“In Zimbabwe, a new opposition party (CCC) has made significant gains in byelections. With inflation roaring at 152%/yr by my measure, the CCC has a shot at challenging what is little more than a corrupt criminal organization (ZANU-PF) in next year’s elections.” Twittered Steve Hanke, @steve_hanke.
Steve H. Hanke is a Professor of Applied Economics at the
Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. He is well read and his
views on the economy and other matters are held in high regard in America and
the world over.
CCC accepted Professor Hanke’s assessment; swallowing the hook,
line and sinker!
“People within & outside Zim are taking notice of the
fact that there is a changed atmosphere in the country. With 152% inflation,
49% extreme poverty & US$2bn being looted each year by Zanu PF, the 2023 election
will see the citizens voting in their millions for change.” Advocate Fadzayi
Mahere, CCC spokesperson, twittered back!
There is no denying that the Zimbabwe economy is in serious
trouble, has been ever since the country gained her independence in 1980 to the
precise. And with 49% of the population now living in extreme poverty, as Advocate
Mahere rightly pointed out, it no surprise Zimbabweans are desperate for regime
change after 42 years of Zanu PF tyrannical and kleptocratic rule.
“For people for change! Putting People First! It's the
economy stupid!” was then President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign slogan.
42 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have
left Zimbabwe’s economy in ruins and, except for the ruling elite and their cronies,
Zimbabweans do not need any slogan to remind them that Zanu PF must go. Indeed,
they have known that many, many moons ago.
What Steve Hanke, Advocate Mahere and her follow CCC colleagues
are forgetting is that Zimbabwe is not United States of America. America has
free, fair and credible elections; Zimbabwe has never ever held free, fair and
credible elections. Never ever, in its 42 years of independence and, before
that, decades of white colonial rule.
The 26 March 2022 by election reality showed that many
Zimbabweans were denied the vote because their names were missing from the
voters’ roll or some such voters’ roll tampering. There were videos of rural
voters frog marched and escorted into the voting booth by Zanu PF operatives
under the pretext they could not read and write. Zanu PF wanted to be
absolutely certain they voted for the party.
“The 2023 election will see the citizens voting in their
millions for change!” claim Advocate Mahere! Change, what change? Those rural
voters voted for Zanu PF as the by election results showed!
Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 election as we speak! The party
has denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote although President
Mnangagwa had promised in September 2018 that they will vote. The 3 million
voters are very significant given Mnangagwa won the 2018 presidential vote with
2.4 million votes, total.
“The diaspora vote will be denied as long as the sanctions
imposed on Zanu PF leaders by the West remain,” explained Acting Zanu PF spokesperson,
Patrick Chinamasa, last year. Why Zimbabweans should be denied one of their
fundamental human rights over a matter they had no say in, beggars belief.
The other key vote rigging taking place right now is ZEC’s blatant
refusal to produce a baseline voters’ roll and so there will be no verified
voters’ roll for the 2023 elections. The regime has never ever produced a
verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement.
CCC and other opposition leaders have all connived with Zanu
PF in denying the people of Zimbabwe their fundamental to free, fair and
credible elections by participating in the elections knowing fully well the
regime had failed to produce even something as basic as a verified voters’
roll.
Advocate Mahere and her CCC colleagues all know that Zanu PF
is rigging these elections and until that issue is dealt with, by implementing
the democratic reforms designed to stop the rigging, Zanu PF will win the
elections regardless of the economic situation and the democratic wish of the
people.
Indeed, CCC leaders know that the winners of the 2023
elections will have nothing to do with the free and democratic wishes of the
people of Zimbabwe because, alas, they have never exercised that right. Never
ever!
The nation has had the golden opportunity during the 2008 to
2013 GNU to implement the democratic reforms and end Zanu PF’s carte blanche
power to frog march people to vote for the party. It was none other than the
CCC leaders who wasted the opportunity and failed to get even one reform
implemented in five years.
Zanu PF has ignored all calls to implement reforms because
the party knows that CCC, before it MDC, will participate in the elections
regardless how flawed the process got as long as they are assured of winning a
few gravy train seats. Zanu PF has offered the few seats to entice the
opposition to participate and Mahere and co have found the bribe irresistible!
As much as the people of Zimbabwe would love to vote Zanu PF
out of office because of the worsening economic situation, Zanu PF is in fact certain
to rig and secure yet another landslide victory. Zimbabwe is not America and
Zanu PF will win the elections regardless of its failure to revive the economy.
4 comments:
JM: As a commission, we were very happy with how the by-elections went. We were very much prepared, save for a few cases where some of our trained electoral officers were withdrawn at the last minute, as they were joining other Government programmes or going back to their polling stations. However, we managed to fill the numbers and the commission had 20 000 polling officers as originally intended.
The other unfortunate incidents were due to the rains. Some of the provinces were affected by rains, hence the movement and transmission of results from the polling stations to the ward collection centres and the constituency in Midlands, Matabeleland North and Mashonaland East was a bit of an issue.
