“It is quite clear that several of the sitting and current Chairpersons across ZANU PF Provinces are afraid of a free and fair district and provincial election and are doing everything they can to try and run away from the democratic path by wanting to block all potential challengers,” observed Paul Ndou.
“Is president Mnangagwa going to protect the moribund Chairpersons and move against his trademark campaign signature that “The voice of the People is the voice of God?”
It is the norm for Zanu PF leaders to rig their own party elections just as they have gone to blatantly rig the national elections. It is blasphemous, to say the least, for Mnangagwa to evoke the name of the Lord knowing fully well Zanu PF rigged the 2018 elections and thus the people were blatantly denying a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
There are countless way Zanu PF leaders have rigged elections and one way is to state the election rule, make a big song and dance about it. The opponent will campaign for election within the constrains of the rule. Come the election, the dishonest leader will ignore the rule and go on to win the contest!
Zanu PF made a big song and dance about Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) system to be used in the 2018 elections, for example. Millions of dollars were spent buying the equipment, the UN contributed a staggering US$ 75 million. Come voting day ZEC used the old printed voters’ roll and did not even bother to explain why!
With no verified the printed voters’ roll all the vote rigging shenanigans, justifying the need for the BVR, were allowed back in the process.
Another vote rigging move is to introduce a new rules the very last minute! Mnangagwa was set to win and replace the late Simon Muzenda at the 2004 Zanu PF congress. Mugabe introduced a new party rule the last minute demanding that one of the four top positions in the party must to be a woman. And so Joice Mujuru became the new VP.
Ten years later, 2014, Joice Mujuru was poised to be elected VP in her own right at the party congress. Mugabe accused her of “witchcraft, factionalism” (new crimes never heard of before) and attempting to assassinate Mugabe. She and some of her supporters were booted out of the party. This time it was Mnangagwa who benefited from the Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli shenanigan. The need for at least one female in the Zanu PF presidium was conveniently forgotten.
Zanu PF leaders have no respect for rule of law or the party’s and nation’s laws and constitution. None!
Many Zimbabweans thought the approved the 2013 constitution would restore the rule of law. It failed its first acid test; Zanu PF went on to blatantly rigging the 2013 elections.
The truth is the 2013 constitution was “dictated by Robert Mugabe”, boasted Paul Mangwana, the Zanu PF MP and co-chairperson on the parliamentary committee that drafted the document.
Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had wasted the five years of the GNU enjoying the trapping of high office, they were desperate to present the new constitution as their achievement. Mugabe, cuckoo style, let MDC claim his dictator’s creed as their own. Morgan Tsvangirai even called the 2013 constitution an “MDC child!”
Zanu PF emerged out of the 2008 to 2013 GNU with all the party’s carte blanche dictatorial powers it had before the GNU. The 2008 elections remain the watershed reference elections in which Zanu PF gave a graphic demonstration of its dictatorial powers.
Morgan Tsvangirai garnered 73% of the popular vote in the March 2008 vote, according to Mugabe’s Freudian slip.Zanu PF stopped the results being made public and spent the next six weeks whittling down the 73% to 47%, enough to force a run-off. In the run-off, Zanu PF unleashed the war veterans, the party’s youth militia, the green bombers, backed by all four of the state security services branches to punish the people for daring to reject the party in the earlier vote.
Mugabe won the June 2008 run-off with a run away 84% of the votes; his victory was never in doubt! The people of Zimbabwe know better than test providence and dare reject Zanu PF ever again, not whilst the party continues to enjoy its dictatorial powers.
The idea of participating again and again in an election process so flawed the opposition cannot win even after polling 73% of the votes is the very essence of insanity!
Nelson Chamisa and his fellow MDC leaders have no choice but to participate in these flawed and illegal elections they cannot demand the implementation of reforms without admitting they had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the GNU and they sold-out.
Chamisa and company are hoping to be propelled into power on the back of mass street protests and they have been fishing for it at every turn. And meanwhile they have to settle for the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to participate.
For their part, Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies need the opposition to participate in the flawed and illegal election to give the process some modicum of credibility and, by extension, give the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy.
The most important lesson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies have since 2008 is to continue enjoying the party’s dictatorial powers to blatant cheating and to use wanton violence but to be very subtle; they were not subtle in 2008 and were forced into the 2008 to 2013 GNU as a consequence. And making sure the opposition participate in large numbers will secure legitimacy; allowing them to win a few gravy train seats is a small price to pay for legitimacy.
“You have heard about the golden rule, haven’t you?” asked, rhetorically, the evil sorcerer Jafar in Walt Disney’s Aladdin. “He who has the gold makes the rules!”
To paraphrase Jafar, “Zanu PF has the dictatorial power and makes all the rules!” And as long as “Jafar” Emmerson Mnangagwa has the dictatorial powers there will be free, fair and credible elections!
It is too late to have any meaningful reforms implemented now, before the 2023 elections; it is clear the 2023 elections will not be free, fair and credible. The election must be declared null and void regardless how many of the usual opposition opportunists participate to give the regime legitimacy.
