“Chidembo kana choda kuramba mukadzi, chinoshereketa!” (When the skunk wants to divorce its wife, it will try anything and everything!) so goes the adage.
When Douglas Mwonzora realised that the fickle and shilly-shally MDC wildebeest herd had deserted him to go with Nelson Chamisa, following High Court ruling that the later’s 2018 seizure of power was unconstitutional; he knew his political career was over. Finished!
During the by-elections earlier on this year (he tried to have these cancelled but failed) he could not even attract more than a handful to his rallies. From there on, Mwonzora’s political mission was how to wiggle out of an election just as the skunk mission was how to divorce its wife.
The classic fable tell of how the skunk complain day and night about the many things his wife did to anyone who cared to listen. Indeed, even when there was no one in sight to hear him, he would continue mumbling. Even the fleas on his back would ferrate deep in fur just to escape the incessant whingeing.
“Zhe iz growing chairz in cher earz!” complained the skunk, when the village council agreed to hear his divorce case.
“What chairz are you wittering about?” asked the village head.
“He means, she is growing hairs in her ears.”
“It iz pozzively revolting!” cut in the skunk!
“Case dismissed!” ruled the village head.
The skunk was whingeing on how to divorce his wife, Mwonzora has been whingeing on how he can wriggle out of this elections and avoid a show down with his arch rival, Nelson Chamisa.
"We are not going to be part of this baptism, this blessing of this sham. This election is a farce," declared Mwonzora as he announced his withdrawal from the 2023 Presidential rat race.
One of the reasons he gave for withdrawing is the ZEC had blocked 87 of his MP candidates paying their nomination fees and yet allowed CCC candidates to do so.
There is no denying that these 2023 elections are a farce but so too were the 2018 and 2013 elections.
In the 2013 elections, SADC leaders literally begged Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues; of which Mwonzora, Chamisa, Tendai Biti, David Coltart and many others were senior leaders; not to participate without first implementing the democratic reforms to ensure the elections were free, fair and credible. MDC leaders ignored the advice and Coltart explained why.
“The (2013) 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,” confessed David Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.
“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,”
In short MDC leaders have participated in these flawed and illegal elections as long as they felt they had a chance of winning the few gravy train seats on offer as bait. Mwonzora’s prospect of winning any of these gravy train seats this year are not good and he is doing “the only logical” thing - withdrawing - which he and his fellow MDC and now CCC friends should have done back in 2023.
The only take home give away from Mwonzora’s withdrawal speech was his admission that Zanu PF had blocked the 3 million Euro fund meant to train and fund the polling station election agents for Zanu PF, MDC and CCC.
“In 2018 MDC A failed to field election agents at 2 000 or so polling stations!” said Mwonzora.
At the time Chamisa claimed that MDC A, of which he was the presidential candidate, had ALL the V11 forms, summary of the vote count at each one of the over 11 000 polling stations. Each time the reporters asked how many V11 forms the party had, he never gave a clear answer. He affidavit submitted to Constitutional Court for his challenge of the 2018 presidential elections results, did not have ALL the V11 forms corresponding to the 2.6 million votes he claimed to have garnered in that election.
It was not until this year that Chamisa finally publicly admitted that MDC A had failed to field election gents at 544 polling stations - a far cry from the “2 000 or so” Mwonzora is telling us!
Chamisa must now come clean on just how many polling stations in 2018 did not have election agents?
More significantly, with the 3 million slush fund blocked, does CCC have the resource to pay for the training and the expenses to field election agents at all the over 12 000 polling stations this year?
Zanu PF is rigging these 2023 elections, it has many, many opportunities to rig before voting day and on the voting day itself. If there is no opposition election agent on the voting day, the regime will have a field day. Chamisa himself has underlined the importance of “guarding the vote”! If CCC cannot provide an election agent at each polling stations this makes a mockery of “guarding the vote!”
The people of Zimbabwe have risked all; livelihoods, property, life and limb from the vengeful wrath of Zanu PF; to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding they would implement the democratic changes to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. After 23 years, 5 of which in the GNU, MDC now rebranded CCC, have failed to implement even one token reform. Not one!
Fortunately for the MDC/CCC leaders, the party’s supporters, the wildebeest herd, have no clue what the reforms are much less how they were to be implemented. Even now with the benefit of hindsight of the GNU events, they still have no clue. And so the MDC/CCC have gotten away with the blatant betrayal of first failing to implement reforms and then participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy.
As far as the MDC wildebeest herd is concerned Mwonzora is to blame for all the opposition parties’ failures and blunders. Mwonzora is a “Zanu PF project!” many of them will say. Mwonzora has become the fall guy.
