"Seek ye first the political kingdom," said Nkrumah - the one thing Zanu PF want us to forget P Guramatunhu

In his classical tale Animal Farm, George Orwell has the witty and sharp –shooter, the pig Squealer, telling the other animals black is white today and the exact opposite tomorrow and the latter believe him. Orwell had modelled his book on real life under a totalitarian dictatorship. Zimbabwe is a totalitarian dictatorship, two weeks ago one dictator was forced to resign and a new one was sworn in a week later. President Mnangagwa has his own witty sharp-shooter in the name of Christopher Mutsvangwa, he has certain hit the ground running.

“We cannot have a country of people without any purpose because the economy is not providing them with opportunities which they want. The focus of the President, immediately, is how to revive this economy. That is where his attention is focused on,” he told a Zanu PF Mashonaland West provincial coordinating committee meeting, according to State media. 

No doubt the State Media now have several teams follow Mutsvangwa everywhere he goes and give everything he says or does prime-time coverage. (I have send a copy of this article to both the Herald and Chronicle, knowing fully well the email will be deleted on receipt and trash emptied. The place is crawling with CIOs masquerading as journalists and they all live in constant fear of their colleagues telling the powers-that-be that they were working for regime change – a crime worse than high treason.) 

  

“The route which we have taken is the route of wealth, the route of money, prosperity and building a model African country, which no other African has ever done. The route of having an economy that grows at a rate of 10, 15, 20 per cent per annum for the next 10 to 20 years,” said Mutsvangwa. 

This is just a repeat of what the deposed President Robert Mugabe and the rest of the Zanu PF leadership including Mutsvangwa and Mnangagwa had said soon after independence. “Gutsa ruzhinji!” (Mass prosperity!) the nation was told then. Today Zimbabwe is the poorest nation on earth with unemployment soaring to the nauseating height of 90%. 72.3% of our people are living on US$ 1.00 or less a day. 

So, instead of mass prosperity the nation got mass poverty. 

It is not that the people of Zimbabwe did not know the root cause of the country’s economic decline, we did. It was the gross mismanagement and the rampant corruption brought about by the Zanu PF political patronage system spawned by Mugabe and the Zanu PF dictatorship. The political patronage system’s primary task was to help Mugabe establish and retain the de facto one-party dictatorship at all cost. The economic decline was one of the costs but well worth the price, as far as Mugabe and his cronies were concerned. 

Zimbabwe’s economic decline was caused by the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption in the first instance but these have been allowed to grow and spread to the life-threatening cancerous tumours they are total because for 37 years the nation could not do anything to end the mismanagement and corruption. Zanu PF rigged elections to stay in power and as long as the party remained in office the regime stop the dismantling of the patronage system that helped it to remain in power.

For the last 20 years, the nation has turned its attention from dealing with the economic problems to address the political problem of the dictatorship itself. Until we found ways to stop Zanu PF rigging elections, there was no hope of the regime dismantling the system it has created to keep it in power. Implementing democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections has become the clarion call.

“Leave our President alone. Give him a chance. He means well for Zimbabwe and the people of Zimbabwe are solidly behind him. Please do not try him before he has even started. Don’t condemn him before he has even started,” pleaded the passionate Mutsvangwa. 

“I am saying this because all the papers have started attacking the new President. He is being judged in 37 hours more than someone who has been in power for 37 years.”

If the truth be told Special Advisor Mutsvangwa, President Mnangagwa and 99.99% of his administration have been in the Zanu PF government and/or dictatorship for donkey years. Mnangagwa himself has been Mugabe’s right hand man and chief enforcer for 37 years and it is therefore a nonsense this Mnangagwa administration to pretend it had nothing to do with the disastrous failures of the last 37 years. Worse still, this administration cannot disown the Zanu PF dictatorship but only as a cover for doing nothing to dismantle it.

As Mutsvangwa himself readily admitted President Mnangagwa is focusing all his time and energy on the economy and has never ever said anything about implementing the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. Mr Mutsvangwa just supposing Mnangagwa fails to deliver on his promise of making Zimbabwe “a model African country” just as Mugabe before him failed to deliver “gutsa ruzhinji”, with no guaranteed free, fair and credible elections we will once again be stuck with him until another putsch force him to resign. 

President Mnangagwa can continue in his efforts to revive the economy, we all welcome that. But there is no excuse why he cannot implement the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair elections. 

Indeed, the economic measure to end mismanagement and corruption are best done by a regime with popular electoral mandate of the people and not by a regime whose political base is totally dependent on the men and women behind the mismanagement and corruption. 

