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!
11 comments:
@ Vashe King
“THE problem with Zimbabwean opposition politics is that it takes the term "opposition" to mean antagonism against the government of the day and as a result any attempts to bridge the ideological gap between Zanu-PF and MDC becomes impossible. We have an opposition that instead of proffering alter-native solutions, rejoice over the failure of the State and its people.
As if that was not enough, we have an opposition that goes to the extent of calling upon our neighbours and the whole world to gang up against the State and its people. I rue the day the MDC thought that sanctions were indeed a means for them to gain access to the reins of power. I regret the day the MDC thought that the sun rises and sets on their regime change agenda.”
As much as the opposition is corrupt and incompetent; MDC leaders’ cardinal sin was to fail to implement even one reform in 21 years, 5 of which in the GNU; still the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis is the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. There is no excuse why Zanu PF has failed to hold free, fair and credible elections. None! It is nonsensical for King to therefore be hipping all blame on the opposition for Zimbabwe’s mess!
@ Abednico Mweembe Mweembe
“Zambia and zim are not the same of cause all.of us have seen Zambia holding elections during corona time bcoz that is what their constitution says and they respect it .While in zim we have more than 50 pending by elections for over a year now but the constitution says Paliament gaps and local authorities must be filled within 90 days from the day they became empty . Zanu is law in this country very different from Zambia.”
Do you always have to speak with your foot in your big mouth! How many national elections and by-elections has Zimbabwe held in the last 41 years? And how many of them have been rigged, blatantly rigged, by Zanu PF? The nation is sick to the back teeth of these idiotic calls by the opposition for elections and then they complain that the elections were rigged. MDC had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms and stop Zanu PF rigging elections and the party sold-out.
So you want by-elections to go ahead during corona virus knowing Zanu PF will rig the elections and therefore we will be risking more people getting the virus for nothing! It is not the by-elections or national election we should be demanding but implement the reforms. There is really no point in participating in flawed elections processes only to give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy! This is insane and we must and will put an end to this MDC madness of giving vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy!
ZANU PF officials came close to trading blows at a recent restructuring exercise in Banket after the youth leader charged at the district chairman, who is also a local councillor as factional fights in the ruling party reach a crescendo.
Never Hutepasi, who is the Banket district chairperson and Ward 22 councillor, was also targeted for attack as the party youths accused him of being an MDC Alliance agent and traitor bent on ensuring the ruling Zanu PF lost in the 2023 national elections.
“You are very stupid! How can you bring the MDC way of doing things in Zanu PF? Do you want the party to lose elections? I personally will not allow you to do it, you are also a thief,” charged Zidana
Zanu PF is a party of thugs and labelling their opponent an opposition supporter, the worst crime anyone can ever commit in Zimbabwe is to be an opposition supporter; that is the equivalent of a hyena splashing its rival with goat-blood, nothing turns on the hyena’s killing instinct more than the smell of blood.
The tragedy is Zanu PF dirty politics is the norm in Zimbabwe, how many times has the MDC supporters attach the party’s critics by labelling him/her a Zanu PF supporter!
We need to implement the democratic reforms designed to clean up the country’s dirty politics if we are ever going to get competent leaders instead of these thugs; drain the sewage pond and fill it with clean water so we can have fish again.
In both reviews, Moyo and Tendi revealed that Cross deliberately omitted events and details that would portray Mnangagwa in bad light, including the role he played in the Gukurahundi genocide in Matabeleland, which raised questions on the factuality of the biography.
The two also exposed Mnangagwa's lies when he claimed that he was saved the hangman's noose for bombing a train in 1965 because he was under the age of 21, when records show that he was saved by the court which ruled that he faced a less serious case.
"The fact that Mnangagwa's 1965 court record went missing from the National Archives a long ago, only to resurface in the Eddie Cross book, has raised security eyebrows. Mnangagwa is hostile to books; he did not know his 1965 record is in his biography, before its publication!" Moyo tweeted on Thursday. However, both Mnangagwa and Chiwenga have publicly denied allegations of bad blood between them.
The one thing that has worked in both Mnangagwa and Mugabe’s favour is having a corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent opposition party because both will have lost power a long time ago if MDC had implemented the democratic reforms designed to end the curse of rigged elections and Zanu PF dictatorship.
Eddie Cross was a senior MDC leader throughout the GNU years; he has proven to be just as corrupt and incompetent as his fellow MDC leaders!
Cannot wait for the day Zimbabwe will finally implement the democratic reforms; the prerequisite for free, fair and credible elections; and end the Zanu PF dictatorship. On that day the veils of secrecy that have hidden the truth behind the Gukurahundi massacre and Zanu PF’s decades of corrupt and tyrannical rule will finally be lifted. More often than not the truth will always come out, it cannot remain hidden forever.
Nelson Chamisa nagged SADC leaders to back his claim of winning the 2018 elections and they all ignored him because they know the elections were flawed, Zanu PF rigged, but they would rather back Zanu PF than MDC because it was MDC leaders who failed to implement reforms to stop the rigging.
“MDC leaders were busy enjoying themselves during the GNU, they forgot why they were there!” commented one SADC diplomate in exasperation soon after Zanu PF rigged the 2013 elections.
