Biti leading "chorus" for coalition - do better getting GPA reforms implemented!

“People have increasingly become apathetic and disillusioned by the failure of the opposition to deliver them from their tormentor President Robert Mugabe and his ruining party Zanu-PF,” said Tendai Biti.

 

“That is why we in the PDP are leading the chorus on coalition formation, leadership renewal and ideas-based politics.

“We believe that through a coalition, opposition political parties can appeal to a broader constituency beyond our individual bases and thereby mitigate the possibility of splitting the opposition vote to Zanu-PF's benefit.”

 

You are spot on Mr Biti, our people have indeed become “apathetic and disillusioned by the failure of the opposition to deliver them from their tormentor President Mugabe”. What is perplexing is your failure to grasp the reason why the opposition has been such a total failure.

 

You say you and your political party PDP “are leading the chorus on coalition formation, leadership renewal and ideas-based politics”.  MDC had the majority in the GNU parliament had more cabinet members in that cabinet than Zanu PF and yet MDC failed to implement even one of the democratic reforms every greed were absolutely necessary for free, fair and credible elections.

 

SADC leaders reminded MDC leaders again and again throughout the five years of the GNU to implement the reforms but their warnings fell on deaf ears. The regional leaders literally begged MDC not to take part in the 2013 elections but of course MDC leaders ignored the pleas too.

 

There are three logical reasons why MDC failed to implement even one reform in the five years of the GNU:

 

1. MDC leaders are incompetent; as Tsvangirai has already admitted the party believed they have the mass support to overwhelm whatever vote rigging Mugabe and Zanu PF throw at them. How hopelessly wrong MDC strategists turned out to be; Zanu PF did not just rig the elections but did so blatantly and “won” the elections with a landslide.
    
2. MDC leaders are arrogant; this a common weakness right across the Zimbabwe political divide. Tsvangirai and his friends did not pay heed to the warning and pleas from SADC or anybody else because they really believed they knew best. Indeed the only reason Tsvangirai has changed the party’s constitution so he can stay on as party president belong the original maximum two five-year terms is because he believes he is the only one competent to lead. His fellow MDC leaders are no different, they too want to stay on as leaders regardless of the pathetic track records as leaders these last 15 years.
    
   But talk of Mister-Know-It-All arrogance and what better example than Robert Mugabe; he has led the nation for 35 ruinous years, he is so old and sick he can hardly stay awake for more than a few hours, etc. and yet he is more desperate than ever to stay in power.
    
3. But most important of all MDC leaders are corrupt; again a common cancer across the country’s political divide. Five years is a long time for even the most incompetent MDC leaders like Tsvangirai not to have realized that the raft of democratic reforms were important for free and fair elections. Not even one reform was implemented because Mugabe bribed the entire MDC leadership the gravy train lifestyle, the $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. MDC leaders took the bribes and kicked the reforms into the tall grass. Of course MDC leaders sold-out.
    
   “Vanhu veMDC vadzidza kudya vanyerere!” (MDC people have learnt to enjoy the gravy train spoils of power and not rock the boat!) Boasted one Zanu PF politician to the repeated question during the GNU why MDC leaders had not implemented even one reform.
    
   “"Your own mouth condemns you, and not I,” I was tempted to remind the boastful Zanu PF buffoon. Zimbabwe has sunk into these depths of economic ruin with regime has ridden roughshod over the people’s freedoms, humans rights, hopes and dreams because Mugabe has bribed Zanu PF politicians; top brass in the Police, Army and CIO; the Judges; Editors and Journalist in the country’s public media; etc. so they all turn a blind eye his corrupt and tyrannical excesses.

 

So to turn back to Mr Tendai Biti; Mugabe did not “win” the 31^st July 2013 elections because there were too many opposition parties resulting in the “splitting the opposition vote to Zanu-PF's benefit”. Zanu PF won because the party was able to blatantly rig the elections. The only way the opposition can stop Zanu PF rigging the next elections is by implementing ALL the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA.

 

Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T party supported by 18 local NGOs led by Elections Resource Centre (ERC) have been calling for the implementation of the electoral law reforms, which “are not a threat to anyone (meaning Zanu PF)” as Tawanda Chimhini, ERC Director has readily admitted. So if their proposed reforms are not going to stop Zanu PF rigging the next elections there is really very little point in implementing them and thus contesting the next elections with or without opposition coalition.

 

Most of the top leaders in PDP, the various MDC factions, Zapu, Mavhambo, Mujuru’s People First, etc. are recycled deadwood from Zanu PF or MDC; the same corrupt and incompetent lot. You obsession with coalition as the way forward show just how breathtakingly incompetent you really are because if you have deadwood in the individual parties to start with surely you will still have deadwood, only a bigger pile, even if you succeeded in bringing all the opposition parties together.

