The fight amount opposition politicians for headlines is hotting up!
“MDC Alliance's outspoken Vice Chairman and MP, Job Sikhala that despite all adversities in jail and even if it means dying in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison - "a concentration camp" - he will never give up fighting for people's freedom,” reported Bulawayo 24.
The report was accompanied by a handwritten declaration presumably pen by Sikhala himself in his prison cell.
Job Sikhala must stop confusing fighting for headlines to place himself in pole position for the few gravy train seats opposition politicians will be fighting for come the 2023 elections; with fighting for the people's freedom. The two objectives are not even complimentary, they are diametrically opposed!
Job Sikhala is in prison awaiting bailout hearing. He was arrested for “publishing falsehood”. He published a story of a Police Offer who fatally struck a baby with a baton.
Even if the story was true, it would only be one more story of the brutality of this Zanu PF regime. It would be stretching one’s imagination how the story, in itself, in “a fight for people’s freedom”!
Ever since Zimbabwe’s independence, in 1980, Zanu PF has ridden roughshod over the people, denying them their basic freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life. Fighting for freedom has meant implementing the democratic reforms to restore the individual freedoms and rights.
MDC leaders; including Tendai Biti, David Coltart and Nelson Chamisa now in the MDC A with Sikhala; had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms and thus end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They sold-out and failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years.
To add salt to the nation’s open wound, MDC leaders have participated in flawed and illegal election knowing that doing so would give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF as David Coltart has readily admitted.
“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,” 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.”
Three of the main MDC factions plus three other opposition parties did come together to form the MDC Alliance before the 2018 elections. The party went on to participate in the elections for the same reason as before - greed.
Zanu PF has offered a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate in elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process happened to be. As long as Zanu PF is assured of opposition participation, the party will resist all pressure to implement reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections.
MDC A and the rest in the opposition camp have found Zanu PF’s bait irresistible hence the reason there were 23 presidential candidates, 130 political parties, to say nothing of the independent candidates, contested for the 210 parliamentary seats.
Job Sikhala and Tendai Biti are some of the lucky opposition politicians to win the few gravy train seats on offer. The competition for these few seats in hotting up and anything to keep one’s name in the public eye will not be amiss.
There is everything to suggest Sikhala will be participating in the 2023 elections with no reforms in place. He has never demanded reform. The arrest over the alleged killing of baby by the Police Officer has put Sikhala’s name back on the front pages and public eye and pole position in the 2023 elections.
Fadzai Mahere, MDC A spokesperson, has just been release on bail from Chikurumbi Prison. She too was arrested and incarcerated for a week on the same charge as Sikhala - publishing falsehoods.
Advocate Mahere too participated in the 2018 elections as an independent candidate but lost. She is certainly going to try her luck again in 2023.
The living conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons are terrible, “concentration camp”, as Sikhala aptly up it. In these corona virus days, a jail term is, for many, a certain death sentence.
Ms Mahere has since tested positive of corona virus, the grime reminder of the life and death reality of prison in Zimbabwe.
“Even if I die in the concentration camp called Chikurumbi Maximum Prison, dear Zimbabweans remember me,” pleaded MP Job Sikhala.
“Remember me that it is because of our freedom, happiness and liberty that has been robbed from one generation to another, that I met that fate!”
Your brave stand on this occasion and on numerous others in the past have certainly put you in pole position to, once again, win the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait to the opposition. If you should die, God forbid, it will be for the sake of getting pole position in the rat race for the scraps Zanu PF is offering to bribe the opposition.
Even you cannot deny that by participating in the 2018 elections you, Comrade Job Sikhala, and your fellow MDC A gave the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy and earned the coveted gravy train seats for yourselves. The ordinary Zimbabweans gained nothing and, instead, forfeited yet another chance to get the reforms implemented.
No Comrade Sikhala you are fighting for pole position in the next flawed elections and against the freedom and liberty of the common people!
6 comments:
Comrade Job Sikhala, the people of Zimbabwe should have been enjoying their freedom and liberty for decades now! They are not because both Zanu PF and MDC leaders sold-out!
Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs made it clear that if the party lost the 1980 elections, the civil war would continue. The people voted to end the civil war and lost their freedom and liberty!
MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship for good during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office and they failed to implement even one reform.
You, Comrade Sikhala, participated in the 2018 elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF was rigging those elections. You also knew that Zanu PF was offering a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate; these you found irresistible.
By participating in the flawed elections you gave vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. You sold out on the opportunity to pressure Zanu PF to get the reform implemented because of your greed.
You are gearing to participate in the 2023 elections knowing fully well Zanu PF will once again rig the elections. If you should die in Chikurumbi it will not be for freedom and liberty but to secure the pole position for yourself in the 2023 rat race for gravy train seats!
FORMER Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) Commissioner-General Retired Major-General Paradzai Zimondi has died.
The retired Major-General has died from Covid-19, sources have confirmed.
Information gathered shows that Zimondi had tested Covid-19 positive two weeks ago, with a close friend who is a retired colonel. It appeared he was recovering, but he deteriorated and succumbed to the virus, leading to his death.
