“What can South Africa do to assist in resolving Zimbabwe‘s problems?” Piers Pigou of International Crisis Group was asked.
“The shift to a more public critique is an important stepping stone to promoting a more honest engagement around the issues in play,” he answered.
“This discussion should be extended and shared with other Sadc and AU member States, in terms of government to government.
“South Africa's governing party should also promote a more open discussion around governance and democratic deficits amongst liberation movements as it relates to Zimbabwe.”
What “democratic deficits” can President Cyril Ramaphosa raise now when he has already publicly endorse Zimbabwe’s rigged July 2018 elections as democratic and Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime as legitimate?
The nearest SA, SADC and AU have ever come to forcing Zanu PF to address the party’s yawning democratic deficit was when they forced Mugabe and the party to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement. Zanu PF agreed to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms taking away the party’s carte blanche dictatorial powers including the power to rig elections.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, Zanu PF’s partners in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, were tasked to implement the reforms. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. To be fair, SADC leaders had nagged MDC leaders throughout the GNU to implement the reforms but were ignored.
SADC leaders made one last minute determined attempt to get the reforms implemented and asked the 2013 Zimbabwean elections to be postponed until the reforms were implemented.
“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza told Journalist Violet Gonda.
“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws.
“And after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”
Once again, Tsvangirai et al ignored the SADC leaders’ candid pleas and participated in the elections. And, as expected, Zanu PF blatantly rigged those elections.
SADC leaders had tried to get the reforms implemented and it was none other than Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders, the victims of the rigged elections, who had frustrated their efforts! The regional leaders had accepted Zanu PF as Zimbabwe’s legitimate government following the 2013 election, regardless of the blatant rigging, in disgust at the MDC leaders’ breath taking incompetence and betrayal.
In 2014 the Morgan Tsvangirai led MDC-T made a party congress resolution not to participate in future elections until democratic reforms stopping Zanu PF rigging elections were implemented. “No reform! No Elections!”
The other MDC factions and a host of other opposition parties endorsed the MDC-T “No reform! No elections!” call. They were all paying lip-service to reforms because they all participated in the 2018 elections with not even one reform implemented for the same reason they had participated in 2013 - greed.
Whilst the rest of the SADC leaders had once again accepted Zanu PF as the legitimate government, regardless of the blatant voting irregularities and illegalities, because Zimbabwe’s opposition had giving the process credibility by participating.
President Cyril Ramaphosa went one step further and publicly endorse the elections as having “gone well”!
If Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had not sold-out and implemented the raft of democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, as agreed; Zimbabwe will not be in this mess today. The way forward is to revisit the 2008 GPA and implement the raft of reforms.
President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies cannot be trusted to implement the reforms and so there is no choice but to demand that the party steps down. The party rigged the 2018 elections, it really has no mandate to govern; never had.
Given President Ramaphosa, SA, SADC and AU have already endorsed Zanu PF as the legitimate government in Zimbabwe; it would be shrewd for President Ramaphosa to ask UN to tell Mnangagwa the bad news. That Zanu PF is illegitimate and, for the sake of ending the crisis in Zimbabwe and tragic human suffering it has brought, the party must step down.
“If Zanu fails to solve the current crisis, what consequences will this have on the country?” Piers Pigou was asked.
“Zimbabwe will continue its path to impoverishment, in which a select connected few will do handsomely,” he replied.
“The State will continue to lose its capacities and competencies and will remain riven by corruption and patronage, as institutions hollow out and the majority eke a liking out on the margins.
“This trajectory could continue for many years! It will inevitably generate growing hostility from the alienated mass, especially amongst younger people. This is a potentially explosive cocktail.”
A trajectory that has lasted 40 years already and must be brought to an end a.s.a.p. Zanu PF must step down to allow the appointment of a body that will implement the reforms and finally end this curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
12 comments:
AMERICA'S ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols urged the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to be more proactive in helping resolve the challenges faced by the country. The regional bloc should assist in "promoting national dialogue," Nichols said in an interview on Friday with Johannesburg-based broadcaster eNCA.
The only hope for Zimbabwe getting out of the hell-hole Zanu PF has landed us in is for the nation to appoint a body to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. Since Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office, the party will have to step down to allow others to do it. The only national dialogue to be had with Zanu PF is to demand the party steps down and stop holding the nation to ransom!
