Mnangagwa's King Charles III photo-opportunity has turned into his coup de grace W Mukori

 President Emmerson Mnangagwa is a man on a mission to get international acceptance as a great statesman. So, he was thrilled to bits when he received an official invitation to attend King Charles III’s coronation. A chance to hobnob with world leaders was, per se, a public endorsement that he too is a world leaders. 

If only he had known what Commonwealth Secretary General, Patricia Scotland, would say; he would have given the chance a miss!

“Pleased to welcome the President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa to Marlborough House for a courtesy call. The President and I discussed a range of issues, including Zimbabwe’s ongoing application to re-join Commonwealth and reaffirmed the commitment to the values of the Commonwealth,” said Scotland in a tweet.

Last year Zanu PF went on a diplomatic charm offensive to get other African countries to support Zimbabwe’s application to be readmitted into the Commonwealth. The party was using the rejoining of the club as a platform to demand the lifting of sanctions imposed by the West on the regime. But most important of all, Zanu PF would have seen the readmission as proof the regime can rig the 2023 elections and still get political legitimacy.

The Commonwealth was not going to deny Zanu PF political legitimacy after readmitting Zimbabwe a few months earlier knowing fully well the regime was set to rigging the 2023. A Commonwealth endorsement would have given SADC leaders, most of whom are in the Commonwealth too, the country to grant Zanu PF legitimacy too. 

The Commonwealth rejected Zimbabwe’s 2018 application to be readmit into the club because Zanu PF failed to hold free, fair and credible elections that year. Secretary General Scotland’s tweet was the equivalent of the Headmaster pointing two fingers at his eyes and then at the misbehaving student in public - “I have my eyes on you!”

Whilst is the past SADC leaders have turned a blind eye to Zanu PF vote rigging and granted the regime political legitimacy regardless. The regional body will be loather to do the same again this time when Zimbabwe has been on the international spotlight over the vast wealth amassed by Mugabe’s wife and daughter. 

The recent Al Jazeera Gold Mafia has proven beyond all doubt that corruption is the main cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown, not sanctions as the regime has often claimed. The documentary has revealed President Mnangagwa as just a just and ruthless buffoon, not the statesman he pretends to be. 

SADC leaders know they cannot endorse another Zanu PF rigged elections and grant Mnangagwa political legitimacy without calling into question their own commitment to democracy and good governance. 

There is a group photograph of the crowned King Charles III with Commonwealth Heads of State and Government who attended the 6 May 2023 coronation. President Mnangagwa is conspicuous with his absence from the group photo. 

“President Mnangagwa is the one taking the photo!” suggested one, mockingly. 

Mnangagwa was thrilled to attend King Charles III’s coronation, he saw it as a chance to hobnob with fellow world leaders with countless photo opportunities. Little did he know, given half a chance they will shun him just to remind he is not really statesman, he is not one of them!

Bona Mugabe alone got 21 farms whilst the landless peasants, supposed beneficiaries of Land redistribution, got nothing W Mukori

 If you asked most Zimbabweans out there today what the war of independence was about; most of them will say, “Land!” 

Before independence the major would have said “One man, one vote!” but all political rights were kicked into the tail grass by Mugabe and his Zanu PF friends. They did not trust the people to vote them into power and so they made it clear in 1980 that if the party did not win the election the bush war would continue. Naturally, the people voted to end the war. 

It was only in the late 1990s that the land issue took centre stage. By then the country’s once robust economy was now in serious trouble; the two decades of reckless spending on social welfare such as schools and health care but worst of all on political patronage to pamper his party loyalists was simply unsustainable. By the late 1990s Mugabe had no wealth to dish out, especially to his ever demanding but wasteful party loyalists, and so he turned to the one resource the nation still had in great abundance - land. 

The worsen economic situation made the populous restless for meaningful political change and increasing popularity of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition, launched in 1999, was no surprise. 

Mugabe’s first clash with MDC was over the Zanu PF proposed 2000 new constitution in which the party’s notable give away was seizing land from white farmers to accelerate the black resettlement of programmes. MDC campaign for the rejection of the new constitution on the grounds it was not democratic. Zanu PF lost the referendum. 

