"We want reforms and then elections. Unlike our colleagues in the opposition who are calling for an election whether or not there are reforms," said Douglas Mwonzora, leader of MDC - T.
"That government has not allowed reforms over some years is not a good enough reason to explain why we should not insist on them. We shall not give up until there are reforms which guarantee secrecy of the vote and security of both the vote and the voter."
Participating in flawed and illegal elections to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy is insane, the more so after 41 years of rigged elections in this day and age.
So after decades of telling Douglas Mwonzora and his friends in Zimbabwe’s opposition camp of the sheer folly of participating in flawed and illegal elections; it was refreshing to hear the penny had finally dropped. The announcement was a bolt out of the clear sky - or was it!
The question one has to ask is; "Is this Mwonzora and company Damascus Christophany moment?" The doubting Thomas in me cannot resist the follow up question: "Why now?"
The people of Zimbabwe have risk life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding the party would implementing the democratic changes to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. And yet after 22 years of MDC on the political centre stage, 5 of which in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, the party has failed to implement even one token democratic reform. Not even one!
During the 2008 to 2013 GNU, it was up to MDC leaders themselves to propose and implement the democratic reforms; they did not need to ask Zanu PF to do it. SADC leaders, who were the guarantor of the Global Political Agreement that gave birth to the GNU, nagged Morgan Tsvangirai and his friends to implement the reforms but all to no account.
SADC leaders literally begged MDC leaders not to participate in the elections with no reforms in place but once again Tsvangirai and company paid no heed.
By participating in these flawed and illegal elections MDC leaders were undermining the work of those demanding free, fair and credible elections; Zanu PF was able to point to the participating opposition as proof Zimbabwe had a healthy and functioning multi-party democracy. Why otherwise, would so many opposition parties participate in the elections if the process was flawed, Zanu PF argued.
What makes MDC leaders’ betrayal, first the failure to implement the reforms and then participating in flawed to give Zanu PF legitimacy, particularly obnoxious; is that they clearly knew exactly what they were doing.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” confessed David Coltart, MDC A Treasurer General, 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.”
Four of the main MDC factions plus three other opposition parties did come together to form the MDC Alliance (MDC A) just before the 2018 elections. They went on to participate in that year’s elections, there was no talk of boycotting the elections, for the same reason they all participated in 2013 - greed.
So the answer to why Mwonzora and company are finally talking of boycotting 2023 elections is clear - they are fearful their MDC -T faction will lose the fight for the few gravy train seats to the MDC A just as Thokozani Khupe, who led MDC -T did in the 2018 elections.
Greed had blinded Mwonzora and company to participate in the elections in the past. Now that there is a real possibility they would not win any of the few gravy train seats on offer, they finally see the folly of participating in the flawed and illegal 2023 elections.
Mwonzora and company are now demanding reforms before the 2023 elections not because of some epithany of enlightenment of the sheer insanity of participating in flawed elections to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. When they realised they would not win any of the few gravy train seats on offer the scales born out of greed that had blinded them finally fall off and common sense prevailed.
In 2014 all the MDC leaders, including Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, David Coltart, etc., endorse the “No reform, no elections!” MDC-T party resolution only to abandon it the following years. If Mwonzora and company’s chances of winning any seats in the 2023 elections were to improve, they will once again forget the demand for reforms and participate in the elections.
4 comments:
"Leadership is the courage to do the right thing!" said Mwonzora. So he now has the courage to demand reforms before elections but did not have the courage to do the same in 2013 and 2018!
The truth is MDC leaders, not only Mwonzora but all MDC leaders, participated in the 2013 and 2018 elections out of greed. They all knew that Zanu PF was offering a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate and the found the bribe irresistible! Of course, they could not admit they were participating in the flawed elections because they lack the courage to do the right thing and so they pretended not to know demanding reforms before elections was the right thing.
When Thokozani Khupe joined Mnangagwa's POLAD, she lost all political credibility. When Mwonzora took over from Khupe as leader of the MDC -T he too lost political credibility. The prospect of participating in the by-election and/or national elections and losing badly was a reality Mwonzora and company could not ignore and it is this reality that has forced them to finally do the right and obvious thing - demand reforms before elections.
