Reality of economic meltdown has finally hit the MPs, the gravy train riders - regime change is now in the air!

“LEGISLATORS whose constituencies are outside Harare are sometimes resorting to hitch-hiking to the capital and often put up with friends when they travel to attend Parliament's business, it has emerged,” New Zimbabwe reported.

Well, well so the economic hardships emanating from the country’s economic meltdown are finally being felt by the nation’s most pampered gravy train riders, the politicians!

All Zanu PF parliamentary and senate candidates in the July 2013 elections got new cars; a bribe to stop them de-campaigning Mugabe as happened in the 2008 elections when Mugabe polled significantly less votes compared to the Zanu PF candidate in each constituency - that was operation "Bora musango!" (Kick the ball into the bush!).  

So to make sure his own party members will not sabotage him again Mugabe bribed them with new cars, $15 000 cash, lorry loads of Zanu PF T-shirts and other party regalia and campaign materials with the image of a very young looking Mugabe.  

It was not only the traditional gravy train riders, the politicians, who made a killing from helping Mugabe rig the July 2013 elections. Mugabe paid the Israeli company, Nikuv, a princely sum $13 million to tamper with the voters roll; the modern day thirty pieces of silver for betraying a whole nation.

PR companies in UK and USA were paid millions to spruce up Mugabe’s imagine with falsified reports of how the chaotic farm seizures was now resulting in increased agricultural production.

Even the ordinary people who were bussed to attend Zanu PF rallies and the hooded youths who cast the multiple votes – thanks to Nikuv’s 6 million registered voters or half the population; a demographic impossibility is a country like Zimbabwe, which is why the voters roll have never been made public – they too got a few dollars and the T-shirts.

Rigging the 2013 elections must have costed Mugabe $ 5 billion at the very least, all of it paid for by the Zimbabwe taxpayer, of course. Many ministries received as little as 6% of their budget allocation with the rest of the money diverted to finance the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut.

Still, even with the government broke after the July 2013 rigged elections; Mugabe still dug deep to find millions to buy new BMW or Mercedes Benz cars for each one of the new Zanu PF ministers and deputy ministers. He had millions more put aside for very generous loan schemes for the rest of the newly elected politicians to buy new cars. But in true gravy train tradition, the pampered politicians have never stopped demanding for even more goodies and privileges!

Speaking on condition of anonymity, MPs told New Zimbabwe “all was not well with the august house” as Treasury has been inconsistent in providing the legislators with the necessary resources such as fuel coupons for travel to Harare, where Parliamentary business is conducted.

"We sometimes contribute towards buying fuel for a single car which would quite often take up to six MPs as we try to make ends meet," said one legislator from Matebeleland.

“All is not well with the August house!” my foot! Since the nation attained its independence in 1980 nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever well in Zimbabwe’s parliament; instead of having men and women with at least some common sense the house has always been stuffed full of some of the most incompetent and corrupt individuals in the world. Whatever little common sense a few of them had it was overwhelmed by the sheer opulence of gravy train comforts showered at them by Mugabe as soon as they entered the house. After one bite they all become Mugabe’s play toys to do with as he pleased!

After 35 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption the Zimbabwe economy has now completely collapse; no economy can sustain for long the relentless criminal waste of human and material resources that has been happening in Zimbabwe. When Mugabe rigged the 2013 national elections he was confident he will rig economic recovery too; but that has since proven to be a bridge too far even with the seasoned rigger like him because there was nothing to rig.

Economics is an exact science subject with well-established systems and well-defined rules; obey them and you will prosper and disregard them and you will suffer. Our pompous “Great Leader”, Robert Mugabe, like all dictators thought he could dictate “gutsa ruzhinji” (mass prosperity) and lo behold the nation would enjoy mass prosperity regardless of all the criminal waste of resources that was going on at the same time. Of course the economy does not listen to the dictates of anyone and hence instead of mass prosperity we have mass poverty and the nation economy in ruins.

Zimbabwe’s Parliamentarians should have stop Mugabe destroying the country’s economy with his voodoo economics, they have not do so because the august house has always been full of idiots paid through gravy train comforts to do Mugabe’s bidding.

This time, Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is so serious that Mugabe cannot keep up with all the usual no-expense spare gravy train comforts; the politicians can mourn and complain all they want, the gravy train ride is over.

