Disgruntled war veterans accuse Zanu PF of betraying them - waited 41 years for gutsa ruzhinji "tomorrow" P Guramatunhu

 “Disgruntled liberation war veterans have drawn daggers against President Emerson Mnangagwa accusing him of betraying them,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“The easily irritable former freedom fighters say by failing to give the ex-combatants a meaningful pension.

“At least nine war veterans were arrested by police last week after they gathered at Finance minister Mthuli Nucbe's office demanding an increase to their monthly pensions.”

 

The problem with most of the war veterans, at least the vocal ones who have taken centre stage the last 41 years, is they have no common sense. None!

 

Zimbabwe’s economy has been in total meltdown for decades and the decline started soon after independence 41 years ago. Where I say the war veterans have no common sense is because they, with all the benefit of 41 years of hindsight, still believe in the Zanu PF lie of delivering mass prosperity, “Gutsa ruzhinji!” as Mugabe never tire of saying it in the 1980s.

 

Soon after independence, Gutsa ruzhinji encompassed all Zimbabwe from the Zanu PF ruling elite at the top of the social packing order, to the intelligentsia and professional, the war veterans and semi-skilled workers, the unskilled workers and right down at the bottom were the ordinary people, povo. Whilst the ruling elite claimed the choice-cuts of the nation’s wealth for themselves there was still enough left to finance Mugabe’s scientific socialism policies such as free education and health care to benefit povo.

 

By the mid-1980s the ruling elite’s appetites were growing exponentially marched only by their wastefulness and so they creamed off the lion’s share of the nation’s wealth, confident there was more where that came from. The reckless spending was not sustainable, and the economic decline started then and continued to this day.

 

1990 to 1999 was a decade of the IMF and WB sponsored Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes in which Zanu PF promised to cut government spending across the board in return for financial assistance from the two Bretton Woods financial institutions and other western institutions. Zanu PF has never kept its promises; the poor were forced to “tighten their belts” as funding for free education, health care, etc. was cut. The ruling elite were loosening their belts as they creamed off even more wealth!

 

By the late 1990s it was clear to many people that Zanu PF’s gutsa ruzhinji was an illusion and wanted the regime replaced but could not because it rigged elections. Zimbabwe was a de facto one-party state and Mugabe and his cronies were riding roughshod over the people, denying them their basic freedoms of rights including the right to free elections and even the right to life.

 

Mugabe recruited war veterans to help the party impose the Zanu PF dictatorship and they readily agreed on the understanding they would be rewarded with the good life. Over the years the ruling elite have enjoyed the good life and the war veterans were promised their turn will come “tomorrow”. After 41 years many of them now live in abject poverty and yet still some continue to wait for their gutsa ruzhinji “tomorrow!”

 

If these war veterans had any common sense at all then they should have known by now that Zanu PF’s “tomorrow” is always a day away, their gutsa ruzhinji will never ever come. The 41 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption, lawlessness and tyranny have all but destroyed the country’s economy.

The war veterans have the fatal error of helping Zanu PF impose the de facto one-party dictatorship and the whole nation has paid dearly for it.

 

If the war veterans have at all learned the lesson of their decades of blind loyalty to the Zanu PF dictatorship, then they must join the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have been fighting for the implementation of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship.

 

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is totally dependent on one thing – the dismantling of the de facto one-party dictatorship and the holding of free, fair and credible elections. Nothing of any substance will change in the country until we finally cure ourselves of the curse of the dictatorship. Nothing!

"We must push for reforms and free elections" - sweet music to my ears P Guramatunhu

 

“I find these comparisons (of Zambia and Zimbabwe) ambitious, childish and far-fetched because the political dynamics are completely different.

“We should be frank to ourselves and push for reforms that will make us comparable with Zambia,” wrote Tapiwa Gomo in Bulawayo 24.

 

Sweet, sweet music to my ears! It is most heartening that many more Zimbabweans are finally listen to what SADC, EU, USA and many other members of international community have been saying all along – implement the democratic reforms before elections.  

 

It is insane to keep participating in flawed and illegal elections when all we have ever done is give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.

