"We are not going to stop defending the Constitution
and making sure that Malaba will never be the chief justice of Zimbabwe again.
On the 15th of May 2021, we slept at 2 am. We are going to sleep at 3 am, at 4
am to make sure he is not the chief justice. We will not sleep again to ensure
that we defend the Constitution and Malaba will never be the chief justice
again," ranted and raved Tendai Biti, MDC A MP for Harare East and Vice President
of the party.
Tendai Biti and others have a “flood”, as he called it, of
law suits all aimed at stopping Mnangagwa extending Chief Justice Luke Malaba
stay in office beyond the 70 years retirement age stipulated in the
constitution.
Tendai Biti, if you and your fellow MDC friends were not so
corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent, the country would not be in this mess.
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because we
have been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF de facto
one-party dictatorship for 41 years and counting. For the last 21 years the people
of Zimbabwe have risked live and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the
understanding the party will implement the democratic changes, as the party
name implied, to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
MDC had the golden opportunity to deliver the democratic
changes the nation was dying for during the SADC negotiated 2008 Global
Political Agreement in which Mugabe and his Zanu PF party agreed to the
implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to restore the
individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible
elections.
Tendai Biti and his MDC friends were the 2008 to 2013 GNU
partners tasked to implement the reforms and to write a new democratic
constitution. They failed to implement even one token reform in five years and
the new constitution, they called it an “MDC child!”, was rubbish.
Tendai Biti is frothing vowing he will not sleep defending
the constitution. If the constitution was so good then why did it fail all its
acid tests – deliver free, fair and credible; end Zanu PF capture of key state
institutions like the judiciary and the Police; etc.; etc.
Paul Mangwana, the Zanu PF MP co-chairperson on the
parliamentary committee that drafted the new constitution boasted soon after
the referendum approving it that Mugabe had dictated the new constitution. The
constitution Biti and company sold as an “MDC child” and which they continue to
defend so passionately is but a dictator’s creed, give all the freedoms and
rights and make a big song and dance about it and then quietly steal them all
away and more!
Tendai Biti’s beef with Luke Malaba is personal, very personal.
"What he (Malaba) has done is to decimate 41 years of
loyal service to the law by agreeing to be a pawn of politicians. He wrote a
terrible judgment to do with the election outcome brought by President Nelson
Chamisa in 2018. They want him to write another terrible judgment for a yet to
be stolen election 2023," explained Biti.
"No stone will be left unturned to block Malaba's return to duty as it is
equal to defend the Constitution. So, we say to Luke Malaba, ‘do the honourable
thing and retire."
ZEC had three different vote count tallies which the
commission could not reconcile because it did not have all the V11 forms, the
summary sheet of the vote count at the Polling Station – proof someone had
tampered with the original V11 forms. ZEC had failed to produce a verified
voters’ roll, a legal and common-sense requirement, for Pete’s sake!
Every election observer of Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections with
any democratic credentials worth a spit dismissed the whole process as a farce.
Of course, the elections were rigged. And yet Chief Justice Malaba and his team
ruled the elections were free, fair and credible.
Of course, no one with half a brain was at all surprised the
Constitutional Court endorse the blatantly rigged elections as free and fair.
Eight months earlier another Judge, Justice George Chiweshe, had ruled the 15
November 2017 military coup that toppled Mugabe was “legal, justified and
constitutional!” Proof Zimbabwe had a captured judiciary!
The reader from Mars would be surprised that Tendai Biti and
company participated in the 2018 elections knowing that Zanu PF was going to
rig the elections (after all it was him and his MDC friends who have failed to
implement the reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging).
Our Martian visitor will be doubly surprised at the sheer
stupidity of Tendai Biti and company in challenging the election results in the
Constitutional Court when everyone knows the country’s judiciary is captured by
Zanu PF.
Tendai Biti and company are gearing to participate in the
2023 elections; with no reforms in place, and readily admit are expect the
elections to be rigged; and will in due course challenge the result. Tendai
Biti are not concerned Zanu PF will once again rig the elections or that the
judiciary is still capture, as long as Luke Malaba is no longer the Chief
Justice!
If Zimbabwe was the only place the Martian visitor had
visited, he or she would be scrabbling to fly back, convinced human being are
insane!