Since the rigged 2013 elections, these MPs should have been worrying about how to revive the national economy but, clearly, they have not even noticed the economic meltdown. The reality of 90% plus unemployment rate and all the other equally bad economic performance indicators have not sunk in their heads.

The MPs and Senators are the nation’s leaders and yet they have still do not understand that no economy in the world can survive much less thrive the burden imposed on it by criminal waste of resources due the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The waste is economically, socially and politically unsustainable and therefore Zimbabwe has to change or the economy will never ever recover.

After 35 years of relentless waste and with the national economy now in ICU; one had hoped that current crop of political leaders would have finally got the message that Zimbabwe’s economic and political systems have failed and must be changed. Regime change, unpalatable to the Zanu PF ruling elite’s ears as it may be, is now an absolute necessity for the nation’s survival.

Still, now that the gravy train comforts are fast disappearing, like mist under the African sun, the necessity and inevitability of regime change will soon start to penetrate that hermetically sealed “damba”, trifoliate orange, head sported by all Zimbabwe’s gravy train riders! Now that the wheels have fallen off the gravy train; those resisting regime change will now see the futility of remaining on the gravy train that is going nowhere!  

Grace cannot always have her cake and eat it too - give Mugabe walking stick or he will fall again!

Sources told the Daily News on Sunday yesterday that so angry was Grace - whom Mugabe has said is recuperating from a minor operation in Singapore - that she had allegedly demanded the heads of all the implicated people to roll, including those of some security details.

"She was raving mad when she heard of the incident and felt that his aides and security team were negligent in this unfortunate issue,” said the source.

Such is the vicissitude of demigods; they are used to having their cake and eating it and they will get be raving mad the odd occasion when their wishes are simply impossible to meet.

As a child one quickly learns that one can either eat one’s cake of keep it to eat later but cannot have both. But when you are demigods like the Mugabes they learnt that they can demand an extravagant $ 5 million wedding, for example, but not have not suffer the curse we ordinary mortals have to suffer – paying the bill.

The Mugabes had the $1 million birthday bash for Mugabe and two weeks later has the $5 million wedding for his daughter at the time 100 children below the age of five were dying every day across the nation of preventable diseases. The nation had no funds to buy the necessary vaccines for the children but had the money to pay for Mugabe’s birthday party and wedding.

Mugabe and his cronies have continued to enjoy unparalleled luxuries at public expense. The ordinary people have been forced to give up their food, medicine, clean running water and many other basic necessities of life so the ruling elite can have their luxuries; the ruling elite just took whatever they wanted and the ordinary people really had no democratic say in the matter, period.

Grace Mugabe went on the rampage last August to crash plans within Zanu PF to have Mugabe replaced. What was clear was that the then Vice President Joice Mujuru was set to win that position at the party’s December 2014 elective congress since she had the backing of all nine out of the ten provinces. Grace’s fear was that Mujuru may use her solid party backing to force Mugabe to give up the presidency too of the grounds that at 90 years, he was too old to continue.

Grace wanted Mugabe to remain president went raving mad at the thought of Mugabe giving up the presidency; he was fit and strong to continue as far as she was concerned. So she wanted Mujuru stopped from getting the VP position and went straight for Mujuru’s the jugular vein and landed her kill.

So after carrying out a ruthless campaign to promote her husband as fit to continue as president now, three months later, she is admitting that he is not fit after all.

"As any spouse would do, she is clearly fearful that things could have turned really nasty on the day given the president's age and state of health, and is thus keen to see that this is never repeated,” the source said.

"She (Grace Mugabe) is angry because President Mugabe's staff knew very well that he has difficulty walking, especially climbing and walking down steps, but did not appear to have factored this in at the airport,” said the official.

Other than dyeing Mugabe’s hair jet black, pump him full of the Botox and all manner of drugs to keep him awake there is very little else anyone can do to stop a 90 year old walking like a 90 year old.

Grace Mugabe will have to accept that Mugabe is old and needs a walking aid if does not want me seen in public using the walking aid then she will have to accept that he will stumble and fall again. She can rant and rave all she likes but this time she will have to accept that there at times when even the demigods like her cannot have their cake and eat it too! 

Tendai Biti against Mugabe carpet, my vote will go to the carpet!

“You (citizens) spend most of your time this week looking for pictures of Mugabe falling at the airport. We have become so hopeless that a piece of carpet is our salvation,” said MDC-Renewal Leader, Tendai Biti. He was speaking at the Southern Africa Political and Economic Series.

