"If you know neither enemy nor yourself, will succumb in every battle!" We don't and certainty of Zanu PF rigging 2028 is soul crushing. W Mukori

 “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle,” said General Sun Tzu in the Art of War in 544 BC. 

Knowing yourself should be the easiest, you have all the data you need right there before you. If you cannot know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, it can only be attributed to your inability to know what matters and what does not - ignorance. If you keep repeating the same mistakes over and over again this is more than just ignorance, it shows you are incapable of learning from the past. 

If you are incapable of knowing about yourself even when have a mountain of evidence it is no surprise you will know even less of the enemy. It is therefore no surprise that after 43 years of elections the MDC/CCC has participated confident they will “win big” because they have “plugged all the vote rigging loop-holes” and to crown it all “God is in it!” only to lose badly again. 

Chamisa has been complaining of “gigantic election fraud” after the 2023 elections but no one has been listening. He was warned that without reforms, Zanu PF would rig the elections and he did not listen. 

Many Zimbabweans had placed their hopes on SADC leaders putting their foot down and deny Zanu PF political legitimacy particularly after the regional body’s own election observer team condemn the 23 August elections as a farce. They acknowledge the report but still went ahead and granted Zanu PF political legitimacy. 

By refusing to grant Zanu PF legitimacy SADC would have used that as leverage to force Zanu PF to accept the need for a new Government of National Unity (GNU) similar to the one in the 2008 to 2013 GNU. The primary task of the new GNU would be to implement the necessary democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. SADC leaders and the people of Zimbabwe were hoping the new GNU would implement all the reforms; the last one failed to get even one token reform implemented. 

So there will be no new GNU and therefore no reforms implemented before the next elections in 2028. The prospect, indeed the certainty because there is nothing in CCC’s demeanour to suggest they will implement any reforms,  of yet Zanu PF rigging yet another elections weighs heavily on the nation. 

After 23 years, including 5 in the GNU, MDC/CCC leaders have not only failed to implement even one token reform but worst of all they have been participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy. Some of the opposition leaders have admitted it!

“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 legitimising these sham elections which don't deliver,” 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.

If we are serious about stopping Zanu PF rigging future elections then we must get competent men and women who WILL implement the blood democratic changes. CCC will never ever implement any reforms. If they failed to implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when they had all the trump cards what hope is there doing so now when Zanu PF has all the trump cards. This is obvious! 

But clearly not so, to the CCC wildebeest herd, who maintain that Nelson Chamisa and CCC are “our only hope fighting Zanu PF!” They are refusing to accept that CCC have any weaknesses.

“If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every election battle,” to paraphrase General Sun Tzu. Zanu PF is set to rig 2028 elections and get away with it just as the regime rigged the August 2023 and got away with it. This is the price the nation must pay for failing to admit CCC leaders are fallible mortals even in the face of all the evidence of their corruption and breathtaking incompetence. 

Zimbabwe's own ZHRC confirm the 2023 elections were a farce. A damning testimonial of our failure to govern ourselves! W Mukori

 Zimbabwe’s 23 August 2023 elections were a farce not even the country’s own body tasked to observe the elections Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) could deny that!

“ZHRC has released a report on the August 2023 elections, highlighting the disruptive influence of the Zanu PF affiliated group, Forever Associates Zimbabwe (FAZ), and alleged bias favouring the ruling party by both the police and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC),” reported Bulawayo 24.

"In various communities, there were reports of individuals being compelled by their community leaders and FAZ members to attend specific political rallies," quoting the commission report.

"CCC (Citizens Coalition for Change) complained that in Bindura, they were denied permission to hold campaign rallies, despite asserting that their notifications adhered to Maintenance of Peace and Order Act (MOPA) guidelines.”

What is infuriating is that these complains are not new, the nation has read reports from other election observers saying the same thing in these elections and in the past and nothing is done to stop this madness. For the record, Zimbabwe is yet to hold free, fair and credible elections in the country’s 43 years of independence. 

What makes our situation even more infuriating is that it is none other the men and women the nation has entrusted the task to implement the democratic reforms to ensure elections are free, fair and credible who are ignoring the observer reports and hell bent on participating in these flawed elections.