Chamisa and his MDC “fiends”, as you rightly called them are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent; the very fact that Mugabe was able to bribe the whole MDC leadership to forget about the reforms for five years speaks volumes about the men and women we are dealing with here. They are fiends beyond the pale!
Of course, Chamisa and the banded mongoose fiends have been participating in the elections knowing Zanu PF was rigging, they have even participated when there is no verified voters roll, because they also knew Zanu PF is offering a few gravy train seats. Of course, they would not admit they are participating out of greed and so told their naïve and gullible followers they have devised “Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies!” The real surprise is many people out there believe this nonsense even with the benefit of hindsight!
Chamisa is telling Zimbabweans if they, on mass, register to vote, turnout to vote and defend the vote MDC will win an election in which Zanu PF is free to rig to the point of overturning a 73% MDC vote!
In other words, Chamisa is telling Zimbabweans if the turned out on mass to cheer the tortoise it will win the race against a cheetah! If the people do not have the common sense to see the tortoise does not have the physiology to run, then they clearly deserve to be cheated!
@ Sheunopa Mutsikiwa
“That is the thinking of the author. We think differently.”
Of course, you think Chamisa’s “SOLID PLAN” will stop Zanu PF rigging the 2023 just as you believed his “MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging (2018) elections!” The stringent measures did not work then and it is clear the SOLID PLAN (which is just a rehash of the same tested and failed voter mobilisation strategies) is not working. Zanu PF has just denied 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote and it is all water off the MDC A duck’s back!
It is insane to keep participating in flawed elections and giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
“We think differently!” Well, that is a moot point; are the insane capable of thinking! Can some one whose brain has all but ossified into a lamp of fatty tissue, has no common sense to register they are being taken for fools betting on a tortoise beating a cheetah in a race, etc. still be said capable of thinking!
@ Arthur Mntungwa
“Those who supported ZANU during the struggle, and voted for them in 1980, despite their violence, rape of women, and tribalism are the people who ruined Zimbabwe. Many of them are still with ZANU, some are in the opposition today. They must hang their heads in shame!”
Top on the list of those who must hang their heads in shame are those who continue to support MDC, “Chamisa chete, chete!” even with the benefit of hindsight of the GNU years when MDC sold-out big time. Like it or not, MDC leaders are the ones who have allowed Zanu PF to emerge out of the GNU with all its dictatorial powers untouched and are they ones giving Zanu PF legitimacy at every turn. Mugabe learned during the GNU that given a few trappings of power Morgan Tsvangirai and company will forget about free elections and democratic reforms! It is a crying shame that there are some Zimbabweans out there who still believe MDC leaders like Chamisa will deliver change!
@ Mbofana
“Instead, of merely attacking and criticizing our leaders, I genuinely wanted to be fair, and understand what they were good at.
One of the most important lessons I have learnt throughout my life has been that, no one is completely useless - and that, those we may consider to be utter duds in a particular field, could be geniuses in another.
As such, forcing someone to pursue a path they are unmistakably not gifted in, is the gravest of errors - since, not only will they mess up big time (possibly, irredeemably), but also make the lives of other people a living nightmare.
It is far much better, rather, to encourage them to go with what they know best - and, at the end, everyone will be happy.
However, that is where this government's "successes" start and end - beyond their comfort zone of farming and rural areas, it is unmitigated disaster after disaster.
It can no longer be debated - as if it was ever debatable - but, the Zimbabwe administration is unashamedly incapable of running a modern-day advanced country.
What can anyone say of a ruling establishment that cannot even provide consistent electricity for its population, or fails to maintain a steady currency and economy, or cannot enable a conducive environment for the sustained growth of local industry and commerce, or incapable of ensuring that our children attain a high standard education, or unable to provide decent living salaries for its own employees?”
I can see that you are desperate to see something positive Zanu PF has done and so you see “success” where there is none! Whatever hardships those in the urban centres are facing, they are nothing compared to the hardships the rural dwellers are facing.
You are fed-up with the electricity power cuts and no running water. The rural people have never had electricity and running water and will not even talk about these because they have other things like education and health care services that have all but completely collapsed. If a big Hospital like Parerenyatwa has a chronic shortage of nurses and basic medicines, what more of the district hospital in the rural backwaters!
You are clearly fed-up with having a buffoon like Mnangagwa for president, you are running out of ideas on how to remove him from State House and so think you can sweet talk him into becoming president of the rural backwaters. You must hate the rural people very much! “Kuvatakunyurira nyoka mhenyu!” (Throwing a live snake at the rural people!) as one would say in Shona.
Tell you what, Mnangagwa and his fellow Zanu PF thugs are not going to take your suggestion and give up power, they have tasted it and are now totally addicted to it. They are gearing to rig the 2023 elections and have the usual opposition opportunists lined up to participate to give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. If you want change in Zimbabwe, you have to confront the opposition opportunists who are selling out on the common cause of implementing reforms and free and fair elections for the sake of a few gravy train seats and the added POLAD perks!