 

The opposition have been a great disappointment in the past because there were no quality leaders. Put quality before quantity and you will get the desired results those who have put emphasis on quantity have, as a rule, found themselves going round and round in circles.

 

If the truth be told MDC and Zanu PF leaders have never wanted all the democratic reforms in the 2008 GPA implemented because both parties knew their own leadership position will not be secure if there was a healthy and functional democratic system because both parties have truck-loads of deadwood each.

 

What Zimbabwe needed MDC to do during the GNU was to implement ALL the democratic reforms; sadly that was not done. The country needs these reforms implement now just we did during the GNU because only when we have a healthy and functional democratic system can we be assured of quality leaders emerging. We do not need a coalition of mediocre leaders and much less the watered down Tsvangirai reforms to be implemented!

Vince, Zim is a mess not for lack of self-belief but because of we punch-drunk of it!

Vince it is not so much that “we are caught in a spider’s web of lies about our history, our potential and our future as a country.” But rather that we have spin these lies of super heroes and the nation’s greatness that when things started to go pear-shape we refused to believe the facts. Even today with the nation in a real mess there are some people who still refuse to believe we messed up and need to embrace change; they want us to stay the course confident we can still have the free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe we are all after.

 

"The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside,” wrote Vince Musewe, quoting Allan David Bloom the American economist.

 

Allan Bloom was spot in his assessment it is your interpretation, Vince, which is wrong. on but if we are to apply his observation to our case then it is important to understand that Mugabe has very successful dragged us into this hell-on-earth these last 35 years by convincing us that we were on the right path and we will pull through if we remain united and focused. We have not looked for other ways or possibilities because we were convinced we were on the right path already.

 

“The archaic paradigm of victimhood which accepts that we as Zimbabweans are incapable of creating our own prosperity and cannot create self-sustaining economy despite the fact that we have all the necessary knowledge base spread all over the world and the necessary resources to do so must be rejected and expunged from our minds,” you are argued.

 

This is exactly what Mugabe has been saying all these years; are you sure you did not up lift this rhetoric from one of Mugabe’s UN speeches. You blame our failure to create the prosperous Zimbabwe on Mugabe and he blames the “sanctions imposed by evil British imperialists and their allies”.

 

In his recent speech to the UN a few days ago Mugabe said Africa did not need hand-outs from donors or the West in its development quest and Zimbabwe would have achieved her development goals if it was not for the “illegal sanctions imposed by the West”!

 

Of course it is not because of the sanctions that we are in this economic mess just as it is nonsense to blame the West’s hand-outs for Africa’s backwardness. We are in this mess because we have created this lie that we can do anything only if we believe we can. When you hold such a strong view, over compensating for the years of being made to feel we are inferior to the whites, you back yourself into a corner.

 

Zimbabwe is in this economic mess because of three and half decades of mismanagement and corruption we have instinctive recoiled from acknowledging this because to do so was tantamount to acknowledging that we are fallible and thus inferior.

 

It is this absolutism that is behind Mugabe’s imposition of this de facto one-party state and his unshaking determination to remain president for life – he believes he alone KNOWS what is best for the country absolutely no question. So imposing a one-party state becomes natural in the circumstances.

 

Tsvangirai has already proven to be corrupt and incompetent but that has not done nothing to shake his own belief in his own capabilities and infallibility hence the reason why he has disregarded the party’s own constitution to extend his stay as MDC leader beyond the fixed maximum of two terms.

 

“We must now create a paradigm that says that our country Zimbabwe has all it requires to create trillion dollar economy within 30 years at the most. We must also believe that we can shape a self-sustaining inclusive economy with full employment without relying aid on the West, or the East for that matter, to determine what we can become. We must stop being slaves to the self-serving political rhetoric or to international capital. We can control our destiny as a country if only we believe,” you with the absolutism of a tyrant who know-all the answers.

 

We are in this political and economic mess not because people have been “blinded by the unceasing rhetoric and propaganda of the Zanu-PF machinery” into believing there is no future beyond the present the party is offering.

 

“The Zimbabwe we wish to build is grand and in my opinion, we continue to be limited only by our imagination and belief.  That must change,” argued Vince.

If there is one thing this nation have never lacked for the last 35 years it is imagination and self-belief; especial our national leaders they have been punch-drunk.

 

Even with the national economy in the doldrums caused economic mismanagement and corruption and the country up to its eyes in debt because of decades misrule under his leadership; that did not stop Mugabe producing his 2013 $ 27 billion ZimAsset economic recovery plan with promises to create 2.2 million new jobs. It should be remembered that the regime was not getting any financial assistances from anyone at the time, not even from its “all-weather friend” the Chinese, because it had failed to service it $10 billion foreign debt. Still the regime was confident it would raise the necessary funds.