 

In his book “Excelgate - How Zimbabwe's 2018 Presidential Election was Stolen” Professor Jonathan Moyo gave some interesting insight into the extend of the rot in Zimbabwe’s electoral system and it is naïve, to say the least, to believe Nelson Chamisa’s “SOLID PLAN” of recycled, tried and failed “Winning In Rigged Election (WIRE)” strategies will finally end the curse of rigged elections.

 

In the book Moyo showed there is the official Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) fronted by chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba and then there the more sinister ZEC manned by Zanu PF operatives over whom Chigumba has no control over and yet accepts their input with no questions asked.

 

In Chigumba’s affidavit in response to Nelson Chamisa’s Constitutional Court challenge of the 2018 presidential, she failed to produce all the V11 forms, the summary of the Polling Station vote count, to account for Mnangagwa’s 2.4 million votes.

 

The law directs the ZEC Command Centre to pool presidential vote tally from the V23B forms, the summary of the vote count from each of the 210 parliamentary constituency pooling centres. Why ZEC used the V11 forms, without even informing all the contestants, is one of the many irregularities and illegalities that characterised the whole elections. And to make matters worse, why use the V11 and final to produce all the forms, there were over 11 000 Polling Stations (the exact number is not known) and roughly 10% of the V11 forms were missing!

 

How can ZEC fail to have all the V11 forms when every Polling Station is manned by ZEC officials?

 

Some election observers reported of ZEC officials completing V11 forms outside the Polling Station setting and in the absence of the various witnesses. It is quite possible that whilst ZEC had accepted and added to the vote tally figures from dodgy V11 forms Commissioner Chigumba did not have the guts to sign the affidavit with the dodgy V11 forms!

 

Chief Justice Luke Malaba, presiding over case, and his team of eight other Constitution Court judges did not question why key documents such as the V11 forms were missing, no explanation why ZEC had abandoned laid down legal procedure and used V23B forms, etc. The Court did nothing to get all the many irregularities and illegalities address. Nothing!

 

Justice Malaba confirm Emmerson Mnangagwa as the dully elected president of Zimbabwe on the basis of ZEC’s results although there was not a shred of documentary evidence to back the result. The Constitutional Court’s judges, all nine of them, had conveniently forgot the time-honoured maxim that court’s judgements must be based on evidence and evidence alone.

 

In his Court judgement, the Court had assumed that all the supporting evidence missing evidence, the V11 forms, etc. would be in the “in the primary source”, the seal ballot boxes from each of the Polling Stations. It was just a feeble excuse, of course.

 

Given Zimbabwe’s history of rigged elections an independent Constitutional Court would have wanted the question of free, fair and credible elections settled beyond all doubt and what better way of achieving that end than ordering the sealed ballot boxes to be opened and produce all the missing evidence.

 

It was well within the Constitutional Court power and authority to order a sample number of Polling Station ballot boxes, at least, to be opened and thus prove the evidence in primary sources was there. It was self-evident that the missing V11 forms, etc. were not in the sealed ballot boxes and the judges did not want the truth to be confirmed; they were conniving in deceiving the nation.

 

 

The independence of Zimbabwe’s judiciary has been compromised and our judges’ judicious commitment to the ethos and ideals impartiality encapsulated in Lady Justice wearing the blindfold have been lost a long time ago. Just eight months before Judge Malaba’s dubious judgement on the 2018 elections, High Court Judge George Chiweshe had ruled that the November 2017 military coup was “legal, justified and constitutional”!

 

Of course, Judge Chiweshe did not cite the chapter and verse in the constitution authorising a military coup because there is no such chapter and verse!

 

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and politic mess is the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections all because of the lack of political will and vision on the part of Zanu PF, who imposed the de facto one-party dictatorship in the first place, and the MDC, who failed to implement the democratic reforms. After 41 years of rigged elections and the country is serious economic trouble, millions of Zimbabweans today are living in abject poverty; Zimbabwe must master the courage and resolve in finally cure ourselves of the curse of rigged elections.

 

If the 2023 elections go ahead with no reforms implemented, it cannot be business as usual; the election must be declared null and void to open the opportunity for the appointment of an interim administration whose primary task will be to implement the democratic reforms and hold the nation’s first free, fair and credible elections. This is not negotiable!

