The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown and all hope of a revival following the November 2017 coup have evaporated. The economy has certainly taken a turn for the worse under Mnangagwa’s Second Republic inflation has surged from single digit to 300% plus. The country’s barely functioning health services have received the coup de grace with the firing of doctors.
No one in Zimbabwe is being spared of this economic meltdown. No one!
If Zimbabwe was a healthy and functioning democracy then the electorate would certainly be expressing their discontent with the ruling party, Zanu PF. The ruling party will be losing elections! Not so in Zimbabwe!
Zanu PF has just won the Tsholotsho Rural District Council wards 16 and 20, and Hwedza Rural District Council ward 4 by-elections. This trend is set to continue even if there was no meaningful economic recovery precisely because Zimbabwe is not a healthy and functioning democracy!
With no meaningful reforms to stop Zanu PF using state resources like food aid and other state funded projects for political gain, using party thugs and traditional leaders to intimidate and harass people, etc. there will never be free, fair and credible elections; especially in the rural areas where the electorate have been turned into medieval serfs beholden to the Zanu PF landlords.
MDC leaders wasted the golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the GNU and ever since the party has participated in elections knowing fully well Zanu PF will rig the elections.
Ever since the 2008 GNU, Zanu PF has learnt that as long as it allows the opposition to win a few seat the party can continue rigging the elections and still count of the opposition to participate regardless. The opposition are aware their continued participation is giving the flawed election process credibility.
“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 David Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe.
“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.”
Four of the MDC factions did form a coalition before the 2018 elections and yet they still participated in those elections with no reforms in place.
MDC has been participating in elections knowing fully well that with no reforms in place Zanu PF will rig the elections out of greed.
Although David Coltart admitted greed in his book, he has been extra careful not to repeat the admission ever again. He and the rest of the MDC leaders have come up with all manner of excuses to justify why they continue participating in these flawed elections.
“MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging elections,” Chamisa assured the nation repeatedly before the 2018 elections.
Of course, MDC did not have plan to stop Zanu PF rigging the 2018 elections and Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig those elections. No surprise there.
"We don't have structures in the (rural) area, no, not yet. In line with our recent congress resolution, we will be setting up polling station-based branches there soon," argued MDC national spokesperson Daniel Molokele.
This is just the latest MDC feeble excuses for dragging the nation into the 2023 elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF will rig the elections.
Without meaningful reforms there will be no free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe. And without free, fair and credible elections there will be no hope of a competent government; we are stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.
However, the greatest impediment to meaningful democratic change in Zimbabwe for the last ten years has not been Zanu PF but MDC; first by failing to implement the reforms and then by participating in flawed elections. MDC has been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds and, unless the people finally wake up to this treasonous intrigue, the nation will wait in vain for free, fair and credible elections!
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“As usual, nothing is expected from the budget announcement,” said ZCTU Secretary General, Japhet Moyo. “Firstly, the process of budgeting was exclusively for the politically correct, and leaving out key stakeholders in the consultation exercise.
“As usual, I foresee the priorities being the security sectors and few resources being channelled towards social services and infrastructure.
“Most ministries will overspend as usual and fail to account for their expenditures.
“Lastly, the volatile currency makes it a mockery to put figures in a budget unless if the budget is in US$.”
The trade union leader insisted, given a national poverty datum line of $ 7 600, all workers earning below the amount must not be taxed.
The Zimbabwe economic has all but completely collapsed and Zimbabwe is a failed state. This Zanu PF regime is corrupt, incompetent and 39 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has left the economy is ruins. Worse still, Zanu PF has no clue how to fix the nation’s economy.
Zanu PF has managed to stay in power these last 39 years but only because the party has been able to rig elections. The regime blatantly rigged last year’s elections and is determined to stay in power regardless the fact it is the one that caused the country’s economic turmoil and, worse still, its continued stay in power will only drag the nation deeper into the abyss.
Zimbabweans have allowed Zanu PF to remain in power for 39 years with the disastrous consequences there for all to see. The people have the choice of letting Zanu PF stay in power and the nation sink even deeper into economic and political despair or stand up and demand change. It is that simple!
It is clear ZCTU leaders have their heads still buried in the sand as they have yet to accept that Zanu PF has not only failed but is illegitimate since the party rigged last year’s elections. With naive and utterly useless leaders like these ZCTU leaders it is little wonder the nation is in a mess. Even now with the nation standing on the very edge of the precipice leaders like Moyo still continue to bury their heads in the sand!
@ K Musonda
Africa is currently experiencing another form of slavery through Pentecostalism.
We are now mentally lazy and our ability to reason scientifically has been incapacitated.
The African pastor won't talk about Usain Bolt or Serena Williams. The African Pastor won't talk about Steve Jobs or the young people in Silicon Valley reshaping our world.
They won't talk about young American scientists spending endless hours in search of a cure to a disease that's predominantly in the Tropical African Region.
The African pastor won't talk about Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie or Ben Okri. In every corner of the world, there exist young men and women who have defied all odds and become successful through hard work, creativity, and dedication….
The African pastor won't talk about them, neither will he ask his members to emulate the spirit of these individuals.
He would rather talk about sister Agatha who got a job she *WAS NOT THE MOST QUALIFIED FOR*because she prayed and fasted in line with their church programme or brother John a millionaire because he used all his salary as a seed in the church, or Papa Miracle who he laid his hands on and 3 of his children got admission in the university, or Mama Esther paid her tithe and her business started growing everywhere across the nation with no business plan, just boom, everywhere.
It was Chairman Mao who once said “religion is the opium” of the people. Nowhere else has this become a tragic reality than in Africa. The poorer the African has become the more fanatical religious he/she has become. He/she has become holier that the Pope, Moses and eve Jesus Christ Himself! Of course, it is all nonsense!
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