EU says Mugabe must implement reforms as condition for renewing the engagement with the block!

EU Ambassador to Zimbabwe Aldo Dell’Ariccia last week said President Robert Mugabe’s government had the task of restoring democracy in the country of which the issue of credible elections was no exception.

The EU is spot on about the need for free and fair elections as THE pre-requisite for Zimbabwe ever getting out of this political and economic mess. The only way to ensure the next elections are free and fair is by ensuring all the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA are implemented.

Tsvangirai and MDC had the best chance to get the reforms implemented during the GNU; they failed because of their breath-taking incompetence. It was going to be an uphill battle getting Mugabe to implement the reforms after he rigged the July 2013 elections. By engaging Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs the EU gave him the legitimacy he did not deserve but, worse still, granted him the sole responsibility to decide whether or not the reforms will ever be implemented!

Ambassador Aldo Dell’Ariccia and the EU were warned of the dangers of granting illegitimate tyrant legitimacy but, of course, they did not listen!

 

What the EU must understand is that it is not in the DNA of a tyrant to give up power no matter how bad the situation may be. It is equally intolerable that the people of Zimbabwe should be expected to suffer the consequences of the regime's failures and corrupt rule for another even one more year. The EU should have never re-engage the tyrannical regime and prop it up!

In 2012 the Chinese warned Mugabe "embrace change or die" he did not listen and now he is dying!

The Communist Party of China reportedly (CPC) warned Zanu PF provisional chairpersons visiting China in 2012 to receive “ideological and mass mobilization training” in preparation for the 2013 elections that Zanu PF “must embrace change or die”!

 

The change the Chinese wanted to see was not quite the same change most Zimbabweans had been talking about in democratic change. The Zanu PF officials were not in China to be trained on how to win free and fair elections; what do these Chinese know about that, the CPC has never ever held any meaningful free elections since seizing power in 1949.  The CPC has faithfully changed the CPC top leadership every ten years; that is the change they wanted Zanu PF to embrace!

 

After three decades of the same incompetent, corrupt and oppressive Zanu PF leadership; God knows there was crying need for change and renewal in the party. The CPC must have been very disappointed when Mugabe failed to listen and use the December 2012 Zanu PF Congress to effect change.

 

There are reports showing that the Chinese went on to help Mugabe and Zanu PF to rig the 2013 elections but there is no doubt that the Chinese were already wry of Mugabe. Before the elections Mugabe was buoyant confident that the Chinese would pay most if not all of the $27 billion ZimAsset bailout. Helping him to rig the elections was one thing giving him a blank cheque was a bridge too far.

 

The only thing certain with Mugabe was that he would squander bailout and would have nothing to show for it. This was a bottomless pit and the Chinese were certainly not stupid to throw their money into such a hopeless venture!

 

The Chinese have since made it clear that they will not contribute even one Yuan to Mugabe’s $27 billion ZimAsset begging bowl. No one else has contributed anything and now it is obvious that the Zimbabwe economy is in serious trouble. The CPC, alarmed by the sheer pace of Zimbabwe’s economic nose dive, have once again repeated their warning to Mugabe to embrace change or die.

 

“The CPC officials we met were surprisingly very candid with us,” a Zanu PF back from a recent visit to China told the Zimbabwe Independent. “They told us in no uncertain terms that due to the political risk of the country there was no way they would give Zimbabwe the billions it urgently requires.

“They said although the country was considered to be generally peaceful, there were worrying issues that concern them which they urged us to deal with as soon as possible.

“The president’s age was a major point of anxiety for them and his continued hold on power when he should now be handing it over to a younger and energetic successor probably at the party’s congress in December.”

Even if there was to be a changing of the guard in December it is inconceivable that is would be a far reaching root and branch change demanded after the three decades of no change. Mnangagwa and Mujuru, for example, have been part and parcel of the Mugabe regime for the past three decades to be considered a change of guard but after waiting for all these years for the chance to rule; they will fight tooth and nail to ensure they rule.

But much more than a change of name at the top, Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and political stability will depend on the restoration of the rule of law and recovery of the nation’s looted wealth, we need the seized farms put back into production again. It is hard to see anyone in the MDC much less in Zanu PF with the vision and political spine to deliver that.