8 comments:
@ Tawanda Majoni
I totally agree, Patrick Chinamasa is a loser and is desperate to get back on gravy train. You bet he will pulling all the stops just to impress Mnangagwa.
The Act removes the running mate clause which was supposed to come into effect in 2023 and allows the President to appoint his deputies.
Seen in Zanu-PF as the "Chiwenga clause", the amendment allows Mnangagwa to contain Chiwenga as he will serve at his pleasure. The running mate clause allowed the vice-president to enjoy the same security of tenure as the president ‒ meaning that the President was not able to dismiss the deputy.
The Act therefore allows Mnangagwa to have pliant deputies who will serve at his pleasure.
The Act also allows the President to appoint up to seven ministers from outside Parliament. At present he can appoint only five.
This will enable the President to extend his power to control cabinet as well as extending his powers of patronage.
The Act further gives the President ultimate discretion on the appointment and dismissal of the Prosecutor-General. It departs from the requirement that public interviews be held, as is the case with High Court judges.
The amendment will decrease the Prosecutor-General's independence meaning he or she may be deployed for politically motivated prosecutions.
The Act also increases the President's personal power by allowing him to appoint and dismiss the Public Protector after consulting the JSC and Parliament's committee on standing rules and orders.
"In other words, the office of Public Protector will be yet another office within the President's gift," noted Veritas, a lawyer grouping with an interest in legal, parliamentary and constitutional issues
Zimbabwe had its greatest opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU; unfortunately, the chance was wasted. The party has dug in even deeper now and getting these thugs to give up power is not going to be easy.
Talk of elections and everyone in Zanu PF is sick with worrying because they all know that the party does not have public support and has had to rely on rigging the elections to generate legitimacy. The credibility of the opposition that keeps participating in elections everyone knows are flawed and illegal has been called into question again and again. The party has found itself torn between the need to rig the elections and the need for a competent opposition that is not going to be seen as Zanu PF in all but name!
If the electorate, especially those in the urban centres where Zanu PF’s coercive reach is not so pronounced as in rural areas, were to up their foot down and demand that there must be meaningful democratic reforms implemented before elections and refuse to attend the opportunistic opposition’s rallies until then. Zanu PF may well find itself in the awkward situation of having to bus in supporters for its own rallies and do the same for the client opposition.
Having to rig the elections and still maintain all the appearances this was a credible election and a credible opposition is a key requirement for legitimacy is a high wire balancing act, it is Zanu PF’s Achilles heel!
"What he has done is to decimate 41 years of loyal service to the law by agreeing to be a pawn of politicians. He wrote a terrible judgment to do with the election outcome brought by President Nelson Chamisa in 2018. They want him to write another terrible judgment for a yet to be stolen election 2023."
I cannot believe that anyone let alone a national leader can be this stupid!
1) Biti and company knew Zanu PF was going to rig the 2018 elections (the party had rigged the 2013 elections and with no reforms implemented that was going to happen) and still MDC A participated regardless. What kind of fool will do something knowing they are being cheated?
2) Biti and company challenge the rigging in a court with Chief Justice Malaba presiding knowing the judges are corrupt because Zanu PF has captured the judiciary
3) MDC A are gearing to participate in the 2023 elections knowing they are “yet to be stolen election 2023”. So, again, why are you participating?
4) Biti is vowing to scuttle Malaba’s reappointment to stop him “writing another terrible judgment”. Biti accept this is a capture judiciary and so there will be no shortage of judges to write a similar judgement.
The people of Zimbabwe deserve free, fair and credible elections the pre-requisite of good governance and an end to this MDC A idiotic foolishness. Stop Zanu PF getting away with another rigged elections by refusing to participate and give the regime legitimacy and whether or not Mnangagwa appoints Malaba will not matter!
According to MDC Alliance Youth Assembly spokesperson, Stephen Sarkozy Chuma, the #OneMillion Campaign initiative is unstoppable
This is just nonsense repeated over and over again by those who love to bury their heads in the sand and will not listen to reason or learn from the past.
Everyone, yes including Stephen Sarkozy Chuma and the rest in the MDC A youth assembly, agrees that Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections. There have been countless articles in recent days recounting the details of the rigging in Professor Jonathan Moyo’s book. Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to stop Zanu PF once again rigging the 2023 elections.