No Mr Mutsvangwa you can plead all you want for the people to focus on the economic issues as the important issues of our time we know that Zimbabwe is in this economic mess because the nation failed to remove Mugabe and his dictatorial regime even when it was clear it was corrupt, incompetent vote rigging and oppressive. Removing Mugabe but only to replace him with Mnangagwa and fail to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship itself means the corruption, etc. will continue. 

“Seek ye first the political kingdom and all else shall be added unto you,” said Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s first post –independence president.

What he meant was simple and clear enough; it is only when the people have a meaningful political say that they can force those in power to share out the economic wealth fairly. Before independence Mugabe and his cronies sort to wrestle political power from the white. But as soon as they were in power they have usurped the ordinary people’s political power to hold the regime to account. 

Zimbabweans are today back to where we were before independence fighting for a meaningful say in the governance of the country as the first step to securing our other political freedoms and economic rights. 

Comrade Mutsvangwa, Mnangagwa and the rest in the Zanu PF dictatorship are doing their best to convince us that we do not need free and fair elections because they have our economic interests at heart. After 37 years of ruinous misrule, we would be very foolish to fall for that empty promise again. We must seek political reforms, free and fair elections and the economic prosperity will follow.

  

So, President Mnangagwa the model African country we want is one in which the freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and the right to life of all the citizens, not just a select few, a guaranteed. Only a democratic Zimbabwe as contrast to the corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical dictatorship in power now, has any hope of economic prosperity. 

We demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms to ensure free and fair elections; this is not negotiable!

Zimbabwe can be Singapore says Gono - not with "EDNomics" in a pariah State Wilbert Mukori

We all welcome praise but not from every quarter because praise from certain quarters is but a curse. Here is a typical example of praise from the wrong quarter.

“President Emmerson Mnangagwa's inauguration speech was in a class of its own in terms of vision, strategy and content,” started an article from Dr Gideon Gono.

Nonsense! President Mnangagwa’s inauguration speech was one of the worse speeches in human history it lacked any cohesion and was full of contradiction. With Zimbabwe in total economic meltdown with unemployment a nauseating 90% and 72.3% of the people living on US$ 1.00 or less per day; even he could not deny the country was in a mess due to “errors of commission or omission”.

“I implore you all to declare that NEVER AGAIN should the circumstances that have put Zimbabwe in an unfavourable position be allowed to recur or overshadow its prospects. We must work together, you, me, all of us who make up this Nation,” said Mnangagwa, in a determined effort to break from the past.

“This is a formidable head-start we draw from our past, a plinth upon which to build developments in the present and to erect hopes for the future,” he continued, clearly being dragged back into the past as if by some invisible dark force.

“Fellow Zimbabweans, as we chart our way forward, we must accept that our challenges as a nation emanate in part from the manner in which we have managed our politics, both nationally and internationally, leading to circumstances in which our country has undeservedly been perceived or classified as a pariah State.” The dark force had won.

Of course, Zimbabwe is a pariah State ruled by incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs whose greed for absolute power and the influence and wealth it brings is insatiable. All President Mnangagwa has done so far is pay lip service to “democracy” and “new era” but failed has failed to do anything to show his willingness to implement the democratic reforms.

Former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, among other International leaders, reminded President Mnangagwa of the need to ensure next year’s elections are free, fair and credible. They can see that Zanu PF has changed its figure head but otherwise nothing else has changed. They are concerned it is business as usual with the pariah State!

President Mnangagwa’s recent cabinet appointments is full of individuals who believe that those who fought in the liberation war are the only one fit to rule Zimbabwe, hence the reason why they have a veto whilst the rest of us have a vote! The cabinet is now dominated by the individuals who have been central to the establishment and retaining of the de facto one-party state dictatorship that has ridden roughshod over the people’s freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair election and even the right to life itself.

The right, not privilege, of every citizen to a meaningful say in the governance of the country is at the very heart of good governance because it is the only effective way of holding the governing accountable to the governed. If the ruled cannot dismiss, which is what a meaningful vote does, the rulers then what else is there to stop the latter doing as they please?

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s seemingly intractable political chaos and economic meltdown can all be trace back to the nation’s failure to reform Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs from office even when the nation had the overwhelming evidence the regime was corrupt, incompetent and oppressive. The greatest “error of commission and omission” Zimbabwe has made repeatedly in the last 37 years was its failure to hold free, fair and credible elections.

Zimbabwe will accomplish nothing, I repeat, nothing of any substance until we hold free and fair elections and end this foolishness of those in power rigging elections to extend their stay in power.

There is nothing in President Mnangagwa’s speech or actions since his swearing in that would make anyone believe he going to embrace democratic change. Only an idiot can see vision where there is no such thing!

“The President showed a clear, firm grasp of economics with his dose of what I would call "EDNomics", proudly showing the world that here is a new Zimbabwe that is ready and open for business,” continue Dr Gideon Gono.