There was more than a hind of jealous in Mr Biti’s statement. How can the whole nation be showering praise on that piece of carpet when all he and his MDC friends have ever got from the nation since the rigged 2013 election is ridicule and contempt! Well to put it in the simplest of languages Mr Biti; that lumpy carpet has done more to humiliate and humble Mugabe in those few seconds than MDC has done in five years in the GNU.

MDC was in the GNU for the primary purpose of implemented the democratic reforms agreed in the Global Political Agreement (GPA) and signed to by Robert Mugabe on behalf of Zanu PF, Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara on behalf of the two MDC factions. South Africa’s President Thambo Mbeki signed on behalf of the regional body, SADC, the guarantor of the GPA.

The democratic reforms were designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship brick by brick and use the same bricks to build a democratic Zimbabwe. The litmus test that the democratic reforms had been implemented fully and properly was that the next Zimbabwe elections must be free, fair and credible.

After five years of the NGU not even one reform was implemented, not one brick of the dictatorship was dismantled. Not a sausage!

SADC leaders did their best to reminded MDC to implement the reforms and then not to take part in the elections without the reforms, as MDC MP Samuel Sipepa Nkomo has since admitted.

“It is common knowledge that Lindiwe Zulu (President Jacob Zuma’s international relations adviser) advised us,”MP Nkomo admitted. “(President) Zuma also advised us and even the Sadc Heads of State meeting in Maputo (Mozambique) also advised not to participate in the elections without electoral, media and security sector reforms, among others.”

SADC heads issued a statement after the rigged 2013 elections in which their criticism of the MDC for the party’s failure to implement the reforms was clear. The statement accused MDC leaders “of enjoying being in the GNU but forgetting why they were there!”

Of all people, Mr Tendai Biti, knew what the democratic reforms were about and understood their critically importance in delivering free, fair and credible elections. There was no way he could ever say he did not know or understand because he was MDC-T’s chief negotiator in the GPA.

So of all people Mr Biti should have been the first to apologise to the nation for “enjoying being in the GNU but forgetting why they were there!”

“If Zimbabwe was a normal country, Mutasa, Mugabe and several other Cabinet ministers and heads of security departments must have resigned in shame,” wrote the Japanese commentator on Zimbabwe, Ken Yamamoto. “In Japan, we would expect them to bow deeply, apologise and pack their personal effects and leave office immediately!”

Ken was right, Zimbabwe is NOT a normal country; for not only is arrogance indifference to failure and betrayal confined to Mugabe and his ruling party cronies, it is everywhere even the country’s opposition upstarts like Tendai Biti are arrogant.

“You (citizens) accuse us of being weak, the opposition of being weak but we are just a mirror reflection of the country,” said Tendai Biti. “We are just a mirror reflection of the citizens’ fatalism and cowardice.”

The sheer arrogance of our politicians is really insufferable. Biti betrays the whole nation by failing to implement the critical reforms for selfish financial and political gain but instead of admitting this and apologize he call us, the electorate the real victims of this cruel betrayal since we are the ones stiff suffering under this Zanu PF dictatorship cowards.

He is the one who, as one of the senior MDC ministers and the party’s chief negotiator in the GPA, was supposed to ensure all the reforms were implemented. He did not do so and spent his five years in the GNU singing praises to Mugabe. It was Tendai Biti who called Mugabe “unflappable and father to the nation!”

Mugabe a corrupt and murderous tyrant giving to rigging elections to stay in power, “unflappable and father to the nation”; what is Biti talking about? But obviously Tendai Biti and his fellow MDC leaders must have believed Mugabe unflappable and held the tyrant is such high regard they all decided to the man and woman to do nothing about implementing the reforms. The reforms were designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship brick by brick but how could they do that when the dictatorship was Mugabe’s, the man they considered “father of the nation”, life-time work!

No Mr Biti, the people of Zimbabwe are not political cowards; they risked life and limb to get MDC elected in 2008 and seats in the GNU, for example. Zimbabweans voted for Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC in the March 2008 elections in droves knowing fully well that they would be punished by Zanu PF for that and they were punished. In the July 2008 presidential run-off millions of Zimbabweans were subjected to all manner of politically motivated harassment and terror and as many as 500 were murdered. What else did you want the people to do to convince you, Mr Biti, that they are not cowards?