Is this #onemillion campaign supposed to counter the Zanu PF rigging? The call to mobilise people to register as voters and then to go out and vote was tried last time and it clearly did not stop Zanu PF rigging.
Zimbabwe has had 41 years of rigged elections. How many more years of this are we expected to endure before we finally admit this is not working?
Chamisa and company have abandoned the fight to implement the reforms because they sold out and failed to get any reforms implemented. This does not mean we do not require reforms any more and/or that there is no one else out there who can get the reforms implemented.
Zanu PF has just denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote. And you still believe your #onemillion campaign is unstoppable. How naïve!
The idea of winning rigged elections is, without doubt, one of the most idiotic nonsense ever. And to keep pursuing it after 41 years of rigged election is insane!
@ Luke Tamborinyoka
I totally agree with you that Zimbabwe's health service has all but collapsed. I also agree that it is naive to expect this Zanu Pf regime to revive the economy and with it the health care service. My beef with you and the rest of the MDC leaders is that you had the opportunity to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU but failed to implement even one reform because you were too busy enjoying yourselves. And all your concern about the suffering masses is for one purpose and one purpose only to better your chances to win the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is dangling.
By participating in these flawed elections, MDC A is giving legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF. You know that and do not care as long as you win a seat on the gravy train.
You and your fellow MDC A friends are corrupt, incompetent and sell-outs! You will drag the nation into the 2023 elections knowing Zanu PF is rigging just for the sake of the bait seats Zanu PF is offering. This is madness and it must be stopped!
“While Zec is quick to rig elections, they apparently take years to respond to damaging exposure of their rigging. Priscilla Chigumba, the Zec chairperson, was one of the first people, outside the publisher’s team, to get a copy of Excelgate and I know for a fact that she and her officials read it,” Moyo said.
“Yet they are only responding 18 months later after being caught with their pants down following unassailable disclosures of the names of key securocrats, including the (Central Intelligence Organisation) CIO’s Mavis Matsanga and Zimbabwe Defence Force (ZDF)’s retired Major Chivasa, who oversaw and supervised the Zec operations and logistics that enabled Emmerson Mnangagwa to steal the 2018 presidential election from (main opposition MDC Alliance leader) Nelson Chamisa.
Professor Moyo stated that CIO operative, Mavis Matsanga and her deput Major Chivasa’s task in ZEC is to rig the elections and that ZEC chairperson Priscilla Chigumba knew this. Justice Rita Makarau, who was the ZEC chairperson before Chigumba and was one of the nine Constitutional Court judges in the Chamisa challenge, also knew Matsanga and Chivasa’s task was to rig the elections.
So, Professor Moyo has tacitly admitted that Zanu PF has been rigging elections in the past. Moyo is just confirming something we have known all along.
The question every Zimbabwean with half a brain should be asking is: Why are we participating in these flawed elections knowing do so only gives legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF?
Answer: We are participating because Chamisa and company are after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is offering as bait for participating. Chamisa and company are conning the nation into believing MDC A can win the rigged elections and after 41 years of rigged elections we, the people, are foolish enough to keep believing the lie!
There really is no excuse for Zimbabweans to keep participating in flawed and illegal elections whose sole out come is to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy, first and foremost, and enable a few MDC leaders to win seats on the gravy train! It is insane and must be stopped!
"The matter is not urgent and is removed from the urgent roll for the reasons that the issue raised was also part of HC2513/21 heard on 03/06/21 and which awaits judgment," wrote Justice Tsanga commenting on the matter.
I totally agree with the judgement.
The real reason many Zimbabweans have been dead against Malaba staying on as Chief Justice is because they view him as the embodiment of the country’s captured judiciary. They have failed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and securing a 2/3 majority and the presidency which the regime has then used to remain in office and do all manner of mischief.
The floodgate of legal challenges against the passing of the constitutional amendment Bills No 1 and 2 are all on very minor technically because everyone knows they cannot challenge Zanu PF on the substantive issues because by participating in the flawed 2018 elections they gave the regime legitimacy. The flood of legal challenges are all making the most of the scraps. It is nice to hear a judge who is prepared to bring some sanity into this mess!
Zimbabweans should focus on stopping Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections and not waste time on whether Malaba is confirmed as CJ because the former event has more far reaching consequences than the latter!
Post a Comment