Once upon a time, a few moons ago although I remember
it as if it was yesterday, I visited a number of High Schools and Colleges up
and down Zimbabwe to talking about the UN Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. The students had no problem defending the right and freedom to be
heard, as long as it was their right or freedom that was at stake. Having
secured their own individual right to speak they firmly believed that right
included telling others to shut up!
The impulse to be heard and resist being dominated,
is very strong and once heard the impulse to silence everyone else and dominate
is even stronger. It is the primeval default setting. The acceptance of other
people rights and freedoms, the concept of universal rights and freedoms, goes against
the primeval grain of securing the right and freedom for one’s self and
dominate by denying the same to others!
Talking to Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance
supporters on the recent High Court rulings on the leadership battle has been worse
than a rerun of the High School student Human Rights debate. The student
allowed one to read out the universal rights and freedoms and they accepted the
rights and freedoms as everyone’s entitlement.
The MDC supporters will not admit that Nelson
Chamisa did not follow the MDC’s own constitution in seizing power following
Morgan Tsvangirai’s death. They prefer to airbrush the details of Chamisa’s
ascendancy out, how he got into power is irrelevant. The see in the High Court
Judgement the hand of Zanu PF “destabilising” the MDC.
If one accepted the political events in their
logical sequence then it is a historic fact that Chamisa did not follow the
party’s own constitution. Those pretending otherwise are just being selective,
they want to ignore the constitution because it is not servicing their selfish
purpose. In other words Chamisa shot himself in the foot by ignoring the party’s
constitution and the penalty of destabilising the party is therefore self-inflicted.
The tag-of-war between democratic mordenizers and
the primeval dinosaurs seeking to dominate has been going on not just in MDC
but in the ruling party Zanu PF itself with even worse and far reaching disastrous
consequences to the nation.
The clarion cry before independence was “One man!
One vote!” It was out of the need to secure political dominance that Robert
Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies have denied the people their freedoms and rights
including the right to a meaningful vote. The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic
meltdown and political paralysis, is the de facto one-party dictatorship.
When Mnangagwa and his fellow November 2017
military coup plotters seized power from Mugabe, they accepted the need to
democratic change. It is ironic that the same court that ruled Chamisa’s
seizure of power unconstitutional, ruled the military coup “legal, justified
and constitutional”.
It should be noted for the record that Nelson
Chamisa and his fellow MDC leaders supported the November 2017 military coup.
Chamisa has publicly admitted Morgan Tsvangirai died “a bitter” man because
Mnangagwa did not keep his promise to form a GNU after the coup. In other words
the coup was justified and fine as long as it helped MDC leaders up the greasy
political power pole.
Mnangagwa called the post November Zimbabwe a “new
democratic dispensation, a Second Republic”. He promised to hold free, fair and
credible elections. The crocodile instinct in him to rig elections were to
power to resist!
Everyone questioned Nelson Chamisa sincerity in
challenging Mnangawa’s victory in the July 2018 elections given MDC had
participated knowing fully well Zanu PF would rig the elections. ZEC failed to produce
something as basic as a verified voters’ roll and yet MDC participated
regardless.
The High Court judgement on Chamisa’s violation of
the MDC constitution when he seized power under lined his hypocrisy in calling
Mnangagwa “illegitimate” when each one of them is illegitimate.
If Zimbabwe is ever going to implement the
democratic reforms necessary to dismantle the de facto one-party dictatorship and
restore the individual freedoms and rights as envisaged in the UN Universal
Rights then the country must look to others, not Zanu PF or MDC, to implement
the reforms. Both Zanu PF and MDC leaders have shown that their base primeval
instinct to dominate is more powerful than the reformist democratic instincts.
15 comments:
An increasingly paranoid President Emmerson Mnangagwa, is reportedly building a state-of-the-art command bunker underneath his new private mansion, in the opulent suburb of Borrowdale in Harare, Spotlight Zimbabwe, can exclusively reveal.
This is the bunker mentality! But Mnangagwa should know that no matter how thick the bunker walls are no dictator on earth has managed to stay in power forever!
@Sally Zhanda
“What a realistic post-mortem. At least Zanu PF may err while within constitution. Mugabe only changed material things at congress even if he had to influence the outcomes but it was all legally completed. Mnangagwa follows the same rules. Although he gained power in the way he did, he still had congress to elect him and the courts to remove the illegality in time. Yet Chamisa had not recognised the need to have his actions pass legality tests. His popularity cannot substitute the requirements for legality otherwise it becomes dictatorship by the majority as noted by the Gaddafi.”
Whatever Chamisa did to bamboozle everyone else out of the way to secure the presidency of the MDC in February 2018 is child’s play compared to the November 2017 military coup or the blatant vote rigging of the July 2018 national elections. The very fact that the same judiciary condemned Chamisa for what he did but praised and glorified Mnangagwa for his acts of high treason only goes to show how utterly corrupt and useless our judiciary is.
