Postponing 2028 to 2030 is even tougher than Mnangagwa stay beyond 2028. So why is Zanu PF "flying" a lead balloon! W Mukori

 “THE country’s main opposition party, CCC, is in agreement with a resolution by the ruling Zanu PF party to postpone the next harmonised elections from 2028 to 2030 to allow developmental projects initiated by President  

@edmnangagwa to come to fruition.” posted Nick Mangwana on X.

This is a lead balloon that will never ever fly! 

As President of Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa swore to uphold the nation’s constitution, the nation’s highest law, and the constitution is clear that the mandate to govern derived from the people by winning the majority votes in a free, fair and credible elections and that mandate is for a fixed period of five years. 

It is not for the president and/or parliament to usurp the people’s power elect and thus give a new mandate to whosoever they want to be their representatives in at the end of this parliamentary session. 

Dictators have no respect of the constitution, the law and rule of law and Zanu PF and Mnangagwa, in particular, has shown this contempt of the law and the people’s rights repeatedly in the last 44 years. Zanu PF has never ever held free, fair and credible elections since the country’s independence in 1980. 

When it was clear Zanu PF was going to lose the March 2008 vote, Mnangagwa stepped in to blatantly cheat the vote count to force a presidential run-off. 

Mnangagwa and his Joint Operation Command (JOC) cronies, a junta comprising top brass in the Army, Police, CIO and Prison Services head by Mugabe and Mnangagwa, launched the military style Operation Mavhotera Papi, in which Zimbabweans were punished for having rejected Zanu PF in the March vote. Millions were internally displaced, hundreds of thousands were beaten and/or raped and over 500 were murdered in the wanton violence of the run-off. 

“What was won by the bullet cannot be changed by the ballot!” Mugabe cheered the Zanu PF militia and war veterans, who were the foot soldiers in the operation, and the personal from all the four security services sectors  who carried out the heavy duty work of coordinating, abducting and killing. Mugabe got 84% of the vote in the run-off, up from 23% in March!

Mnangagwa was behind the November 2017 military coup that booted Mugabe out of office. The coup was “lawful, justified and constitutional” Judge George Chiweshe announced. He could not name the chapter and verse in the constitution allowing the coup because there is no such clause!

Following the November 2017 military coup Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections. No one was really surprise that he did not honour that promise and blatantly rigged the 2018 and 2023 elections. 

Both SADC and AU election observers condemned 2023 elections as flawed and illegal and so Mnangagwa and his regime are illegitimate. SADC and AU did not take the logical step of deny the regime political legitimacy only because Chamisa and his supporters participated in the flawed elections in their millions.  

Make no mistake about it Mnangagwa would like to extend his stay in office by hook and by crook and there are two main huddles in his way:

1. 1) Zanu PF will never win free, fair and credible elections and he knows that he would have to rig the 2028 elections. He has rigged elections in the past, so that should be ease. It is not! In 2023 Chamisa lied about plugging all vote rigging loop holes to con his followers to participate in the flawed elections in their millions. Of course, Chamisa lied and he has haemorrhaged political credibility it is doubtful he can con his followers to participate in the flawed 2028 elections in their millions again.

1. 2) The constitution say a president can serve a maximum of two five year team, Mnangagwa will have served his maximum two terms in 2028. 

   

So the lead balloon to allow Mnangagwa to stay in power till 2030 will mean avoiding the serious challenges of rigging the 2028 election and getting away with it and bending without breaking the maximum two term limit. Mnangagwa will be killing two birds with one stone. 

MPs and President are elected to serve a fixed five-year term and at the end of which they must get a fresh mandate from the people in a free, fair and credible elections. There is no constitutional provision to allow the MPs and President to willy-nilly extend their mandate. NONE!

Zanu PF knows postponing elections is a lead balloon and know lead balloons will never fly. They are making a big sing and dance of flying a lead balloon to draw attention away from the fact that the regime is doing nothing to ensure 2028 elections are free and fair. We must focus on ensuring people are not conned yet again to participate in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy. Proving that lead balloons do not fly will be easy!

There is no denying that Mnangagwa is “recycling dead wood,” the sorry state of the nation’s economy says it all. What must be remembered here is that Zanu PF has remained in power all these last 24 years because MDC/CCC leaders have failed to implement even one token democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, when they had the golden opportunity to do so. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high offie and the rest is history. Ever since the GNU debacle, MDC/CCC leaders have participated in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy out of greed. MDC/CCC leaders themselves admit 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. Nelson Chamisa lied about “plugging all vote rigging loop holes” to con his followers to participate in the 2023 elections. “Let’s support Advocate Nelson Chamisa because he has a clear vision for Zimbabwe!” How nauseating! Chamisa will be participating in flawed 2028 election under the false pretext of winning RIGGED elections only to give Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuate the dictatorship. MDC/CCC have failed to implement even one token reform in 24 years, including 5 GNU years; they will never ever implement any reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. Zanu PF will rule “until donkeys have horns” as long as we, the people, continue to recycle opposition deadwood and entrust them to implement reforms to end the dictatorship! The challenge is not stopping Mnangagwa recycling deadwood, after all he IS deadwood himself. The challenge is to stop foolishness of participating in rigged elections to give the Zanu PF deadwood legitimacy.

 There is no denying that Mnangagwa is “recycling  dead wood,” the sorry state of the nation’s economy says it all. What must be remembered here is that Zanu PF has remained in power all these last 24 years because MDC/CCC leaders have failed to implement even one token democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections.

MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, when they had the golden opportunity to do so. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high offie and the rest is history.

Ever since the GNU debacle, MDC/CCC leaders have participated in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy out of greed. MDC/CCC leaders themselves admit 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.

Nelson Chamisa lied about “plugging all vote rigging loop holes” to con his followers to participate in the 2023 elections. 

“Let’s support Advocate Nelson Chamisa because he has a clear vision for Zimbabwe!” 

How nauseating! Chamisa will be participating in flawed 2028 election under the false pretext of winning RIGGED elections only to give Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuate the dictatorship. MDC/CCC have failed to implement even one token reform in 24 years, including 5 GNU years; they will never ever implement any reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections.

Zanu PF will rule “until donkeys have horns” as long as we, the people, continue to recycle opposition deadwood and entrust them to implement reforms to end the dictatorship!

The challenge is not stopping Mnangagwa recycling deadwood, after all he IS deadwood himself. The challenge is to stop foolishness of participating in rigged elections to give the Zanu PF deadwood legitimacy.  

"Zimbabwe we want!" is a struggle free nation, big picture, and not individual, a mere dot, glory!

 @ Developer

“The struggle should be to create a free and just society and not to have Chamisa, Mnangagwa or anyone else in power.”

You are 100% right there my friend and I will tell why we are stuck with this narrow personality cult mentality! Like it or not the overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans are very narrow minded. 

“Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events and simple minds discuss people,” said the ancient Greeks. 

We, in Zimbabwe, are still simple minded; the 2 500 years of human history have had no effect on us, it is all water off a duck’s back! We are not being asked to reinvent the wheel, to figure it our for ourselves the sheer futility of the personality cult mentality; some one has done all the hard bit for us. All we are expected to do is embrace the novelty of the bigger picture, the nation, vs individual, a mere dot!

You can bath a skunk in Channel 5, one of the most sweet smelling performs, but the minute the skunk lift its tail, you will choking for breathe!