Wednesday 12 October 2016

Makarau can register herself in the black-box BVS we want reforms implemented. By P Guramatunhu

Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau, announced on Monday, with the usual fun-fare, that the country will be using the new biometric voting system. The Zanu PF propaganda machine has taken up the challenge to present the new system as the one cure for all the country’s many teething problems of political violence and vote rigging; from hence forth we will have free, fair and credible election!
“Zimbabweans should take seriously what the ZEC Chairperson, Justice Rita Makarau said when she clearly said that the new registration of voters was likely to commence in May 2017 and the biometric roll would be polling station-based,” wrote Kazamula Matilaya (Bulawayo 24 Opinion).
“So those who have been crying foul and alleging that there have been some double voting in the country would be rest assured that nothing of that sought would be talked about. The fact that voter registration would be polling station based means there would be no chances of one voting twice. So ZEC should be held with high esteem for coming up with such reforms which would put to rest misconception that had been within some voters in which they thought one can vote twice.”
There WAS double voting in the July 2013 elections; we all saw the YouTube videos of hooded Zanu PF youths who were bussed to vote in Mount Pleasant area, for example. When they were asked where in Mount Pleasant they lived, they could not even name one street in the area. Neither ZEC nor Police even bothered to make even token follow-up investigations of the many reported cases of double voting or any of the other vote rigging irregularities.
Justice Makarau and now the Zanu PF cheer-leaders are making a mountain out of a mole hill of the fact the new system being “polling station based” as if that makes impossible for anyone to tamper with. Nonsense! In 2013 the hooded Zanu PF youths were allowed to vote at different polling stations on production of voter registration receipts showing they had registered late to be in the voters roll; what is there to stop the regime doing the same again in 2018, for example?
Matilaya, Makarau, Register General Tobai Mudede right up to President Mugabe himself, they all know that replacing the old voter registration and the voters roll with the new biometric system will do nothing to address the country’s endemic political culture of violence and vote rigging which has made holding free, fair and credible elections impossible. If this country is to end this corrosive culture then we must implement the democratic reforms so that state institutions like ZEC and ZRP will carry out their respective duties of delivering free and fair elections and maintaining law and order. And never again turn a blind eye to blatant vote rigging by bussed in supporters voting in one polling station to the next.
“Now the opposition political parties which have always been finding faults where there was none in the old voters roll should now join ZEC in making sure that the new voter registration exercise is successful by encouraging their people to register for 2018 harmonized elections,” concluded Matilaya.

The overwhelming majority of Zimbabweans have no clue how Zanu PF has systematically denied them their freedoms and basic rights including the right to a meaningful vote. The regime has turned the whole electoral process into a smokes and mirrors mystery, by introducing the new biometric system the regime is only upgrading its vote rigging system into a black-box mystery which only the experts can decode. The people many not understand how elections are rigged but that is not to say they do not know they are being cheated out of their right to one-man-one-vote, the carrion cry in the fight to end white colonial oppression.

It is heart breaking that now nearly forty years after independence our people are still being cheated out of their freedoms, rights, hopes, dreams and of their very humanity and, to make matters worse, it is none other than those who claim to have liberated the nation from white colonial oppression, their own flesh and blood, who are cheating them. As justice would have it, by cheating the masses President Mugabe and his cronies have cheated themselves too

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic hell-hole today, the economic meltdown affects us all even the ruling elite including President Mugabe himself whose own party is imploding into his face; because the 36 years blundering mistakes have finally come home to roost in their millions, like red-billed quelea. We have known about the blundering mistakes of mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness for years but could not do anything to correct them because by rigging elections Mugabe denied the nation the only effective way of effecting meaningful political and economic change.

Here is our ticket out of this hell-hole – implement the democratic reforms to ensure free and fair elections. God knows this nation is in this hell-hole because of the decades of corrupt and tyrannical rule; this nation is dying, literally, for good and competent government. Implement the democratic reforms and this nation will have taken its first step out of the hell-hole President Mugabe and his cronies and apologists have dragged us into!


