback gorilla drumming of the chest, etc. etc.
Still, one can say here and now that POLAD will NOT bring about any meaningful economic recovery because as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs the country’s economic meltdown will only get worse.
Zimbabwe had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms and lift the curse of rigged elections and pariah state during the 2008 and 2013 GNU. If that 2008 GNU was a bull dog with no teeth then POLAD is a poodle with no teeth, no bark, neutered, etc. into utter uselessness.
POLAD is a waste of time because it will not address the central problem of bad governance. At least the 2008 to 2013 GNU acknowledge that Zimbabwe's problem was one of bad governance and proposed the raft of reforms to solve the problem. Mnangagwa and his POLAD assumes last year's elections were free, fair and credible and so there will not be even any attempt to implement the democratic reforms.
If Zanu PF is still in power come 2023 with not even one reform in place; we can be 100% certain the party will rig those elections. Zimbabwe will still be stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging Zanu PF dictatorship as we are today and have been for the last 39 years!
Yes Ambassador Mbete, POLAD is an African solution in that instead of dealing with the country’s problem of bad governance Zimbabwe has done what it has done again and again these last 39 years - bury its head in the sand!
If Zanu PF is still in power come 2023 with not even one reform in place; we can be 100% certain the party will rig those elections. Zimbabwe will still be stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging Zanu PF dictatorship as we are today and have been for the last 39 years!
Yes Ambassador Mbete, POLAD is an African solution in that instead of dealing with the country’s problem of bad governance Zimbabwe has done what it has done again and again these last 39 years - bury its head in the sand!
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Mangudya said in a statement that the central bank would start accessing the $500 million from Monday “to meet the forex payment requirements of business and individuals”.
“This amount shall go a long way to stabilize the exchange rates and prices of goods and services in the economy,” said Mangudya, without revealing the source of the loan.
Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube tweeted that the loan had been secured from international banks, which he did not name.
In the past week, the new currency lost 26% of its value on the black market but is only 3.6% weaker on the official market.
The weakening currency has fueled inflation, which raced to a new 10-year high of 75.6% in April.
Zimbabwe has not received funding from international lenders such as the IMF and World Bank since it defaulted on its loan repayments in 1999, and a dollar crunch has worsened this year, leading to shortages of fuel and medicines.
There is no doubt Zimbabwe got the loan from a source that will charge an arm and leg for a nation already on her last leg this will leave us seriously cripple. The loan is being used to finance recurrent expenditure, no doubt some will be wasted on luxuries such as hired luxury jets and buying new cars for the key members of the Political Actors Dialogue launched the other day.
When you are in a hole, stop digging but it seems Mnangagwa and friends have wool in their ears and so do not hear.
Zimbabwe’s GDP, however, rose 4 percent last year, but the nation’s inflation rate accelerated from 20.85 percent in October 2018 to 75.86 percent last month, according to official reports.
Meanwhile, according to Zimbabwe’s Treasury, the economy is set to actually contract by 20 percent in dollar terms this year — as out-of-control inflation is threatening to erase the gains made by remaining functioning sectors.
Ncube also said Zimbabwe’s budget deficit would hit its 5 percent target this year, adding that the recent introduction of a 2 percent transfer tax would help achieve the goal of improving Zimbabwe’s public finances.
But higher taxes might exacerbate the issue of low disposable incomes, a recent UN report found, while hardly helping Zimbabwe attract business investment and create new jobs.
“The government is pushing people further into poverty. We are not aware of any government measures to provide even minimal safety nets for those who are already living on an economic cliff-edge and who will suffer the most from these regressive policies”, the UN report read.
The Zimbabwean government’s plans to tackle corruption and poor investment climate remain unclear, while recent reforms appear to have proven insufficient to get the nation’s economy back on track.
Of course it is very tragic for in Zimbabwe than Mnangagwa’s clarion call of “Zimbabwe is open for business!” has failed to attract anyone and the country has continued to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss. But what makes our situation heart-breaking is that the Zanu PF regime has stubbornly refused to acknowledge its failure and thus continues to drag the nation full steam ahead even deeper into this hell and we, the people, are totally helpless to stop the madness.
The sheer hypocrisy of some of the foreigners including the UN is unforgivable. Whilst the UN is critical here, the organization has quietly endorse Zanu PF’s rigged 2018 elections and a few days ago showered the regime with praise at the launch of the Political Actors Dialogue, a forum clearly designed to endorse the rigged elections and help Zanu PF keep its tyrannical iron grip on power.