Zanu PF’s response to referendum defeat was to politicise the land issue by making land redistribution its flagship policy for the next two decades. The party accused the MDC, the white farmers and all it’s critics, especially the British and their western allies, of conspiring to frustrate land redistribution from the whites to the black majority. 

The land issue always flared up during elections in the form of blacks, mostly war veterans and Zanu PF youths invading white owned farms accompanied headline grabbing gratuitous violence. The violence would spread to target MDC’s supporters who were accused of seeking regime change to end and reverse the farm seizures!

In the early years of the white farm invasions Zanu PF insisted the seized farms were to resettle the landless peasants in the overcrowded rural areas. The rural areas are still overcrowded to this day because very few peasants were ever resettled. 

The Zanu PF ruling elite and their cronies were allocated the seized farms. “All blacks are entitled to land, under one person one farm!” the party announced. 

After a few years it again became clear that some of the leaders had more than one farm. The latest information I had was that the late Robert Mugabe, his wife, daughter and two sons had 13 farms between them. Now I realise I had been misinformed. 

Bona, Mugabe’s daughter, is divorcing her husband and the couple have 21 farms, 17 cars including a Rolls Royce worth US$ 800 000, 21 residential properties including a mansion in Dubai worth US$8 million plus a lot more besides. 

So, Bona and her husband alone have 21 farms, nearly twice as many farms as the 13 the whole Mugabe family was rumoured to have. 

It is a well documented historic fact that Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector collapsed, with it the economy, soon after the start of the farm seizures in 2000. The new farm owners, the Zanu PF ruling elite and the cronies, failed to maintain the productivity of the disposed white farmers. 

Zimbabwe had prided herself as the breadbasket of the region before the farm seizures not only lost that acclaim but has often relied on food aid - so economic impoverish we could not even pay for it. Zimbabwe is, for all practical purposes, the Biblical Garden of Eden. We are starving in the Garden of Eden, a damning testimonial to failed leadership. 

Zimbabwe has had the great misfortune of being led by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who for the last 43 years and counting. The Zanu PF thugs have rigged elections denying the people a meaningful say in the governance of the govern for the last 43 years and counting.

The nation has had many opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship in the 43 years since the country’s independence in 1980. The best chances coming during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and sadly these too were wasted. Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who were entrusted the task of implementing the democratic reforms failed to get even one token reform implemented. 

Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with the trappings of high office, the ministerial limo, the generous salary and allowances, a US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. And in return, the MDC leaders forgot about implementing the reforms. 

The recent Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary shows how President Mnangagwa, who had no more white owned farms to seize and give again, has been looting the nation’s gold. We know the wholesale looting is happening with other resources such as diamonds and lithium. 

It is no secret that Mnangagwa is filthy rich and so would be his wife and children. Rumour has it that Mnangagwa has a mansion in Dubai too. It is no wonder these Zanu PF thugs have been rigging elections and have even committed mass murders just to stay in power; when there is so much wealth to be amassed, giving up power is simply unthinkable.

Still, the nation must bite the bullet and demand the reforms and free elections because the present political system in which the few have grown filthy rich at the expense of millions forced to live in abject poverty is unsustainable. Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections we must make sure the regime does not get political legitimacy. We need a new GNU only this time, we must see to it that the democratic reforms are implemented. 

"Agenda must be written by Africans for Africans!" For Zanu PF it's to rig 2023 and again get legitimacy regardless! W Mukori

 "We are confronted by wars which are sure to remake the global order as we have known it until now. Africa must jealously guard against her interests and position in the unfolding global drama. We are no one's underdog and we should not be drawn into foreign wars as proxies of any power or combatant," said VP Constantino Chiwenga at the official opening of Connect Africa Symposium.

"Gone are the days when foreign powers come to our meetings and try to override our own agendas. No. The agenda must be written by Africans for Africans. We see repeated attempts of (forcing) Africa into answering to issues that are peripheral to its interests.

 "That must end. We also see attempts by bigger powers to fight over our resources which they want to control and to detect partnerships for us. We know our interests. We do not need to be lectured through hypocrisy.