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“I don’t think he did a great job of being Prime Minister. I was disappointed in that but the man himself there is no doubt in my mind that people loved him,” Eddie Cross told Trevor Ncube on this week’s episode of In Conversation With Trevor.
This is a rare admission by any MDC leader. As a rule, it is easier to get a pint of blood from a stone than to get any MDC leader to say anything about the GNU years. It is as if the they have all airbrush the five years out of their collective memory.
The truth is MDC leaders sold-out big time by failing to implement even one democratic reform. Of course, refusing to admit they failed is not helping, indeed, it is compounding the problem in that the same corrupt and incompetent individuals are still in key leadership positions and repeating the same foolishness.
It is a great pity that Trevor Ncube did not follow this up and get him to reveal the true story behind the MDC betrayal. It is easy for people who have no clue what the GNU was about much less the consequences of MDC leaders’ failure to implement even one reform to love Tsvangirai. When the people get to know the truth, his name will be mud!
Zimbabwe is in a real mess. How did we land ourselves into this mess?
In his book, Animal Farm George Orwell describes how the pigs arranged to sacks filled with chaff and topped up with grain and make sure the visiting human would see them. The farm had a poor harvest and most of the animals were starving with the notable exception of the pigs who were very well fed and piling up the weight. The sacks full of chaff was a subterfuge, a ruse, a smoke and mirror, to give the false impression the farm had plenty of food.
Animal Farm was an allegory depicting the behaviour of human being to make the tale believable but in which the author had exercised his creativity and imagination to make the story interesting. I could well imagine some despotic tyrant in some far away distant land pulling off a stunt like pigs displaying sacks full of chaff to hide the serious food shortage. I never ever imagined it ever happening to me in Zimbabwe and worst of all happen repeatedly!
Ever since the country's independence in 1980 Robert Mugabe promised the nation mass prosperity, "Gutsa ruzhinji!" as he called it in Shona; the regime has pulled all the stops to make the people and the outside world believe Zimbabwe was enjoying mass prosperity; a mirage to hide the reality of mass poverty.
One of Mugabe's proud legacy is mass education! I would not be surprised to hear Zimbabwe has had the biggest per capita increase in students, schools, colleges and universities than any other nation in human history. Sadly, it was all about appearances, about quantity for no attention was paid on quality. When the pass rate has dropped to 3% for the best performing and the majority is 0%; you have reached rock bottom. Our education service has collapsed and everything is just a farce!
How anyone would risk the health and even life of their child by sending them to a corona virus hotspot for the sake of a 3% pass rate beggars belief. It makes sense when one acknowledges the reality the same individual has done nothing these last 41 years to stop the rot making in the education of the future generation a farce! Nothing!
We deserve to be in this mess and there is no escaping it until we open our eyes and minds to the reality that if we want a good government we must earn it!
Analysis by Remi Adekoya, for CNN
“It is now estimated the number of extremely poor people in sub-Saharan Africa has crossed the 500 million mark, half the population.
This in the youngest continent in the world with a median age of 20 and a faster-growing population than anywhere else, further intensifying an already fierce competition for resources.
What is clear is that these coups pose a serious threat to the democratic gains African countries have made in recent decades. Worryingly, research shows that many Africans are increasingly ceasing to believe elections can deliver the leaders they want.”
Zimbabwe’s 2017 military coup could have been easily avoided if Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had implemented the democratic reforms when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. The reformed system would have restored the people’s right to a meaningful vote and to remove failed political leaders.
The people celebrated the November 2017 military coup but that was out of desperation. They had resigned themselves to the possibility Mugabe would be president for life and so they were glad to see him booted out, even by a coup. Any hope of the coup bring in change has since evaporated.
MDC leaders’ insistence in participating in flawed and illegal elections is insane since all it is doing is give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF. The MDC leaders themselves are participating for the same reason they failed to implement any reform during the GNU - greed. Zanu PF is offering a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate and this they cannot resist.
What a nightmare!
This is nonsense, how can the number of covid-19 cases in school be 132? The two schools above have 103 cases and we know 11 school countrywide have closed because of covid-19 outbreak. Are we to believe the 9 closed with less than 4 cases each!
Zanu PF has been very economic with the truth when it comes to corona virus!
Zimbabwe's vaccination programme is one of the slowest. Whilst many nation have already achieved 80% plus of their target herd immunity and are rolling out the boaster third jab; Zimbabwe will be very lucky to have the two jabs in the arms of the target 10 million.
For the regime to already start dishing out all manner of punishment to those who have not been vaccinated when it is the people who should be demanding to know why the vaccination programme has been slow is a measure of the Zanu PF regime's dictatorial arrogance! So the regime is punishing people for not being vaccinated when it is the regime's fault the vaccination programme will be one year late!
This is all about appearances; Zanu PF wants to create the impression the country was late in reaching its 10 million herd immunity target because the people were reluctant to be vaccinated and hence had to arm twist them. This is just as feeble as blaming sanctions for the country's economic meltdown when everyone knows corruption is the killer!