Still, if it should be that CCC is participating in these flawed and illegal elections even when the party could not provide a election agent at each polling station; Chamisa et al would find that even the naive and gullible MDC wildebeest herd is not be so forgiving. Many of them will be fight for an excuse, any excuse, to get out of politics because they will know their political is over.
9 comments:
@ Sheps
“Participation is the only option to remove zanupf....Rome was not built in a day HH won on the 6th round It appears u dont want Ccc to participate so that manoshaika a credible opposition to face zanupf... mentality yezanupf is such that if ccc had not partivipated anacMadhuku Mwonzora would go all out to try to feel the gap....supported and funded by Ed... inga pawithdrawer tsvangirai zanupf went it alone.”
You clearly have not read what Tendai Biti or David Coltart have said on elections. Here is what the two said.
“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,” said Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.
“So you can't continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed.”
“The (2013) 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,” confessed David Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.
Like it or not it is futile participating in elections so flawed you cannot change the result and all you ever do is give legitimacy to the process and thus perpetuate the dictatorship. Of course, Zanu PF knows that to entice the opposition to participate it must have a worm to the hook and hence the few gravy train seats and the POLAD freebies.
To argue that CCC must participate to stop Madhuku and others getting the gravy train seats as if CCC is doing the nation a favour is foolish. Is Madhuku doing the nation a favour too because he is stopping Chamisa getting the gravy train seat, whether he succeed or not is another matter? The truth is both are participating out of greed. How that can be mistaken for a favour to the victims of the failed state, beggars belief!
Why any one still fail to see the sheer futility of participating in these flawed elections even after 43 years of rigged elections goes not show just how shallow, thick and slow they are. It also explains why Zimbabwe is a failed state!
@ Julius Malema
SA's ruling party has publicly said ANC will not allow regime change in Zimbabwe. And we know ANC will achieve that by making sure Zanu PF is granted political legitimacy even if the party rigged the elections.
Of course Julius Malema knows that both Russia and China has played an active roll in Zimbabwe politics ever since the country's independence in 1980. They have helped Zanu PF rigged elections denying the people of Zimbabwe a meaningful say in the governance of the country. Why has SA never said a word against China and Russia.
Indeed, SA is now working for China and Russia in fighting for no regime change. SA had joint military exercises with Russia and the cooperation will grow from there. Are we going to have Botswana complaining what Russia is doing in SA or Central Africa where Wagner is already causing havoc?
Julius Malema is already behaving like a dictator tell others what they can and cannot do to suit SA and no one else matters! We in Zimbabwe would rather be friendly with the West than the East because the Chinese and Russians are now using Zanu PF as their puppet regime to rob us blind.
Zanu PF is rigging these elections and pretending otherwise is not going to change the harsh reality. If the elections were free, fair and credible people would vote for the donkey if that was the alternative to Zanu PF. This underlines just how desperate people are for change.
Why CCC should therefore be wasting time on an election manifesto given how desperate the people are for change beggars belief. Worse still if CCC was to lose these elections because they wasted time on manifesto when the number one priority was clearly to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections this, in itself, speaks volumes on just how incompetent CCC leaders are.
Indeed, Zimbabwe is stuck with this vote rigging Zanu PF dictatorship these because MDC/CCC have failed to implement even one token reform in 23 years, including 5 in the GNU. Ever since the GNU debacle MDC/CCC have participated in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy for 30 pieces of silver.
“Some time ago the high level political platform secured funding for training of polling agents. The High level political platform is a platform brokered by the Zimbabwe Institute and is made up of three political parties represented in Parliament.
“These parties secured funding for the training and deployment of polling agents. It secured funding to the tune of 3 million euros that was supposed to be used in this regard. The training and deployment of polling agents is important to ensure transparency in an election.
“As you know in 2018 about 2 000 polling stations did not have MDC polling agents and we had thought we were going to cure this problem and the money was actually secured from some of the philanthropic donors. However, Zanu PF has blocked this money with the net result that the MDC and the other parties are unable to fund their political agents. This is intended to ensure that there’s opaqueness in this election,” says Mwonzora
There two key points here:
Chamisa lied about having all the V11 forms only to later admit in his affidavit that he did not and the 2.6 m votes he claimed to have won to was a lie. Only a month ago this year did he finally say MDC A had failed to field election agents in 544 polling stations. And now Mwonzora is saying it was bout 2 000! One of them is lying!