"We must put our foot down as a continent, look to ourselves and assess partnerships for how well they serve us now and in future. That is the Africa we want and seek to build.”

We know what Zanu PF’s agenda is, it has not change ever since the country gained her independence in 1980 - to establish a de facto one-party dictatorship and retain absolute power at all costs. 

President Mnangagwa has mounted a protracted campaign portraying his regime as the victim of the British and her fellow western allies’ white colonial empiricism ambitions. The accusation that the sanctions impose on the country was the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown was gaining traction. Many African leaders had called for the lifting of the sanctions against Zimbabwe at UN General Assembly last September. SADC leaders had gone as far declaring 25 October as anti-sanctions day. 

In November last year South Africa’s ruling ANC made a party resolution “never to allow regime change in Zimbabwe”. As far as President Cyril Ramaphosa and his party were concerned the any regime change in Zimbabwe was being initiated by the sanctions and nothing else. 

The four part Zimbabwe: Gold Mafia documentary on Al Jazeera has reveal how Zimbabwe was losing US$ 1.6 billion or 80% of her US$2 billion gold per year to gold smuggling. This constitutes nearly 6% of the country’s US$28 billion GPD. Corruption is rampant in diamonds, lithium, platinum and in other areas such as procurement of fuel and medicine. 

Even the most optimistic guesstimate of the losses brought by sanctions have put the figure at a few million dollars per year nowhere near the US$1.6 billion per year in gold smuggling alone! Mnangagwa knows the Al Jazeera documentary has just shot down his sanctions balloon. 

President Cyril Ramaphosa may still try to endorse rigged 2023 elections and grant Zanu PF legitimacy, as before, but even he knows he will be helping to prop up a corrupt, tyrannical and vote rigging regime. No one will buy the sanctions hen’s teeth excuse. 

What is more, the people of South Africa will be forced to sit up and take note: if ANC is condoning vote rigging in Zimbabwe, what is there to stop the party rigging SA elections? 

President Mnangagwa is concerned about rigging the 2023 elections but being denied political legitimacy because the process is judged to be flawed and illegal. He is so concerned about that, he is seriously considering denying the EU, Commonwealth, Americans and all certain to condemn the flawed process, election observer status. 

All this anti-foreign powers interfering in Africa’s affair, we are  “no one’s underdog” rhetoric, etc. is preemptive strike to justify the decision to deny the western nation election observer status and reports condemn the election as a farce. 

Anyone who has been paying attentions to Zimbabwe these last 43 years will tell you they saw this coming! Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs who would rather burn down the house than give up power particularly now they are addicted to absolute power and all the influence and wealth it has brought. 

During India’s struggle for home rule, Mahatma Gandhi and his fellow Indian nationalist leaders resisted the temptation to wage an armed struggle. “What kind of leaders will an armed struggle throw up?” they asked. “Will those be men and women we would want to rule India?”

In Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies Zimbabwe’s armed struggle has provided the world with the answers to worse case scenario of what Gandhi and company feared! It is fair to say Zimbabwe end white colonial rule in 1980 only to replace the white oppressor with the black ones. 

Blacks did not have a meaningful vote before independence, now they are frogmarched to vote. Any whites who point out the meaningless change are dismissed as hypocrites.  And any blacks who demand free and fair elections are ruthless silenced under the pretext they are puppets promoting their white masters' regime change agenda.

Zanu PF turned the guns used to defeat the white colonial government on the people they were supposed to liberate to impose themselves as the new rulers. They had the means, the guns, to make the country ungovernable if they did not get what they wanted and they have held the nation to ransom ever since. Of course, we are tuck!

"Your vote matters!" said Obama. Only selective amnesia: politics (Sapo) sufferers believe it's true in Zimbabwe too! W Mukori

Zimbabweans suffer from selective amnesia, a peculiar variant that affects their political thinking. I will call it selective amnesia Zimbabwe Politics variant or ZiPo for short.  what I would call

Amnesia

“Amnesia is a general term describing memory loss. Symptoms include memory loss, confusion and the inability to recognise familiar faces or places. Some of the causes of temporary amnesia include concussion, severe illness and high fever, emotional stress, some drugs and electroconvulsive therapy,” Google definition.

