President Emmerson Mnangagwa continues to mobilise Zanu PF’s vote rigging juggernaut in preparation for the by-elections and 2023 harmonised elections.
Two weeks ago he called on the war veterans to mobilise and this week his cabinet approved the reopening of the Border Gezi training centres for the party’s “green bombers” youth militia. The war veterans and the green bombers were the party’s foot soldiers in the party’s strategy of intimidating, harassing, beating and raping to cow the people into submission and vote for the party.
Mnangagwa is extending his mobilisation to the rest of the party leaders and members with the call to revive the party’s structures.
"Structures must remain intact. We cannot approach the next election with an assumed membership base. It is fundamental that we know the figures of those who will potentially vote for us at disaggregated ward, constituency and provincial levels. Nothing must be left to chance," he said.
"The 2023 harmonised general elections are fast approaching. Let us, therefore, continue tightening our belts and diligently implementing programmes with a greater sense of urgency.”
Zanu PF has never left winning the elections to chance. As far as the party is concerned, holding free, fair and credible elections and thus giving the people a meaningful say in the governance of the country, is tantamount to leaving everything to chance.
Zanu PF did not leave winning the 1980 elections to chance; the party’s election campaign message was that the bush war would continue if the party did not win the elections. The party’s Zanla army was stronger than the other armies on the ground and so the people voted to end the war.
Initially, some people dismissed Zanu PF’s war threats as harmless electioneering banter, all such doubts disappeared when the party launched its 1983 to 1987 Gukurahundi massacre.
The primary objective of the Gukurahundi massacre was to force the late Dr Joshua Nkomo and his PF Zapu leaders to disband and join Mugabe’s Zanu PF. Dr Nkomo signed the 1987 Unity Accord paving the way for the imposition of the de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship that has ruled the roost ever since.
To secure its iron grip on power, Zanu PF has corrupted every state institution; the Police, Judiciary, Army, Public media, etc. turning each into a Zanu PF department in all but name. The party has nationalised many of the country’s companies and appointed party loyalist to run them in a move designed to consolidate the party’s power and influence at the expense of the individual’s freedoms and rights including the right to hold those in public office to democratic account.
Those who hold public office must be accountable to the people, the public, on his behalf and interest they are supposed to act at all times. The holding of free, fair and credible elections, in which the people have the power to remove and replace those in public office is the essence of good governance.
Those in position of power and authority must never ever forget that they are mortals and, per se, fallible. So whenever those in positions of power and authority deny the people a meaningful vote they are, per se, proclaiming themselves infallible. And that is exactly what Zanu PF has done.
Of course, Zanu PF are not infallible, the country would not be in the economic and political mess we are in otherwise.
Indeed Zimbabwe is up to her eyes in this economic mess as can be seen with complete collapse of bait services such as education and health care, million now living in abject poverty because the nation has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging regime for 41 years and counting. Zanu PF is not leaving anything to chance in its preparation to rig the coming elections and extent the party’s rule.
Enough is enough! People must demand the implementation of the democratic reforms to restore all the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections. If Zanu PF does not implement the democratic reforms to restore the people’s right to a meaningful vote then the 2023 elections must be declare null and void.
Zanu PF has blatantly rig the elections, ever since the country’s independence in 1980, and got away with it every time. It will be insane to allow this to happen ever again.
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"The MDC we used to know which at our time had more MPs than Zanu-PF, is no more. I believe in the current situation they (MDCs) cannot even achieve a third of that in any election," John Sipepa Nkomo told Daily News yesterday.
The MDC was united in the GNU and had majority of parliament during the GNU and yet they still failed to implement even one democratic reform. MDC leaders have proven again and again beyond all doubt that they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. Why anyone thinks that getting Chamisa and Mwonzora to unite will achieve anything beggars belief.
"Zimbabweans, our roads are in a state of emergency. It pains me to see so many potholes on our once great highways. We must act urgently. Today my government committed ZW$33.6 billion to rapidly rehabilitate 10,000 kilometres of Zimbabwe's roads. I will not let you down," tweeted President Mnangagwa.
This is just as nonsensical as a dog howling at the moon! The many potholes on our road have not just appeared in the last week, month or year; they have been there for decades now as a sign of the decades of neglect. The country’s infrastructure is in varying stages of decay and rot and even basic services such as education and health care have all but collapsed.
Zimbabwe’s economy is in total meltdown; decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have taken their toll. And as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs the will be no meaningful economic recovery.
Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies won the bush war and, as far as they were concerned, they had also won the right to rule Zimbabwe. They viewed the British's drive for multi-party democratic Zimbabwe with deep seated suspension. Why now when, as the colonial power, they had supported the white minority regime that had denied the black majority a vote.
Mugabe and company were convinced the British would connive with the white in Zimbabwe and sell-out blacks to deny them electoral victory in the 1980 elections. If Zanu PF was to lose the election, they had plan B; they would refuse to accept the election result and go back into the bush and continue the war.
They announced their plan B so the voters knew ahead of time the consequences of Zanu PF losing the elections. Whether or not the threat work is not the point, what matters is the threat was real, Zanu PF had the freedom fighters on the ground to make the country ungovernable. With such a serious threat hanging over the people’s head it would be nonsensical to say the 1980 election was free, fair and credible.