Lest we forget, MDC/CCC leaders had the opportunity to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections notably during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office and in return they kicked reforms into a prickly pear cactus thicket! And, worst of all, ever since the GNU debacle MDC/CCC leaders have abandoned reforms  to participate in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy for a share of the gravy train reward.

Of course, CCC leaders have been conniving with Zanu PF to con Zimbabweans into participating in these flawed elections to perpetuate the dictatorship and the suffering of the ordinary people. The opposition leaders themselves know it and admit it.

“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 legitimising these sham elections which don't deliver,” 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.”

There is no doubt that Biti was airing his frustration  in public in the hope of coercing his fellow opposition members to stop the sheer futility of participating in these flawed elections. It did not work; greed had the better of them and in the end he joined them for his share of the spoils.

Yes the opposition has been participating in these flawed elections out of greed and David Coltart spelt it out in black and white!

“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.

It is for the people of Zimbabwe themselves to wake-up to this political reality that CCC will never implement and democratic reform and thus end this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Ever since the GNU debacle, Chamisa et al have been running with the povo hare and hunting with the Zanu PF hounds!

43 years and in this day and age and we are still failing to do something as basic as hold a free, fair and credible elections. If there is one thing that has come to epitomise our failure to govern ourselves it is this - our failure to hold free, fair credible elections. 

"Mwonzora and Mudzuri have joined Zanu PF!" Tomorrow it's Biti, Chamisa, etc.; after all none has ever dared to rock Zanu PF boat. W Mukori

 The social media is abuzz! “Douglas Mwonzora, the leader of the MDC-Alliance alongside his counterpart Elias Mudzuri are currently at the Zanu PF Headquarters and have officially joined Zanu PF,” reads one report.

“This publication has confirmed the development and revealed that the two have been welcomed by Blessing Chebundo who is currently manning the Returnees4ED desk at the Zanu Pf Headquarters.

“Mwonzora and Mudzuri have pledged allegiance to President Mnangagwa. They all said they will be campaigning for Zanu-PF in the coming by-elections which are set to be held in December.”

If this story is true, it will not surprise me in the least; because I really cannot think of anything anyone of the opposition leaders, not just these two, has ever done to be considered an enemy of Zanu PF. When it really mattered, such as implementing the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Not even one MDC leaders out of the 110 MPs, 50 senators, 26 plus ministers and deputy ministers, 2 deputy PMs and one PM, dared to disappoint Zanu PF by submitting even one token proposal. 

Most of the MDC-T and MDC-N leaders must have known that the 2013 constitution was weak; after all Mugabe had “dictated” the document, as Paul Mangwana, Zanu PF’s co-chairperson of the parliamentary committee that drafted the constitution, boasted after the March 2013 referendum. Still all the MDC leaders came out is force to suppose the constitution in the referendum. Tsvangirai even claim the new constitution was “an MDC child!” 

“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC leaders have learned to enjoy the grant train benefits and not rock the boat!) boasted Zanu PF cronies when asked why MDC leaders were not implementing any democratic reforms during the GNU.

With not even one token reform implemented and a feeble new constitution, SADC leaders wanted the 2013 Zimbabwe elections to be postponed in a last minute bid to have the democratic reforms implemented before the election. 

“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 in 2017.

“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, (to be implemented before the elections).

“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 know all the MDC leaders without exception participating in the 2013 elections in defiance of the SADC leaders’s advice. And MDC leaders have all been participating in flawed elections since, “so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw,” as David Coltart confessed in his book. 

The 2017 military coup would have been a transformative moment for Zanu PF if the any of the MDC leaders had denounce the coup for what it was - an illegitimate and unconstitutional move. Instead Morgan Tsvangirai and the rest of the MDC leaders came out in support of the coup and even called on their supporters to join the street demos calling on Mugabe to resign. 

Many people were surprised that Nelson Chamisa did not demand that Constitutional Court must order the opening of the 12 Polling Station ballot boxes to verify the results. The V11 forms, a summary of the vote count of each candidate, in two or three of these PSs were identical in very respect, same total number of ballots cast, same vote count for each candidate, same spoilt ballots, etc. and most notable of all Mnangagwa had a commanding lead. The only rational explanation was the result was one PS enter twice or three times. 