Selective Amnesia

That is easy, it is a type of amnesia in which the sufferer loses only certain parts of their memory. 

Some wise guy posted a video of former USA President Barack Obama with the caption “If I hear anybody say their vote does not matter!” It was a recording from two years ago. Press the play button and what followed is a persuasive and impassioned plea for people to go out and vote!

“You cannot compare Zimbabwe elections to American elections; one is cough syrup the other is rat poison. In America you vote matters because the process is free, fair and credible. In Zimbabwe the elections are rigged; your participation is only important in helping the regime maintain the lie the process is free and fair,” came the first response.

“Democracy is on the ballot!” came the reply, quoting President Obama.

“For America, yes. Not Zimbabwe! You are suffering from selective amnesia!”

For the sake brevity I will just jump back to some definitions.

When it comes to elections Zimbabweans suffer from selective amnesia: Politics variant.

Selective Amnesia; Politics (Sapo) variant

It is a type of amnesia in which the sufferer loses memory of what flaws, irregularities and illegalities that rendered the past elections undemocratic, null and void. Their memory reverts to everything one would expect if the elections was free, fair and credible. This is the preferred default position because it is the cosy comfort zone, for obvious reasons.

If you accept the last election was rigged then you have to answer the difficult question of “What have you done to make sure the present elections are not going to be rigged too?” The question looms large and even more menacing when you know Zimbabwe has never ever held free, fair and credible elections ever since the country’s independence 43 years ago. When there is a mountain of evidence already that Zanu PF is rigging these elections.

You can well imagine the interchange that followed:

“Progress is on the ballot!”

“Sapo!”

“Justice is on the ballot!”

“Sapo!”

Nelson Chamisa and his fellow CCC leaders are hell bent on participating in these elections. Of course, they know Zanu PF has rigged elections in the past and is rigging these elections. If anyone is suffering from Sapo, they are and, more significantly, they know it.

“My name is not on the ballot, but progress is on the ballot!”

“Rubbish! Zimbabwe is sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss because we have lacked the common sense to admit Zanu PF is rigging elections and the political will to implement the democratic reforms and stop the rigging.”

Cure for selective amnesia

Treatment involves creating a safe, comfortable space that will allow memories to return. In some cases, doctors will recommend hypnosis and psychotherapy. Most individuals with dissociative amnesia recover their memories once their amnesia resolves.

Cure for selective amnesia: Politics variant

The truth is Nelson Chamisa and his MDC/CCC friends have never lost their memory, their political will to implement even one token reforms during the GNU, for example, evaporated into thin air when Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They have often complained of rigged elections but that was only to please their supporters. CCC will never implement the reforms and deliver free and fair elections; they wasted the golden chance to do so during the GNU, it is naïve to expect them to do so now.

Chamisa and his CCC friends are participating in these flawed elections out of greed and their supporters are doing so out of ignorance and/or fear. There is no cure for greed other than the gullible supporters finally opening their eyes and realise they are being conned. The cure for ignorance and fear is education, education and education!

"Boycotting 2023 elections is not a CCC option!" Neither was implementing reforms during the GNU; nothing has changed. W Mukori

 Let us agree on one thing from the onset: Zimbabwe’s 2023 elections are NOT going to be free, fair and credible. Not even one token democratic reform was implemented since the last elections in 2018 and so many of the flaws and illegalities pointed out in 2018 will be repeated this year.

“Notably, major shortcomings in the pre-election environment impacted on the free expression of the will of electors, state resources were misused in favour of the incumbent and coverage by state media was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party,” stated the EU Election Observer Mission final report.

“Further, the electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign.

“As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards,” concluded the report.

The EU Observer Mission was 246-man strong. The report included 23 recommendations to bring Zimbabwe elections to international standards. Not even one of the recommendations has seen the light of day and so many of the shortcomings that can be observed now such as the biased public media, the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll, etc. are still there.

It is not that Zimbabwe’s opposition politician do not accept that the elections are flawed and/or fail to see the sheer futility of participating in such elections. They do understand all these things.