Zimbabweans must ignore the call to register as voters on the new biometric system because it will not stop the culture of political violence and vote rigging; let Rita Makarau play alone with her new toy. We must demand the implementation of meaningful democratic reforms nothing less nothing more!

4 comments:

  1. President Robert Mugabe's ruling Zanu-PF, whose stone broke government is struggling to pay civil servants their salaries and keep social services tickling, is to spend tens of millions of scarce dollars to buy 480 top of the range off road vehicles to be used in the party's campaigns ahead of the eagerly anticipated 2018 national elections.

    When it comes to money for even the most basic national needs like medicine, clean running water, etc. the Zanu PF regime has no money but when it comes to paying NIKUV, buying Zanu PF candidates new vehicles, paying the hired crowd to attend rallies, etc. Zanu PF is loaded!

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  2. "Robert Mugabe has never contested a political office in his party or country and won. In his party Zanu PF since 1977, he has been ENDORSED and not elected and in 1980 he was endorsed by the British and since then he has manipulated the outcomes using various methods ranging from tribalism, patronage, violence, fear and genocide," he said.

    "Given his track record of gross abuse of human rights it would be fool hard for anyone to believe one day those criminals in Zanu PF would handover power to anybody because they have lost an election when they control Zec and subsequently face prosecution for a myriad of political and criminal offences committed in office since 1980."

    Siwela said people must think outside the box and whether they agree with him or not he wish to say that power the departure of Robert Mugabe would be characterized by violence that would grip the whole country and inevitably lead to the birth of The Republic of Matebeleland.

    I agree with you totally that President Mugabe has never ever contested and won a free, fair and credible elections be it in his own party Zanu PF or at national level.

    However I totally reject that the only way to end this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe rule is “by violence that would grip the whole country and inevitably lead to the birth of The Republic of Matebeleland”. Zimbabwe could have implemented the democratic reforms during the GNU which would have resulted in free, fair and credible elections and the demise of the Mugabe dictatorship. The trouble with Siwela and others like him is they have failed to understand what the GNU was about and thus failed to appreciate the opportunities it offered.

    We can still implement the democratic reforms and have free and fair elections as proposed by Ibbo Mandaza and his group. Again people like Siwela have failed to see the opportunity and seize it.

    Whilst we can all rightly blame Mugabe and his cronies for the tragic events of Gukurahundi; if this nation is dragged into another blood civil war then it is not Mugabe who will be blamed but those like Siwela who are fanning that war. Siwela and his friends are using the Gukurahundi massacre as cover to justify a tribal war and breakup of the country.

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  3. Jonathan Moyo is corrupt but is smart enough to have a lot of dirty on others including the President himself. If Moyo goes down he will never go down alone, of that we can be sure!

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  4. @ Gugugu

    I agree the NTA is the GNU by the back door but what of it? The most important thing to remember here is that the present system of the Zanu PF dictatorship is not working and unless we implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle it we are stuck with the dictatorship. The 2008 to 2013 GNU was meant to dismantle the dictatorship but MDC failed to implement even one reform in five years because Tsvangirai and friends are corrupt and incompetent. Of course if we had had competent leaders they would have implemented the reforms and we would not be stuck in this hell.

    We need to end the Zanu PF dictatorship on that there can be no debate. The peaceful way out is to implement the democratic reforms. We cannot trust the same corrupt and incompetent MDC or any one of the equally incompetent and corrupt opposition to do this much less trust Zanu PF. We need a body of competent men and women to implement the reforms you can call the body NTA, or GNU by the back door, that is immaterial.

    The most important task for the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the democratic reforms so we can have free, fair and credible elections.That task was not carried out and still needs to be carried out. We are right to be disappointed with the GNU but we should be clear that we are disappointed with it because it failed to deliver free and fair elections. We still want the reforms implemented because we still want free and fair elections.

    If Ibbo Mandaza is not suitable to play an role in the NTA, then let us find some one else. To throw away the idea of NTA because we do not like Mandaza is childish!

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