Whatever economic progress Zimbabwe has made it was at the expense of millions of ordinary Zimbabweans whom the region as all but sacrificed.
Education and health care services in the rural areas have all but completely collapsed due to decades of being starved of funds. The 2019 school results in Chiredzi South constituency showed the best performing schools had 3% pass rate in Grade 7, Form 2, 4 and 6. 3%!This is a whole generation that is being denied basic education. What kind of citizens will they be?
When Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube imposed his 2% electronic transaction tax he was going after the street vendors and the millions who are eking a living from kiya kiya who are not in any formal employment and therefore are not paying income tax. He was not content the vendors were paying sales tax, he wanted more!
Teachers, nurses and other low grade civil servants are on slave wages!
Minister Ncube did not tax the ruling elite who are earning millions of dollars from the wholesale looting of the nation's resources, US$1.2 billion per year is being lost to gold smugglers alone. They are all untouchables!
This Zanu PF government is a government of the ruling elite and their cronies; the ordinary people have been thrown off like excess baggage for the greater comfort of the ruling elite!
By A Correspondent- Energy minister Zhemu Soda allegedly dished out grocery hampers to Zanu-PF women structures in Muzarabani at the weekend in what some party members from the province allege was vote buying for his ally, Home Affairs minister Kazembe Kazembe who wants to retain the party provincial chairmanship.
Kazembe is reportedly facing competition in elections expected soon where he will be challenged by former Education minister Lazarus Dokora, businessman James Makamba and former MP Christopher Chitindi, among others.
The sheer hypocrisy of these Zanu PF members is shocking, to say the least. Zanu PF has always used state funded food and agricultural freebies as an integral part of its electioneering for decades. Are these hypocrites now saying freebies handing during Zanu PF party elections are vote buying but it is not vote buying to distribute lorry loads of freebies during national elections?
Zanu PF members are hypocrites there is a storm in Muzarabani with members accusing each other of vote buying! The sheer hypocrisy of these Zanu PF members is shocking, to say the least.
Zanu PF has always used state funded food and agricultural freebies as an integral part of its electioneering for decades. Are these hypocrites now saying freebies handing during Zanu PF party elections are vote buying but it is not vote buying to distribute lorry loads of freebies during national elections?
Vote buying is a serious problem, especially in the rural areas where the voters are victimised all the time and not just during elections. Being accused of supporting the opposition is crime worse than murder when you are nothing more than a medieval serf beholden to the overbearing Zanu PF landlords!
@ Hugh Jarse
“A bit late to snivel now! You've had decades to try to get reforms in place through voting Zanu PF out, yet failed every time! Challenging those electoral laws in the courts is about the only option left, at least from what I can see. At the same time, how about voting en masse AGAINST Zanu PF? Something you've not done before. It might help a bit as well, if things aren't "chamisaed" at the last minute as well!”
The best chance the country had to get reforms implemented was during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Sadly Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were not up to the task; Mugabe bribed the lot with the trappings of high office and for five years they forgot why they were in the GNU!
Just because Tsvangirai and company were corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent that does not mean there are no Zimbabweans out there who are competent and will get all the reforms implemented. It is not as if implementing the reforms is rocket science!
In the March 2008 vote, Morgan Tsvangirai got 73% of the vote, according to Mugabe’s own Freudian slip; Mnangagwa stepped in and stopped the results being announced and after six weeks of whittling down the vote Tsvangirai had 47%. If that was not en masse voting, what is? And yet that was not good enough to get Tsvangirai to State House.
Zanu PF thugs has since up graded their vote rigging system to make sure the opposition will not get the 73% votes ever again. The party has just announced that 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora will, once again, be denied the vote. In September 2018 President Mnangagwa himself said they would finally have the vote in 2023 and has thus changed him mind - as dictators often do.
It is insane to keep participating in flawed and illegal elections when the obvious option is to boycott the elections. The only reason why Chamisa and company will not boycott is equally obvious, they are the ones who failed to implement even one reform during the GNU! They cannot protest against their own incompetence!
ZIMBABWE will seek to raise $200m in a debut domestic US dollar bond sale on its stock exchange in Victoria Falls that trades exclusively in foreign currency, says finance minister Mthuli Ncube.
“We may have it in small tranches, rather than a single big issuance,” Ncube said in an interview from New York, where he is on a roadshow to attract investment into the Southern African nation.
This is just a variation on the same old tune of “Zimbabwe is open for business!” which was supposed to open the flood gate of investors soon after the 2017 military coup. No investors arrived because investors are a shrewd and savvy lot; they had stayed away during Mugabe’s days because Zimbabwe was Banana Republic ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs.
The military coup change nothing; Zimbabwe was still a Banana Republic and so it has remained to this day. No investor wants to do business in a Banana Republic.
Zimbabwe is targeting a yield of 6%-9% on the bonds, he said on Wednesday on Bloomberg Television. Yield-hungry investors in frontier markets are interested in the offering, the minister said.
This is probably ten times the yield similar USA government bonds will pay and still they will be very few takers because with the USA bonds one knows they will be paid whereas with the Zimbabwe bonds “Good luck!”
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