Zanu PF has tried to hide the truth on corona virus to hide the regime’s blundering incompetence in handling the pandemic as with everything else. The tragic reality with the virus is that pretending that the country had only a handful of active cases meant the thousands who were left unidentified were this free to spread the virus and so they did.
The virus has spread far and wide and fast. The chicken are coming home to roost and in their hundreds of thousands!
Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown, corruption is still rampant and so millions if not billions of dollars are be salted away by the few and the world is sick and tired of a country that is always asking for help but does little to sort out its own mess. In short Zimbabwe is not going to get much help and the corona virus is just picking up momentum - we are in for the toughest year or two in our history!
One of these fine days, we must carryout a through investigation of what happened here. We owe it to the many who lost their lives, to ourselves and posterity to establish why the country has found itself in such a mess!
@ Julie Askana
She talks sense this girl; short and sweet and to the point!
Of course, it is nonsense that Zimbabwe should be expected to mourn the death of any of these Zanu PF thugs when the same thug had his heavy boot on our throat all these last 40 years!
Some village idiots want the people to respect the privacy of Zanu PF thugs when the thugs are in power by riding roughshod over the people denying them their basic freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life!
"Even if I die in the concentration camp called Chikurubi Maximum Prison, Zimbabweans remember me," said Job Sikhala.
"Remember that it is because of our freedom, happiness and liberty that has been robbed from one generation to another, that I met this fate. I promise I will never be silenced until we all enjoy our nationhood.”
This is a story of heroes risking life and limb for freedom and liberty for all. A story every Zimbabwean is all too familiar with because Zanu PF leaders have told us of their heroic sacrifice in the liberation war at the drop of a hat! The tragedy is that the Zanu PF liberators have become the nation’s new oppressors, they “robbed” freedom from the people as Sikhala rightly put it.
The most important question here is: what is there to stop Sikhala and his MDC A friends become the new liberators and then oppressors?
The people have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding the party will deliver the democratic changes the nation was dying for. After 20 years, 5 of which in the GNU, MDC has nothing to show for it.
By participating in flawed and illegal elections MDC A are giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Job Sikhala did participate in the 2018 elections and, no doubt, will be participating in the 2023 elections.
It is all very well to keep on wittering about “I am willing to die for freedom” when you have done nothing of substance for donkey years even when you have the golden opportunity to do so! How many golden chances do MDC leaders want to finally deliver freedom and liberty?
It is tempting to see the opposition as the helpless victims of the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship; fighting for freedom and liberty for all without ever making any meaningful progress. But after 20 years, 5 of which in the GNU, of MDC leaders on the political stage; Zimbabweans must now ask the hard question: are MDC leaders up to the task of implementing the democratic reforms?
There is a mountain of evidence showing MDC leaders are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. The only reason MDC leaders have got away with the lacklustre political performances all these years is because most Zimbabweans are naive and gullible; even now with the benefit of hindsight many of them have no clue what the 2008 to 2013 GNU was about much less how MDC leaders sold out.
It is one thing for MDC leaders proclaiming they are not only up to the task of delivering freedom, they are ready to die for it. It is quite another matter knowing what to do and doing it.
Zimbabwe’s politicians are notoriously pompous and arrogant, they know all there is to know about the nation’s problems and they have the perfect solution to every one of those problems. They will never admit to failure even after decades of blundering from pillar to post, especially when they know there are few out there who will hold them to democratic account.
If Job Sikhala is as smart and dedicated to the cause of delivering freedom and liberty to all then he would have known it was folly participating in the July 2018 elections only to give Zanu PF legitimacy. Of course, it is nonsensical to be pontificating about fighting for freedom whilst undermining the fight for freedom by giving Zanu PF the excuse for denying the people their right to free and fair elections.
The most idiotic thing Zimbabweans can do right now is participate in the 2023 elections and once again give the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy.
Zanu PF has many individuals who spent decades in jail and/or risked life and limb fighting in the war of liberation. They all claim they were fighting for freedom and liberty for all Zimbabweans even today with all the evidence of the post independence brutal oppression. As has happened countless times in many other African countries, yesteryear's liberators have turned today's oppressors. There is very reason to believe MDC A is heading the same way!
MDC has been on the political stage for 20 years, 5 of which in the GNU, and yet they have failed to implement even one reform and thus lay the foundation of the free society we all been waiting for. MDC leaders did not have the common sense to implement the democratic reforms when they had the chance to do so because they had their snouts in the feeding trough. And ever since the fiasco of the GNU MDC leaders have been participating in flawed elections giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Zanu PF has been offering a few gravy train seats to the opposition to entice them to participate.
Job Sikhala participated in the 2018 elections, he is the MDC A MP for Zengeza West. Of course, he has every intention of participating in the 2023 elections knowing fully well that with no reforms Zanu PF will once again rig the elections.
As long as Zanu PF is able to entice the opposition to participate in elections, the party will never accept the need for reforms and free and fair elections.
"If I die in Chikurumbi, I will die for freedom!" Yeah right! You not only failed to implement the reforms but are now the reason why Zanu PF will resist all pressure to do so! And you expect us to give you a medal for selling-out!
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