 

Of course Mugabe failed to raise the money for ZimAsset and the regime has failed to create any new job but has been losing jobs instead as more and more companies have closed. Even now with ZimAsset dead in the water Mugabe still talks of the plan beaming with confidence as if he only has to snap his fingers and the plan will be back on track!

 

As if not to be out done Morgan Tsvangirai and the laid-back Joice Mujuru have each produced their economic blue-prints for Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and prosperity called JUICE and BUILD respectively. The two release their plans accompanied by some prolonged chest drumming normally associated with silver-back gorillas to underline their self-confidence and self-belief.

 

Tsvangirai would have done better is he had listened to all those, including SADC Heads of State, who advised him to implemented the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA; at least the nation would have had its first free, fair and credible elections in July 2013. He did not listen; a silver-back in the middle of its macho display does not listen to chattering monkeys.

 

The nation’s military success in the war of independence has left everyone beaming with self-confidence and self-believe especial Mugabe and his fellow war heroes and heroines; they really do not believe there is anything they cannot do. They won the war and ended white colonial exploitation and racial discrimination but at great price. We have become one of cockiest nation on earth because after defeating the whites we have become absolutely certain that there nothing we cannot do. Nothing!

 

We can talk about mismanagement and corruption being the cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown until we are all blue in the face; Mugabe and many of his Zanu PF friends will never believe a word. They believe it is the “illegal sanctions imposed by the British imperialist and their Western allies” that has done all the damage. To spice up their story further still; Mugabe has said the sanctions were imposed to achieve regime change. What makes all these hen’s teeth stories “believable” is that Mugabe is a war hero who is so cocksure of himself and there is his war record to “prove” he is an extra-ordinary hero who can do anything!

 

India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru recognized the danger a cocky self-assured war hero can be to a nation. 

 

“What kind of leaders would an armed struggle throw up?” asked Nehru of his fellow Congress Party leaders when the question arose whether or not the party should abandon the Mahatma Gandhi’s none violence passive resistance route in favour of an armed struggle to end British rule of India. “Are they the kind of leaders we would want to rule our country?”

 

We in Zimbabwe throw caution to the wind and went for fully fledged and bloody armed struggle. We defeated the white colonialist but at a great price – the war throw up the cocky tyrants who believe they know best and consider being held to account in a free and democratic election an insult, the leaders Nehru warned about!

 

Even those who did not fight in the war of independence have copied Mugabe’s arrogant autocratic leadership style. Tsvangirai has changed his party’s constitution to extend his stay as leader beyond the original fixed two terms confident he is the only person competent to lead MDC. He following Mugabe’s example who has remained his party’s leader for 35 years and counting, he has rigged both national and Zanu PF elections because he believes he is the only person competent of leading the nation regardless of his track record of economic ruin and brutal oppression!

 

I too believe Zimbabwe has the potential to be a great nation and what has dragged us backwards into the Dark Ages for the last 35 years is not the lack of “imagination and self-belief”, as you think Vince. We have a political system that has allowed corrupt and incompetent tyrants to stay in power even when they have become so dopy they read the same speech twice. That is what is wrong here.

 

What we need to do is implement ALL the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA so that we have free, fair and credible elections. The lack of democratic accountability has made our current crop of leaders cocky and punch-drunk on absolute power; for the good of the nation, that must end.

 

Yes implement the same democratic reforms that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to get even one reform implemented in five years in the GNU because they are corrupt and incompetent. The same Tsvangirai you have been doing you best to promote as a potential president of this nation! He is corrupt and incompetent and has already failed to get even one reform implemented; what part of corrupt and incompetent do you not understand Vince!?

Another Mugabe General threaten opposition - the last kick of a dying regime!

“THE commander of Zimbabwe’s Presidential Guard, Brigadier-General Anselem Sanyatwe has threatened to use violent tactics to stop ousted vice-president Joice Mujuru, now People First leader, amid indications the army will be covertly deployed to combat her new movement ahead of the crucial 2018 elections,” reported Zimeye.

“This comes amid disclosures the Joint Operations Command — which brings together army, police and intelligence service chiefs — is now actively in operation tailing, monitoring and battling Mujuru and her allies currently on the ground setting up structures and mobilising people in preparation for the launch of their new party before the end of the year and the 2018 showdown.”

“Zvechisoja zvapera! Chii chirikutora nzvimbo munyika? Handidi kuti munzwe nemakuhwa kana kuverenga mumapepa. Mhuka inonzi Zanu PF ichatonga nyika ino iyi narinhi narinhi kusvika madhongi amera nyanga. Nokudaro pamberi neZanu PF, pamberi naCde Robert Mugabe!, Pasi naJoice Mujuru!