@ Moyo
AMERICA'S ambassador to Zimbabwe Brian Nichols urged the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) to be more proactive in helping resolve the challenges faced by the country. The regional bloc should assist in "promoting national dialogue," Nichols said in an interview on Friday with Johannesburg-based broadcaster eNCA.
The only hope for Zimbabwe getting out of the hell-hole Zanu PF has landed us in is for the nation to appoint a body to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. Since Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office, the party will have to step down to allow others to do it. The only national dialogue to be had with Zanu PF is to demand the party steps down and stop holding the nation to ransom!
@ Ken Mufuka
“If one is to compare exposure of government misdeeds by the MDC Alliance and similar efforts attributed to Hopewell Chin'ono, it is not an exaggeration to say that Hopewell has done more to shape the government image as a corrupt, insensitive neanderthal than the opposition party.”
No, that will not be an exaggeration!
We must remember that MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms designed t stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and they failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not even one reform!
In the MDC we have one of the most corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition politicians in human history. The only reason MDC leaders are still on the political stage is because Zimbabwe has some of the most naive and gullible voters in the world.
@ Bloomberg
“But Mnangagwa is unwilling to undertake the political reforms necessary to secure assistance from the international community. He has shown little appetite for taking on those who benefit most from the institutionalised corruption of the Mugabe years — including his political allies and the military leadership that helped him secure the presidency.
“He remains in fear of being toppled, as his predecessor was, in a military coup. His deputy, Constantino Chiwenga, is the former chief of the armed forces.
“The Crocodile had been hoping the "family of nations" would fatten the proverbial calf for the returning prodigal. But the family has made its terms clear. Mnangagwa cannot sit at the table before first cleaning his hands.”
When the soldiers woke Mugabe up in the small hours of November 15th 2017 with business end of an AK47 rifle up his backside, he must have been frightened. But he soon composed himself when the soldiers told him they wanted him to resign; he refused.
Mugabe expected the whole army, Police, CIO, the Zimbabwe public and the international community to mobilise, denounce the coup and come to his rescue. Nothing happened. Days later and still nothing happened. For the first time ever in his whole life it finally dawned on him that many people out there hated him with a passion and they were very pleased to see him go.
When the sweaty, super-charged with adrenaline, Lt General S B Moyo announced that the coup d’etat was in fact NOT a coup d’etat but rather a ”military assisted transition”! The world raised their eye-brows with the knowing “Not again!”
When the Mnangagwa regime blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections they confirmed beyond doubt that nothing of substance had indeed changed. The West had not re-engaged with the Mnangagwa regime in any notable way. The West heard Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call but the expected flood of investors never materialised.
In the last year the West has become more and more vocal in their criticism of the Zanu PF regime and have been cutting back their cooperation and assistance to Zimbabwe.
The west was never fooled by the buckets of crocodile tears and so they have not lost patience with the crocodile because they have always kept their distance and never taken for suckers.
Whilst South Africa has always held free, fair and credible elections and so President Cyril Ramaphosa clearly knows what constitutes free, fair and credible elections. It is very disappointing that he suddenly forgot that when it came to Zimbabwe elections.
Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018. The country failed to produce a verified voters’ roll; 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora, many in SA, were denied the vote; etc.; etc. How President Ramaphosa still judged such an election as “gone well!” beggars belief!
”South Africa's governing party should also promote a more open discussion around governance and democratic deficits amongst liberation movements as it relates to Zimbabwe,” suggested Piers Pigou.
As far as President Ramaphosa is concerned, Zanu PF has no “democratic deficits” but only because he uses a totally different yard-stick to measure Zanu PF’s democratic credential than he uses in South Africa.
Zimbabwe is desperate to get out of the hell-hole Zanu PF has dragged the nation into. To get out of the hell-hole, Zimbabwe must implement the democratic reforms designed to bridge the country’s yawning “democratic deficits”. The last thing the country wants is to have yet another GNU and once again go through the mill only to find at the end of it all that we still have a yawning deficit because the yardstick used was one foot long!
The best President Ramaphosa has to offer Zimbabwe is a Zanu PF led GNU and the people of Zimbabwe will have to be stupid to accept that! President Ramaphosa is a compromised candidate to preside over Zimbabwe’s transition from the current one-party dictatorship to a multi-party democracy. He must do the only honest and honourable thing - recluse himself, SA, SADC and AU!