Chamisa has proven to be corrupt and incompetent already he and his MDC fiends are banking on the nation's desperation to be elected into office. After 41 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption and tyrannical oppression under this Zanu PF dictatorship the people of Zimbabwe are so desperate for change they would rather vote for a donkey just to get rid of Mnangagwa. Zanu PF knows the people are desperate for change and hence the reason why the party has its vote rigging machine well oiled and will do everything to ensure the shoot to kill orders are carried out!
The nation would not still be in this mess if MDC leaders had implemented the reforms during the GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so. If the 2023 elections can be declared null and void so Zanu PF is once again forced to accept the need for a new GNU as happened in 2008, the nation will be spared the option of either violent street protests or another military coup as the only way to end the Zanu PF dictatorship.
No effort should be spared to have the flawed 2023 elections declared null and void regardless how many of the usual opposition suspects participate in the elections, especially now with additional POLAD perks on offer, to give Zanu PF legitimacy.
The MDC Alliance has queried the government’s swift disbursement of funds under the Political Parties Finance Act to the Douglas Mwonzora led-MDC-T, saying this never used to happen before the 2019 split.
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.
Many people have failed to understand why MDC leaders have participated in elections even when SADC leaders told them they would lose. “If you go into the elections next month, you will lose; the elections are done!” SADC leaders told Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders to their faces in June 2013.
The warning fell on deaf ears as the MDC leaders all participated in the elections even as they witnessed the blatant vote rigging by Zanu PF. It was David Coltart former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the 2008 GNU, who explained why MDC leaders participated regardless.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs (MDC -T and MDC – N) couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” wrote Senator Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.
“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.”
What was to be gained in “winning seats” is the generous gravy train salary and perks for the winner and the share of the annual Political Party Finance Act pay out. Nearly $60 million for Mwonzora and company with the same again next year; not bad, not bad at all! Mnangagwa has just increase the opposition bait to participate in elections by giving POLAD participant equally generous perks, a US$ 60 000 twin-cab D-Max Isuzu Truck plus a lot more to Madhuku and company for being a presidential candidate and publicly denying Zanu PF rigged the 2018 elections.
We can be 100% certain all the usual suspects and more will be participating in the 2023 elections; the bribe for participating is irresistible! As Coltart rightly admitted, it will not matter one bit how “flawed and illegal” the 2023 elections process get, the opposition will participate. Of course, it is this certainty that the opposition will participate no matter what that has given Zanu PF the confidence to ignore calls for reform.
“Zanu PF ichatonga. Igotonga! Imi muchigohukura. Nokuhukura!” (Zanu PF will rule. And rule! Whilst you (calling for reforms) bark. And bark!) is one of Mnangagwa’s favourite boasts.
The ordinary Zimbabweans are the victims of this opposition selling out of reforms and continued participation in rigged elections; they are who gain nothing from participating in the flawed elections and instead suffers the consequences of being stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime. It is insane for the ordinary people to keep participating in these flawed elections and many are doing so out of ignorance and/or desperation – weaknesses both Zanu PF and MDC leaders have actively cultivated and exploited. We need to educate the people and to stop the madness of flawed elections!
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.
According to a letter leaked to the media directed to Zanu PF Secretary for Administration Obert Mpofu,signed by the Chitepo School of Ideology Principal Munyaradzi Machacha, Chiefs, District Development Coordinators and Rural District Councils Chief Executive officers ere last year invited to train at the school of ideology.
Machacha said in order to create a strong bond between the party and government, the DCC members were to be trained together with local government officials comprising the Party DCCs, Chairman of the RDCs, CEOs of RDCs, DDCs and local Chiefs.
He said by the end of the training programme they were to be able to carry out vigorous mobilization programmes within the districts to achieve the five million voter population for Zanu PF in 2023.
He said participants must be able to create a synergy and bonding between the party DCC structure and Local Government officials in pursuit of economic development goals "in line with Vision 2030, create a wider ward based training human resources in order to participate in the following ward based train the trainer programme."
Machacha said this was necessary since the nation approaches the 2023 harmonized elections.
Zanu PF is carrying on with its double task of training Chiefs and other traditional leaders as political commissars to make sure the rural voters remain loyal to Zanu PF. The rural areas are Zanu PF strong holds for no other reason other than that the rural voters have always been nothing short of medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing Zanu PF operatives.
And to make sure the opposition will participate regardless how flawed and illegal the electoral process gets Zanu PF has dangled the benefit of the opposition participating in the form of the 1/3 or so gravy train seats up for grabs, a share of the annual Political Party Finance Act pay out (Mwonzora has just received $60 million) and the perks paid to newly added POLAD – Zanu PF’s second task.
Chamisa is conning his supporters into participating in these flawed elections under the pretext he has a “SOLID PLAN” to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. In 2018 he had “stringent measures” stop Zanu PF rigging those elections and we all know Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections. The party is already rigging the 2023 elections, the solid plan did not stop Zanu PF turning Chiefs into political commissars.
What most ordinary Zimbabweans do not know is that by participating they are giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and thus help perpetuate the regime’s reign! Starve Zanu PF of legitimacy and the regime will be forced to accept the need for a new GNU only this time those appointed will implement the democratic reforms, all of them!
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