"Boycotting 2023 elections is not a CCC option!" Neither was implementing reforms during the GNU; nothing has changed. W Mukori

 Let us agree on one thing from the onset: Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections are NOT going to be free, fair and credible. Not even one token democratic reform was implemented since the last elections in 2018 and so many of the flaws and illegalities pointed out in 2018 will be repeated this year.

“Notably, major shortcomings in the pre-election environment impacted on the free expression of the will of electors, state resources were misused in favour of the incumbent and coverage by state media was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party,” stated the EU Election Observer Mission final report.

“Further, the electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign.

“As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards,” concluded the report.

The EU Observer Mission was 246-man strong. The report included 23 recommendations to bring Zimbabwe elections to international standards. Not even one of the recommendations has seen the light of day and so many of the shortcomings that can be observed now such as the biased public media, the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll, etc. are still there.

It is not that Zimbabwe’s opposition politician do not accept that the elections are flawed and/or fail to see the sheer futility of participating in such elections. They do understand all these things.

 “Look, you can't keep on participating in flawed electoral processes that serve to give big benefits to dictators such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has perfected the art of winning elections. So it will be very foolish for the opposition to continue legitimizing these sham elections which don't deliver. This country will go through a serious economic crisis in 2020 caused by Zanu PF. And yet, this is the only country where a government doesn't perform, it is encouraged by a super majority in parliament,” acknowledged Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.

“So, you can't continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed.”

Biti was the MDC-T Minister of finance during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and is one of the three Vice Presidents in the Nelson Chamisa led CCC. He is certainly one of the heavy weights in Zimbabwe opposition politics.

Contrary to his own strongly expressed view not to drag the nation through those futile elections, raising the people’s hopes of changed only to see their hopes crushed, he and his opposition colleagues participated in the 2018. Zanu PF rigged those elections and the peoples’ hopes and spirits were crushed. The opposition is hell bent on participating in these 2023 elections as Nelson Chamisa has once again reiterated.

“Zimbabwe's main opposition leader has insisted that his party is ready to participate in forthcoming elections, despite the rigging and repression he said was already under way to keep President Emmerson Mnangagwa in power,” reported Bulawayo24/FT.

“Chamisa, 45, dismissed calls for a boycott of the August vote, despite widespread doubts over the process's credibility. "We will not allow Zanu-PF to have a free lunch, we will not allow dictatorship to have a free rein. We have to fight for change and we must give citizens the right to choose their leadership," Chamisa said.

"Surrender is not an option . . . boycotting ourselves is not an option."

It was David Coltart who was honest enough to admit the real reason why MDC/CCC leaders will never boycott elections even when it was the “obvious thing to do” is greed.

“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 Coltart 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.”

David Coltart is another opposition heavy weight. He was an MDC-N minister of education throughout the GNU and is the Treasurer General of CCC.

Nelson Chamisa and his MDC/CCC friends’ political careers are riddled through and through with corruption, betrayal, contradictions, rhetoric and denials! They have been a curse and not a blessing to the nation and their continued meddling in the nation’s affairs is a cancer second only to the Zanu PF cancer.  

There four tenets of the rule of law, specifically as regards the laws pertaining to free, fair and credible elections, which Chamisa and his friends are ignored but the consequence of their folly cannot be ignored:

1)     Elections must be free, fair and credible or the process and results are meaningless. It is Zimbabwe’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections which is the root cause of the country being label a pariah state. The political and economic consequences of this is the dictatorship and the failed state. These elections are already disputed elections by virtue the process being flawed and illegal. And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, there will be no meaningful economic recovery and the political paralysis will remain.

 

2)     Chamisa and company are insisting on participating in these elections regardless of all the flaws, illegalities and violence for whatever reasons, stated or denied, and thus accept the power and authority of those officiating in these elections. The consequence is that CCC must accept the results as annunciated by ZEC. Chamisa and company have been warned the process is flawed and must be reformed before elections and they freely chose to disregard the warning. They cannot therefore reject the results just because they were not declared the winner. By participating they will have given the process credibility and the results legitimacy; these cannot be withheld or withdrawn afterwards, its too late.

 

3)     Of course, it is this iron clad guarantee that the opposition will participate in these elections come what may that has given Zanu PF the confidence to ignore demands for reforms and free elections. It there is no punishment for breaking the law then there is no motive for upholding the law especially when there is everything to be gained by breaking the law.

 

MDC leaders failed to implement even one token democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU because Mugabe bribed them with the trapping of high office. What the MDC/CCC leaders have done since including the stubborn insistence on participating in flawed elections makes sense when viewed in the light of the treasonous betrayal during the GNU. By abandoning reforms and free elections and fostering that position on the nation CCC are denying this nation hope of free, fair and credible elections and with it hope of good governance. What right does CCC have in denying the people hope?