 “Look, you can't keep on participating in flawed electoral processes that serve to give big benefits to dictators such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has perfected the art of winning elections. So it will be very foolish for the opposition to continue legitimizing these sham elections which don't deliver. This country will go through a serious economic crisis in 2020 caused by Zanu PF. And yet, this is the only country where a government doesn't perform, it is encouraged by a super majority in parliament,” acknowledged Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.

“So, you can't continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed.”

Biti was the MDC-T Minister of finance during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and is one of the three Vice Presidents in the Nelson Chamisa led CCC. He is certainly one of the heavy weights in Zimbabwe opposition politics.

Contrary to his own strongly expressed view not to drag the nation through those futile elections, raising the people’s hopes of changed only to see their hopes crushed, he and his opposition colleagues participated in the 2018. Zanu PF rigged those elections and the peoples’ hopes and spirits were crushed. The opposition is hell bent on participating in these 2023 elections as Nelson Chamisa has once again reiterated.

“Zimbabwe's main opposition leader has insisted that his party is ready to participate in forthcoming elections, despite the rigging and repression he said was already under way to keep President Emmerson Mnangagwa in power,” reported Bulawayo24/FT.

“Chamisa, 45, dismissed calls for a boycott of the August vote, despite widespread doubts over the process's credibility. "We will not allow Zanu-PF to have a free lunch, we will not allow dictatorship to have a free rein. We have to fight for change and we must give citizens the right to choose their leadership," Chamisa said.

"Surrender is not an option . . . boycotting ourselves is not an option."

It was David Coltart who was honest enough to admit the real reason why MDC/CCC leaders will never boycott elections even when it was the “obvious thing to do” is greed.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” confessed Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

David Coltart is another opposition heavy weight. He was an MDC-N minister of education throughout the GNU and is the Treasurer General of CCC.

Nelson Chamisa and his MDC/CCC friends’ political careers are riddled through and through with corruption, betrayal, contradictions, rhetoric and denials! They have been a curse and not a blessing to the nation and their continued meddling in the nation’s affairs is a cancer second only to the Zanu PF cancer.  

There four tenets of the rule of law, specifically as regards the laws pertaining to free, fair and credible elections, which Chamisa and his friends are ignored but the consequence of their folly cannot be ignored:

1)     Elections must be free, fair and credible or the process and results are meaningless. It is Zimbabwe’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections which is the root cause of the country being label a pariah state. The political and economic consequences of this is the dictatorship and the failed state. These elections are already disputed elections by virtue the process being flawed and illegal. And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, there will be no meaningful economic recovery and the political paralysis will remain.

 

2)     Chamisa and company are insisting on participating in these elections regardless of all the flaws, illegalities and violence for whatever reasons, stated or denied, and thus accept the power and authority of those officiating in these elections. The consequence is that CCC must accept the results as annunciated by ZEC. Chamisa and company have been warned the process is flawed and must be reformed before elections and they freely chose to disregard the warning. They cannot therefore reject the results just because they were not declared the winner. By participating they will have given the process credibility and the results legitimacy; these cannot be withheld or withdrawn afterwards, its too late.

 

3)     Of course, it is this iron clad guarantee that the opposition will participate in these elections come what may that has given Zanu PF the confidence to ignore demands for reforms and free elections. It there is no punishment for breaking the law then there is no motive for upholding the law especially when there is everything to be gained by breaking the law.

 

MDC leaders failed to implement even one token democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU because Mugabe bribed them with the trapping of high office. What the MDC/CCC leaders have done since including the stubborn insistence on participating in flawed elections makes sense when viewed in the light of the treasonous betrayal during the GNU. By abandoning reforms and free elections and fostering that position on the nation CCC are denying this nation hope of free, fair and credible elections and with it hope of good governance. What right does CCC have in denying the people hope?

"It's dumb to boycott elections with Mwonzora lurking!" So thought the greedy rat and VHAMBU! W Mukori

 

“It is stupid to think Zanu PF will reform itself out of power. It is also dumb stupid to suggest boycotting of elections when Mwonzora is lurking in the shadows to fill that void,” shot Osama23. Shooting from the hip!  