(Professionalism is over and many of you are wondering what is happening in the country. I do not want you to hear through the grapevine or read in the newspapers but the animal called Zanu PF shall rule until donkeys have horns. That is why I am saying forward with Zanu PF! Forward with President Robert Mugabe! Down with Joice Mujuru!),” Sanyatwe said.

This is a nightmare the nation could do without, both Mujuru and Tsvangirai have had amble opportunities to deal with this but failed.

Mai Mujuru was been aware of the existence of JOC, the threatening statements by the security chiefs, etc. for the last 34 years and she never once questioned or condemned any of it. Today she is the one on JOC's "To harass" list and the security personal are trailing her like wild dogs hunting a buck. 

Tsvangirai had five years to implement the reforms that would have forced the disbanding of JOC and these things today she is the one threatened and who have landed Zimbabwe’s Presidential Guard, Brigadier-General Anselem Sanyatwe in jail where he belongs for making such outrageous statements. We knew about this nefarious Mugabe and Zanu PF activities before the GNU and the reason why they were listed in the GPA reforms. The idiot failed to get any of these key reforms implemented and today the nation is being threatened by the same dangers again.

 

Both Mujuru and Tsvangirai have proven beyond doubt to be corrupt and incompetent; how anyone can even consider these idiots suitable to hold any public office let alone the highest office in the land beggars belief! 

 

What hardliners like Sanyatwe are failing to understand is that the greatest threat to Zanu PF’s continued rule is not coming not from Mujuru but the economic meltdown.

 

The economic situation has resulted in so many companies closing throwing more and more worker on the unemployed mountain now standing at a nauseating 90% plus, ZESA is cutting power 18 hours out of 24 hours, all the cities and towns have days without running clean water, 16% of our people are living in abject poverty, the UN report said 1.3 million are facing starvation this year, etc. The situation is set to get worse as long as Mugabe and Zanu PF remain in office.

 

Brigadier-General Anselem Sanyatwe this economic situation is NOT socially or politically sustainable, that means it cannot continue for much longer.

 

It is other the nation will have to accept more and more human suffering or Mugabe and Zanu PF will have to accept regime change. If you think the nation will accept worse and worse economic hardships, human suffering and deaths so that Mugabe and Zanu PF can rule and a select few like yourself can continue to loot and plunder at will then you need to have your head examined.

 

Unless you can rig economic recovery; Mugabe tried and failed. His $27 billion ZimAsset plan was supposed to create 2.2 million new jobs; the plan is long dead in the water, not even his “all weather” Chinese friends were prepared to bankroll the hare-brain scheme. Try “Pasi neEconomic Meltdown!” Brigadier-General, see if that will fill up Kariba Dam, fill Mugabe’s ZimAsset begging bowl, etc. and we will all live happily ever after!

 

Ian Smith and his white rebels were stubborn but they realized the game was up, they gave up. The same cannot be said about Mugabe and his thugs; REGIME CHANGE is written on every wall everywhere they look and yet they continue to hang on to this illusion they will rule the country forever. Mugabe and his thugs cannot read and hence will want to hang on to the bitter end; just like other tyrants like Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein they too failed to read the writing on the wall and wanted to hang on to the bitter end.

 

The Libya and Iraq dictators and many of their cronies had the bitter end they asked for, no doubt Mugabe and his thugs will have their bitter too. What is worrying here is that by dragging the nation deeper and deeper into economic and political chaos, which is what these tyrant do by hanging on to the bitter end, they make it that much more difficult for the nation to recover.

 

Gaddafi and Hussein had their brutal end years ago and yet Libya and Iraq have yet to recover. As similar long, protracted and chaotic recover path may now await Zimbabwe because Mugabe not only destroyed everything but, worse still, stayed in power to the bitter end!

Minister Moyo racially abusing Coltart - hyena abusing the vulture the goat has no business feeling sorry for the vulture!

“Former Education minister David Coltart is a victim of Zanu PF politician Jonathan Moyo’s acerbic rants on social media, which always have racial undertones. President Robert Mugabe does not hide his disdain for people like Coltart and once encouraged his supporters “to drive fear into the white man’s heart,” reported the Standard.

 

Our sympathy for Mr Coltart should not nonetheless blind us from seeing him for the corrupt and incompetent MDC leader he is.

 

Many Zimbabweans who have known David Coltart after independence, held him in very high regard; right up to the watershed July 2013 rigged elections. David Coltart, like all the other MDC leaders in the GNU played his part in doing nothing to implement the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA.

 

To rub hot chilli into the open wound, he was one of the leading MDC leaders who led from the front in the campaign for a yes vote in new constitution referendum. The new constitution was a weak and feeble one, not the democratic constitution the nation was after. MDC desperately needed the new constitution approved because they had little else to show for all their five years in the GNU.

