“While Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, like his previous
predecessors during the Mugabe era, keeps telling us that everything is firmly
under control, the inflation figure should send alarm bells ringing madly down
President Emmerson Mnangagwa's administration corridors. And while the present-day
monetary authorities tell us that they learnt a lot from history and would not
wildly print the reintroduced Zimbabwe dollar, the situation on the ground tell
us the horses pulling the inflation rate have bolted,” wrote Newsday.
“And spurring forward these horses is the fuel price and the
general rising cost of living in the country. A week after government effected
a 15% fuel hike, another 23% climb greeted the nation yesterday morning.
Cumulatively, fuel prices have gone up by about 456% this year alone.”
Least, we forget Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube assured us that
inflation will be down to 10% by end of the year!
“Of course, as all Zimbabweans know, it
has not been all plain sailing. The inflationary pressures we have faced have
caused uncertainty and pain, and we have made dealing with this our number one
concern. To address this, we have pushed ahead in our efforts to narrow the
fiscal deficit and slow down money supply growth, and we project inflation to
slow down to below 10% by the end of the year,” said Minister Ncube.
If is bad enough that the inflation horse
has once again bolted and is causing heart breaking economic hardships the
people are hit by the double whammy of souring prices and chronic shortages of
food, fuel, medicine, etc. as economic activity goes into reverse in response
to the uncertainties of being paid in a currency that is losing its value all
the time. But what makes this situation totally, totally unacceptable is that
there is nothing we, the people can do, other than saying “We warned you (Minister
Ncube, President Mnangagwa and the rest of the Zanu PF regime) this would
happen!”
Indeed, Zimbabwe’s economic trials and
tribulations started soon after independence with Zanu PF’s “scientific
socialism” – just a fancy name for Mugabe’s idiotic ideology of spending to
prosperity. The party’s patronage system took off big time with the size of civil
service, army, parastatal, etc. ballooning to accommodate party loyalists and
their cronies. Mugabe used to announce hefty wage increases every Workers’ Day
whilst protecting the consumer with price controls; people like that.
But by the late 1990s it was clear this
reckless spending was not economically sustainable. As much as the people
complained that the regime’s voodoo economic policies were creating poverty and
not the “mass prosperity” (Gutsa ruzhinji!) Mugabe kept wittering about; the
regime simply ignored them. The people could not remove Zanu PF from office
during elections because the regime rigged elections to maintain its iron grip
on power.
It is this inability to hold Zanu PF to
democratic account, the ability to remove a failed regime is the ultimate
expression of democratic elections, that is at the very heart of Zanu PF’s
political arrogancy and indifference to the worsen economic situation and the
heart breaking human suffering it brought. After 39 years of wringing our
fingers whilst we watched Zanu PF blunder from pillar to post and destroying
the economy we must now shift gears.
Yes, we must express our fury that Zanu
PF has allowed the inflation horse bolt out but, this time we must go one step
further, we must make sure we hold Zanu PF to democratic account for it.
6 comments:
Are we not just arguing in circles?
It has taken Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends to finally acknowledge that Zanu PF rigged last year's elections. "Legitimacy is an issue - last year's elections were illegal, and not free and fair. All reasonable observers concede that," admitted David Coltart, MDC Alliance Treasurer General.
"Zimbabwe economy wants the legitimate winner in power!" you are now tell us. If you believe like "all reasonable observers concede that last year's elections were illegal and not free and fair" then where is this legitimate winner coming from?
This argument that the elections were illegal if Mnangagwa is the winner but legal if Chamisa is the winner is a foolish one. The elections are judge free, fair and credible on the basis of the election process and not who won or lost! If you Mr Pedzisai Ruhanya cannot get your head round such a simple idea what more those who look up to you for guidance! No wonder Zimbabwe is in a real mess!
“Zanu PF and Mnangagwa cannot sustain the politics of patronage in a DEAD economy. That’s the paradox of Mnangagwa’s neo-patrimonial politic! The social contract has broken down. Cartels must die for Zimbabwe to survive!” twittered Pedzisai Ruhanya
This is very simplistic and dangerously so!
As a matter of fact, the nation came to a parallel conclusion, the need to dismantle the de facto Zanu PF dictatorship, in the late 1990s as the only sure way to end the Zanu PF and strangle hold on power hence the call for democratic change. The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC members into power on the understanding, the party would bring about the democratic changes the nation was dying for. Sadly, that has never happened.
MDC has had many golden opportunities to implement the democratic reforms in the last 20 years but has wasted them all. Mugabe and his Zanu PF party have bribed MDC leaders with the trappings of high office and they, in return, forgot about the reforms.
The real tragedy in Zimbabwe is that after 20 years of MDC selling out, many people still believe MDC will end the Zanu PF dictatorship, “the patronage system that has morphed into cartel” as you put it. MDC has been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds and those who cannot see this are either refusing to see it because they are benefiting from it like the MDC leaders themselves. Or they are naïve and gullible and given to follow leaders blindly like sheep.