It is indeed stupid to expect Zanu PF to reform itself out of office hence the reason the people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC/CCC for the express purpose of implementing the reforms. If I have said this once, I have said it 100 times today alone!

If you think it is dumb stupid “to suggest boycotting of elections when Mwonzora is lurking in the shadows to fill that void”. It is even worse to participate in the flawed election to stop Mwonzora winning the few gravy train seats because the principal beneficiary here is Zanu PF who set the trap.

A rat on it’s own will avoid a trap. Introduce the competition and the rat throws all caution to the wind. It doesn’t matter how many other dead rats it has seen caught in the trap, all it is thinking about is “If I don’t get that nut quick, some other rat will!” VHAMBU!

Mnangagwa is a buffoon, the recent Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary proved that point beyond all reasonable doubt, still he, just like Mugabe before him, understands that Zimbabwe’s opposition leaders are as greedy and reckless as competing rats.

Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections took place when the country was facing its worst ever economic meltdown; inflation was a nauseating 500 billion %, the economy had all but collapse, unemployment had soared to 90% plus, etc., etc. The people were restless for meaningful political change, as one might well imagine! Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies resorted to blatant cheating and wanton violence to retain their iron grip on political power.

However, the cheating and wanton violence were so outrageous that not even SADC and AU, who had always turned a blind eye to Zanu PF rigged elections in the past, could endorse the 2008 elections as a legitimate process. Mugabe was forced to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) agreeing to the need for Zimbabwe to implement the raft of democratic reforms designed to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free elections.

Properly implemented the reforms would have stopped Zanu PF rigging future elections.

The task of implementing the reforms were left to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends for the obvious reason – Zanu PF would never reform itself out of power.

Alas! MDC leaders took their eyes off the ball, and they failed to implement even one token reform in five years of the GNU. Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the ministerial E-class Mercedes Benz, the generous salaries and allowances, the US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. In return the MDC leaders throw the reforms out of the window. Not even one token reform was implemented in five years!

So, Zanu PF emerged out of the 2008 to 2013 GNU with all the party’s dictatorial powers including the carte blanche powers to rig elections. The party was careful to ensure it gave up a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate in the election no matter how flawed and illegal the process got. Zanu PF needs to maintain the multi-party democracy façade to avoid SADC dismissing the election as a farce as happened in 2008.

Mnangagwa has spiced up the opposition bait by creating POLAD a political body composed of the losing presidential candidates who publicly endorsed the 2018 elections as free, fair and credible and endorsed him as the legitimately elected president. They were rewarded with a new car each plus other freebies.

I once taught an adult education “O” level Mathematic class. It was hard work. And soon realised that for many of the students it was mission impossible because, forget doing form one and two, they had not completed grade seven. How can anyone comprehend the complexities of trigonometry when they have not mastered simple Arithmetic!     

Similarly, if one has failed to understand the democratic reforms are and that MDC leaders sold out big time by failing to implement even one reform during the GNU, this is primary school stuff. It is naïve to expect them to comprehend the futility of participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuating the dictatorship.

Nelson Chamisa and the few of his CCC friends who win the few gravy train seats on offer as bait benefit. Douglas Mwonzora and Lovemore Madhuku and the rest in the opposition camp benefit too from the POLAD freebies. The real big losers here are the ordinary Zimbabweans who are paying dearly for the consequences of 43 years and counting of Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical rule. Explaining all this to Osama23 is a complete waste of time, it is teaching University stuff to a grade one!

Osama23 is blissfully content participating in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating his/her own suffering just to stop Mwonzora winning any gravy train seats on offer as bait. He/she will not stop Mnangawa giving Mwonzora the POLAD freebies.

If Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance had boycotted the 2018 elections, for example, it is rich to argue that SADC and AU would not have noticed. The opposition boycott would have been even more effective is they had done so in 2013 because it was none other than SADC leaders themselves who had proposed a boycott. But, again explaining all this to Osama23 is a waste of time, it is all water off a buck’s back.

Of course, the POLAD freebies are a small price for Mnangagwa to pay for the guaranteed participation in the flawed elections of Chamisa, his supporters and all the misguided Osama23s out there.