Double entry of the V11 was easy what would not be so easy to do is creating a duplicate PS! Chamisa’s legal team was asked by the Judge why they did not request the sealed ballot boxes from all the 12 PSs to be opened? It turned out that they are the ones who did not want the boxes opened. The gave some feeble excuse! 

“MDC vanoziva kuti apa pakasungwa noruwhaya!” (MDC leaders know that there some matters they are not allowed to touch!) boasted George Charamba, Mugabe and now Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, when asked why the opposition has never ever taken Zanu PF to task on any important matter. Never ever!

Each time there is any falling out in the opposition camp the fall guy is always accused having been a Zanu PF agents. When it mattered they all acted as one in not rock the boat, in making sure the untouchables were left untouched, etc. but at every opportune moment they are as keen as mustard to off load all the party’s cases of corruption and incompetence on the scapegoat. 

Each time fall guy realises that his/her chances of ever being welcome back in the opposition camp are poor they cross the floor and join Zanu PF. Zanu PF has always welcomed these former opposition leaders after all they did the party a great favour by not rocking the boat, etc. when they could have. 

“Kwawabva kanda huyo, kounoenda kanda huyo!” (You should always be careful to make friends where you are going and come from; because you never know!) so goes the Shona adage. It is no exaggeration that none of Zimbabwe opposition leaders ever dreamt that their political party could ever replace Zanu PF and govern the country alone. The most they could achieve is govern with a Zanu PF offshoot as a partner. And so the opposition has always been cautious never ever to rock the boat, touch the untouchable, etc. to be certain of Zanu PF partners in future. 

By failing to implement even one democratic reform the MDC leaders were betraying the ordinary Zimbabweans whoo were risking all to elect them into office for that express purpose. Fortunately for Tsvangirai a company they have always managed to get away with the selling out because most of the masses had no clue what the reforms are much less how they were implemented. Even to this day, with the benefit of post GNU hindsight, most ordinary Zimbabweans still have no clue what the reforms are. How can they blame MDC/CCC leaders of selling out of something they do not know. 

So when it came to betraying the people by selling out on reforms or implement the reforms and rock the boat and upset Mugabe and company. Tsvangirai and company chose to betray the masses because they knew they would get away with it. And so, far at least, povo has never held them to account. 

Yesterday it was Obert Gutu and a few others who left the opposition to join Zanu PF. Today it is Mwonzora and Mudzuri. Next year it could be anyone of the remaining leaders, Nelson Chamisa, David Coltart, Tendai Biti, etc. They will all be welcomed by Zanu PF because, when it mattered, none of the rocked the Zanu PF boat or touched the regime’s untouchables. Of course they knew they were/are betraying the nation to please Zanu PF; they did not care then and still do not care!

"Chamisa is not perfect but doing his best fighting Zanu PF!" Will never make silk purse out of sow's ear!

 In the good old days of Short Wave Radio, you could always tell if someone knew how to tune the radio or not. Smart Alec will waste time and the battery fidgeting with the “Fine” tune knob when those on know it is the “Course” tune knob first then “Fine” tune!

“Yes!

We will never have a perfect opposition 

What is clear is that CCC and Chamisa are doing their part in fighting a vicious dictatorship 

Instead of having many analysts we must have more activists 

All sectors must rise and demand justice than waiting to criticise one man,” wrote Peter Gift Mutasa.

The last 23 years have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the MDC/CCC leaders are corrupt, breathtakingly incompetent and utterly useless and here is someone by forcing everyone to become a brain-dead activist we can “fine tune” and transform CCC into the perfect opposition! Make a silk purse out a sow’s ear!

MDC/CCC have not only failed to implement even one democratic reform in 23 years, 5 of which in the GNU, but have been participating in flawed elections to perpetuate the Zanu PF dictatorship out of greed. It is not as if CCC leaders do not know this; they do and have admitted it.

“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.