There were many serious incidences to render the 26 March 2022 by elections flawed and illegal and top on that list is the failure by ZEC to give contestants a definitive voters’ roll. The voters’ roll the commission gave out was found to have many serious errors and what can only be called deliberate voters’ roll shenanigans such as transferring individuals from one polling station to another or worse still deleting them for no apparent reason or without notifying the affected voters. Yet ZEC played down all these flaws and illegalities and claimed the only challenges the commission faced were weather related!
Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections and ZEC is helping the party to do this. Indeed, ZEC is but a Zanu PF department in all but name and committed to deliver the same no regime change goal. There will be no free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe until we bite the bullet and implement the democratic reforms designed to sever the umbilical cords linking Zanu PF to ZEC, Police, Judiciary, etc., etc.
BOUYED by its impressive showing in last week's by-election, opposition leader Nelson Chamisa's Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) is stepping up its campaigns in rural areas, long perceived to be Zanu-PF strongholds, ahead of the 2023 elections.
Chamisa's CCC won 19 of the available 28 parliamentary seats while Zanu-PF got the remainder, including two that they grabbed from the opposition — Epworth and Mutasa South.
Douglas Mwonzora's MDC T failed to get any seat.
But CCC interim secretary-general Charton Hwende said the opposition party was also turning its eye on the rural vote with a basket of interventions including drilling boreholes in each of the country's rural wards.
"The president (Chamisa) embarked on a tour of all the rural areas where he met Zimbabweans before we formed CCC. Our rural penetration program is a continuation of what the president started," Hwende said.
"Rural areas are key for the CCC, this is where most of the electoral violations take place. That's where headmen and chiefs force people to vote for Zanu-PF. So, it is our duty as a party to ensure we have a strong presence in the rural areas."
So CCC readily admit most of the violence take place in the rural areas and that headmen and chiefs force people to vote for Zanu PF. They have known this all along and have never proffered a solution.
Drilling a borehole in all the rural wards up and down the country is not exactly the solution to the problem of political harassment even if the party had the resources and time to accomplish the task. For one thing this is a rat race in which Zanu PF as the incumbent is bound to win given it will commandeer government, NGO and it’s own party resources to this purpose whilst doing everything to disrupt the opposition’s activities.
The only sure way to ensure there are free, fair and credible elections in Zimbabwe is by implemented the democratic reforms first before holding elections. This is something Nelson Chamisa and his fellow CCC leaders do not want to hear since they are the ones who failed to implement even one reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They have never admitted they sold-out on reforms and are loathed to ever have to do so.
The people of Zimbabwe must refused to be held to ransom by CCC leaders and not only say it openly that Chamisa and company sold out on reforms but demand leaders who will implement the reforms and allow the nation to move on.
CCC will drill boreholes! Yeah right! How many boreholes will it take to finally get the headmen and chiefs to end their medieval style landlord to serf strangle hold on the rural voters?
Tabitha Khumalo calls Mwonzora and Khupe snakes who should not be allowed to join CCC.
MDC leaders proved beyond all doubt that they are corrupt and incompetent when the failed to implement even one meaningful reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Khupe and Mwonzora were in the GNU and rightly deserve to be called snakes for selling out then but so does all the other leaders including Morgan Tsvangirai, Nelson Chamisa, Tendai Biti, etc.
Professor Steve Hanke is right, in a healthy and functioning democracy like USA, Zimbabwe’s runaway inflation, proof the government of the day has failed, would galvanize the voters to seek regime change. What Professor Hanke must remember is that Zimbabwe is not a healthy and functioning democracy, the country has failed to hold free, fair and credible elections since independence in 1980.
Indeed, inflation soared to a world record 500 billion percent in 2008 and to say Zimbabweans were desperate for change of government will be an understatement. It so happened that Zanu PF had been pressured to agreed to many electoral changes that made the March 2008 vote the nearest the nation ever got to holding free, fair and credible elections. When it became clear the party was losing the elections, the party’s vote rigging machinery was turned back on as the now President Emmerson Mnangagwa who was behind it readily admitted.
Tsvangirai’s 73% of the vote, as Mugabe’s Freudian slip revealed, was whittled down to 47%, enough to force a runoff. During the runoff Zanu PF used wanton violence to punish the voters, they forgot the hyperinflation and the economic misery Zanu PF had brought, and switched their votes to give Mugabe a 84% victory.
SADC, the regional body, refused to endorse Zanu PF’s victory and forced the party to agree to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to take away the party’s carte blanche powers to rig elections. Sadly, the MDC, opposition party, tasked to implement the reforms failed to implement even one token reform in five years and the opportunity was lost.
Until the reforms are implemented, winning elections in Zimbabwe will be about who has the power to rig regardless of the economic pressures. Zanu PF has the power to rig and is rigging the 2023 elections and will therefore win.
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