In the last decade MDC have participated in rigged elections giving Zanu PF some modicum of legitimacy. Although MDC has finally admitted that Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections, Chamisa et al are fighting to have the illegitimate regime declared legitimate provided Mnangagwa agrees to share the spoils of power.
Ruhanya, the Zanu PF dictatorship and its spawned patronage and cartels would have all died years ago if MDC leaders had not sold-out. Right now the dictatorship should be on the ropes; it rigged last year’s elections, it is, per se, illegitimate and should be under concerted pressure for it to step down. It is the MDC who are allowing the regime off the hook by granting it legitimacy in return for power sharing concessions.
“Cartels must die for Zimbabwe to survive!” true but that is just too simplistic; the Zanu PF cartel and its corrupt and incompetent surrogate MDC opposition must die for Zimbabwe to survive. Zanu PF must step down to create the political space for an interim administration to be tasked to implement the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. Both Zanu PF and MDC leaders will have no role in the interim administration because they were in the 2008 GNU which failed to get even one reform implemented.
Well we are in this mess where Zanu PF is able to blatantly rig elections and stay in power because you, Mr Welshman Ncube failed to implement even one reform during the GNU. Did you learn from that mistake? No you did not! You went on to participate in the 2013 elections with no reforms in place and repeated the same mistake last year.
MDC has finally admitted that Zanu PF rigged last year's elections and is. per se, illegitimate. You are proposing to grant the regime legitimacy in return for a few cabinet positions.
As regards the November 2017 military coup many MDC leaders joined in the marching and ululating the unconstitutional ouster of Mugabe or, at the very least, were quiet as they weighed their options. It is therefore rich for you to be criticizing the people for doing something in which you were leading from the front!
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs have failed, after 39 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and brutal oppression and lawlessness, there is now a mountain of evidence of Zanu PF failure. We also know that the regime has rigged elections to stay in power against the democratic wishes of the people. The real big question which the nation has carefully avoided asking much less answer is: "What to do with a corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship?"
Today, with millions of our people now forced to live and die in abject poverty ; we cannot afford to bury our heads in the sand any more. Zimbabwe must now deal decisively with its problem of bad governance. No ifs, no but!
Some people have focused all the attention of the economic policies ignoring the fact that people have warned and advised this Zanu PF regimes for decades but only to be ignored.
What Chamisa and his MDC friends are proposing as the way forward is for the regime to remain in power as long as he and a few of his fellow leaders get a share of the spoils of power. This will not solve the core problem of bad governance because Zanu PF will remain in power and the dictatorship will remain strong as ever.
The only way forward is to face the political reality that no individual of political party has the divine right to govern the country and hence the reason why free, fair and credible elections are absolutely vital! Zanu PF rigged last year's elections, the regime imposed itself on the nation and the only logical thing for us to do is reject the imposition. We must demand that Zanu PF steps down and accept nothing short of that!
@ patience
Nothing in this world is more certain than failure and hence the reason one has to work very hard to avoid her. If we do not do something to end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state then we more likely to continue to sink into the abyss.than to rise out of it! We have been sinking in leaps and bounce for the last 39 years and as long as we retain the same corrupt and incompetent leaders, which we are, then failure is guaranteed.
@ Paul Themba Nyati
“Do those who claim to rule us care about these things? Of course, they do not; if they did, none of those two incidents would have happened in a country whose birth had aimed at enhancing the quality of life of those previously disadvantaged,” you say.
As a senior member of MDC, that is a very foolish question to ask since you are one of those who have been ruling the country the last two decades. MDC was in the 2008 to 2013 GNU tasked to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. You lot failed to implement even one reform in five years!
By participating in flawed and illegal elections MDC has only helped Zanu PF to get some modicum of political credibility.
“The President should seek an accommodation with his former colleagues in G40. That factional division continues to be a source of instability for our country. I suspect that enormous resources are being spent managing the G40 element on the part of the state. The suspicion and animosity stemming from this division means our country cannot effectively deal with the past and turn its back on all those ugly things that have happened in the past. The G40 debacle has to be acknowledged, charity begins at home,” you argue.
Zanu PF rigged the elections, it has no political mandate to govern and must step down. All you want to see happen is Zanu PF thugs kiss and make-up and continue to ride roughshod over the nation. What a foolish suggestion!
Nelson Chamisa has just admitted the MDC “sat, ate and did nothing in five years of the GNU”. When are you ever going to admit that you and your fellow MDC are now part and parcel of Zimbabwe’s corrupt and incompetent ruling elite? If you are not going to admit you sold-out then shut up and spare us the nauseating hypocrisy! We are not going to get out of this hell-hole with people like you selling-out and talking nonsense!
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