 

Mr Coltart and the other MDC leaders assured the nation repeatedly that the new constitution would deliver free, fair and credible elections. The people believed them and approve the feeble constitution by a whopping 95% yes vote in the March 2013 referendum.

 

By noon of elections day, 31 July 2013, the penny finally dropped as Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders realized that the elections were being rigged and blatantly so too.

Some of the MDC leaders like Sipape Nkomo and Tendai Biti have since admitted that MDC betrayed the nation; Biti called it "collective (act of) idiocy". David Coltart is one of the MDC leaders who have to this day stubbornly refused to acknowledge they are corrupt, incompetent and sell-outs. Indeed they are actively seeking to be re-elected back into power as if they are as innocent as Saint John the Baptist himself!

Right now Zimbabwe is in the middle of devastating political and economic hurricane that has forced unemployment to soar to 90% plus, millions now live in abject poverty and hopeless despair, we have 18 hours a day power cuts, clean running water is a rare treat, etc. Worse still, the situation is set to get a lot worse as long as Zanu PF remains in power.

 

We are not getting out of this mess until we implement the GPA reforms and holding free and fair elections.  Given the country’s feeble constitution and the fact that none of the democratic reforms were implemented (thanks to Mr Coltart and his MDC fiends), it is not going to be easy to get Mugabe and Zanu PF to accept the implementation of the GPA reforms now. Buckle up Zimbabwe, we are in for a long rough ride and only God knows when and how this is going to end!

It should be said loud and clear that this hurricane could and should have been avoided if MDC leaders, including Mr David Coltart, had faithfully implemented the democratic reforms and drafted a democratic constitution. So all those who still prophesy to hold MDC leaders like David Coltart in high regard after they sold-out during the GNU either do not understand the seriousness of betrayal and its catastrophic consequences to the nation and/or they are sentimental fools!

 

Of course any reasonable Zimbabwean would not only condemn Minister Jonathan Moyo racist taunting of Coltart but condemn the Minister for he is the grandfather of all betrayers and sell-outs. Moyo has been one of Mugabe’s most reliable and consistent propagandists and strategists producing one dirty scheme after another which have helped the tyrant stay in power all these years. Moyo has even boasted of his exploits in being the tyrant’s schemer. It takes all sorts!

 

Jonathan Moyo is the type of sell-out who would sell his own mother for a price and be proud he had a mother to sell!

 

Still Jonathan Moyo’s racist taunting of David Coltart, in the grant scheme of things, nothing more that the murderous hyena snapping at the vulture for no other reason than that he alone should be the mid-wife to the goat. Of course the goat wants neither the ravenous hyena nor the gawking vulture for a mid-wife!

Minister says "it is not acceptable that 60% have no electricity. Yes Minister, whatever you say!

“A recent survey by the University of Zimbabwe, shows that of the 13,1 million in Zimbabwe, about eight million or 60 percent have no access to electricity,” Energy and power development minister, Samuel Undenge said in a speech read on his behalf by his ministry’s permanent secretary Partson Mbiriri.

 

“Surely, in this 21st century, we cannot continue to accept and take such situations as the norm,” said the minister.

 

And the remaining 40% with access to electricity their access must be qualified – they are connected to the grid yes but are switched off 18 hours out of 24 hour-day.

 

“ZESA MOTO MUZHINJI!” (ZESA MORE ELECTRICITY!) was the power utility’s slogan when it was formed by bring the various power companies like CAPCO which operated Kariba Hydro Power Stations on the Zambia and Zimbabwe side, Electricity Commission which owned and operated Hwange Power Station, etc. The system was efficient and very reliable.

 

“If it works do not fix it!” one would have said but you tell that to a reasonable man; Mugabe is NOT a reasonable. He passed a law to breakup all the electricity companies to form one big company called ZESA with his brother-in-law, Sydney Gata, (Zimbabwe is Mugabe’s personal property and has always been ruled as a family affair) as its manager complete with the “ZESA MOTO MUZHINJI!” slogan.

 

The one thing ZESA completely failed to do was increase power supply in Zimbabwe; the utility has wasted billions and billions of dollars on dead end projects like Rural Electrification only to have a politician’s house at the end of line hundreds of kilometres long and on the usual corruption and mismanagement.

 

To hear the Minister talk of “this 21st century, we cannot continue to accept and take such situations as the norm” only the naïve and gullible the government is going to actually DO something about the country’s chronic power shortage.

 

We did not get into this situation in the last month or five years; this situation has been a stead state decline that started way back in 1980. And the decay and rot has not only happened in the electricity industry but in every other facet of our lives.

