Murder of Moreblessing renews demand for reforms before elections - will CCC finally heed W Mukori

 The cold blooded murdered of Moreblessing Ali, a Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) activist, has touched a raw nerve because of its sheer audacity, barbarism and cold indifference on the part of the Police and the Zanu PF government.

Moreblessing was attached and abducted on 24 May 2022 by suspected Zanu PF supporters round 8pm near Chimbanguza Night Club, Nyatsime, in Chitugwiza, a dormitory high-density suburb outside Harare. Many people witnessed the incident and raised the alarm and reported to the local Police.

The Police have never interviewed much less arrest the named Zanu PF suspects. This is a very common thing in Zimbabwe, Zanu PF thugs are above the law and commit very serious crime with impunity.

A week after Moreblessing’s disappearance her body was found in a well at the house of a Zanu PF official’s mother’s home in Nyatsime. The body had been hacked in two at the waist. Her internal organs had to be scooped into a plastic bag!

Today, three days since the discovery of the body, still no one has been arrested. No Zanu PF government official has said a word!

Indeed, Zanu PF supporters in the area have taken it upon themselves to harass CCC supporters who had gathered to mourn one of their own.

“CCC supporters Tuesday afternoon burnt down a home belonging to a Zanu-PF district chairperson only identified as Murambatsvina, who is said to have been one of those barring them from mourning their slain colleague Moreblessing Ali at her Nyatsime home,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“Murambatsvina's house was torched by the riotous supporters who had been angered by Zanu-PF's hard-line stance not to allow them at Ali's home and by ruling party councillor Masimbi Masimbi's decision to bar them from mourning her in his ward.”

In another video CCC are shown singing “Hondo! Hondo!” (War! War!)

This is one war Zanu PF will emerge as the winner, guaranteed! The CCC supporters have no snow-ball chance in hell of winning given Zanu PF thugs have the backing of the Zanu PF state machinery behind them. Usually, the Police will hunt down all those involved in the burning down of the house and the Courts will punish them and meanwhile the coldblooded murders of Moreblessing remain untouched. They are the untouchables!

In June 2013 SADC leaders wanted that year’s Zimbabwe elections to be postponed until some democratic reforms to stop the blatant cheating and wanton violence that had marred the 2008 elections being repeated.

“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza told Journalist Violet Gonda.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws.

“And after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

As we already know, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues ignored SADC leaders’ warning and participated in the 2013 and 2018, five years later, elections with no reforms in place. Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig those elections as SADC leaders had predicted.

The blatant cheating was enough to secure a landslide victory for Zanu PF in both 2013 and 2018 and so the nation was spared the wanton violence. After 42 years of rigged elections and with the country’s economy in ruins and over 50% of the population now living in abject poverty; it is not surprising the nation is desperate for meaning change.

So, desperate “the people will vote for a donkey if the choice was Mnangagwa and the donkey!” to paraphrase Professor Jonathan Moyo’s comment when Mugabe went on to lose to Morgan Tsvangirai’s 73% in the March 2008 vote. Zanu PF had resorted to blatant cheating to stop Tsvangirai claiming the presidency and then to the wanton violence in the run-off to reclaim the party’s dominance.

Zanu PF has stepped up the blatant cheating with the regime denying 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote, ZEC will once again failed to produce a verified voters’ roll, the party is extending its allowance to the war veterans and traditional leaders who will frog march the ordinary people to vote for Zanu PF vote, etc. Clearly, this is not enough given the nation is restless for regime change.

Moreblessing Ali is the third opposition supporter to be murdered in cold blood since October last year in what is clearly a rerun of the wanton violence of 2008! The wanton violence is set to increase the more Zanu PF feels it iron hold on power threatened.

“The ‘new’ regime can be viewed from different angles, but the nub of it is this: there’s a recognition that the economic fiasco of the last 20 years was suboptimal, but Emmerson Mnangagwa and his fellow travellers will burn the house down if they feel it necessary. Make no mistake, their will to power is every bit as intense as Mugabe’s—as is their belief that they own the country’s choicest fruits by right of conquest,” wrote Stuart Doran.

“There’s no comprehending Zimbabwe without an appreciation of that mentality. Yet many fail to get it because they don’t read the country’s history. In 1979, at the height of the struggle against white rule, a diplomat who mixed frequently with Mugabe and other leaders of his party observed that ‘ZANU does not seem to attach much importance to the destruction caused by prolonged war’. They said they were content to see Zimbabwe ‘totally’ demolished if that was the price to be paid for preventing others from ruling it. That attitude has not changed an iota, notwithstanding the passage of 40 years and Mugabe’s departure. After all, the men who now rule wielded his hatchets for most of that period.

(To see Stuart Doran’s article in aspistrategist.org.au)

The tragic events of the last 42 years make it clear that Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF believe they have right to rule Zimbabwe regardless of the overwhelming evidence their rule was brought economic ruin and untold human suffering. Their warped mentality to burn down the country rather than see anyone else rule sticks at the very heart every Zimbabwean’s right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country, the very essence of democracy and good governance.

We cannot restore the right of every Zimbabwean to a meaningful say in the governance of the country without implementing the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship. This is why it did not make any sense for MDC to ignore SADC’s advice to implement reforms during the GNU and not to participate in the elections without reforms.

MDC leaders (CCC is nothing but MDC rebranded, same leaders new political name) have all but given up the fight to implement reforms since the sold out by failing to get even one reform implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Since the GNU debacle they have insisted on participating in the flawed elections claiming they have “winning in rigged elections” strategies. This is more than an oxymoron; the notion subscribes to the Zanu PF ethos of the party having the “right” to rig elections!  

So, in their own moronic way CCC leaders do not care about restoring the people’s right to free and fair elections. All they care about is power and hence the reason they failed to implement even one reforms during the GNU when they had the golden opportunity to do so.

Some people have argued MDC leaders did not implement any reforms because Zanu PF would have disregarded the reforms anywhere. This is just a feeble excuse that must be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserves.

The lord God was not under any illusions that giving Moses the Ten Commandments would rid the world of the sinners for all times! Of course, there are still sinners but there would be a lot more sinners without the Commandments and the guarantee no sin will go unpunished since the Lord God sees everything we mortals do!

To suggest that Zanu PF’s strangle hold on the nation cannot be broken by implementing democratic reforms is nonsense. The Zanu PF dictatorship is the handwork of mortals and per se can be dismantle by mere mortals too.         

Now with Zanu PF blatantly cheating and using wanton violence to rig elections everyone with a brain will join SADC leaders in calling on CCC and the rest of the opposition not to participate in the 2023 elections until reforms to stop Zanu PF cheating and using violence are implemented.

The cold-blooded murder of Moreblessing Ali confirms that Zanu PF will rather burn down the country than hold free, fair and credible elections. How many more innocent Zimbabweans must be murdered in wanton political violence before Chamisa and company finally heed the call for reforms before elections.