@ Africa: Our collective minds. Our destiny.
If you know what are the basic requirements for free, fair and credible elections then you not need any more proof that the July 2018 elections were a farce.
Would you agree that you cannot have free, fair and credible elections without a verified voters' roll, for example? This is a legal requirement and a common sense requirement. ZEC failed to produce a verified voters' roll and hence the reason why the EU Mission reported said the process could not be "traced and verified".
“He said South Africa was the youngest democracy in the region whose status in Sadc was questionable due to the continued dominance of the Afrikaners.
“Mokoena has, however, been insisting Zimbabwe was in a crisis, forcing a showdown on Twitter with Mnangagwa's spokesperson, who yesterday, in apparent attack to the South African scribe, said he would "rather keep quite like a well-behaved man, lest that fool will go on her menstrual cycle if I respond".
“His tweet triggered an outcry, with many accusing him of being sexist and misogynistic. They also claim Charamba's carefree attitude mirrored that of ruling Zanu-PF party.”
Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs and it is naive for anyone to expect these thugs to fight clean. Of course, Charamba is being sexist and misogynistic. This is nothing new, remember the late Robert Mugabe’s rude and unwarranted attack on Minister Lindiwe Zulu because she had pushed hard to have the democratic reform implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
Whilst these Zanu PF thugs have no qualms hiding below the belt they will scream the house down claiming their opponent is fighting dirty when it is all a lie. Zanu PF will resort to every dirty trick in the book just to frustrate and stop the implementation of the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections.
The is no doubt that the Zanu PF regime is feeling the increasing pressure for meaningful change; we must ignore the sadistic attacks design to draw attention away from the big issue - the need for Zanu PF to step down. We must keep our eyes fixed on the prize!
President Ramaphosa must reinstate that the envoys will meet Zanu PF officials as well as other stakeholders and announce the date the envoys are due to arrive in Zimbabwe. This is not the time to release the pressure on Zanu PF but rather to increase it. SA must tighten the screw on Zanu PF, one full turn!
"I wish to unequivocally state that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe as elections were held in July 2018 and a winner was declared in terms of the country's Constitution,” said Mnangagwa.
Well he can say that again and again, a 100 000 times and 100 000 times again; that will not change the facts on the ground. Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections confirming the country was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs same as before the November 2017 military coup.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s worsening economic crisis is because no investor or lender would want to do business in a pariah state. In 2019, 34% of Zimbabweans were already living in abject poverty and it is therefore no surprise that the people are now restless for meaningful change and an end to their suffering. The regime’s response is to use brute force to silence all dissent.
Of course, there is a serious economic, social and political crisis in Zimbabwe. Zanu PF is denying the crisis but only because it knows the solution is for the regime to step down to allow the nation to implement the necessary democratic reforms to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
Frankly, what Zanu PF says on Zimbabwe’s existential crisis and way out is now as irrelevant as a criminal has to say on the crime; the judge must be guided by the evidence before the court and not by the “Not guilt!” plea. Zanu PF rigged the July 2018 elections and there is a mountain of evidence to show this; what Mnangagwa says “unequivocally” otherwise and for the umpteenth time is totally irrelevant!
@ Dr Simba Mavaza
After a life time of defending Zanu PF your instinct is to continue defending the regime even though it is now increasingly difficult to do.
“The arrest of Mr Hopewell Ching'ono and Job Sikhala is not peculiar to Zimbabwe. We saw in Australia tens of people arrested for inciting, this included the arrest of a heavily pregnant lady and an old man for inciting a demonstration against the COVID 19 restrictions laws. Surprisingly, there was no backlash from the self-ordained human rights activists,” you say.
So Hopewell Chin’ono was thrown in Chikurumbi for “inciting violence” by daring to reveal the details of the Drax Scandal involving former Minister of Health, Obadiah Moyo. If the story was not true then why did Mnangagwa fire Moyo?
Regular Bulawayo24 readers may remember that just a few weeks before Chin’ono broke the Drax Scandal you, Dr Mavaza, had penned an article praising Obadiah Moyo’s competence as Minister of Health to the high heavens!