 

Unemployment has soared to 90% plus because companies have closed right, left and centre; that is not the norm in the 21^st century. Cities and towns across the country are failing to supply clean running water, even a big Hospital like Parerenyatwa has had no clean running water; in this day and age.

 

As for the bit “we cannot continue to accept and take such situations as the norm” the “we” refers to Mugabe, himself and the rest of the Zanu PF regime and not any of us povo constituting 90% or so, we have no say in this, never did.

 

Minister Undenge is a seasoned Zanu PF politician schooled in the party’s way of doing things; it has taken decades before the party finally acknowledged there is a power supply problem in the country, that is phase one. Now phase two, the regime will public denounce the shortage and declare that it is not acceptable; as long as the regime talk about the problem it does not have to do anything.

 

As for us povo we are stuck with the situation, of course it is not acceptable that so many people so have no electricity, running water, no formal employment, etc. 16% of our people are living in abject poverty. Zimbabwe has some of the best land for food production and yet 1.3 million are facing starvation right now; we are starving in the Garden of Eden.

 

We are stuck with Mugabe and Zanu PF because we have been denied our freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life itself.

 

“ZANU PF THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE!” that is just another empty slogan just like the ZESA slogan. Mugabe has vowed that there was going to be no regime change in Zimbabwe and has been ruthless in ensuring there was no regime change.

 

In the 2008 presidential run-off the nation was subjected to some frightful scenes of wanton violence, the worse the nation has ever seen, as Mugabe forced the electorate to vote for him. The violence was so blatant and brutal that even SADC and AU election observers, known for their see-nothing, hear-nothing and say-nothing approach to election monitoring, could pretend not to have seen and heard what happen.

 

Zimbabwe’s economic situation is set to get worse not better dragging the nation deeper and deeper into the Dark Ages as long as Zanu PF remains in power. If we, the people, povo, are serious about ending this relentless much into hopelessness and despair then we must demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA. Without the reforms and thus free and fair elections we will never have a meaningful say in the governance of this country.

 

“ZESA MOTO MUZHINJI!”  “MUGABE THE PEOPLE’S CHOICE!” Yeah right!

ERC want electoral reforms "not a threat to anyone" implemented instead of the important GPA reforms!

"As a democracy, we need to grow and the electoral reforms that we are proposing are not a threat to anybody," said Tawanda Chimhini.

"These are recommendations that will open up space for all political actors to get involved in elections, for Zimbabweans to actually fully participate in elections."

It is when one hears this kind of nonsensical talk that one sighs in despair. Our people have been denied this basic and fundamental right to free, fair and credible elections and again and again after years of working hard to corner this hare it has been those supposedly hunting with the people who have allowed it to escape.

“One-man-one-vote!” was the rallying cry before independence yet it was none other than hearing President Mugabe and his Zanu PF who have since then denied the people the meaning vote. The new rallying cry is “One-man-one-vote, only if that vote is for Zanu PF!” in the name of no regime change.

No regime change has served President Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies very well; they have enjoyed 35 years and counting of absolute dictatorial powers and unfettered access to the nation’s resources and wealth. It is the populous who have suffered.

With no one to hold them to account President Mugabe and his cronies have completely destroyed the nation’s economy as mismanagement and corruption grow and spread. President Mugabe has had to resort to brutal political repression and even murder to impose the Zanu PF dictatorship and subdue the restless masses. Millions of Zimbabweans are living in poverty with millions more having left the country as political and/or economic refugees.

So all the fight to end white colonial exploitation and discrimination going back a century and more that culminated with independence in 1980 failed to deliver and guarantee all our people the freedoms and rights including the right to a meaning vote and the right to life. It was President Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies, our liberation war heroes and heroines no less, who connived for selfish political gain to deny the people their basic freedoms and rights.

So the struggle for freedom and human rights and dignity continued. The struggle continues! La lute continue!

In 2008 the struggle reached a new epoch; after one of the most violent elections in the nation’s history, President Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs were forced to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) with a raft of democratic reforms to be implemented which were designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship brick by brick and to build a democratic system in its place.

This time it was Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, who were elected on a ticket to deliver democratic changes, who betrayed the people by failing to implement even one of the reforms in their five years in the GNU. Not one.

Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai et al to kick the reforms into the tall grass and the MDC leaders took the bribes. Of course MDC leaders “sold-out” as Thomas Mapfumo has rightly said on Nehanda Radio a few months ago.

So in 2008, just as happened in 1980, those the people thought were fighting in their corner are the ones who ended up stabbing them in the back. La lutte continue!

Just how long can this nation continue with this “La lutte continue!” “The struggle continues!”