Now that Mwonzora and company have broken rank and openly admitted it is insane to keep participating in flawed and illegal elections to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy, the pressure is on Chamisa and the others to do the right thing too. Chamisa and his MDC A are now defending the indefensible and with each passing day they will be losing political credibility. Chamisa and company are coughing blood and the situation will only get worse not better!
Douglas Mwonzora, Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, Morgan Tsvangirai, David Coltart and the rest of the MDC leaders proved beyond all reasonable doubt that they are corrupt, breathtakingly incompetent and utterly useless when they failed to implement even one democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. By participating in the flawed and illegal elections since the GNU debacle, they have only made a bad situation even worse by giving vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
Douglas Mwonzora has broken rank with his MDC colleagues by openly admitting it is insane to participate in flawed elections to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. "We want reforms and then elections!" is tantamount to the little boy in Hans Christian Andersen's Emperor's New Cloths revealing the Emperor was naked. The gene is out of the bottle and Chamisa and company will only lose political credibility if they try to defend the indefensible "elections with no reforms!"
After spending all the run up to the 2023 elections defending participating with no reforms it will be hollow, to say the least, for Chamisa to then complain Zanu PF rigged the elections.
MDC leaders have looked foolish for wasting the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU and by stubbornly participating in flawed elections they are haemorrhaging whatever political credibility they had left!
Mwonzora has lost political credibility and instead of going down alone he has devised a way of taking down Chamisa and others down with him. Chamisa and company will not want to admit it is insane to participate in flawed elections just as they have never admitted the sold out by failing to implement any reforms. Now they are going to choke on the bone!
You are right, Douglas Mwonzora and his MDC friends have known all along that it is insane to keep participating in flawed and illegal elections; they are doing it for the same reason they kept their mouths shut during the 2008 to 2013 GNU - greed.
The political events of the last year have helped Mwonzora and company consolidate their iron grip on the MDC -T faction but at the expense of public support. Mwonzora and company will be very lucky to win any of the gravy train seats Zanu PF is giving away. This reality has freed Mwonzora and company to finally see the folly of participating in flawed election.
By demanding reforms before elections, Mwonzora is piling on the pressure on Chamisa and company to do the same. By sticking with the holding of elections with or without reforms Chamisa will be defending the indefensible - a shitty position to be!
Chamisa is coughing blood and soon he will start haemorrhaging blood from every possible opening on his body. We can be 100% certain that Mwonzora will never stop pushing this issue and make it appear as he is better than Chamisa when yesterday he was doing the same thing!
CHIEFS are lobbying government to urgently change the nomenclature of traditional leaders' titles from chiefs to kings.
Chief Zvimba, born Stanley Urayayi Mhondoro, is leading the lobby.
He gained prominence earlier this year after decreeing the exhumation and reburial of late former president Robert Mugabe from his rural home in Zvimba to a site at the National Heroes Acre in Harare.
Speaking at an interactive meeting between traditional leaders and Zimbabwe National Army (ZNA) officers at Inkomo Barracks in Nyabira at the weekend, Chief Zvimba said the title chief compromised their standing and onerous responsibility in society.
The white colonialists found in the local Chiefs a willing tool to impose their colonial agenda on the local people. The whites gave the Chiefs the hard colonial explorer hat plus a half moon plate inscribed “Chief” necklace and in return the Chiefs did the white men’s bidding. Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies wanted the Chiefs and the traditional leaders kept because they realised their importance in imposing their de facto one-party dictatorship.
The 278 Chiefs are not content with the new Isuzu D-Max trucks plus all the other perks they have been getting from Zanu PF for, down payments for their roles as the proxy Zanu PF political commissars in their area. They have served the party well by frog marching the people to attend party rallies and to vote for Zanu PF. Now they want to be given due recognition and reward - they want more of the spoils of power.
Is Zimbabwe a democracy in which those in public office are elected and accountable to the people or is it an autocracy masquerading as a multi-party democracy? This is one of the many questions that the nation must address as part of the sweeping democratic reforms the nation has been dying for.
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