Dr Mavaza, you are Zimbabwe’s answer to Germany’s Joseph Goebbels who continued wittering about German winning the war even with the Russian Army inside Berlin and the noose tightening round the Nazi regime’s neck. The noose is tightening round Zanu PF, the regime is finished!
@ Donavan
“By the way, Chamisa is the legitimate president of Zimbabwe. EDiot is the court imposed illegitimate psychopathic president.”
The more rational position is that Zimbabwe’s July 2018 elections were a farce because ZEC failed to produce a verifies voters’ roll, 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, etc., etc.
The repeated claim that “Chamisa is the legitimate president of Zimbabwe” is just as foolish as Mnangagwa’s own claim to be legitimate because a flawed and illegal election process cannot produce a legitimate result. Chamisa failed to produce ALL the V11 forms, for example, to show where he got 2.6 million votes from. ZEC’s own Constitution Court affidavit had 10 987 V11 forms and had 10% or so missing.
By stubborning insisting that Chamisa won the presidential race when the whole election process was flawed and illegal MDC A is only telling the world that the party does not care about elections being free, fair and credible as long as the party leaders are declared the winners! With that kind of attitude it is no surprise that MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so.
You are right, ED is an “illegitimate psychopathic president” but so be Chamisa is the Constitutional Court had ruled in his favour.
What Zimbabwe needs right now is to appoint individuals who will implement the democratic reforms and finally get the country out of this mess. It is clear the country cannot trust Zanu PF and/or MDC leaders to deliver free, fair and credible elections, they are all psychopaths who do not care if elections are rigged as long as they are declared the winner!
A delegation from South Africa's ruling African National Congress arrives in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, beginning the latest round of attempts by President Cyril Ramaphosa to break the political logjam in Harare.
The delegation led by ANC secretary general Ace Magashule is expected to meet with top officials from President Emmerson Mnangagwa's Zanu-PF party before engaging his rivals and other interest groups.
Ramaphosa is also expected to shortly dispatch three special envoys whose previous trip to Harare early last month did not go according to plan after Mnangagwa blocked them from meeting his main rival, MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
President Cyril Ramaphosa must be careful not to bamboozle himself into Zimbabwe only to make a bad situation even worse.
The solution to Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis was identified way back in 2008 when SADC forced Mugabe to sign the Global Political Agreement (GPA) agreeing to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Sadly, not even one reform was ever implemented in the 2008 to 2013 GNU and the reason we are still stuck.
The solution is to revisit the 2008 GPA and this time come up with a GNU that will get the reforms implemented. Getting Zanu PF and MDC to play a role in the new GNU will be a waste of time since they are the ones who failed to get even one reform implemented last time.
President Ramaphosa, SA, SADC and the AU have already endorsed Mnangagwa and Zanu PF as the legitimate government in Zimbabwe, they cannot unendorsed the regime. And so Ramaphosa cannot ask Mnangagwa to step down.
President Ramaphosa is refusing to admit his role in getting Zimbabwe out of the mess is zero. Indeed, his continued involvement will only please Zanu PF because the party knows the worst SA can do is force Zanu PF to form a new GNU with MDC. As long as Zanu PF remains in power, the party will see to it that no meaningful reforms are implemented.
Zimbabwe needs a solution to get out of the mess it is in and not another gimmick - a Zanu PF led GNU will be another gimmick!
The trouble with Ramaphosa is that he has not thought through what he thinks is the solution in Zimbabwe, which is a pity given this is a crisis that has been going on for decades now. Ramaphosa should know the 2008 to 2013 GNU in Zimbabwe was set up to address the same crisis the country is facing today. The 2008 GNU failed to solve anything because it failed to implement even one democratic reform.
So SA should know that the solution to the Zimbabwe crisis is in finally implementing the democratic reforms designed to end the curse of rigged elections. And SA should also know that Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office. By engaging with Zanu PF as the legitimate government, when it is not since the 2018 elections were rigged, SA is raising Mnangagwa's hopes that he and Zanu PF will be seen as the solution going forward.
Zanu PF is a big part of the rot in Zimbabwe and therefore cannot be part of the solution too! This is the message that must hammered into President Ramaphosa's head! Zimbabwe needs a solution to the crisis and not just another gimmick to kick the can down the street!
Post a Comment