18^th April 1980 should have marked the end of our struggle for freedom and human rights. It did not but only because the people were betrayed. Similarly 31^st July 2013 should have marked the day when all Zimbabweans cast the very first vote in a free, fair and credible elections and had all their other rights and freedoms delivered and guaranteed. So is the next epoch going to finally deliver the free and democratic vote and all the other rights and freedoms? Or will it result in yet another call to implement reforms or realign laws with the constitution?

I sigh in despair because if the nation listens to misguided people like Chimhini we will be back to “La lutte continue!” guaranteed.

Chimhini is not just some Joe Block, he is the director of Election Resource Centre (ERC) and ERC and 17 other local organisation petition parliament against “piecemeal” electoral reforms. The reforms ERC are calling for will NOT deliver free, fair and credible elections and all the other rights and freedoms we have been fighting for all our lives. Chimhini admits as much himself.

The democratic reforms proposed 2008 GPA were a serious threat to Mugabe and Zanu PF because they were designed to dismantle the dictatorship and end the party’s no regime change nonsense. The electoral reforms ERC are calling for (MDC – T has called for the same reforms too) are “not a threat to anybody”, as Tawanda Chimhini has readily admitted himself.

So we are not implementing the 2008 GPA reforms which would have finally delivered and guaranteed the freedoms and democratic and human rights of all Zimbabweans in favour of the watered down electoral law reforms to appease Mugabe and his Zanu PF friends. No wonder we have we are still fighting for the same freedoms and rights we should have secure 35 years ago and are still nowhere securing them!

It is what is politically convenient to Mugabe that is at issue here. It is the need to finally deliver and guarantee the freedoms and democratic and human rights of all Zimbabweans who have been cheated and denied these rights all their lives; that is what is at issue here. We must implement all the democratic reforms in 2008 GPA; that is not negotiable!

Zim is a mess not for lack of self-belief, we are punch-drunk of it especially our silver-back leaders!

Vince it is not so much that “we are caught in a spider’s web of lies about our history, our potential and our future as a country.” But rather that we have spin these lies of super heroes and the nation’s greatness that when things started to go pear-shape we refused to believe the facts. Even today with the nation in a real mess there are some people who still refuse to believe we messed up and need to embrace change; they want us to stay the course confident we can still have the free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe we are all after.

 

"The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities that makes it seem inconceivable that other ways are viable, that removes the sense that there is an outside,” wrote Vince Musewe, quoting Allan David Bloom the American economist.

 

Allan Bloom was spot in his assessment it is your interpretation, Vince, which is wrong. on but if we are to apply his observation to our case then it is important to understand that Mugabe has very successful dragged us into this hell-on-earth these last 35 years by convincing us that we were on the right path and we will pull through if we remain united and focused. We have not looked for other ways or possibilities because we were convinced we were on the right path already.

 

“The archaic paradigm of victimhood which accepts that we as Zimbabweans are incapable of creating our own prosperity and cannot create self-sustaining economy despite the fact that we have all the necessary knowledge base spread all over the world and the necessary resources to do so must be rejected and expunged from our minds,” you are argued.

 

This is exactly what Mugabe has been saying all these years; are you sure you did not up lift this rhetoric from one of Mugabe’s UN speeches. You blame our failure to create the prosperous Zimbabwe on Mugabe and he blames the “sanctions imposed by evil British imperialists and their allies”.

 

In his recent speech to the UN a few days ago Mugabe said Africa did not need hand-outs from donors or the West in its development quest and Zimbabwe would have achieved her development goals if it was not for the “illegal sanctions imposed by the West”!

 

Of course it is not because of the sanctions that we are in this economic mess just as it is nonsense to blame the West’s hand-outs for Africa’s backwardness. We are in this mess because we have created this lie that we can do anything only if we believe we can. When you hold such a strong view, over compensating for the years of being made to feel we are inferior to the whites, you back yourself into a corner.

 

Zimbabwe is in this economic mess because of three and half decades of mismanagement and corruption we have instinctive recoiled from acknowledging this because to do so was tantamount to acknowledging that we are fallible and thus inferior.

 

It is this absolutism that is behind Mugabe’s imposition of this de facto one-party state and his unshaking determination to remain president for life – he believes he alone KNOWS what is best for the country absolutely no question. So imposing a one-party state becomes natural in the circumstances.

 

Tsvangirai has already proven to be corrupt and incompetent but that has not done nothing to shake his own belief in his own capabilities and infallibility hence the reason why he has disregarded the party’s own constitution to extend his stay as MDC leader beyond the fixed maximum of two terms.

 

“We must now create a paradigm that says that our country Zimbabwe has all it requires to create trillion dollar economy within 30 years at the most. We must also believe that we can shape a self-sustaining inclusive economy with full employment without relying aid on the West, or the East for that matter, to determine what we can become. We must stop being slaves to the self-serving political rhetoric or to international capital. We can control our destiny as a country if only we believe,” you with the absolutism of a tyrant who know-all the answers.