Mugabe and Zanu PF should have listened to their Chinese friends’ warning in 2012 to embrace change. Sadly Zanu PF did not listen; the party’s December 2012 Congress retained the same old, incompetent, corrupt and oppressive leaders and per se chose to die. The only thing of real concern now is that Mugabe and Zanu PF having chosen to sign their own death warrant they should not be allowed to drag the whole nation into the abyss with them.

Biti and Mangoma's MDC Renewal was doomed because no one believed the two had a Homer Simpson epiphany!

"With party leader Morgan Tsvangirai ratcheting up the pressure on the rebels, as well as his grassroots campaigns (and he clearly has the numbers on his side), the renewal team is finding itself well and truly up the creek — without a paddle to row back to terra firma," said the Daily News reporter. Well that says it all and beautifully too.

 

The report was talking of the Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma who had branded themselves the MDC renewal who initially threatened to break away but now seem to have developed cold feet. They are back negotiating to be allowed back in the MDC.

 

The MDC rebels claimed that they were claiming the MDC under Tsvangirai's leadership had abandoned the party's founding principles and values especially its promise to bring democratic change. There is no thinking Zimbabwean or outsider who would argue about that.

 

Everyone raised their eyebrows, right up like Ethiopia's Chilada baboons, when the rebels said they were reclaiming the long forgotten MDC founding principles and values. Alarm bells started ringing; they could not have rung louder if a known prostitute said she was a virgin!

 

Both Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma had been MDC's chief negotiators of the GPA and so they knew the agreement has stipulated that the GNU was to implement a raft of democratic reforms, for example. The two had very senior positions in the party and in the GNU to have forced the implementation of the said reforms.

 

By implementing the reforms MDC would have fulfilled its key promise of bring meaningful democratic reforms to Zimbabwe. We know that after five years of this GNU not even one reform was implemented.

 

So before anyone can believe that these rebels are serious about delivering democratic change people want to know what has happened to make they remember MDC's founding principles and to recommit themselves to living up to these values? Short of a "Saul on the road to Damascus" or “Homer Simpson lost in the frozen vastness of Alaska” moment; no thinking person will belief the rebels are not the same self-seeking and breathtakingly incompetent individuals the whole world has come to know Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders, including Tendai Biti and Mangoma, to be.

 

Tsvangirai and MDC have made so many blunders in the last few years they have lost all political credibility. To regain the people’s trust and confidence, it is not enough for any of them to just say they are reclaiming the founding values and restate old promises but more significant they must explain why they betrayed the people by forgetting the values their past promises.

 

The rebels did not have an epiphany moment, offered no pithy explanation why they had abandoned the old values and they did not even apologize for betraying the nation so recklessly. All they had to say was that it was all Tsvangirai’s fault and they were reclaiming the founding values as if that act alone is guarantee they will deliver.

 

At least with Tsvangirai, the people know he is corrupt, incompetent, has no principles and will hang on to power like barnacles to a whale regardless of his failures and what the constitution says. Tsvangirai does not try to rebrand himself in anyway; what you see - a blundering incompetent - is what you get. The rebels, on the other hand, are pretended to be principled leaders, the one thing they are not; that is why they are up the creek without a paddle!

Throughout the gravy train GNU years MDC Team forgot the promise "to bring democratic change"; they do now because they are in mbombera coach!

"We want to assure all Zimbabweans that as the remaining genuine democrats in the MDC, we are committed to advancing a democratic transition," MDC Team said in a statement announcing the break away from the Tsvangirai led faction. Well that is a mouthful full of sound and fury but, as usual, signifying nothing!

 

Whilst these MDC Team people were together with Tsvangirai, Arthur Mutambara, Welshman Ncube in the original MDC and then when the party splintered into factions those people's, whoever they are (but we can guess the ringleaders), commitment to "advancing a democratic transition" in Zimbabwe evaporated like the morning mist under the African sun. Bring about democratic change was not one of the core values and promises by the MDC to the people of Zimbabwe it was the principle value and principle promise.

 

MDC reiterated its promise to bring democratic change in Zimbabwe by agreeing that the GNU would implement a raft of democratic reforms. Implementing democratic reforms was what Zanu PF and the MDC factions signed up to in the GPA and SADC signed into as the guarantee.