If I had to name one reason why Zanu PF has ridden roughshod over this nation then it must hubris. Hubris in the form of greed and breath-taking incompetence on the part of the MDC/CCC leaders. Naivety and ignorance on the part of the populous; the stubborn ignorance of people like Osama23 who think they know when in fact they don’t know.

Zanu PF is rigging 2023 and CCC is participating out of greed. Even the mentally challenged must know this. W Mukori

 

“You should be ashamed of yourself! How can you keep attacking Nelson Chamisa and his CCC party? They are the only hope for Zimbabwe!” came the caustic attack.

How naïve!

In my article, I had said Zanu PF was rigging the 2023 elections and Chamisa and company knew the election was flawed, knew that by participating they were giving Zanu PF legitimacy and were participating regardless out of greed.

When I reminded the attacker that what I said was based on what David Coltart’s confession, admitting the same things. “David Coltart was wrong and I should not be quoting him!” Came the reply.

Tendai Biti is one other senior MDC/CCC leader who has admitted on the futility of participating in these elections without first implementing the reforms. “Look, you can't keep on participating in flawed electoral processes that serve to give big benefits to dictators such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has perfected the art of winning elections,” said Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.

“So, you can't continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed.”

Indeed, SADC leaders wanted the 2013 Elections postponed to allow time for the implementation of the reforms and warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friend of the folly of participating with no reforms.

“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza, Director of SAPES, told Journalist Violet Gonda.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws.

“And after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

Yeah! But why blame MDC/CCC leaders alone for the GNU’s failure to implement any reforms, the critic argued. After all, Zanu PF and MDC were partners in the GNU.

The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to election MDC/CCC leaders into power on the understanding they would implement the needed democratic changes to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, as the party’s name implied. The people did not risk all to elect MDC leaders to implement reforms only to expect Zanu PF to perform the task.

Nelson Chamisa and his MDC/CCC friends have not only failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform in 23 years, 5 of which in the GNU, but worst of all they are participating in flawed elections to perpetuate the dictatorship out of selfish greed. It is the duty of every rational person out there to hold MDC/CCC leaders to account for selling out.

Besides, those who have failed to condemn MDC/CCC leaders for and continued to give them the political support are just as guilty of giving Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuating the dictatorship. Whilst Chamisa and company are participating out of greed they are doing so out of ignorance, in this case, born out of the stubborn refusal to face facts.

Zanu PF is blatantly rigging the 2023 elections. The party has, once again, failed to produce a verified voters’ roll, denied 3 million in the diaspora the vote, is squandering US$ billions bribing officials to rig the elections and bribing the opposition to participate no matter flawed the process, etc., etc.

We, the ordinary citizens cannot stop the elections going ahead, not this late in the process. What we can do is make sure that Zanu PF, CCC and SADC (whose endorsing and granting legitimacy is key) know we condemn this election process because it is flawed, condemn CCC for participating out of greed and demand that Zanu PF is deny political legitimacy.  

We, the people, can agree to disagree on many things but cannot afford to disagree of this fundamental point that Zanu PF is rigging these 2023 elections and that participating is to give Zanu PF legitimacy is insane! With the nation in serious economic and political trouble precisely because for 43 years we have failed to deal with this curse of rigged elections and bad governance; are we going to fail ourselves yet again.

Coltart and his MDC/CCC friends have betrayed the nation in failing to implement the democratic reforms and in refraining from participating in the flawed elections until reforms were implemented. Greed got the better of them and rules the roost. Still, his confession that boycotting the flawed elections until reforms are implemented was spot on in 2013 and is still spot on now.

"The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn't now do the obvious - withdraw from the (2013) elections," confessed Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

"The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

2023, JUST LIKE 2013 AND 2018, ELECTION PROCESS IS SO FLAWED PARTICIPATING WILL ONLY GIVE ZANU PF LEGITIMACY. DOING SO, IS INSANE!

The writing is on the wall and will be shouted out from the rooftops. So that this time not even the mentally challenged will say they did not know Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections and CCC is participating out of greed.