How can a military coup be “legal, justified and constitutional”? How?
I hear Mnangagwa is building a state-of-the-art bunker mansion for himself. No doubt, he is fearful of another legal, justified and constitutional military coup!
Chamisa is angry that as leader of the opposition and one who, by participating in the flawed elections gave Mnangagwa the modicum of legitimacy, he is not allowed to take advantage of the corrupt judiciary too! No doubt, if he should ever climb the greasy pole to the top, be state president, he would want the corrupt and utterly useless judiciary to remain and he will take advantage of it too!
This is just the kind of sentimental nonsense that is held back the nation for all these last 40 years.
“On the 14th of February 2018 Morgen Tsvangirai died in South Africa. Although he has been ill for some days his death came as a shock because many had hoped that through him democracy was going to be restored in Zimbabwe. Many had hoped that through him the rule of law, the freedom of the press, economic stability was guaranteed but alas all hopes has been dashed,” you said.
Tsvangirai had the golden opportunities to deliver the democratic changes the nation has been dying for, especially during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. All he had to do then was implement the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement. He failed to implement even one reform in five years! Not one!
It is shocking that even now, with the benefit of hindsight, some people would still refuse to see Tsvangirai for the corrupt, incompetent and sell-out he was!
What you must know about the overwhelming majority of the Zimbabwean electorate is that they have a binary mentality; to them every is either black or white, right or wrong. Once they have pigeon holed someone or something it takes a lot to shift their position.
During the struggle for independence Zimbabweans pigeon holed Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies as national heroes par excellence. It took most Zimbabweans over 20 years to accept Mugabe was a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous tyrant. Even when the truth of his murderous Gukurahundi activities were common knowledge, some people still refused to see Mugabe as anything else other than a great stateman and hero!
MDC supporters have been calling for democratic change and have chanting "Change! Chinja!" "The party of excellence" ad nauseam and yet had no clue what they wanted. Chamisa and the rest of the MDC leaders have sold-out of democratic change and, in this case, Chamisa's seizure of power after Tsvangirai is the very antithesis of democratic values the party is supposed to stand for. But all that is irrelevant to a simpleton with a binary mentality.
Democracy demands that the people understand what they want and they have the courage to hold the leaders to account if they fail to deliver. Our binary mind electorate has Zanu PF as the bad guys and MDC as the good guys. Chamisa can do no wrong just as Tsvangirai before him and so too with Mugabe the first 20 years!
We live in a world with all the colours of the rainbow and yet some people choose to see only two colours, black or white. They can see the colours physical but not mentally; they can only discern black or white and showing them the different shades of grey will throw them into total confusion.
I really cannot see this country ever emerging from the economic and political mess it is in when the people cannot distinguish a free, fair and credible election from a rigged one! Surely, that is not rocket science!
@ Gangpost
“What you are saying here is utter rubbish, why was he allowed to contest the elections? Why was he allowed to contest the results of the elections in the highest court of the land as an illegitimate leader? Why is it that at one time he was asked to be the leader of the opposition in parliament as an illegitimate leader? Why did Khupe refuse to attend that party's meeting before Tsvangirai's death for many months, was she following the party's constitution? Until you can answer these questions, your opinion remains invalid as well.”
Rigging your own party’s election does not stop you contesting the national elections. Mnangagwa himself stage a military coup to ouster the Zanu PF dictator, for Pete’s sake, and 8 months later he contested the national election as the party’s presidential candidate. Mnangagwa went on to rig the national elections, of course, he is illegitimate but that did not stop him getting into state house.
The trouble with people like you gangpost is you are incapable of separating issues even those that are easy to separate, so you can look at them without tying yourself up in knots. Chamisa broke the MDC party rules when he seized power following Tsvangirai’s death, leave Mnangagwa and Zanu PF out of it. Even if Mnangagwa was the one who advised Chamisa to seize power, it was foolish of Chamisa to have taken that advice!
Yes Khupe refused to attend meetings with Tsvangirai but is there a section in the MDC’s constitution that says Khupe lost her post for refusing to attend the meeting or said Chamisa could disregard the party’s rules because of what she did? If there are any sections then you should be asking the party’s lawyers in the case why they failed to flag these sections!
Chamisa and his fellow MDC leaders, including Khupe and Mwonzora, participated in the 2013 and 2018 elections knowing fully well Zanu PF was rigging the elections; it is this contemptuous disregard of the democratic values for selfish gain that is at the heart of our political paralysis! And fools like you should be holding these leaders to account and not cheering them along!
Chamisa had earlier tweeted a similar message, vowing to fight back.
“Will fight and win Zimbabwe for change,” he tweeted. “[Mnangagwa] will never forgive us for defeating him in 2018.