MDC/CCC have proven to be corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent; they will never implement the democratic reforms and deliver free, fair and credible elections. Never ever! So how anyone can be wittering about “perfect opposition” when what we have is a corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition beggars belief! 

Peter Gift Mutasa, assuming it is the same who wrote the comment above, is  a “Political Commentator: Chairperson Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition Gen Sec: Zim Banks & Allied Workers Union Former President of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions”, according to his Twitter introductions. In short, Mr Mutasa  should know the pathetic track record of the MDC/CCC leaders from September 1999 when the party was launched to this day. It therefore beggars belief that he should be arguing the nation to soldier on, hoping against reason, for CCC winning rigged elections. 

Ever since the GNU debacle, MDC/CCC leaders have given up implementing reforms and opted to participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy for a share of the spoils of power. To hide the greed Chamisa and company has been telling their followers the party has devised winning in rigged election strategies. All hot air, of course!! It is shocking that some one like Mr Mutasa is shamelessly supporting such nonsense! 

In a leaked cable back to Washington the USA ambassador to Zimbabwe 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell, said the then MDC leader, Richard Morgan Tsvangirai, was a “flawed and indecisive character who would be an albatross round the nation’s neck if he ever got into power.”

The ambassador could have said the same thing about all the other MDC leaders. And Alas, they have been in power and have become the mile-stone round the nation’s neck dragging us all into the crushing abyss. 

It is very disappointing that even notable national leaders like Peter Mutasa have joined in the idiotic nonsense of pretend the sell-out and incompetent CCC leaders are the nation’s survivors regardless of their track record. 

After 43 years of Zanu PF rigging the elections we are still confident CCC can win rigged elections. We are hell bent on proving that we can make a silk purse out of sow’s ear. Of course, it is insane! 

By participating in flawed elections, "so flawed only logical step is to withdraw", we are fighting with a log in our own eye! W Mukori

 The truth is when we can see the speck in our neighbour’s eye but cannot see the log in our own eye we are, per se, our own worst enemy. We are fighting blind and, naturally, the enemy will take full advantage of our blindness - he will be very foolish not to.

The dust of the 23 August 2023 nationwide harmonised presidential, parliamentary and local council elections has not settled and already a new wave of by-elections has kicked off. The by-elections were triggered by the recall of a number of CCC candidates who had won in the August elections. 

The recalls is just one of the many manifestations of the endless squabbling within the opposition CCC. More recalls have been made so there are more by elections coming. Some of the recalled individuals are CCC candidates in the by-elections and so they may well be recalled, if they win again!

Meanwhile Nelson Chamisa has dismissed the 23 August 2023 elections as a “gigantic fraud”! Yet right up to voting day he was boasting of CCC winning big because he had “plugged all the Zanu PF vote rigging loop-holes!” It was all hot air, of course.

ZEC had stubbornly refused to produce a verified voters’ roll. It is nonsensical to talk of stopping Zanu PF rigging the elections when the country did not even have something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. It turns out that CCC did not even have election agents at many Polling Stations and so Zanu PF was free to do as the party damn well pleased!

Zanu PF has beeb winning these elections for the last 43 years and counting! It is utterly pointless to be complaining about “gigantic election fraud” when you are the one who not only failed to implement the democratic reforms to stop the rigging but has been insisting on participating in the flawed elections.

Elections are like a war, you participate to win. And the Chinese General Sun Tzu, his book, The Art of War, argues that one must know one’s weaknesses and strength and the enemy’s weaknesses and strengths too. 

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

Zanu PF has known MDC/CCC’s weakness and has exploited it again and again and again. MDC/CCC leaders’ greatest weakness is they are greedy and breathtakingly incompetent.

Of course, Robert Mugabe did not want any of the democratic reforms to be implemented and his carte blanche power to rig elections and stay in power, naturally. He bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with the trappings of high office, to make them forget about implementing the reforms. It worked!

And to seal the deal; Mugabe orchestrated a narrative to convince MDC/CCC leaders and followers into giving up the need for implementing the democratic reforms on the understanding the opposition can come up with winning in rigged elections strategies. Chamisa and his supporters have taken to the oxymoronic deception like ducks to water!