The people of Zimbabwe are desperate for real change and, unless something is done quickly, the nation is heading for economic collapse and political instability that may well drag the rest of the region down the abyss.
Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess could have been easily avoided and can still be avoided if only there can be a few people with the political focus and resolve!
Zimbabwe’s state power company spokesperson Fullard Gwasira said Zimbabwe needed to come up with a payment plan to clear its debts.
He told independent news website, newZWire, that 450 megawatts would be available for import, but only if Zesa clears $80 million worth of debts.
Until Zimbabwe paid what it owed, Zesa could only import 50 megawatts of power from Eskom, and 100 megawatts from Mozambique’s HCB.
Zimbabwe’s main hydro-power station at Lake Kariba has had to reduce its power output to 358 megawatts, from 542, because of low water levels.
So Zimbabwe’s power cuts are all an accumulation of many things; poor maintenance of existing plant, failure to invest in new generation capacity and being a bad debtor. The nation has paid dearly for each one of these shortcomings over the years and is feeling the ill effects even more cutely at times like this when the country has a multitude of other problems and could do with some slack; there is none to be had.
What is the point of coming up with the rules if there are no consequences for breaking them.
“Men shall be ruled by Law, not by the will of other men,” said Moses in the epic movie The Ten Commandments. “Those who do not live by the law... shall die by the law!”
We, in Zimbabwe, have allowed tyrants like Mugabe and Mnangagwa disregard the law with no consequences. Mugabe and Mnangagwa have rigged elections and have even murdered over 30 000 innocent people to impose their tyrannical will.
They have denied us our freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life so many times and got away with it, they now believe these freedoms and rights are privilege to be given to some and denied to others as they, the tyrants alone, see fit. Their whim has become the new law of the land and the nation has paid dearly for our collective folly of letting this happen.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs would never dared to rig the elections in any country in which the rule of law is held in the highest regard. They would have KNOWN they would never get away with it. The corollary is equally true; Mnangagwa and his cronies blatantly rigged last year’s elections confident they would get away with it.
By rigging the elections Mnangagwa and company committed high treason; instead holding the thugs to account these woolly minded appeasers want to reward them with high office. The demand for the regime to hold national dialogue on its terms is just whitewashing the tomb! Everyone knows the national dialogue is but the watered down version of the 2008 to 2013 GNU in which no dares talk about reforms because they know that is a no-go area as far as Zanu PF thugs are concerned!
A national dialogue headed by Zanu PF will be a complete waste of time. To what end, exactly! I would not even waste my time talking about it!
Mnangagwa rigged last year's elections confident he will rig economic recovery - he clearly had no intention of ending corruption, end the pariah state, etc. He thought he will fool the investors and lenders into believing he ended corruption, held free and fair elections, etc. etc. and Zimbabwe was a Second Republic, a new dispensation as he had promised. The investors and lenders were not so easily fooled.
There is some mileage to be gained in launching the national dialogue, there are many naive and gullible people who think some good will come out of these talks. What good, few will say. Many believe Nelson Chamisa's claim "to have the key to unlock Mnangagwa's illegitimacy and the economy". It is all nonsense of course. Chamisa is just fishing for a gravy train seat for himself.
If Mnangagwa thinks the gimmick of the national dialogue will fool the investors and lenders into believing that has transformed Zimbabwe from being the pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs then he is even more naive and stupid than he looks!
Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is going through its gears; in January the RTGS$ was 1:1 to the US$, three weeks ago it was 3:1 and today it is 7:1. There is no doubt we are now on the slippery slope and inflation is accelerating. Even organisations like the UN which have been very supportive of the regime they are openly criticizing it.
“Ncube also said Zimbabwe’s budget deficit would hit its 5 percent target this year, adding that the recent introduction of a 2 percent transfer tax would help achieve the goal of improving Zimbabwe’s public finances,” reported The Zimbabwean.
“But higher taxes might exacerbate the issue of low disposable incomes, a recent UN report found, while hardly helping Zimbabwe attract business investment and create new jobs.
“The government is pushing people further into poverty. We are not aware of any government measures to provide even minimal safety nets for those who are already living on an economic cliff-edge and who will suffer the most from these regressive policies”, the UN report read.
Zanu PF has failed to rig economic recovery and there is no doubt the worsening economic situation is not socially and politically sustainable. Mnangagwa and his junta must step down now and allow the nation the time and space to chart a peaceful way out of this mess before it is too late.
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