 

We are in this political and economic mess not because people have been “blinded by the unceasing rhetoric and propaganda of the Zanu-PF machinery” into believing there is no future beyond the present the party is offering.

 

“The Zimbabwe we wish to build is grand and in my opinion, we continue to be limited only by our imagination and belief.  That must change,” argued Vince.

If there is one thing this nation have never lacked for the last 35 years it is imagination and self-belief; especial our national leaders they have been punch-drunk.

 

Even with the national economy in the doldrums caused economic mismanagement and corruption and the country up to its eyes in debt because of decades misrule under his leadership; that did not stop Mugabe producing his 2013 $ 27 billion ZimAsset economic recovery plan with promises to create 2.2 million new jobs. It should be remembered that the regime was not getting any financial assistances from anyone at the time, not even from its “all-weather friend” the Chinese, because it had failed to service it $10 billion foreign debt. Still the regime was confident it would raise the necessary funds.

 

Of course Mugabe failed to raise the money for ZimAsset and the regime has failed to create any new job but has been losing jobs instead as more and more companies have closed. Even now with ZimAsset dead in the water Mugabe still talks of the plan beaming with confidence as if he only has to snap his fingers and the plan will be back on track!

 

As if not to be out done Morgan Tsvangirai and the laid-back Joice Mujuru have each produced their economic blue-prints for Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and prosperity called JUICE and BUILD respectively. The two release their plans accompanied by some prolonged chest drumming normally associated with silver-back gorillas to underline their self-confidence and self-belief.

 

Tsvangirai would have done better is he had listened to all those, including SADC Heads of State, who advised him to implemented the democratic reforms agreed in the GPA; at least the nation would have had its first free, fair and credible elections in July 2013. He did not listen; a silver-back in the middle of its macho display does not listen to chattering monkeys.

 

The nation’s military success in the war of independence has left everyone beaming with self-confidence and self-believe especial Mugabe and his fellow war heroes and heroines; they really do not believe there is anything they cannot do. They won the war and ended white colonial exploitation and racial discrimination but at great price. We have become one of cockiest nation on earth because after defeating the whites we have become absolutely certain that there nothing we cannot do. Nothing!

 

We can talk about mismanagement and corruption being the cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown until we are all blue in the face; Mugabe and many of his Zanu PF friends will never believe a word. They believe it is the “illegal sanctions imposed by the British imperialist and their Western allies” that has done all the damage. To spice up their story further still; Mugabe has said the sanctions were imposed to achieve regime change. What makes all these hen’s teeth stories “believable” is that Mugabe is a war hero who is so cocksure of himself and there is his war record to “prove” he is an extra-ordinary hero who can do anything!

 

India’s first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru recognized the danger a cocky self-assured war hero can be to a nation. 

 

“What kind of leaders would an armed struggle throw up?” asked Nehru of his fellow Congress Party leaders when the question arose whether or not the party should abandon the Mahatma Gandhi’s none violence passive resistance route in favour of an armed struggle to end British rule of India. “Are they the kind of leaders we would want to rule our country?”

 

We in Zimbabwe throw caution to the wind and went for fully fledged and bloody armed struggle. We defeated the white colonialist but at a great price – the war throw up the cocky tyrants who believe they know best and consider being held to account in a free and democratic election an insult, the leaders Nehru warned about!

 

Even those who did not fight in the war of independence have copied Mugabe’s arrogant autocratic leadership style. Tsvangirai has changed his party’s constitution to extend his stay as leader beyond the original fixed two terms confident he is the only person competent to lead MDC. He following Mugabe’s example who has remained his party’s leader for 35 years and counting, he has rigged both national and Zanu PF elections because he believes he is the only person competent of leading the nation regardless of his track record of economic ruin and brutal oppression!

 

I too believe Zimbabwe has the potential to be a great nation and what has dragged us backwards into the Dark Ages for the last 35 years is not the lack of “imagination and self-belief”, as you think Vince. We have a political system that has allowed corrupt and incompetent tyrants to stay in power even when they have become so dopy they read the same speech twice. That is what is wrong here.

 

What we need to do is implement ALL the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA so that we have free, fair and credible elections. The lack of democratic accountability has made our current crop of leaders cocky and punch-drunk on absolute power; for the good of the nation, that must end.

 

Yes implement the same democratic reforms that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to get even one reform implemented in five years in the GNU because they are corrupt and incompetent. The same Tsvangirai you have been doing you best to promote as a potential president of this nation! He is corrupt and incompetent and has already failed to get even one reform implemented; what part of corrupt and incompetent do you not understand Vince!?