What “new Zimbabwe” is he wittering about? No one with even half a brain would be fooled into believe Zimbabwe has lost its pariah state status just by removing one dictator and replacing him with another. The real world works on well-established and understood economic principles grounded on political stability and not the usual voodoo economics formulated by same corrupt and incompetent political thugs of yesterday.

“I particularly liked the Dengism philosophy which he merged with his appeal to investors to come from all corners of the world,” came the EDNomic explaination .

“Now that is pragmatism in the mould of China's former leader, Deng Xiaoping, who upon assuming leadership of China in the 1970s declared: "I do not care the colour of the cat, black or white … so long as it catches mice!"

“China's illustrious growth today owes its genesis and greatness to that statement.

“I was particularly pleased, too, that the President mentioned special economic zones, promising to accelerate their establishment countrywide "in order to attract investment and generate increased exports, jobs and stimulate economic growth".

“That statement alone, together with everything else he said, will get this economy flying to double digit growth rates with potential to propel this country to the levels of the likes of Singapore, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea and others in a very short space of time given our natural resources and literacy levels.”

Somethings never change! Mugabe appointed Gono the Czar of Zimbabwe’s economic zones, part of the regime’s ZimAsset policy which was supposed to create 2.2 million new jobs but only created two jobs for Mugabe’s daughter and her husband. The Zanu PF’s corrupt and incompetent fat cats have not caught any mice for 37 years and they are not going to catch any.

Talk of Zanu PF’s corrupt and incompetent fat cats, Gideon Gono is one of the heavy weights. Gono will be remembered as the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor who presided over the country money printing crazy fuelling inflation to 500 billion per cent. Gono and his Zanu PF ruling elite made huge fortunes but at the cost of bankrupting the nation. Gonomics!

“What I'm saying is that it is not just the economic issues that I and many others listened to, but also, the political and social dimensions of the President's speech,” continued the shameless cannery singing for its supper.

“I'm sure even President Mugabe himself must have been very proud of his mentee and successor regardless of the circumstances. I know he was.

“I particularly like the new President's brand of EDNomics, EDPolitics and EDPlomacy.”

Take it ease of the sauce governor; President Mnangagwa knows Mugabe appointed you Czar of the Special Economic Zones and you are desperate to hold on to your post.

Singapore, South Korea, etc. have all prospered because the hold free, fair and credible elections which have forced each successive government to produce sound economic policies. Zimbabwe has the potential to be as prosperous as Singapore but has, instead, sunk to the bottom. We are the poorest nation on earth! All because we are stuck with this Zanu PF regime with its voodoo Gonomics  or EDNomics for 37 years.

If Zimbabwe fails to hold free, fair and credible elections next year; this is a certainty, given the elections will be held with not even one democratic reform in place; the country will still be a pariah State. A pariah Zimbabwe pursuing the same Gonomics renamed EDNomics of the last 37 years will not deliver the economic recovery the nation is dying for. Never!

Boris Johnson add his voice to clarion call for free elections in Zimbabwe

Britain could extend financial support to Zimbabwe to help stabilize its economy and clear its debts with international lenders but such support will be linked to ‘democratic progress, UK Foreign secretary Boris Johnson has said.

“Those are indeed the things that we would try to do to help Zimbabwe forward, but we’ve got to see how the democratic process unfolds,” Johnson said on Wednesday on the side lines of an African Union-EU summit in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
“I am encouraged by President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s words so far (promising democratic change). For as long as the President acts on his words, then Britain is willing to work alongside him and offer all the support we can.”

Only the other day former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan was saying a similar thing.

“The only legitimate and sustainable way out of the Zimbabwe crisis is through elections with integrity in 2018,” he warned.

“The political crisis in Zimbabwe is not yet resolved. The enthusiastic crowds who marched in the streets of Zimbabwe’s major cities … were demanding freedom, not just a change of leadership.”

It is pleasing to see that there is a clear understanding that the departure of Robert Mugabe, after some roughing up at gun-point, does not change anything. The tyrant was the head of an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous regime his departure does not mean these things will stop because the same thugs who carried out these things at the behest of the tyrant are the ones still in government. The cabal has chosen Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s right hand man and chief enforcer, as Mugabe’s successor; underlining that it is business as usual!

Until there is meaningful democratic reforms followed by free, fair and credible elections Zimbabwe will never get out of the political and economic mess Mugabe landed us in. Only a democratically elected government will have the mandate and political will to dismantle deeply entrenched political culture of political patronage behind the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption; the two cancers behind the country’s economic meltdown. It is therefore pleasing to note the growing consensus that nothing of substance can ever be accomplished in Zimbabwe until the country implements the democratic reforms paving the way for free and fair elections!

President Mnangagwa the clarion call is simple, loud and clear “HOLD FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS!”