 If the people of Zimbabwe are guilty of anything then it must be political inaptitude and naivety; because only an inapt and naïve electorate would fail to hold failed leaders like you, Mr Biti, to account.

For failing to get even one democratic reform implemented all the MDC leaders should have been forced to apologize and resign on mass on 31 st July 2013 and, those like Morgan Tsvangirai will no other career other than politics forced to return to his Buhera rural home to herd goats!

Like it or not it is Tendai Biti and his MDC friends breath-taking incompetence that has allowed Mugabe to stay in power for the last 15 years. Yes, until last year the carpet has done nothing which is still better than propping up a tyrant. By tripping Mugabe, the carpet flattened the “unflappable” and that made the carpet a national hero compared to sell-outs like Biti.

What Biti has failed to understand is that by failing to implement the reforms he has made himself unelectable so much so that if he stood against the carpet, the later will have my vote and those of the millions who have enjoyed seeing a corrupt and murderous tyrant used to being pampered by the country’s minion opposition cut to size for a change – since there is no competent opposition to do this the public gladly accept the carpet going this!

"Fcuk! I am worn out but then so are you, mate!" said the carpet to the fallen Mugabe!

Mugabe was coming back from Ethiopia in what he desperately wanted the whole world to view as in triumph! In fact every time he returns from any trip outside the country, and God knows he is a regular globe-trotter, the regime has bussed in the paid mob to give him a hero's send away and on return another hero's welcome. 

The regime is selling them the image of Mugabe the conquering hero complete with the spring chicken make up of jet-black dyed hair. The world’s first 90 year old with not a single grey hair or beard; he still sports his Adolf Hitler finger wide moustache and it is jet-black!

The nation is in serious economic meltdown, 90% plus are out of work, 2 million are living in abject poverty, there is no clean running water, etc. The situation is get worse and not better! He rigged the elections to stay in power; the least he should do then is deliver the economic recovery and 2.2 million new jobs he promised. All this gorilla silver-back chest drumming whilst the nation is crumbling into ruins is all so phony and frankly mocking the long suffering public.

So when Mugabe tripped on the well-worn out carpet it was a symbolic timely reminder that the real Zimbabwe was falling apart. His aide should have told him the carpet was first used in 1980 and has been used on at least a million different occasions. If he had not made so many trips then the carpet would not be so worn out, or better still the nation would be booming and thus afforded to replace the carpet.

If the carpet could speak, it would have told the prostrate Mugabe; “Fcuk! I am worn out but then, so are you, mate! So are you!”

Mugabe’s fall has gone viral and Zimbabweans will be laughing at him for months if not years to come because it has been a God sent opportunity for them to give the middle finger salute to a regime that has treated them as if they were stupid and dumb so stupid they would believe Mugabe at 90 still has jet-black hair and is a conquering hero in a never ending war against the British – and who would want a job, clean running water, etc. when there is such Napoleon in flesh and blood to behold and welcome at the airport two or three times a month, at least!

Mugabe is "a colossal figure" so says MDC Adviser Dr Magaisa - a man with intellect of an ant!

If you are an ant anything bigger than a mouse might as well be an elephant! After all there is no difference between an ant squashed by a dick-dick and one squashed by an elephant because way you get a dead ant.

That is the trouble Dr Alex Magaisa, he is an ant, a political ant, in a world of giants, political giants!

“President Mugabe is a big political character, indeed, a colossal figure who divides opinion in a manner that is unparalleled across the entire continent,” said Alex Magaisa. He was rationalizing Mugabe’s recent appointment as African Union chairman but also explain why MDC did not implement any of the democratic reforms which would have end Mugabe’s political career.

Mugabe is a corrupt and murderous tyrant. How can any Zimbabwean much less an intellectual at this stage in our country’s history describe such a despicable despot as “a big political character, indeed a colossal figure” as if he or she does not know who the real Mugabe is. Forget about how people in Africa have divided opinions about Mugabe, he has divided Zimbabweans themselves!

Dr Alex Magaisa was Dr Richard Morgan Tsvangirai’s chief legal adviser when the later was Prime Minister and leader of the MDC in the GNU. The GNU was set up in 2008 first and foremost to implement a raft of democratic reforms and write a new democratic constitution to ensure the country’s next elections are free, fair and credible. The primary task of getting this done was with the MDC, natural, since implementing these reforms meant dismantling Mugabe’s de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship and his political power base.