"Zambia has taught Army it is employed by povo and not Zanu PF" said MDC A - naive or conning povo N Garikai

 The sheer naivety of Zimbabwe’s opposition is certainly one of the top-five main reasons why the country is stuck is this economic mess and political paralysis – as both the ruling party and the opposition are clearly clueless how to get the nation out of the mess.

"This (the election of Hatiendi Hichilema in Zambia) encourages us to go and register to vote. It educates that the military, central Intelligence organisation officers and Police must know that they are employed by Zimbabweans not a political party," said Felix Magalela Mafa Sibanda, MDC Alliance deputy spokesperson.

"In short that means institutions of government must be professional knowing that they work for the nation not a political organisation, because political ruler-ship may end."

 

So, MDC A leaders acknowledge Zimbabwe’s institutions of government including the Army, Police, Judiciary and ZEC have NOT been professional. This would be seen as significant progress on the part of Nelson Chamisa and company, if only the leaders would remember and, better still, act on the realities.

 

Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends certainly forgot, if they had ever acknowledged it, that Zimbabwe’s state institutions were not professional throughout the five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU. How else other than forgetfulness can only explain why MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform to break the strangle hold Zanu PF has on all state institutions.

 

Of course, acknowledging that the Army, Police, etc. are not profession was one thing; knowing what must be done about it in another. It is disheartening to note that Mr Nelson Chamisa and his team are convinced what has happened in Zambia is enough to “educate” our Army, Police, ZEC, etc. that they are employed by the people and not Zanu PF! How naïve and gullible these MDC leaders are!

 

Thanks to MDC A’s naivety, Zanu PF is going ahead with its plans to blatantly rig the 2023 elections, confident the opposition will participate and thus give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.

 

“Chiefs in Zimbabwe have recently allegedly been trained as Zanu PF commissars at the Herbert Chitepo School of Ideology to mobilise votes for the ruling party ahead of the 2023 elections, it has emerged,” reported Bulawayo 24 in one article.

 

So Zanu PF is going full steam ahead with one of the party’s flagship vote rigging plans - making sure rural areas remain Zanu PF stronghold where the rural voters have been reduced by these partisan Chiefs, other traditional leaders and Zanu PF operatives into medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing Landlords.

 

The rural voters have only once, in March 2008, dared to vote for the opposition. They were promptly punished in June 2008 run-off when Zanu PF launch a military the Operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) The wanton violence that followed was one of the worst election violence the nation has ever seen, and Zanu PF operatives have threatened the violence will return if the people dared to reject Zanu PF ever again.  

 

“Mwonzora's party was on Friday given $59 940 000 by the government while Zanu-PF got a whopping $140 million, igniting fresh debate about the MDC-T and MDC Alliance battle over the control of funds meant for parties with a sizeable representation in Parliament,” reported Bulawayo 24 in the next article.

The $60m above is MDC -T’s share of the annual Political Party Finance Act pay out; part and parcel of the Zanu PF bribe to entice the opposition to participate in the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process gets. Mwonzora and his lot will certainly participate in the 2023 elections, the payment has whetted their appetited and are hungry for more. Chamisa and his lot are licking their dry lips with envy and will be desperate to win back some of the bait on offer.

 

It is the rock-solid guarantee that the opposition will participate in the elections no matter how flawed and illegal the process got that gives Zanu PF the confidence to ignore calls to implement reforms and blatantly rig the elections.

 

“Events in Zambia have taught Army they are employed by the people and not Zanu PF!” I cannot make up my mind whether MDC leaders are really that corrupt, incompetent and naïve or they are just conning the ignorant and desperate povo into believing this nonsense so they can get their reward from Zanu PF for getting the people to participate in the flawed elections and give Zanu PF legitimacy.

Chamisa will not replicate Hichilema no more than a tortoise can replicate a cheetah P Guramatunhu

 

The refusal by Zimbabwe’s MDC A leaders and their fanatical supporters to accept that Zimbabwe and Zambia share a common boarder but political share nothing else; the direction the two nations are travelling are totally different, one is going in the right direction whilst the other is going in the wrong direction. The Zambia of Kenneth Kaunda (KK) was a dysfunction autocracy in which many of the nation’s key institutions such as Election Commission, Army, Police, Judiciary, etc. were manned by KK loyalists who believed their loyalty to keeping KK in power was more important than their loyalty to public good.