 

The MDC factions, as the principle drivers on the reforms, had the majority in parliament, in the cabinet  and had the backing of SADC and the whole international community. The GNU had allocated eighteen months to complete the tasks set in the GPA in the end it took the maximum five years. They certainly had everything and more they needed to complete all the tasks.

 

At the end of the five years not even one democratic reform had been implemented. Not one!

 

MDC Team who are now telling us of their passionate desire for the return to "MDC's founding core values"  and, more specifically, "to advancing a democratic transition in the country" were part of the MDC team that failed to get even one reform implemented. Not a sausage! Where was their burning passion for change throughout the five years of the GNU.

 

They stood with Tsvangirai and others campaigning for the nation to approve the Copac constitution in March 2013 promising it would bring free and fair elections. Some of us said it was a weak and feeble constitution that would not bring free and fair elections and they led from the front in ridiculing us.

 

Mugabe went on to blatantly rig the elections, "the July 31 grand electoral theft by Zanu PF" MDC Team called it but this was only possible because not one of the democratic reforms had been implemented and the new constitution was indeed weak and feeble.

 

Throughout the five year life of the GNU the MDC Team, like Tsvangirai and the rest, completely forgot about MDC's core value and principle promise to the people of Zimbabwe - to bring about democratic change. As soon as they got on the gravy train the promise evaporated. Now those of them lucky enough to still be in parliament or senate have since found that Mugabe has changed many things on the gravy train; all MDC MPs and Senators are in the mbombera  coach and it has been decoupled and left of some deserted siding.

 

It is only out of the desire for the return of good life on the gravy train during the GNU years that MDC Team are returning to the core MDC value  and promise to bring democratic change. They must think all Zimbabweans are suckers and stupid.

Mugabe fast tracking a weak electoral law - the law is not "a ass and a bachelor" but people are!

Zimbabweans are crying foul as the Zanu PF regimes fast tracks weak electoral laws confirming the fears that the regime has no intention of holding free and fair elections.

 

“The problem with this Bill, as with all our electoral laws, is that it weakens rather than strengthens systems and as long as these are allowed to exist, we won’t have credible or acceptable elections in this country,” said Tawanda Chimhini, the head of Election Resource Centre.

 

One of the proposed law’s weaknesses is that all Zimbabweans in the diaspora will once again be denied a vote!

 

There those, like Tsvangirai, who have argued that Zimbabweans should accept the rigged 2013 elections and the illegal seizure of the powers of government by Mugabe as “the political reality”. They said Zimbabweans should prepare for the next elections, 2018 and try to win those elections.

 

Those of us said at the time that this was a hippo-will-bite-off-his-own-tail nonsense argument designed to make us accept the unacceptable for two basic reasons:

 

1. We all know Mugabe rigged the elections (the nonsense argument of “produce the evidence” has since been dismissed as Mugabe himself has failed to release the voters roll – everyone knows that is the smoking gun of the rigged vote); how else are we going to stop him going it again as he has done repeatedly all these last 34 years other than by making sure he does not get away with vote rigging here and now? Those saying otherwise are giving yet another feeble excuse for allowing Mugabe to place himself above the law to the extent of committing high treason!
    
   “If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist … “the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.”
    
   There are two lots of people who have made the law “a ass – a idiot”. Those who break the law and those who allow the law breakers to get away with it!  
    
2.  The 2018 elections will only be free and fair if the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA are implemented. It is nonsense that Mugabe and Zanu PF would implement those reforms ever.
    
   This story of how Zanu PF is fast tracking weak and feeble laws shows the regime has no intention of holding free and fair elections in 2018. The other day there was a story of NIKUV, the Israeli company that helped Mugabe rig the 2013 elections, has seven containers of secretive electoral materials for the regime in SA.
    
   All these political machinations by Mugabe prove that the regime is already gearing itself to rig the next elections!

 

If Zimbabweans ever hope to wrestle political power away from Mugabe and Zanu PF then they must demand that the tyrant and his thugs must leave office because the regime is illegitimate. It is those who have dithered on this fundamental point who have given Mugabe to rig the elections confident he will get away with it!