“All challenges are platforms for major comebacks, renewal and massive resurgence.
“We are on the right side of history. We stand for right, light and truth.”
The more Chamisa denies that he did not follow the party’s own constitution when he seized power after Tsvangirai’s death the more he will lose whatever little political credibility he still had.
By participating in the July 2018 elections with not even one token reform in place Chamisa and his MDC friends KNEW they would be giving the flawed and illegal elections some modicum of credibility. They did it for the sake of the few gravy-train seats Zanu PF gives away.
In his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe, David Coltart, former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the 2008 GNU, gave details of how Zanu PF was flouting the electoral rules in the upcoming 2013 elections. It was clear the elections would not be free, fair and credible.
“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 elections,” wrote Senator Coltart.
“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.”
“[Mnangagwa] will never forgive us for defeating him in 2018!” How naïve!
The truth is already coming out of how MDC leaders sold-out during the GNU and continue to sell-out to this day. When the penny finally drops, it is the people of Zimbabwe who will not forgive you and your fellow sell-out MDC leaders for what you have done!
“Rinemanyanga hariputirwi!” (The truth can never be hidden for long!) as one would say in Shona!
@ Ndlovu
“Barking from a losing little Rascal...Chamisa please be Political mature...What you can do now if you don't trust Zimbabwean Courts approach EU and USA Courts so that they can Judge your way...You have too big mouth, Barking, Barking nonsense in all Social Media...In 2018 Harmonized Elections The War veteran Mnangagwa knocked you down please be patient wait for 2023 Harmonized Elections maybe you emerged the Winner...But over the War veteran dead body..”
Actually “war veteran Mnangagwa” blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections and everyone with half brain condemn the elections as a farce. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, for Pete’s sake.
But by participating in droves, Chamisa and his MDC Alliance all the other opposition parties and candidates, they gave the flawed band illegal process credibility. There were 23 presidential candidates alone!
Mnangagwa should have shown his gratitude to Chamisa by instructing his corrupt judiciary to judge in favour of Chamisa. After all if the same judiciary can judge a military coup “legal, justified and constitutional”, Chamisa’s transgressions were nothing in comparison!
Instead of big thank you, Mnangagwa decided to kick Chamisa in the teeth. As one of the millions of Zimbabweans whom Chamisa and company have betrayed repeatedly, kicking us in the teeth again and again; I see this as divine justice!
One of these fine days we, the long suffering people of Zimbabwe, will be able to kick Mnangagwa and his thugs in the teeth. He is building a bunker for himself, I hear. There is no bunker built by mere mortals that another mortal will not break into! He will be flushed out or it will be his tomb!
Presidential Spokesperson George Charamba says Zimbabwe might find it necessary to summon United States of America Brian A. Nichols to question him on the violent protests that are rocking America after the death of George Floyd.
Floyd died after being arrested by police outside a shop in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Footage of the arrest on 25 May shows a white police officer, Derek Chauvin, kneeling on Floyd's neck while he was pinned to the floor.
Said Charamba, "I THINK THE ZIMBABWEAN GOVT should summon the US Ambassador to explain the goings-on in the US!! This is an unusual, continuing and extraordinary grave threat to Zimbabwe's strategic interest globally!!! And of course, a grave threat to international peace requiring invocation of UN Chapter 7."
Charamba added that if America fails to follow the Responsibility to Protect Principle, the SADC Standby force was ready to be deployed.
"Clearly the Administration is unable to protect US citizens, in which case RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT stricture must kick in. The SADC STANDBY BRIGADE is supremely ready to deploy at all maximum means and capabilities needed to put out this raging fire!!!"
Any of the Americans involved on the coal face of the protests, on both sides of the divide on this matter, will not be amused to read this. This is a very serious matter and the last thing anyone of them want is a despotic regime trying to steal the political limelight by pretending it cares.
Just shut up Charamba!
Chas Moore, executive director of the Austin Justice Coalition, which had helped organize the demonstration, said in a Facebook video that on Saturday night, white people had been “burning stuff up in the name of Black Lives Matter” and that there were rumors that attempts would be made to hijack Sunday’s demonstration.
In general, he said, he recognized rioting as a tactic that could be used to advance the movement. But in this case, he said, agitators were using protests to bring about anarchy, so the demonstration was called off to keep black people safe, including the children and older people who were expected to attend on Sunday.
“You are using black pain, and you are using fake outrage in the name of Black Lives Matter to go deface and destroy property, which we would then get the blame for,” Mr. Moore said, referring to white provocateurs. “To those people, to those agitators, we see you, we know who you are, and we’re not going to let you co-opt and colonize this movement like you’ve done everything else.”
This is a reality that cannot be ignored.