Some of the MDC leaders like Tendai Biti and David Coltart have since realised that all the democratic changes they thought they had accomplished during the GNU are an illusion. They have lamented the sheer sheer futility of participating in these flawed elections.

“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 legitimising these sham elections which don't deliver,” 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.”

There is no doubt that Biti tried to talk his MDC colleagues into stop living the Zanu PF lie of change when there was no change. His arguments, like the SADC leaders during the GNU before him, fell on deaf ears. Greed stopped MDC leaders implementing the reforms during the GNU and the same greed kept them participating in flawed elections, “so flawed and so illegal the rational thing to do was to boycott!” as Coltart aptly put it.

“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.”

So even the shallow, thick and slow MDC/CCC leaders have knew they are participating in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy out of greed. They have kept up the false narrative of the opposition winning rigged elections to hide the real reasons they are hell bent on participating is greed and incompetence.

In post GNU Zimbabwe, Zanu PF and MDC/CCC have conned the ordinary Zimbabweans into believing the 2008 to 2013 GNU had brought about subtle and yet seismic political change allowing the opposition to win rigged elections. And so the people have been participating in these flawed, “so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw,” as Coltart confessed because they are ignorant, naive and gullible.

“All warfare is based on deception. Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near,” said General Sun Tzu, in 544 BC. 

Zanu PF’s greatest deception was to convince the opposition and the public that the GNU had left the party weak and feeble they nation could remove the party from office without bothering with implementing even one token reform! The people have believed the oxymoronic nonsense even after 43 years of the Zanu PF mafiosi rigging the elections!  

"Why do you see the speck in your neighbour's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? Or how can you say to your neighbour, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye' while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour's eye." (Matthew 7:3-5). 

Ignorance is curse worse than death; in their ignorance and naivety the people have been fighting blind. By participating in flawed elections, “so flawed, so illegal the only rational step was to withdraw”, to perpetuate the Zanu PF dictatorship; they might as well have been fighting with the log in their own eye! Zanu PF has conned them into believing the GNU has left the party weak and feeble when, with not even one token reform implemented, the regime’s dictatorial powers have not even been touched. 

EU pokes holes into Mnangagwa election victory: EU 2023 election report.

 Bulawayo 24/ Newsday

THE European Union Election Observer Mission (EU EOM) has said Zimbabwe's August 23 and 24 harmonised elections were not credible due to a plethora of anomalies ranging from the curtailment of rights to a lack of a level playing field.

Invited by the government to observe the country's polls, the EU disclosed that the mission faced significant challenges to meet officials at the national level, including the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) which they managed to meet only once.

In its final report on Zimbabwe's plebiscite, the EU said citizens faced severe restrictions due to a shrinking space for civic activities.

"The August 23, 2023 harmonised elections in Zimbabwe were marked by a curtailment of rights and freedoms and the lack of a level playing field, which limited voters' ability to make their choices in a genuinely free and pluralistic environment," the report partly reads.

"A palpable fear of violence underlay the electoral process throughout, and a climate of retribution developed after the elections."

The report also concurs with the Sadc EOM final report which described the country's polls falling short of internal, regional and international standards.

"The campaign environment was subdued, but marked by tensions and instances of violence and intimidation, with undue limitations placed on the freedom of assembly, as well as a playing field that was tilted in favour of the incumbent and the ruling party. Most EU EOM observers received reports of Forever Associates Zimbabwe (FAZ) actively intimidating voters throughout the campaign, especially in rural areas," the report reads.

FAZ, a Zanu-PF affiliate led by Central Intelligence Organisation co-deputy director-general, Brigadier-General Walter Tapfumaneyi, is accused of making sure President Emerson Mnangagwa and his party won the polls.

EU added that the election results, which saw Mnangagwa declared the victor, could not be independently verified due to the absence of publicly available data, disaggregated by polling stations and the undermining of the sample-based projection of results which were supposed to have been conducted by citizen observer groups.

Armed police stormed Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (Zesn) offices in Harare on election day, arrested 40 election monitors and seized computers and other election-related material being used by the poll watchdog to follow the election.