The blocking of the €3 m will definitely have a big impact on these elections. Give Chamisa’s track record of lying on how many polling stations will have no election gents, we can be certain CCC does not have the money to train and deploy election agents to cover all polling stations and CCC will never admit it.
This is all what we would expect, given CCC leaders know the elections are being rigged and they are participating to give Zanu PF legitimacy for selfish gain. They have to lie about the whole process to hide the real reason for participating is greed.
First Chamisa lied bout having all the V11 forms for 2.6 m votes he said he hd won in 2018 elections. A month ago he admitted MDC A had failed to have election agents in 544 polling stations. Now Mwonzora is saying "about 2 000" polling stations had no election agents.
We have also learned that Zanu PF has blocked €3 m funding for election agents meant for MDC, CCC and Zanu PF. The big question is does CCC have alternative source of funds to train and deploy all the requisite election agents. Can we trust CCC to tell us the truth? Clearly CCC are gifting Zanu PF the opportunity to rig these elections as if the regime need these extras!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsNvwOjg_2M
@ Seal4
“You are misrepresenting facts taking things out of context🥶.
Zimbabwe's main opposition leader Nelson Chamisa says that he failed to deploy polling agents in 544 polling stations in the 2018 general election. The good news is that he says this time he has the money to deploy polling agents in all the 12,500 polling stations.
Tell us the % and how is that an error kana ma resources asipo. Ndimi munotadzisa kuti zvifambe by unfair heckling as if you work for Zanu🦖ED. 12 500 is the key 🔑. Kuba kwa ED ndo kwamo kurudzira.”
Read what I said and comment on that. Last time Chamisa said he had all the V11 forms to explain the 2.6 m votes he said he had won. He was lying as the affidavit proved.
He has since admitted that in 2018 he did not have election gents in 544 polling stations, Mwonzora is saying the number is “about 2 000”. One of them is not telling the truth.
CCC does not have deep pockets and so funding the training and deployment of all the election agents in all the 12 500 polling stations will be huge financial burden to the party. Just because Chamisa said he has the money does not mean he is telling the truth particularly given his past record!
Chamisa's flagship winning in rigged elections (wire) strategy was "mass voter registration, mass voting on voting day and then guard the vote". CCC was going to register 6 m new voters especially the youths. ZEC announced last year that only 1/4 m had registered to vote as of 30 May, that is 4% of CCC's set target of 6 m.
It was obvious the first two parts of CCC's mother of all wire strategies was dead in the water.
In 2018 it turned out the MDC A failed to field election agents at 544 polling stations according Chamisa, Mwonzora says about 2 000. This is the most basic guarding the vote act. Will CCC fail again to field elections agents for this 23 August 2023 election giving Zanu PF a vote rigging bonus!!!!
https://www.zimeye.net/2023/08/10/mwonzora-was-losing-and-hence-keen-to-withdraw-if-chamisa-fail-to-field-election-agents-again-hes-next/
In calling Nelson Chamisa "a visionary leader", David Coltart is just a sycophant singing for his supper! CCC should not be participating in these flawed elections only to give Zanu PF legitimacy. They are doing so out of greed.
Since when has breathtakingly incompetent individuals motivated by greed become visionaries too?
We need to end this insanity and not to be praising it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTRISL7x1qA
The climate of intimidation and violence threatens to render the upcoming election unfree and unfair, a leading civic organisation has said.
In its electoral updates, Kubatana has cited a number of infringements that threaten Zimbabweans expressing their free will in the elections slated for August 23, 2023.
"With Zimbabwe's election just two weeks away, commentators have already been noting the country's constrained environment and how it presents difficulties for a genuinely ‘free and fair' election," Kubatana said.
"In addition to the increased political violence, issues like limited press freedom, bans on rallies and abuse of the courts also present obstacles to the credibility of this month's elections."
The organisation said where the quality of elections decreases "it is not primarily due to abuses on the day, but instead to unfair election processes that happen prior to election day."
"In short: rigging the election before it is held is a strategy that works, and Zimbabwe is no exception," the organisation said.
There will never ever be free, fair and credible elections without implementing the democratic reforms to free key institutions like ZEC, the Police, Judiciary, etc. to carry out their statutory duties in delivering free, fair and credible elections without fear or favour. Zanu PF has been buying votes and or help to rig these elections with chicken and chips for the ordinary voters and US$ 400 000 bribes for judges.
You cannot have omelette without breaking the eggs no more can one have free, fair and credible elections without implementing the reforms to stop the rigging and wanton violence. We are participating in these flawed elections only because MDC/CCC do not care the elections are rigged as long as they get a few gravy train seats. They pay lip service to reforms and free elections to hide their greed.
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