"Zimbabwe is a failed state and we must mobilise for action" says former ZCTU President - no wonder we are stuck W Mukori

 “Zimbabwe is a failed state!” Peter Mutasa, outgoing President of ZCTU to News Day in an interview.

“Our solutions come from clear problem identification. We are now a failed State,” he explained.

“The reasons for State's failure are known. It is dictatorship. Dictatorship has led to political disputes because of violent and disputed electoral processes and results and has led to the subversion of the Constitution and rendered all the constitutional institutions and instruments dysfunctional.

“The first step in resolving the Zimbabwean crisis is, therefore, to end the military dictatorship and transition to democracy. All other solutions are hinged on transitioning from this mode of governance and require Zimbabweans to address this problem.”

Agreed with you 100%!

“Citizens have no option, but to mobilise for collective action and the Constitution grants citizens such political rights. It is not simple, but through civic and political education and exposing the effects of dictatorship, citizens may agree on the necessity of the struggle,” he continued.

Could not disagree with you more! This is the same nonsense of “if we mobilise and take collective action we will not be defeated” recycled and regurgitated from such sources as the MDC leaders!

Yes, Zimbabwe is a failed state!

Yes, the root cause of Zimbabwe being a failed state is the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections which has left the country stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.

But no, the solution to stopping Zanu PF rigging the elections is not “mobilising people to register to vote, voting in numbers and then defending the vote”, as Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A friends have argued a thousand times. This is one of many similar variations to the opposition’s “winning in rigged elections (WIRE) strategies”.

MDC leaders have tried these WIRE strategies ever since they failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when the nation had its best opportunity ever to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections.

MDC leaders had the chance to implement the reforms and stop the vote rigging; they failed to implement even one reform in five years of the GNU. And ever since, they have argued the reforms are not necessary because they have WIRE strategies. All nonsense because we all know what Zanu PF’s voter rigging juggernaut is capable of.  

In the March 2008 elections, SADC leaders had pressured Zanu PF to switch-off its vote rigging juggernaut, for the first time since the country’s independence. Tsvangirai garnered 73% of the votes.

However, when Zanu PF realised that MDC was heading for landslide victory, the party switched the vote rigging juggernaut back on in time to stop ZEC announcing the results. The party then spend the next six weeks “recounting” the 5 million votes and Tsvangirai’s 73% was whittle down to 47%, enough to force a runoff. And during the runoff Zanu PF used wanton violence to punish the voters for rejecting the party in the earlier vote. Mugabe “won” the runoff with a whopping 84%!

Failing to implement even one meaningful reform when they had the chance to do so in one of the most foolish mistakes MDC leaders have ever done. They have only compounded their treasonous betray of failing to implement reforms by insisting in participating in flawed and illegal elections under the pretext of these WIRE strategies.

Zanu PF has blatantly rigged and win the 2013 elections and all these that that have followed. Zanu PF is set to blatantly rig the 2023 elections; all these WIRE strategies are just hot air.

Indeed, by mobilising and participating in these flawed elections, MDC is giving the flawed process credibility and the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy.

In the 2018 elections Nelson Chamisa claimed that he was the winner polling 2.6 million votes to Mnangagwa’s 2.4 million. Chamisa failed to produce the V11 forms, the vote count summary sheet produced by each Polling Station. To be fair to Chamisa, ZEC too failed to produce all the V11 forms, hence the reason why ZEC had three different tallies of the votes which it could not reconcile.

The whole election process could not be trace and verified because ZEC had failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. There will be no verified voters’ roll in 2023 either, ZEC has done nothing to produce one and, with less than a year and half to go, it is too late to do so now.

So Chamisa will be calling on his supporters to “defend” a result he cannot substantiate or verify!

The sheer stupidity of MDC A’s position is mind boggling: MDC A, against all advice, are the ones insisting in participating in flawed elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF will rig the elections and by participating MDC A is giving Zanu PF legitimacy. The MDC A is then hoping to wrestle power from Zanu PF by staging street protests!

After 42 years of rigged elections and the country in a serious economic and political mess one would think, everyone has finally had enough of trying to win rigged elections and are ready for a more rational solution – implement the democratic reforms and stop anyone rigging the elections.