“As your Listening President and a Servant Leader, I will continue engaging with you and listening to your concerns so that we walk hand in hand, together in unity, love, peace and harmony towards a prosperous Zimbabwe,” said Mnangagwa!
“Listening President!” You have just blatantly rigged the elections, for umpteenth time it must be said, denying us, the people, a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
3 millions in the diaspora were denied the right to vote, a very large number considering Mnangagwa garnered 2.4 million and declared the winner. ZEC failed to produce a verified voters’ roll, a legal and common sense requirement, and so no one who was on the voters’ roll, who voted, etc.
Rural voters were subjected to the usual intimidation and harassment by traditional leaders and party operative, reducing them into nothing short of medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing landlord, Zanu PF.
The EU and all the other election observer with any democratic credential have all dismissed last year’s election as a farce. So Mnangagwa switches off the mic, the amplifier, and all the democratic means for people to express their voices and has chutzpah to claim he heard us!
By failing to stamp out corruption; failing to keep his promise to hold free, fair and credible elections; etc. Mnangagwa has confirmed that, contrary to his claim of Zimbabwe being “new democratic dispensation and Second republic”; the country is still a pariah state of Mugabe days.
And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. None!
“There is indeed, much more to look forward to in the New Year. Tomorrow is a better and brighter day. I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year,” Mnangagwa continued.
Rigging elections and thus confirming Zimbabwe’s pariah state status, was the easy bit; rigging economic recovery, given the pariah state, is proving mission impossible!
Mnangagwa has denied the people of his Zimbabwe a democratic voice because he and his Zanu PF cronies did not want to be told that they have failed and must go. So he is “a listening president” hearing the voices of an imaginary electorate.
The sorry state of the country’s economy is spelt out in the 90% unemployment rate; the soaring hyperinflation; the 90% of the population now classified as poor with 34% of them living in extreme poverty, according to a recent WB report; most of the country’s hospitals have all but closed and hundreds are dying of easily treatable ailments; etc. No amount of Zanu PF propaganda and coercion will force Zimbabweans to mistake abject poverty for economic prosperity!
There are some Zimbabweans who have argued that Mnangagwa should be given the benefit of the doubt. “Give him a chance, to turn the economy around!” They argued.
It is now over two years since the November 2017 military coup that booted Mugabe out of office and still there is nothing to make one believe Zimbabwe has or is ever going to turn the corner. Mnangagwa’s vision 2030 with its promise of middle income status for the country is just a mirage; same as Mugabe’s vision 2000, vision 2020, etc.
“Wishful thinking is hoping to feast on a bushel after bushel of mangoes in the future when you have never planted even one mango sapling,” my late father would often say. “Plant ten saplings and your wish will come true!”
Mnangagwa has had the last two years to plant the saplings to give hope in a future economic recovery; by failing to stamp out corruption, to hold free and fair elections, etc. he has continued with Mugabe’s destructive ways, cutting down the few mango trees for selfish gain.
Holding free, fair and credible elections to end the country’s curse of rigged elections, bad governance and pariah state is the mango sapling Zimbabwe must plant to secure economic recovery and prosperity.
“Happy and prosperous New Years!” Mnangagwa said this last year and the year before that and yet year after year the country’s economic meltdown has got progressively worse and not better. With nothing done to end the curse of bad governance, 2020 is not going to buck that trend.
The people of Zimbabwe must demand that this illegitimate Zanu PF regime steps down now to allow the appointment of an interim administration that will implement the requisite reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections.
The tragic human suffering brought about be the worsening economic situation is the compelling case why this vicious cycle of rigged elections and tyrants hearing imaginary voices must be broken now.
The right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country is not just a key fundamental right, it is also the essence of good and accountable government. The charade of being denied a voice and tyrants boasting about listening to the people’s democratic voices but not be allowed to continue even for one more day. Enough is enough!
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Mnangagwa: I Am Buying More Brand New ZUPCO Buses, I’ll Also Be Returning To This Place To Inspect If They’re Still As Clean
What a village idiot! He rigged the 2018 elections because he was determined to impose himself on the nation as the state President. The country is facing total economic meltdown and he thought his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” was going to open the floodgate of investors. The penny has finally drop that investors are still shunning away.
Instead of asking why investors are shunning away he is now taking over the running of pet project like ZUPCO, firewood bread rural bakeries and, his hot favourite, arming his shoot to kill thugs. The idiot has no clue what the country needs to revive the collapsed economy and yet believes he is making a positive contribution. He even has chutzpah to wish the nation a prosperous 2020.
The truth is Mnangagwa has run out of ideas how to revive the economy but will never admit it much less give up power. He is determined to defend the one-party dictatorship and Zanu PF’s strangle hold on power regardless of the tragic human suffering and deaths the regime’s misrule has already caused.
Zanu PF imposed a de facto one-party Zanu PF dictatorship in 1987 with the signing of the unity accord with PF Zapu. Since then the party has held the nation to ransom and is doing so to this day.
Whilst the 40 years of corrupt, incompetence and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule has left the country in total economic ruins and forced millions of ordinary Zimbabweans in abject poverty. The worsen economic situation has not spare the Zanu PF ruling elite. The party is imploding as the leaders fight each other for the dwindling wealth. The party is doom and the challenge is to stop it dragging the nation into the abyss with it!