 

After 27 years of corruption and mismanagement from 1664 to 1991, the people of Zambia were fed up and voted in droves for change. The man who replaced KK, Frederick Chiluba, was a mediocre leader, to say the least, as his ten years in power would testify.  

 

Zimbabwe was a dysfunction de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship from 1980 to 2008. Robert Mugabe, just like KK, had corrupted state institutions turning them into Zanu PF department in all but name, there to serve one common interest of keeping Zanu PF in power above all else.

 

In 2008 elections, the people of Zimbabwe voted in droves for the opposition. Whilst KK accept electoral defeat in 1991 Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies did not accept defeat. Zanu PF ordered ZEC to stop announcing the results. When the presidential result was finally announced six weeks later, Morgan Tsvangirai’s 73% votes, by Mugabe’s own Freudian slip, had been whittled down to 47%, enough to force a presidential run-off.

 

Zanu PF’s primary focus during the run-off was to punish the people of Zimbabwe for having dared to reject Zanu PF and Robert Mugabe during the earlier vote. Mugabe used the liberation war veterans, who too had been brainwashed into believing they were a Zanu PF department whose primary purpose is to keep the party in power at all costs, and the party’s green bomber youth militia, also brainwashed and brain-dead, to destroy property, harass, beat and rape. The heavy duty-stuff of abducting and murdering was left to the partisan Army, Police, CIO and Prison Service personal deployed for the purpose.

 

“Mugabe has declared war on the people!” said Tsvangirai as he announced his withdrawal from the run-off. Mugabe went on to win the one-horse race with a staggering 84%. The result was announced just hours after the close of voting; it did not take six weeks as the earlier vote.

 

 The 2008 Zimbabwe elections were a watershed election in that Zanu PF had showed the nation and the world at large the depths of depravity the party would sink to rig elections and retain power.

 

Both SADC and AU, who had turned a blind eye to dodgy Zimbabwe elections in the past, refused to recognise Zanu PF as the legitimate government gives the blatant cheating and wanton violence the party had shown. Credit to SADC, the regional body, forced Mugabe to sign on to a Global Political Agreement agreeing to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship, end the party’s strangle hold on state institutions and restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections.

 

The task of implementing the reforms fell to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends (yes, I mean fiends, it is no typing error). The MDC leaders turned out to be corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent; Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office and for the five years of the GNU they had their snouts in the feeding trough and forgot about implementing the democratic reforms. Five years!

 

SADC leaders, literally, begged Tsvangirai and company not to participate in the 2013 elections until reforms were implemented. “If you go into the election next month, you will lose; the elections are done!” they told the MDC leaders to their face! The warning fell on deaf ears.

 

What is really disheartening about Zimbabwe is that the country had its golden opportunity during the 2008 to 2013 GNU to implement the democratic reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship; and opportunity was wasted. Worse still, the chances to force the implementation of the reforms by demanding reforms before elections are being forfeited by MDC leaders’ stubborn insistence in participating in flawed elections. By participating in flawed elections, MDC are giving legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.  

 

The people of Zimbabwe had risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into office on the understanding the party will implement the democratic changes to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. After 21 years on the political stage MDC leaders have not only sold-out on implementing the reforms but are the ones perpetuating the dictatorship.

  

Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the 2013 and then 2018 elections, just as SADC leaders had feared would happen. Chamisa and the rest of the opportunists in the opposition camp are gearing to participate in the 2023 elections with no reforms in place.

 

Of course, Zanu PF is set to blatantly rig the elections as before, but you would not think so to listen to Chamisa. He is expecting to replicate now Zambia President Hakainde Hichilema (HH) in the August 2021 elections by defeating the incumbent President Edgar Lungu.

 

"We want to see the will of the people being respected so that we do not have the elite (riding) roughshod over the citizens as we have seen in Zimbabwe, where people vote, but they are punished for voting," said Chamisa in an interview with a SA media station.