 

Rigging elections is high treason because it is high treason and those who commit high treason must be brought to justice and punished! That is not negotiable and there is no room for dithering or indecision!

Chinamasa admits the Zimbabwe economy is "dead" but, no doubt, Mugabe will want to hang on!

A World Bank report released in February says 46 percent of Zimbabwe's 13 million people run individual, small or medium-sized enterprises, a figure that contrasts with 17 percent in South Africa, and 13 percent in nearby and impoverished Malawi.

In a conference speech last month, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa said the government had to embrace the commerce of the street as a new economic order.

"This is an economic revolution, and we need to learn how to deal with the small man. The old economy is dead," he said.

 

The effects of the 'new order' can be seen everywhere.

 

The business of kiya kiya is a tough one. Day in day out these men, women and children carry heavy burdens of oranges or t-shirts anything they think they can sell up and down the street all day. With so many others doing the same thing the market is super saturated with sellers and no buyers. The kiya-kiya town dwellers are the subsistent peasants of our shanty towns.

 

Yes, Minister, the old economy of factories, proper shops and regular proper jobs paying living wages are all “dead”. 34 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have killed them all. And, worse still, Mugabe and Zanu PF do not have the foggiest idea what to do to revive the old economy. The fact that not even the Chinese have contributed even 1.00 Yuan (= US$ 0.16) to Mugabe’s US$27 billion ZimAsset flagship recovery programme means the recovery is dead too!

 

The longer Mugabe and Zanu PF remain in power the deeper the national economy will sink; that much is clear. What is also clear is that Mugabe and Zanu PF have no intention of accepting that they have failed and stepping down – it is not in the nature of tyrants to give up power.

 

So Zimbabweans face the two choices:

1. Step out of this self-imposed mental comatose that has stopped them see what Mugabe has been doing and thus demand real and meaningful change all these last 34 years. If they do finally wakeup, they will demand change and stop the rot.
2. Or else allow Mugabe to stay in power and thus accept the consequences of the national economy sinking even deeper and throw the whole nation into even worse economic suffering and misery.
    

 There is no doubt that the Zimbabwe economy is dead and that Mugabe and Zanu PF killed it. And it is us the people who have let this tyrannical regime kill the economy and our future and that of future generation!

 

We welcome independence in 1980 but we were clearly not ready to take on the responsibility of the citizens of holding those in positions of power and authority to account. Until we learn to take this critical task with the seriousness and urgency it demands the country’s future will continue to be hopeless.

Nikuv is at it again - it is clandestinely shipping material to rig the 2018 elections!

Not content with having helped Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections Nikuv International Projects, an Israel firm is back at it again. The firm now has offices in Harare and is reportedly the one behind seven containers being shipped from Israel to Zimbabwe via Japan destined for the Registrar General’s Office!

 

“The seven large containers were dispatched from Herzlia, Israel, according to the information on the shipping memos.  Six of these containers measure 40 feet and are registered under the Bill of Lading Code MSCUJN329741, with one more container, also measuring 40 feet, shipped under the Bill of Lading Code MSCUJN329808,” reported the Daily News.

“The MSC Logistics (Pvt) Ltd, the Durban-based import controller and co-regulator of the transfers, told the Daily News that rules restricted it from disclosing such information to the public, although it did confirm that “final destination for both bills are Harare”.

“The consignment was apparently dispatched via Japan in January and has been stuck at the Durban harbour following the botching of the logistical arrangement, a situation that might have led to the exposure of the clandestine shipment as well as its intended destination.”

Many people believe the seven container have material Zanu PF would use to rig the next elections.

Nikuv corrupted the voters roll to help Mugabe rigged the elections but it was a botched job. It is easy to see what Nikuv did and that is why Mugabe has stubbornly refused to release the voters roll. The voters roll is the smoking gun to the rigged elections; it should have been released a month before the elections but even now the regime is still refusing to make it public.

Nikuv was paid a princely sum of US$13 million; pretty good wages for something high school dropouts could have done for a few beers!

Israel was the one country in the whole world that continued to work with the apartheid regime in SA right up the day the late Nelson Mandela took office in 1994. Now Israel is helping and propping up tyrannical regimes in Africa! This is the one kiss of betrayal Israel must not be allowed to get away with!