The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis is 39 years of corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship. When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup, he promised to end corruption and to hold free and fair elections but failed to keep his promises.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs and as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there is no hope of meaningful economic recovery because it is near impossible to do business in a pariah state.
The solution to Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis is to finally deal decisively with this curse of pariah state. As things stand Zimbabwe is ruled by a regime that does not have the mandate to govern since it rigged last year’s elections. So the immediate first step to dealing with our pariah state problem is to get the illegitimate Zanu PF regime to step down.
Zanu PF must step down for three good reasons:
- the party rigged last year’s elections and, per se, has no mandate to govern. For the last 39 years we have allowed Zanu PF to rig elections and rewarded the party with absolute power; this set a very dangerous precedence and one we must now end.
- by step down Zanu PF will create the political space for the appointment of a independent body the nation can entrust the key task of implementing the reforms. We need the reforms implemented if we are ever to break the vicious cycle of Zanu PF rigging elections. It is naive to trust a Zanu PF regime or GNU in which Zanu PF is playing a leading role to implement any reforms because Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office. The 2008 to 2013 GNU failed to get even one reform implemented.
- If Zanu PF is allowed to stay in office, for whatever reason, until the next elections, whenever that happens to be; we can be 100% certain that the party go on to rig those elections. After 40 decades of rigged elections the greatest gift this generation can give to ourselves, our children and posterity is delivery free, fair and credible elections. This is why getting Zanu PF to step down and implementing the democratic reforms is the holy grail of this generation.
Zimbabwe Christian Heads of Denominations’ (ZCHOD) call for Zimbabwe to suspend the holding of elections for seven years is but a clumsy attempt to grant the illegitimate Zanu PF legitimacy by the back door. All the political turmoil the church leaders are concerned about and from which they now seek seven years of peace were caused by Zanu PF’s failure to hold free, fail and credible elections. Whereas the nation had made the tragic folly of reward Zanu PF with political power for five years after each rigged elections the church leaders want to reward the regime with seven years with no elections.
In other words the ZCHOD’s proposal is nothing but an appeasement to Zanu PF, even more generous than the appeasements the regime has received so far. When we should be striving to end the folly of rewarding Zanu PF for rigging elections, reason a) above, we are being pulled in the opposite directions.
Deputy Government Spokesperson Energy Mutodi called the ZCHOD’s proposal “foolish and irrational” and even denounce them as “false prophets, Baal prophets”. Some well known Zanu PF apologists have gone one step further and suggested that it is MDC leaders who are behind the proposal, implying only MDC will stand to benefit and not Zanu PF.
This would not be the first time Zanu PF has denounced something which the party was actively promoting, just to mislead the naive and gullible.
When the new 2013 constitution was tabled Zanu PF rejected the document and submitted a whole raft of amendments. MDC claimed the new constitution was a democratic one and a “MDC baby”.
It was all smoke and mirrors Zanu PF trick, the party wanted the new constitution approved. It was none other than Mugabe himself who had “dictated it”, as Paul Mangwana, Zanu PF co-chair on the parliamentary committee that drafted it, boasted after the March 2013 referendum. The new constitution was approved by a staggering 95%.
MDC has been calling for a power sharing arrangement with Zanu PF ever since last year’s rigged elections. MDC is taking advantage of the worsening economic situation and Zanu PF’s illegitimacy to push for the power sharing demands.
For Mnangagwa, the illegitimate label has been hanging round his neck like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's albatross round the mariner’s neck. The albatross round Mnangagwa’s neck is rotting and, needless to say, he is desperate for a way out. The church leaders are offering Mnangagwa a chance to legitimise his rule now and not having to face another risky election process for seven years.
11 comments:
Obert Mpofu is in denial that last year’s elections “produced winners”. The elections were flawed and illegal and therefore failed to produce a legitimate result. The root cause of the worsening economic meltdown is because Zimbabwe is seen as a pariah state governed by incompetent, corrupt and vote rigging thugs.
Zanu PF must step down because it is illegitimate. The suggestion that adding a few MDC leaders to a Zanu PF regime and call it a GNU or Nation Transition Authority (NTA), as MDC leaders are suggesting will somehow transform Zanu PF from the illegitimate to legitimate and end the pariah state status is laughable.
“The country is in serious structural crisis, we don’t want to put make up on the crisis,” said MDC vice President, Tendai Biti. “There has to be genuine dialogue in the country, supported by the international community. This dialogue is not about sharing positions or suspending the constitution, but structural reforms, that is what is key.”
Tendai Biti is day-dreaming, the international community has pointedly refused to support MDC’s NTA because everyone knows that MDC is after sharing the spoils of power of last year’s rigged elections. The NTA is a watered down version of the 2008 to 2013 GNU which failed to get even one reform implemented, it is naive to expect any reforms to be implemented this time.
What Zimbabwe needs an interim administration, comprising independent and competent individuals who will be tasked to implement the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. Any government with Zanu PF in power will never implement the reforms and hence the only solution is for the regime to step down!
@ Loud speaker
Everyone must be allowed to have a say but only if that helps the nation advance. These stupid church leaders are refusing to listen to reason and all they are suggesting here is how to keep the illegitimate Zanu PF regime in power at the expense of the millions desperate for regime change! The idiots must be put in their places!