All the MDC leaders have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are corrupt, incompetent and sell-out when they failed to implement even one democratic reform during the 2008 GNU. If you understood that political reality then you would not be singing the praises of any MDC leader.
"When great statesmen are mentioned the likes the late Napoleon Bonaparte, Thomas Sankara, Morgan Tsvangirai, the list is endless but the question is what separated these men from boys like Nelson Chamisa," you said. Proof you too have no clue what you are talking about!
"Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves; therefore be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves," said our Lord, Jesus Christ.
If the Zimbabwe electorate had been "as shrewd as serpents" then they would have deserted Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders a long time ago. The people have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding they would bring democratic change, as the party name suggested. Alas! MDC have been on the political stage for 20 years, 5 of which they were is government, and still they have failed to bring about even one democratic change. Not one!
In a very rare moment of frank admission, Chamisa confess MDC "had sat, ate and did nothing" during the GNU. Sadly, there are some people who have followed MDC leaders blindly like sheep to whom even the admission by the leaders themselves has been water off a duck's back.
The way Chamisa seized power after Tsvangirai's death proved beyond all doubt that he was just another political thug, no different from Mugabe and Mnangagwa. And yet surprise, surprise our sheepish Zimbabwe electorate continue to name their children after him!
Nelson Chamisa and all the opposition parties and candidate who participated in the flawed and illegal July 2018 elections did so out of greed. They all knew Zanu PF would rig the elections but they also knew Mnangagwa would give away a few gravy-train seats to all those who participated and gave the process credibility. The voters were warning about the opposition selling out and they should have seen this was true!
A healthy and functioning democracy certainly needs a shrewd electorate and not sheep who will follow blindly no questions asked! The Zimbabwe electorate is mostly sheep!
Who did you want to stop Chamisa contest the elections? Certainly not Mnangagwa, he needed the MDC to participate in the flawed and illegal elections and he satisfied Chamisa was going to contest. The last thing Mnangagwa wanted was some legitimate MDC leader emerging and demand that Zanu PF must implement the reforms to make sure the national elections were free, fair and credible!
Chamisa yesterday told The Standard that President Emmerson Mnangagwa was behind his party’s woes because he was still bitter about the outcome of the 2018 elections.
“He is being vindictive because we defeated him in 2018,” he said.
“He cannot stomach that. We control 28 out of 32 urban councils and he lost in 2018. He cannot decimate us.
“He wants to capture us and give the party to his people. It will not happen. He must leave the MDC alone.”
Chamisa shot himself in the foot by using Zanu PF thug tactics to seize the MDC leadership and now, like a Zanu PF thug, is blaming others for his own folly!
MDC leaders and supporters alike do not have the intellectual stature and focus to weather this disruption. On its own, Chamisa's seizure of power was not significant but taken together with all the years of corruption, incompetence and selling-out this is the final straw that broke the MDC camel's back. MDC is set to fracture, neither the Chamisa faction nor the Khupe faction has any political credibility worth a spit. The MDC is going to sink into the political abyss.
@ patrick
I agree, Mnangagwa should be thanking Nelson Chamisa for participating in the flawed and illegal July 2018 elections and give him some modicum of legitimacy. Chamisa shot himself in the foot by behaving like a Zanu PF thug.
When the international community condemned the July 2018 elections as a farce, Chamisa thought he could hold Mnangagwa to ransom and demand an even bigger share of the spoils of power by demanding a power sharing arrangement as the price for endorsing Mnangagwa the winner. Mnangagwa must have enjoyed letting fly his heavy boot, right on the upstart's kisser!
Still, Mnangagwa has very good reasons to be worried sick; a totally discredited MDC opposition is useless to him. All this talk of a new GNU with madam Khupe will have as much political respect as Ian Smith with his Zimbabwe-Rhodesia partner Abel Muzorewa!
"This doesn't mean that Western powers will side with his rivals. No one is impressing the outside world right now.
"So, the question is not just whether Chamisa is finished. The question is whether the MDC has a meaningful role right now that is understood by both Zimbabweans … and the outside world that was once sympathetic to the opposition — for the opposition is … opposing itself. This is a disaster," Chan said.
Steven Chan is only stating the obvious, the little political credibility MDC had after the party’s failure to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU has been spend! Chamisa has proven beyond all doubt that he is just a Zanu PF thug in the making who shot himself in the foot but then sort to blame others for his own folly.
Thokozani Khupe lost political credibility by participating in the flawed and illegal 2018 elections together with all the other opposition parties and leaders. By endorsing Mnangagwa’s victory and joining POLAD she showed the whole world she only cared about power and had no shame.
If Khupe and Mnangagwa continue with their POLAD or form a GNU it will make no difference. The world will view this with the same contempt as the Ian Smith and Abel Muzorewa internal settlement. A union of the illegitimate Mnangagwa with the discredited and utterly useless sell-out Khupe!
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