 

"We need to make sure that SADC plays its important role and not side with a club of those who would want to manipulate the will of the people, but to side with the people.

 

“Look at what happened in Malawi. SADC had endorsed the Malawian election, but the institutions within Malawi itself invalidated the election because it was invalid. We want to see the strong institutions coming in to support the citizens, the will of the people and the verdict that people would have given in a particular election."

 

SADC leaders must be very disappointed to hear that considering they are the ones who had pushed Chamisa and his MDC fiends to implement the democratic reforms to restore the independence of Zimbabwe’s state institutions and the democratic freedoms and rights of Zimbabweans. And it was MDC leaders, not SADC, who had failed the nation by failing to implement even one reform. Worst of all, Chamisa is expecting non-existent strong institution to deliver free, fair and credible elections.

 

Chamisa, Zambia is not Zimbabwe! Whilst the former has strong democratic institutions to deliver free, fair and credible elections there are no such institutions in Zimbabwe. Zanu PF has retained its strangle hold on ZEC, Army, Police, Judiciary, etc. post the 2008 to 2013 GNU because MDC sold-out and failed to implement even one democratic reform.

 

It is naïve, to say the least, to think Chamisa and his MDC A can replicate what President HH did in Zambia because the two country’s political systems are poles apart. Just because both the cheetah and tortoise have four legs and a tail each, does not mean whatever one can do the other will replicate!     

Easy to trick MDC A will participating 2023 and give Zanu PF modicum of legitimacy W Mukori

 

There have been many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship in the last 41 years; the only reason the regime is still in office and lording over us is because the nation has had the great misfortune of having corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent opposition who Mugabe and now Mnangagwa has found easy to trick.

 

Let’s face it, Zanu PF thugs have run rings round the opposition; instead of the opposition ending the Zanu PF dictatorship, they are the ones keeping Zanu PF in power and frustrating the fight for free, fair and credible elections.

 

“We the citizens will fight Zanu PF together with Chamisa. For your own info Zanu PF is nothing in 2023 we will vote Zanu PF out and nothing will happen Zanu PF will just hand over power if it refuses we do not care we will put in power the person that won the elections. We are ready this time around we will defend our vote and we do not care with Charamba and ED hallucinations. 2023 Amadlaaaaaa ngawethu uuuu.” Argued Abednico Mweembe Mweembe, a well-known ardent Chamisa chete, chete supporter.

 

Mweembe Mweembe, is but a representative sample of the hundreds of thousands of the atypical MDC members out there; all naïve and gullible idiots whose brain has all but ossified into fatty tissue. Their minds are now impermeable to reason, truth or reality.

 

Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends have been on the national political stage for 21 years, 5 of which in the GNU, and yet have failed to bring about even one democratic change. They had many opportunities to bring about change especially during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when they wasted the five years with their snouts in the feeding trough and forgot about implementing the reforms.

 

Like it or not Chamisa and company have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. This must all be obvious to all by now but not to the likes of Mweembe Mweembe; one must spell it all out again and in detail.

 

In March 2008 Zimbabweans went out in droves and voted for Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends – I would argue out of desperation, the nation would have voted for a donkey just to rid themselves of Robert Mugabe and his dictatorship. Tsvangirai garnered 73% of the vote, by Mugabe’s own Freudian slip.

 

Mnangagwa and his Joint Operations Command (JOC) cronies ordered ZEC to stop announcing the results and after six weeks of cooking up the results; Tsvangirai’s 73% had been whittled down to 47%, just enough to force a run-off.

 

We will not bother ask Mweembe Mweembe why he and his friends did not “put Tsvangirai in power the person that won the March 2008 elections?” We know this the usual MDC grandstanding and posturing, and we should just continue with the narrative.

 

The 2008 run-off was all about Zanu PF punishing the people of Zimbabwe for daring to reject Mugabe and the party in the March vote. The party launched military style Operation “Mavhotera papi” (Whom did you vote for!) deploying the war veterans and green bombers to destroy property, harass, beat, and rape whilst the heavy-duty stuff of abducting and killing was left to the Army, Police, CIO and Prison Service personal as directed by Mnangagwa and JOC.

 

“What was achieved by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” thundered Robert Mugabe as befitting Operation Mavhotera papi commander-in-chief!