@ Metro
I agree 100%! We are fighting to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and replace it with a democratic system of government and these dimwit want the dictatorship granted even more super duper powers such as cancel elections at a whim!
Mnangagwa is in France for the for the world health conference where he donated on behalf of Zimbabwe US$1 million to the Global Fund.
Zimbabwe has slid into recession again with inflation running wild forcing the prices of basic commodities to shoot through the roof while citizens have been thrown into desperation.
The spectre of another meltdown looms large with doctors having been on strike for 40 days now, teachers threatening to join them while the rest of civil servants have given notice a final meeting is set for Friday to decide on the next course of action.
The money has been donated for good causes but still, one should not try to impress! Zimbabwe’s health care has all but collapsed, the country main hospitals have often run out of pain killers and bandages and the situation is even worse in smaller hospitals. So whom is President Mnangagwa trying to impress by making a donation the nation can ill afford!
Zimbabwe has raised its average electricity tariff by 320% to ramp up power supplies at a time of daily blackouts but the move will likely anger consumers already grappling with soaring inflation and stagnant wages.
The southern African country is experiencing its worst economic crisis in 10 years, seen in triple-digit inflation, 18-hour power cuts and shortages of US dollars, medicines and fuel that have evoked the dark days of the 2008 hyperinflation under the late President Robert Mugabe.
Wednesday’s was the second increase in the price of electricity inside three months and follows sharp rises in fuel and basic goods prices in the last week. Salaries have not kept pace, prompting citizens to blame President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s policies for the crisis.
Consumers seem set for more price increases after the energy regulator said that, starting November, the power utility would index its tariff to the US dollar to enable it “to recover from inflation and exchange rate changes”.
These 320% increases are what is fuelling the hyper inflation.
ZESA tariff goes up 320% and in the same week workers are offered a 60% wage increase. What a sick joke!
So if ZESA is allowed to “index its tariff to the US dollar to enable it to recover from inflation and exchange rate changes” why should the workers not be allowed to do the same?
Corruption and mismanagement, not sanctions, are the root causes of Zimbabwe's economic collapse. President Mnangagwa and Museveni can say what they want that reality will not change one bit!
@ Minister Sibusiso Moyo
“After meeting Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland stated, "there are a number of areas where Zimbabwe has made real reforms" — and that the process of rejoining "is being accelerated as quickly as possible”, you write.
How long are you going to talk of progress where there is none! By blatantly rigging last year’s elections Zanu PF throw away Zimbabwe’s chance of rejoining the Commonwealth.
What the country is pushing for now is for Zanu PF to step down to allow the nation to implement the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. In the end Zanu PF will step down, the worsening economic meltdown is piling on the pressure for change. Change is now as certain as the sun rising tomorrow!
Nurses at Parirenyatwa Group of Hospitals have downed tools citing reasons of incapacitation amid the doctors nationwide crippling industrial action.
The nurses who were singing chants at the institution in demonstration against the government.
Zimbabwe Nurses Association (ZINA) President, Enock Dongo said the 60 percent increment offered to them by government is not enough to sustain them.
The same government has just allowed ZESA, for example, a 320% tariff increase, the second increase in one month and is offering nurses a 60% wage increase. It is a sick joke.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is the country’s failure to remove failed leaders. Whilst it is clear Mnangagwa and his regime have no clue what to do to revive the economy, they still maintain the notion that they and they alone are the only ones who should govern.
For the last 39 years Zanu PF has rigged elections and then falsely claimed it had people’s mandate to govern. After four decades of rampant corruption and gross mismanagement and with the economy is ruins Zimbabwe must deal with this curse of bad governance or the nation is now facing the real danger of total economic meltdown and social instability.
A recent report in the Daily News on the deliberations of and the goings-on within the Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC) caused Emmerson Mnangagwa to blow the gasket - in a development which left the high-profile counsellors stunned.
Well-placed sources told the newspaper yesterday that the normally laid back Mnangagwa tore into his advisors and angrily asked them to resign if they were not happy with him and his government's response to the country's myriad political and economic challenges.
Mnangagwa reportedly told his advisors to resign from their posts as advisers if they are unable to keep secrets.
Well, well! If one is to go by what the PAC has achieved then the reality speaks volumes - the country’s economy in latching from one crisis to the next and things are worse now than when the individual where appointed a year ago. It is either Mnangagwa does not listen to their sound advice or they have failed to give him sound advice. Either way the members should just resign because they are serving no useful purpose!
God did the hard work in six days and rested on the seventh, hence the Sabbath, the day of rest. Zanu PF has rigged elections for the last 39 years and the church leaders, in their infantile wisdom, want reward Zanu PF with seven years “rest” from holding “rigged” elections!
The idiots have never ever chastised Zanu PF for rigging elections and denying the ordinary Zimbabweans their basic human freedoms and rights including their right to a free vote and even the right to life.
We want the church and everyone to play a role in everything in our lives but the last thing we want is people undermining the very fabric of live. How can anyone suggest that we should reward those who rig elections by allowing them to stay in office and even allow the rogues to cancel the obligation to hold regular elections. How naive!
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