"Until election day, the technical implementation of the electoral process was largely conducted in line with the electoral calendar. However, a lack of guarantees for independence, transparency and significant delays in the opening of a considerable number of polling stations on election day reduced public trust in Zec and the efficiency of the electoral preparations. Throughout the electoral period, Zec's activities were characterised by a lack of transparency and insufficient communication," the report further reads.

The EU said the post-electoral environment saw a further deterioration in the human rights situation, due to crackdowns on civil society, with certain human rights defenders and opposition figures targeted.

Since the August polls, Zimbabwe has witnessed a surge in cases of politically-motivated abductions, enforced disappearances and murder of opposition members.

"In this context, comprehensive and meaningful reforms, and the political will to engage in them are necessary on the part of the Zimbabwean authorities to lay the ground for genuine and credible elections in the future," the EU said, adding that the bloc proposed 21 recommendations, among them to ensure that Zec and its staff are able to operate without political influence at all levels.

The EU has since suspended the US$5 million funding extended to Zec over the disputed polls.

https://bulawayo24.com/index-id-news-sc-local-byo-237447.html

ZIMEYE REPORT

BRUSSELS, 17 November 2023 – Today, the European Union Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) to Zimbabwe published its final report on the 23 August 2023 harmonised elections. This report offers a set of key recommendations to improve future electoral processes. EU EOM Chief Observer, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, underscored in the final report presentation: “While election day was largely calm, it was assessed as disorderly. The process curtailed fundamental rights, overall, and lacked a level playing field, which was compounded by intimidation. During the post-electoral period, the EU EOM observed a climate of retribution.”

“I would like to emphasise that the EU EOM came to Zimbabwe as a partner and in the spirit of achieving common goals to further advance democratic processes. It is important to also view the EU EOM’s recommendations in this context. It is up to Zimbabweans to take ownership of their implementation. The European Union remains ready to assist such efforts”, said Mr. Castaldo.

Out of 21 recommendations, the EU EOM lists 7 as a priority. In particular, the EU EOM considers that a comprehensive and meaningful electoral reform is needed to bring legislation in line with regional and international standards espoused by Zimbabwe.

The EU EOM also recommends that measures are taken to ensure that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and its staff are able to operate without political influence at all levels, including in their appointment mechanisms and by removing governmental approval of its regulations. Further, the EU EOM recommends that ZEC provides timely and comprehensive information on all aspects of electoral preparations to the public, including its decisions and regulations and that ZEC publishes timely electoral results, disaggregated by polling station.

To safeguard the right of assembly, it is recommended to amend the Maintenance of Peace and Order Act (MPOA), to limit discretionary application and ensure that its implementation never unduly limits the right to assemble. To safeguard the independence of the judiciary, the EU EOM recommends reviewing the appointment procedures of judges to guarantee the separation of powers.

Further, the EU EOM recommends to establish and implement effective mechanisms to prevent undue restrictions on observation activities, and to prevent pressure and intimidation of both citizen and international observers

The recommendations are the quintessence of the work of the EU EOM, which comprised some 150 observers from all 27 EU member states and its partner countries Canada, Norway and Switzerland”, said Mr Castaldo.

“The EU EOM was invited by the Government of Zimbabwe. In accordance with an Administrative Arrangement between the government and the European Union, the mission conducted an independent and impartial long-term assessment of all aspects of the entire electoral process. The EU EOM did not interfere in the elections at any time and has no interest in the results”, underlined Mr. Castaldo.

https://www.zimeye.net/2023/11/17/eu-eom-zimbabwe-publishes-its-final-report-on-the-2023-harmonised-elections-including-key-recommendations/

The EU report is just a copy and paste of the 2018 report; the 2023 elections were repeat of the 2018 elections because not even one token reform was implemented. It does not help when those should be pushing for reforms are adamant they don’t reforms because they devised winning in rigged elections strategies!

The challenge before this nation is: Are we, Zimbabweans, smart enough to finally get the democratic reforms implemented and put an end to the insanity of rigged elections and bad governance? After 43 years of Zanu PF mafiosi rigging elections and 23 years of believing MDC/CCC oxymoronic nonsense they can win rigged election; has the penny finally dropped!