Mnangagwa should go and run ZUPCO but not do so from State House! He must step down to allow the nation to elect a more competent state president who will manage the teething economic meltdown!
The Election Resource Centre has approached the High Court indicating that Masvingo traditional leader should be punished for defying a court order order that instructed him to apologize for encouraging chiefs to campaign for Zanu PF in 2017.
As a rule, Zimbabwe's traditional leaders have been a great disappointment. The white colonial rulers' divide and rule started with the promotion of the local chiefs. After being giving the hard pot hat and the half moon plate, the chiefs felt they were special and no longer part of the ordinary people and to show their gratitude to the whites they imposed the whites' oppressive laws with zeal!
Chief Rekayi Tangwena was a notable exception, he was a man of the people and stood by the people.
When Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs came into power they took over from what the whites had done with Chiefs and in Chief Fortune Charumbira, they could not find a more willing tool in the tyrant's hand.
As the country moves to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship it must now seriously look to dismantling the undemocratic traditional system too. The country does not need the likes of Chief Charumbira!
Ian Smith handed over to Mugabe Kariba Dam, Hwange Thermal Power station and three more smaller thermal powers station plus completed feasibility studies to build Batoka Gorge Dam, Hwange Stage 2 and upgrading the generating units of Kariba Dam.
In 40 years of Zanu PF rule the country has failed to keep the inherit power station running much less invest in any of the addition generating capacity. The country has relied on imported power from its neighbour and would not pay its bills!
Well the chickens have certainly come home to roost in their million, like red-billed quelea.
Other than acknowledge there is the drought Mnangagwa has said nothing of substance. The village idiot has no clue what to do. Zimbabwe needs a competent government if the country is ever going to get out of this hell-on-earth Zanu PF has landed us in.
And to have a competent government we must put and end to the Zanu PF culture of rigged elections and instead have free, fair and credible elections. The great disappointment is that so many Zimbabweans have no clue what constitutes free, fair and credible elections!
He has failed to revive the economy, stamp out corruption and mismanagement, etc. so how is he going to fix the school fees? Mnangagwa rigged the elections and now finds he cannot rig economic recovery; he will not admit much less give up his dictatorial powers to rig elections. He has already shown that he will shoot to kill in defence of his dictatorial rule. He is holding the nation to ransom!
AUDIO: What The U.N. Is Doing To Counter Zimbabwe’s Food Crisis
Zimbabwe's economic crisis is much, much worse than what one would expect from the natural causes like drought and cyclone and hence the reasons other countries in the region are not so badly affected. The natural causes have been added on to the man-made causes of decades of bad governance.
Zimbabwe has had the great misfortune of 40 years of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. The party has rigged elections again and again to retain its strangle hold on power.
The country has had a number of opportunities to end the dictatorship most notably during the 2008 to 2013 Government of National Unity. Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC party leaders, who were tasked to implement the reforms sold-out and failed to get even one reform implemented.
The opposition has since given up the fight for free, fair and credible elections.They have been participating in flawed elections give the vote rigging Zanu PF some modicum of political legitimacy in retain for the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait.
The UN official is spot-on, the situation in Zimbabwe is not going to change as long as the nation is stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. The people of Zimbabwe must themselves take up the fight for good governance by demanding that Zanu PF step down.
The international community can help by imposing the targeted sanctions on Zanu PF leaders for rigging elections and also on the opposition for selling out on reforms and participating in illegal elections for selfish gain.
When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe, over two years ago, he was so cocksure his "Zimbabwe is open for business!" mantra was going to bring in investors, economic recover and prosperity. He still wears the multi-coloured scarf, which had been the uniform of mantra, but the penny has dropped that the economic meltdown is getting worse and mantra is dead in the water.
Mnangagwa is now occupying himself with the more mundane issues and clearly has nothing else in his empty head. Zimbabweans have very good reasons to be worried sick, the country's economic meltdown is serious and the country is desperate for a way out and the man who is supposed to come up with solutions has none.
By all rights Mnangagwa should not be in state house but confined to some inconsequential activities. "Mnangagwa anofarina kuvhiya mbudzi!" (Mnangagwa should be skinning the goat!) as one would say in Shona.
It is at times like this, of serious nation economic crisis, that one fully appreciates the importance of a healthy and functioning democracy. There is overwhelming evidence that Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime has no clue what to do to get the nation out of the current political and economic mess. The thing is most Zimbabweans are aware of Zanu PF's end of the line position too and if the country had been a health democracy they would have voted for change of government by now. Zimbabwe is not a democracy and so the nation is stuck with the Zanu PF regime.
Mnangagwa rigged the 2018 elections to stay in power and now he has no clue how to fix the economy and the nation is facing a existential threat and it stuck with someone who has no clue how to end it!
Strictly speaking, by Shona custom, Mnangagwa would have been send off to do the mundane tasks whilst those with the intellectual ability sorted out the nation's difficult challenges. "Mnangagwa gano vhiya mbudzi!" (Mnangagwa should go and skin the goat!) as one would say in Shona. Sadly the man who should be skinning the goat is now is State House!
The need for the country to implement the democratic reforms and end the dictatorship is now a matter of life and death for the individual caught in the nightmare and the nation at large!
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