MDC had five years to implement the agreed reforms and write the new constitution. Not even one reform was ever implemented and the new constitution they produced at a cost of $ 100 million is not worth the paper it is written on. MDC claimed it was an “MDC child” and it would deliver free and fair elections guaranteed. Of course it did no such thing as Mugabe went on to blatantly rig the elections.

The Zanu PF representative on the committee tasked to write the new constitution, MP Paul Mangwana latter boosted that Mugabe had “dictated” the new constitution. Of course he had striped the document bear of all democratic credential and turned it into a tyrant’s creed.

So MDC regardless of the fact that they had the services of Dr Alex Magaisa, until then a law lecturer at a highly regarded UK University, failed to get even one reform implemented. Not even one!

Dr Tsvangirai, with Dr Magaisa, his chief legal adviser, by his side claimed the new constitution dictated by Mugabe an “MDC child” knowing fully well it was weak and feeble and it will never ever deliver the nation’s most cherish political hope and dream free, fair and credible elections.

Why did Dr Tsvangirai and his follow MDC leaders risk their political careers, indeed most of them lost their parliamentary seats but worse still know their names are “mud”, by failing to implement the reforms and produce a democratic constitution?  Dr Magaisa too staked his intellectual and political reputation on MDC’s pathetic performance and thus is now dismissed as Dr “Nonsense” adviser.

Yes the MDC leaders and Dr “Nonsense” Adviser were corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent but still that does not explain why they gable so much and, in turn, lost so much. There has to be more and Dr Magaisa, in many of his articles since the rigged elections has revealed the addition reason MDC leaders never implemented even one reform – their inferiority complex.

Instead of viewing Mugabe as a corrupt and murderous tyrant that nation was dying, literally too, to get rid of; these MDC political midgets considered Mugabe “big political character, indeed, a colossal figure” the nation was obliged to listen and obey his dictates.

The African Union (AU) is a club of tyrants; the majority of the continent’s leaders have, like Mugabe, never held free, fair and credible elections. They have elected Mugabe to be AU chairman for no better reason other than that they see him as one of their own. Dr Magaisa is just clutching at straw, the AU honoured Mugabe because they too see him as a great man, to justify why MDC failed to see Mugabe for the pathetic corrupt and murderous tyrant he is and behaved accordingly.

Mugabe is a liberation war hero who quickly turned into a corrupt and murderous tyrant when he got into power. After 35 years of his ruinous tyrannical rule no Zimbabwean of substance would have any doubt as to who Mugabe or would not want free, fair and credible elections and thus end the tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.

The biggest mistake Zimbabweans have made these last 15 years was to believe Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were genuine in their promise to bring democratic change in Zimbabwe and free and fair elections. It has turned out that these MDC leaders also believe that Mugabe and his Zanu PF are the giants of Zimbabwe politics and they are not to be replaced regardless corrupt and oppressive they have turned out to be. For all their political posturing Tsvangirai and his MDC friends see themselves as nothing more than ants in an elephant’s world.

Zimbabwe is in a serious political and economic mess after 35 years of Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical rule; the only way out of the mess is for the nation to hold free, fair and credible elections. Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs must be held democratically accountable to the voters in a relationship of equals – all human beings with equal freedoms and rights including one-man-one-vote in free, fair and credible elections.

Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have failed to implement even one reform and to deliver free and fair elections because deep down in the ethos they believe Mugabe is an elephant and they are ants; no amount of reforms can make an ant and an elephant stand as equals! Zimbabweans have to be careful never again to elect someone with an outward appearance of a human being but with, nonetheless, the intellect of an ant!

Mugabe and Zanu PF have dragged us into this political and economic mess but it is leaders like Tsvangirai and Dr Magaisa, men and women, of little intellect who have held us captives in this mess. We the electorate have played our part by electing them our leaders. After their callous betrayal of our cause for democratic change for any thinking Zimbabweans to allow themselves to be once again coned by Tsvangirai and his crowd into believing they will ever deliver change is unforgivable. To have been coned the first time was foolish but to be coned again is folly for which the nation rightly deserves to be punished.

The international community has, since the rigged 2013 elections, taken a hand-off approach to Zimbabwe’s political situation. By allowing MDC to get away without implementing even one reforms showed that we, the electorate, did not really care whether the Mugabe dictatorship remained in power or not. The international community withdraw and has been waiting to re-engage once Zimbabweans prove they are no serious about democratic change. By electing to follow the same failed MDC leaders Zimbabweans are saying they are not ready for change. We will have to stew in this political and economic mess for a few more years, decades or even generations! 