Not even SADC leaders, who had in the past endorsed Zanu PF’s rigged elections, would recognise Mugabe and Zanu PF as the legitimate government after the blatant cheating and wanton violence of the 2008 elections. SADC leaders forced Mugabe to agree on the need to implement a raft of democratic reforms to ensure future elections are free, fair and credible.

 

The primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the democratic reforms to stop a repeat of the blatant cheating and wanton violence of the 2008 elections. And it was left to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to implement the reforms.  

 

Robert Mugabe, the cunning dictator had no trouble conning the MDC simpleton into believing MDC leaders were now fully fledged members of the Zimbabwe ruling elite therefore entitled to all the trappings of high office. With their snouts in the feeding trough 110 MPs, 45 senators, 20 ministers, 2 Deputy Prime Ministers and Prime Minister Tsvangirai himself, all forgot about implementing the reforms for the next five, FIVE, years!

 

As for Abednico Mweembe Mweembe and the rest of MDC wildebeest herd have never understood what the GNU was about, even now with the benefit of hindsight and the multitude of articles, etc. explaining the GNU was about implementing reforms to guarantee free, fair and credible elections.

 

When SADC leaders realised that no reforms were implemented, they wanted the 2013 elections to be postponed to allow reforms to be implemented BEFORE elections. “If you take part in next month’s elections, you will lose; the elections are done!” they told Tsvangirai and company to their faces. The warning was plain and blunt!

 

As we all know, MDC leaders not only participated in the 2013 elections which Zanu PF blatantly rigged but went on to repeat the same foolishness in 2018 with the same result. And right now, Chamisa and company are gearing to contest the 2023 elections knowing fully well that with no reforms Zanu PF will blatantly rig the elections as before.

 

As long as Zanu PF retains its carte blanche powers to rig election, to overhaul a 73% opposition victory if need be, Mnangagwa knows he will never ever lose an election. The very fact that the opposition, even with all the evidence of Zanu PF’s limitless powers to rig elections, still believe Zimbabwean elections are the normal A vs B equal contest is a measure of just how gullible and easy to trick, “facilius fallere”, MDC leaders are.

 

Even after 41 years of rigged elections Chamisa is still banking on his solid plan of Winning In Rigged Election (WIRE) strategies. The very idea of accepting that Zanu PF should be allowed any power to rig elections is irrational; why bother coming up with the rules on elections or anything at all if Zanu PF is allowed to disregard the rules with no consequences.

 

Of course, it is foolish that WIRE strategies should be used as an excuse failing to implement the reforms and worse still for participating in flawed elections.

 

Chamisa and his all the opposition opportunists have participated in Zimbabwe’s flawed elections because Zanu PF has offered a few gravy train seats to entice them to participate. Mnangagwa has since added very generous POLAD perks to all those who participated in the 2018  presidential rat race and publicly indorsed his legitimacy.

 

Political legitimacy must be based on winning the majority votes in a free, fair and credible election process and not on the number of opposition opportunists bribed to participate in the flawed and illegal process. The challenge is to expose the grandstanding of the opposition opportunists whose continued participation in flawed and illegal elections is giving vote rigging Zanu PF some modicum of political legitimacy.

 

“In 2023 we will vote Zanu PF out and put winner into power!” This is just cheat talk, Tsvangirai won 73% in March 2008, who stopped you putting him into power? Without implement the reforms to take away Zanu PF’s excessive dictatorial powers, the same will happen again in 2023.   

"Wangu (Mine) go and register to vote" argue Chamisa - to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy N Garikai

 

The primary purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections and repeat the blatant rigging of the 2008 elections. Not even one reform was implemented and neither Zanu PF nor MDC, the partners in the GNU, have ever bother to explain why this golden opportunity was wasted.

 

In 2013 SADC leaders advised Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders not to participate in the election without first implementing the reforms because Zanu PF was set to rig those elections. As we all know MDC leaders paid no heed and participated and, as predicted, Zanu PF blatantly rigged those elections.

 

Tsvangirai and company were up in arms complaining that Zanu PF rigged the elections. The whole world ignored the MDC leaders’ complains since they are the ones who had ignored the warning the elections will be rigged.