If Mugabe and company were genuinely interested in free, fair and credible elections then they had the opportunity create an environment to guarantee this to all Zimbabweans in the 1985 and all the other elections to follow because the party was responsible for the whole electoral process. What we see instead is how the elections are marred with irregularities, flaws and downright illegalities all designed to delivery electoral victory to Zanu PF.
It is a real tragedy that the best chance ever to dismantle the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut during the 2008 to 2013 GNU was wasted. Mugabe bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with the trappings of high office and they, in return, forgot about implementing the democratic reforms.
Ever since the GNU debacle Zanu PF has continued to rig elections and get away by giving away a few gravy train seats to entice the country’s greedy opposition to participate and give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
Mnangagwa is not leaving anything to chance and hence the reason he has stubbornly refused to implement any democratic reforms and is instead overhauling the vote rigging juggernaut and setting it off to work well ahead of the 2023 elections. He is super confident the greedy, corrupt and utterly useless opposition will participate in the flawed elections and, once again, give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
After 41 years and counting of Zanu PF rigging elections and claiming false legitimacy only to rig the next elections. It is incumbent on us, Zimbabweans, to break this cycle. One sure way to break it is to demand that reforms must be implemented before the elections and to denounce the opportunists opposition who participate in these flawed and meaningless elections for selfish reasons.
The sorry state of Zimbabwe’s economic situation has seen Zanu PF’s popularity sink beyond deprive and the party knows the vote rigging juggernaut will have to go into overdrive if the party is to retain its iron grip on power. The rigging will be that much harder with each democratic reform the regime is forced to implement and so it makes perfect sense to demand reforms before the elections.
The MDC leaders’ failure to implement any reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU have shown beyond doubt that they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. As more and more Zimbabweans have come to learn what really happened during the GNU, they have come to see and accept MDC leaders for the sell-outs they are. The MDC leaders have lost political credibility and even Mnangagwa, who prides himself to leaving nothing to chance, must know a discredited opposition will not give hm legitimacy and there is f-all he can do about it!
Sadly, today pupils at Murowa School were sent back home as the teachers claim to be on strike.
Who is suffering here, is it the employer or the pupils? These are the very same teachers who spent the whole year getting paid for nothing.
These are the very same teachers whose results leaves one with a lot of questions on their qualifications and capabilities. These are the very same teachers who spend 365 days living in school houses.
You can blame the teachers all you want but they are as much the victims of the country’s decades of misrule as the students who are being denying the opportunity to learn. Zanu PF has starved schools of funds leaving the school’s infrastructure to rot and decay and poor wages have forced many teachers to leave the profession/country. The ruling elite did not care because they were sending their children to well funded private schools and/or out of the country.
It is not only the country’s education service that has gone to the dogs, the same has happened to the health care service and to every sector of the economy. Are you going to blame the nurses for the poor health care service in hospitals and clinics? And blame the worker at Zisco Steel for the pile of rusting pipes and ovens that have failed to produce one rod of steel in the last decade?
Zanu PF is to blame for the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption; the real cause of the country’s economic meltdown. And whilst still at it, blame yourself as a citizen for doing nothing to end the Zanu PF dictatorship!
Chamisa's impending court challenge will seek leverage from Section 147 of the Constitution which spells out that any motion lapses after the dissolution of Parliament as the reading of the Bill happened before dissolution of the Seventh Parliament in May 2018.
Even at that time, the Bill was criticised by former MDC Alliance legislators who argued that when the legislation sailed through parliament, it did not enjoy the backing of two thirds of the National Assembly as required by law
This is pathetic, this is just a technicality that can easily be put right and the Amendment Bill will sail through and there will many more equally obnoxious amendments to follow.
MDC leaders participated in the 2018 elections knowing fully well that with no reforms in place Zanu PF would rig the process and, worse still, they knew by participating they would give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF. Chamisa and company participated regardless this was a flawed process because they were after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gave away as bait.
MDC leaders sold out during the 2008 to 2013 GNU by failing to implement even one reform and have compounded the situation by participating in flawed elections giving the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy. Only the naive and gullible will be fooled by all this nonsense of the opposition doing anything to stop Zanu PF doing as it pleases.
If we are serious about making sure Zimbabwe has a competent and democratic government then we must demand the implementation of the reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. Flawed and illegal election process will produce corrupt and tyrannical government and MDC leaders are the ones giving legitimacy to such regimes!
Pre-construction work on the Batoka Gorge project has been suspended for several months because of the virus and funding is still being secured, Zambezi River Authority spokesman Fitzgerald Muchindu said.
Work on the 2 400-megawatt facility had been scheduled to start in 2020. "The authority and the developer are doing everything possible to expedite the outstanding pre-construction activities with a view to commence construction works at the earliest possible time," Muchindu said.
"Construction activities are currently projected to commence towards the end of 2022."
Zimbabwe and Zambia in 2019 chose General Electric and Power Corporation of China to build the plant on the Zambezi River.
The Rhodesian regime of Ian Smith completed the feasibility studies back in the 1970s and work on the project would have started then was it not for the war of independence that was hotting up. Robert Mugabe’s regime was given all the details on the project in 1980 and have done nothing about it all these years.
No doubt this is one in a string of more delays to come. If the project is ever complete it will cost the nation an arm and leg in lost opportunities and project overruns. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, we must expect corruption and mismanagement at every turn.
What a world of difference to the economic well being on the nation having a second Kariba Dam would have made after all these decades of importing power and load shedding!
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