Mugabe “a big political character, indeed, a colossal figure”! I would have been disappointed to hear that from someone totally incapable of one coherent thought after decades of Zanu PF propaganda and brainwashing but not an academic and intellectual. And this is the intellectual ant who had the destiny of the nation in the palm of his hand; no wonder we are in a mess! We are in serious trouble!

We need to implement the reforms - MDC's election boycott gimmick will not implement even one reform!

“THE opposition MDC formations said Tuesday that contesting in any future elections without reforms was tantamount to “legitimizing and celebrating Zanu PF’s election rigging behaviour,” reported New Zimbabwe.

What a bunch of confused fools MDC are; they are now saying they do not want to give legitimacy to Zanu PF rigged elections and yet that is exactly what they did to the 2013 elections. But worse still, they will do exactly that again; they do not know what reforms they want and, nearer the elections, Zanu PF will implement some trivial reforms just to get MDC to take part in the elections which Zanu PF will, as happened in 2013, go on to blatantly rig! 

If we got back to the 2013 elections, first of all, MDC failed to implement the reforms designed to ensure elections are free, fair and credible. They had the majority in parliament, SADC backing and five years to implement the agreed reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one.

Second, MDC went on to take part in the 2013 elections without even one reform implement against universal advise not to. The vote rigging that followed was so blatant there were even greater grounds to challenge the process (to say nothing of the national importance and significance of the case) than Didymus Mutasa has to challenge Mugabe’s rigging of Zanu PF’s 2014 party elections. MDC withdraw the court challenge on some spurious and nonsensical ground.  So MDC people have gone out of their way to make it easy for Mugabe to rig the elections and then to give the rigging legitimacy by pretending it could not be challenged legally. 

Third and most significantly there is nothing in MDC’s renewed election boycotts (boycott has become MDC’s favourite election tactic as rigging is for Zanu PF, whereas Zanu PF has 100% rigging success rate MDC have a 100% FAILURE rate) to suggest this is going to help in any way deliver free and fair elections we are seeking. To start with, no one in MDC has a clear idea what exactly they want done to end the boycott.

Spokespersons for the two parties Obert Gutu and Jacob Mafume told reporters in Harare that President Robert Mugabe’s regime should re-align electoral laws with the new constitution if they are to enter any election contest. That makes it as clear as mud!

The new constitution says the voter registration and the voters roll should be controlled by ZEC and it is still controlled by the Registrar General, Tobai Mudede, for example. If these alignments are critical to ensure free and fair elections then surely they should have been carried out before the 2013 elections. MDC exactly what was in the new constitution as far back as July 2012 when the first draft was made public they had the majority in the GNU parliament why did they ensure all the alignments were done and dusted before the July 2013 elections?

If the alignments are important and they had not been carried out; then why did MDC not boycott the 2013 elections?

We are where we are; the realignments were not done and the must be done for free and fair elections. We will have to get Zanu PF controlled parliament to carry out the re-alignment; there is no point in asking MDC how that is going to be done because they do not have a clue.

What is almost certain to happen is that Zanu PF will carry out so token re-alignments and MDC will grab these face-saving gimmicks and once again take part in the elections; Zanu PF will blatantly rig the elections; MDC’s cry foul, call fresh election boycott and new list of conditions; and so on and so forth. This will just be an unending cycle but with always the same result; no free, fair and credible elections.

Not only is MDC’s current list of demands for free and fair short on details of how the re-alignment will be done but worse still it is wilfully inadequate. We need ALL the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA implemented fully. No amount of re-alignment of the country’s laws with the new constitution will end the highly partisan nature of the Zimbabwe Republic Police, Public Media, Judiciary, etc.

Zanu PF will happily spent the next 50 years or whatever tinkering around with this Act or other re-aligning it to a constitution they know is weak and feeble and will never ever deliver free and fair elections.  It is the GPA democratic reforms the party will not want implemented because to do so will dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship.

The three MDC factions are broke because after their pathetic performance during the GNU years and disastrous electoral showing in the 2013 elections, all and I mean all their donors were so disgusted they deserted them in droves. The MDC faction led by Professor Welshman Ncube has never made a party decision to boycott elections and yet they too jointed in the 27 March 2015 by-elections boycott. The decision to boycott has forced on they by the lack of funds.

