“Former Zanu-PF bigwig, Temba Mliswa, has predicted the
opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will once again win the 2018 elections even
if he does not reach an electoral pact with former Vice President Joice Mujuru,”
reported the Daily News.
“At the same time, and
with Zanu-PF drowning from its seemingly unstoppable factional and unstoppable
wars, Tsvangirai himself is taking advantage of the mindless bloodletting in
the governing party, traversing its former strongholds around the country with
little interruption.
Yes Zanu PF is imploding but only a naïve and conceited individual
like Temba Mliswa would jump to the conclusion that means Tsvangirai and MDC
electoral victory. In 2013 Tsvangirai made a similar miscalculation with
disastrous consequences for us all. We must not allow pretentious people like
Mliswa raise our hopes again of democratic change and of finally getting us out
of this political and economic hell-hole only to be disappointed yet again.
Tsvangirai was confident of winning the 2013 elections; so confident,
he did not implement even one democratic reform agreed in the 2008 GPA. Even
when SADC leaders warned him and his fellow MDC leaders not to take part in the
elections with no reforms, they paid no heed. As we now know, Mugabe went on to
blatantly rig the July 2013 elections; landing us all in this nightmare
scenario where we are still stuck with an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging
and murderous regime and, having wasted the GNU chance to end the dictatorship,
are at a loss what to do now to remove it from power.
Tsvangirai has since admitted that MDC did not implement the
reforms because the party had the majority of the voters behind it to guarantee
them victory regardless of Zanu PF vote rigging “shenanigans”. Since 2013 MDC-T
has lost a lot of support following the party’s poor showing and its own in
house fighting and dividing. None of the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF
rigging the elections have been implemented since the rigged July 2013
elections.
So Mliswa predicts a Tsvangirai victory in the 2018
elections regardless the fact MDC-T has lost many of its supporters and, more
tellingly, nothing has been done to stop Zanu PF blatantly rigging the
elections as happened in 2013. Tsvangirai is a spent force and Mliswa is just a
naïve and conceited person talking nonsense!
Mugabe is renowned for promoting idiots it has been his
strategy for staying in power all these years; he has insisted there was no one
competent to takeover and, looking at Simon Muzenda, Joice Mujuru, Emmerson
Mnangagwa, Didymus Mutasa etc., who would argue. Sadly these idiots sometimes
get big headed and they start to think their elevated position in the party was
a reflection of their competence; Mliswa is one of these big headed Zanu PF “bigwigs”
masquerading as political gurus saying a lot but most of it nonsense.
Zimbabwe wasted a golden opportunity to bring about
meaningful democratic reform and free and fair elections in 2013 by failing to
implement the democratic reforms necessary for these changes. Tsvangirai did
not implement the reform because he foolishly believed he would win the
elections without the reforms.
Since the rigged July 2013 elections, over two and half
years ago now, the country has still done nothing to implement the reforms. We have
not yet agreed on the need to revisit the GPA reforms (Tsvangirai and others
are still wittering about electoral law reforms which are inadequate and will
accomplish nothing), on the mechanism to implement all the GPA reforms, etc.
and we have less than two and half years before the next elections in 2018.
It will be an unforgivable act of national folly if we go
into the 2018 elections still with no democratic reforms implemented on the
basis of a fool like Temba Mliswa’s prediction that Tsvangirai will win these
elections regardless!
If the next elections are not free, fair and credible then every thinking Zimbabwean must hang their head in shame: after 38 years of our independence we are still failing to ensure we hold free and fair elections. No wonder the country is in a big mess; we are so incompetent we cannot get even the elementary stuff right!
ReplyDeleteThe Greeks figured out the democratic fomula 2 500 years ago and we cannot even copy it from others 2 500 years later. The real question is are we capable of learning anything of value, capable of self government?
Dear Mr Geoffrey Nyarota, this is one of the best, informative contributions I have read in the last decade. It is a great pity you have not be able to make more such contributions given that Zimbabwean are not the most ardent readers. 1% of the Zimbabweans, at best, will read this and so by writing 10 articles, say one hopes that 5% of the population will read at least one of the articles.
ReplyDeleteI know, Zimbabwe always boast of being one of the most literate nation in Africa; we chaining out over 50 000 university graduates and PHD graduate (some after 3 months’ registration). Sadly, most of them can read and write but parrot style; many do not know what a verb is! They know they cannot get a job but they have no clue why because they hardly ever read anything beyond the gossip, sports or fashion pages. But to go back to your article!
I agree with you that “grand coalitions no silver bullet for electoral victory over Zanu-PF” particularly when the coalitions are being together by the same incompetent and corrupt leaders of yester-parties.
Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti and all the other MDC leaders failed to get even one democratic reform implemented during the GNU because they are incompetent and corrupt. Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa and the rest in ZPF sat there like cabbages for 34 years whilst Mugabe destroyed this nation’s economy and terrorize the people. Instead of putting our hands up and admit we, the electorate, messed up in having elected such useless men and women in the first place and thus redoubling our efforts in the search for competent leaders; we compound our problem by recycling the same useless leaders.
The willingness of people like Tsvangirai and Biti to work with people like Mutasa and Sibanda, whose hands are red with blood on innocent MDC supporters, shows that all they really care about is getting back on the gravy train. If they do not care how they get there, they will not care how they retain their seat on the gravy train either and so we will have removed one dictator only to replace him with another dictator.
A grand coalition of recycle incompetent and corrupt leader will never get this nation out of this political and economic hell-hole.
Removing Mugabe but doing nothing to dismantle the dictatorship will help ease the pain but will not cure the broken, the dictatorship. There is a lot more to the dictatorship than Mugabe; just as there is a lot more to a broken leg than the pain. We need to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship and not just focus on removing Mugabe from State House.