 

It must be said here that by participating MDC gave the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.

 

Chamisa asked the nation to participate in the 2018 elections, again with no reforms in place because “MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections,” he argued.

 

Whatever those “stringent measures” were they clearly did not work because Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections and, once again by participating the nation gave Zanu PF legitimacy. Chamisa and company complained of Zanu PF stealing the elections, conveniently forgetting that they are the ones who had insisted on participating with no reforms in place.

 

Right now, Chamisa and company are gearing to participate in the 2023 elections; there is not even one meaningful reform implemented and therefore Zanu PF is set to blatantly rig those elections. When Chamisa was pressure to justify why the 2023 elections will not be rigged just as happened in the 2013 and 2018 elections. Instead of offering “stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging elections” Chamisa is now offering “a SOLID PLAN (Chamisa’s emphasis, not mine) to deliver meaningful change in 2023 elections!”

 

Many Zimbabweans have expressed their concern that Zimbabwe’s heed SADC leaders’ June 2013 advice and postpone elections until democratic reforms to guarantee free, fair and credible elections are implemented. And the nation has been waiting for Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A friends to give more details of the solid plan and solid assurance this is not going to be a repeat of the 2013 and 2018 rigged elections.

 

“This great man was just more than a leader and father to many. To me, Dr MT was a great companion and confidant. I miss his naughty smile and our happy moments. WANGU (Mine) go and register to vote! Happy Saturday.” Was the latest Tweet from Nelson Chamisa.

 

He has completely ignored the many voices asking for solid assurance Zimbabwe is not being dragged into yet another flawed and illegal elections to try out the opposition’s kaleidoscopic Win In Rigged Elections (WIRE for short) strategies. He is hammering in his flagship WIRE strategy of registering to vote on mass and then, when the time comes, voting on mass.

 

Mass voting has clearly not worked in the past for many reasons, and it is naïve to expect things to be any different. In any case, Zanu PF has just announced that the party would once again deny the 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote; although it was none other than President Mnangagwa himself who had promised in September 2018 that this quirk would be put right.  

Zimbabwe is in a serious economic mess with the economy in total meltdown, unemployment an nauseating 90% plus, basic services such as education and health care have all but collapsed and 49% of our people now live in abject poverty. The root cause of the economic mess is the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections; the nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 41 years. Zanu PF has rigged elections since the country attained her independence in 1980.

 

The human suffering from the economic meltdown is simply intolerable and unsustainable socially and politically. To address the causes of economic meltdown we must first cure ourselves of the curse of bad governance resulting from the rigged elections.

 

It is infuriating that the nation had the golden opportunity to implement the raft of democratic reforms designed to end the chronic vote rigging during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and the opportunity was wasted. Worse still, since 2013 the nation has been participating in flawed elections giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy whilst trying out MDC’s many mystical WIRE strategies.

 

The pressing need to address Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and the tragic human suffering it has brought means the country cannot afford yet another rigged 2023 elections. The nation has two choices:

 

1)      The nation must demand proof Chamisa’s “SOLID PLAN” will indeed deliver the promised “real change” (and that this real change is nothing short of regime change). The only sure way to deliver regime change is by stopping Zanu PF rigging elections; it is hard to see how Chamisa’s plan can achieve this given there is only two years to go before 2023 elections. It is almost certain the so-called “solid plan” is just a jumble of tried and failed MDC WIRE strategies. The nation must not participate in these elections, including taking part in the ongoing voter registration, on the basis of another “mumbo jumbo” Chamisa plan, as Tsitsi Dangarembga. We must not repeat the mistake of participating and thus give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy ever again.

 

2)     The nation must go ahead and make its second choice, demand the implementing of the democratic reforms before elections; SADC leaders proposed this back in June 2013 and both Zanu PF and MDC paid no heed, it was the right decision back then and is even more so now.

 

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is a man-made crisis; a consequence of 41 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness earning the nation the pariah state status. All the nation must do to end its pariah state status is implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections. The nation has had many opportunities to implement the reforms and wasted them all. The 2023 elections are a chance to get the reforms finally implemented and there must be no slip-up this time!