Zanu PF is shrewd enough to know the MDC factions are broke and that the boycott has nothing to do with the proverbial penny finally dropped so that Harvest House is for the first time ever full of visionary leaders who know the critical importance of the democratic reforms and are keen as mustard to see ALL the reforms implemented. Indeed Zanu PF has smart strategic thinkers like Professor Jonathan who know as long as MDC remain as the country’s main opposition party, Zanu PF will not need to ever accept even one iota of democratic change, rig elections as usual and yet still be assured of its legitimacy long term survival.

Come the next elections, Zanu PF will carry out some superficial, face saving to justify MDC ending the boycott, re-alignment and even provide some election funding for MDC. Zanu PF paid Nikuv, the Israeli company, $13 million to temper with the voters roll is the 2013 elections, the party will happily pay to have rigged elections given some aura of legitimacy. With MDC Zanu PF will only have to promise them even 0.1% of Nikuv’s fee and Tsvangirai will fall off his chair with joy!

Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and all the other MDC leaders shot themselves in the leg politically by failing to get even one political reform implemented in their five years in the GNU. Most people have found the MDC leaders’ naivety incomprehensible. Actually it is easy to comprehend; what these people have seen is but a single dot in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, clearly not enough to judge it a master piece. To understand why MDC leaders shot themselves in the leg by failing to implement not even one reforms one must ask what was it they got in return for kicking reforms into the tall grass?

So what did MDC leaders get to make them completely forget for five years that they were in the GNU to implement democratic reforms?

Answer: a seat on the gravy train, baby!

This is the definition of gravy train in the Urban Dictionary, it says it all!

(to ride the) gravy train. A job where no work is involved. To get paid for doing nothing. Standing around at work and talking all day.

MDC leaders were employed above all else to implement the reforms and after five years failed to get even one reform implemented so they sure had a job where no work was involved – tick!

Mugabe paid Tsvangirai the $4 million Highlands mansion for making sure MDC did absolutely nothing about the reforms. The other MDC leaders got the cut of the spoils; Douglas Mwonzora, for example, built himself a house so big Job Sikhala called it a “hotel” with his share of gravy train money.

As for the last bit, standing around at work and talking all day, I will only add talking nonsense. MDC talked and promised of the new constitution delivering free and fair elections, for example. Well the events of Wednesday 31 July 2013 have proven beyond doubt what a load of nonsense the promises had been!

The last thing the gravy train definition left out which is so important I have to add it is “It is highly intoxicating and addictive!” From the minute Tsvangirai took his oath of office as Prime Minister, in reality he was nothing more than Mugabe’s office-boy with a flattering job title because Mugabe made sure he had no real power or authority to do anything of value, Tsvangirai has strutting around as if he there was nothing he could not do! He had all the powers of all the Gods in Mount Olympus!

The rigged elections of 31st July 2013 saw the upstart, Morgan Tsvangirai, fall from the dazing height of Mount Olympus back to earth; it was not a pretty sight, he is still licking his wounds. But the buzz, the power, the wealth, the adrenaline rush, etc. he got from being on the gravy train is so powerful that although he shot himself in the leg by failing to implement the reforms, he will never admit that of course, he is still determined to remain in the political race in the hope he will get another ride on the gravy train.

Tsvangirai is not alone is trying to hang on regardless his pathetic past performance record. It is ironic that Tendai Biti, for example, was scathing in his criticism of Tsvangirai’s refusal to resign given his failures; Biti himself was a key player in MDC’s failures, he should have led by example by him resigning first!

MDC consider themselves Zimbabwe’s main political opposition but by the failing to implement even one democratic reform they undermined their bragging rights to that, they know that now – God only how many times a day since the rigged July 2013 elections they have been reminded of that. Of course they now wish they had implemented the reforms, being kicked off the gravy train was punishment enough without having hot chills rubbed into one’s eyes every day in the bargain. They will try to get the reforms implemented; the fact that they have no clue what they are and how to get them implemented, not important as far as they are concerned.

The one thing they absolutely determined to stop is have someone else take away the little opposition limelight they still have by actually implementing the reforms. They would rather see the Zanu PF dictatorship rule until the cows come home than for someone else to deliver free, fair and credible elections; on this issue they will fully cooperating with Zanu PF.

It was because of MDC’s blundering incompetence that not even one of the agreed democratic reforms was implemented throughout the five years of the GNU. MDC made the usual demands and produced the usual sorry looking list of conditions which Zanu PF ignored and MDC did whatever it was they said they would not do. MDC’s present threat to boycott elections and the sorry list of conditions is what the nation has learnt to expect from them. They boycotted the 27 March 2015 by-elections because they have no money. Come the next elections Zanu PF will pay MDC money, if necessary, to get the later to give the rigged elections legitimacy.

If the Zimbabwe electorate want to see an end to this Zanu PF tyranny, an end to the economic meltdown, etc., etc. then they must do their homework and understand what these democratic reforms are. Because the only way the nation can ever be 100% sure ALL the reforms have been fully implemented and timeously is when the electorate have elected competent leaders who understand the importance of the reforms and people supervise the leaders in implementing the reform. To do that the people themselves must know the reforms; at least have a working understanding of the reforms. MDC leaders got away without even implementing any reforms because the electorate did not have a clue what MDC were elected to do above all else. 

Mugabe "akakumbira nokuchemera" (begged and cried for) AU chairmanship and now will make life worse, not better, for all!

"I don't know what the West will say or do, that is not my business. My business is to ensure that the decisions that we have arrived at here are implemented and they are all decisions which have to do with the development of Africa; that is my concern, concentrating on bettering the lives of the people, giving them something that will raise their standard of living,” said Mugabe at the first press conference after he is crowned AU chairman.

Mugabe “concentrating on bettering the lives of the people”; what a sick joke! Sure and we in Zimbabwe can testify to how much he has BETTERED our lives in his 35 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule of the country.

The Zimbabwe economy is in total meltdown after decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The country’s once booming economy is now in ruins, 90% plus are out of work, 16% of the population now live in abject poverty, life expectancy has plummeted from 68 years when he got into office in 1980 to 34 years in 2004, etc.

In his 35 years in power, Mugabe has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain his de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship.

It is all very well for Mugabe to be foul-mouthing the West from every platform he can get; he does not care. He does not need the West but the ordinary Zimbabweans do. Since 2008 98% of Zimbabwe’s medicine is imported and paid for by Western donors, for example. He and his family can afford to fly to Singapore each time his eye has a twitch (he went to Singapore 8 times in 2012 alone for that) or the wife needs an appendectomy surgery.  The trips cost $ 3 million each and in 2012 alone Mugabe made a staggering 8 trips all paid for by the taxpayer; yes the same taxpayer the regime says it has no money to import malaria tablets for!

Africa has shown again and again that it does not have what it takes to deal with any serious problems and needs help. Take the Ebola crisis; it is outsiders, especially the West, who have help contain the outbreak otherwise the virus would have spread from West Africa to Cape Town in the South and to Cairo in the North by now!

Yes it was in the West and the rest of the world’s interest to contain Ebola as quickly as possible because the virus threatened the whole world. But there are other problems like cholera, starvation, civil war, etc. that cause untold suffering and deaths in Africa if the West does not step in to help.

“Mugoti anopiwa anyerere!” so goes the Shona adage. (It is the quiet one who will be rewarded!) It is in fact one of those adage every mother will repeat to try to influence behaviour; they know only too well that they always reward the howling child. We can be sure of one thing the AU leaders did gave Mugabe the chairmanship because he was the quiet one but because he threatened to bring the house down with his howling.

For the last five years each time a Zimbabwean diplomats opened his/her mouth with a fellow African diplomat it was to ask if their country would support Mugabe’s bid to be AU Chairman. There was a whole department in the ministry of Foreign Affairs tasked to coordinate the campaign and nothing else.

Mugabe campaigned long and hard to be AU chairman. African leaders had no choice by to let Mugabe become chairman just to stop the nagging and pestering from Harare!

There is no doubt that Mugabe did not beg but cried to be appointed AU chairman. We know because if he was back in Zimbabwe he would have rigged the vote, raped and murdered – anything to secure election victory! At the AU his options were limited to begging or crying and he did both! “Mugabe akakumbira akachemera ushe!”

All the African leaders who saw Mugabe’s press interview with the Zimbabwe tyrant once again blasting the West for the same egotistic reasons must have cursed themselves why they allowed themselves into rewarding this foul-mouth tyrant. Now the whole continent will regret it because Mugabe will not make everyone’s life better but worse, guaranteed!