Wednesday 25 January 2017

Zim PF fail to justify contesting flawed elections - POWER First factor rules the roost. By W Mukori

Joice Mujuru and 150 of her follow Zim PF bigwigs were booted out of Zanu PF in 2014, they formed their own party and, after 34 years of absolute power and a life of leisure on Zimbabwe’s infamous gravy train for the ruling elite, they are desperate to get back on the train.

Mai Mujuru admitted a few months ago that many of her ex-Zanu PF are sick and dying of stress. As members of the Zanu PF ruling elite they had lived all these years in their bubble well insulated from the economic rigor of the worsen economic situation the rest of us faced. Poverty is stressful, I know it because I am poor and I am stressed! So, I am not surprised Mai Mujuru and company are stressed now that they are poor. What makes their situation a lot harder for them is their economic fortune have dropped very rapidly, they did not have the time to acclimatise!

It is therefore no exaggeration to say Mai Mujuru et al are absolutely desperate to get back on the gravy train and the luxuries and comforts it offers. This is why she has said Zim PF will contest the 2018 no matter what.

"To all our supporters in Zimbabwe and in the Diaspora, friends and other opposition parties, I would like to assure you that we are committed to democratic elections. We will contest the forthcoming elections regardless of the prevailing conditions," she said referring to the catalogue of vote buying, intimidation and threats by Zanu PF in the Bikita West by-elections.

The by-election underline just how flawed the election process has become and how utterly helpless the opposition is in stopping the vote rigging. The pressure on Zim PF to boycott the elections in mounting; it is the obvious course of action here.  The party is scrapping the bottom of the barrel is desperate effort to justify why they should contest the elections.

"If you look at that statement, she says the party supports democratic processes. Democratic processes by nature should be nothing short of an electoral environment that is free from intimidation, violence, coercion and where all existing rigging apparatus that Zanu-PF uses at every election is non-existent," explained Gift Nyandoro, Mai Mujuru’s spokesman.

"But I want to state categorially that our party's position is very clear: Boycotting is not an option. If that discourse (on a possible boycott) were to crop up at some point before the elections, we will cross the bridge when we come to it. We hope all opposition parties are not going to connive to give the ruling party the satisfaction of a walkover in the general elections."

Common sense, I have learnt, is not as common as the phase implies!

Zim PF took part in the Bikita West by-election and that did not stop Zanu PF blatantly rigged the vote and “walkover” the electorate’s rights to free, fair and credible vote in Bikita West. Worse still, by participating in the by-election “regardless of the prevailing conditions” the Zim PF candidate and all the other opposition candidate have granted the election process the modicum of democratic legitimacy. These are historic facts that Zim PF cannot deny!

Zim PF’s argument that they are promoting democracy by giving democratic legitimacy to an undemocratic and fraudulent electoral process is nonsense. We have a vote rigging, corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship, we are not going to transform it into a health democracy by pretending that it is a health democracy holding free and fair elections. We must demand the implementation of all democratic reforms design to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections.

Zim PF knows that during national elections Zanu PF will allow the opposition to win some seat, it helps in maintaining the façade of a democratic contest. It is these seats that Zim PF are hoping to win and alleviate their poverty induced stress.

Zanu PF is the biggest winner here, since it gets to win the lion’s share of the political seat and thus maintain its strangle hold on absolute power and all the influence and wealth it brings. The opposition politicians who win the few seats will be overjoyed to be on the gravy train. The biggest losers here are the ordinary Zimbabweans whose lives under this corrupt and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship has been hell-on-earth.

Mai Mujuru should spare us all the platitude about being the champion of democracy and putting people first. She is a Zanu PF thug who played her assign role in the vote rigging, intimidation, etc. for 34 years and would still be playing it if she had not been booted out.

Her blind determination to contest next year’s elections just to get back on the gravy train regardless of the setback that causes to the nation’s struggle for free, fair and credible elections, is what one would expect from a Zanu PF thug in all but name. Zim PF people are putting power first, is what PF stand for – forget their cheap rhetorical gimmick of “people first”! 

8 comments:

  1. I do not see Mai Mujuru boycotting the elections thou, she is a Zanu PF thug and flawed electoral processes, flawed thinking and flawed everything is the only world she knows. The world of reason, logic free and fair elections will be strange and confusing to her; she will certainly never win a seat in parliament given her rotten record.

    It does not matter how blatantly Zanu PF rigs the elections Mai Mujuru will contest the elections; it is in her political interest to maintain the corrupt and flaw electoral system at all cost! It is for this reason that Zanu PF has cut her some slack already, she has not been taken to the cleaners over the millions of dollars she and her late husband squirrelled away during her Zanu PF years.

    Whilst all the other opposition parties are stone broke, ZimPF will have some of the Mujuru fortune to help them a half decent electoral campaign! This is why Tsvangirai is keen to form a coalition with Mai Mujuru, a marriage of convenience to a rich widow is a clever move if you are broke!

    If we are ever going to get meaningful change in Zimbabwe then the people have to realise that people like Joice Mujuru, Morgan Tsvangirai are not helping us achieve that goal but are, instead, holding us back for their own selfish reasons!

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  2. Allowing the opposition to win some seats in parliament and encourage them to contest elections is an old and tested dirty trick and it works; Zanu PF has never had any problem attracting opposition to contest elections no matter how bad the vote rigging happens to be. Charges of vote rigging will not stick as long as they can point out the presence of opposition members in parliament who won the same disputed elections.

    Ian Smith pointed out to the presence of a few hand-pick black MPs, the likes of Chief Chirau, Chief Ndiweni, the late Thomas Zawaira, etc. as proof that blacks in Rhodesia had a voice. Of course, the MPs were full of themselves and never tired of how they were changing the country for the good. Ian Smith saw to it that they had the rooftop to crow from and their nebulous diatribe about there being no need to continue the war of liberation was given wide coverage
    and publicity.

    We all know that these blacks were no more than goat mascot in an army regiment; it can be promoted to Sergeant Major and showed with praise and decoration, it will never be entrusted with any real power and authority because it is still a goat!

    It is totally unacceptable that the majority of people should continue to be denied a meaningful vote and to be herded with cattle to vote for someone they detest. The few opposition leaders the regime allows to go through are so powerless and ineffective at changing anything they are mascot in all but name.

    Zimbabwe’s electoral system is corrupt to the core and need a complete overhaul; we must implement all the democratic reforms without further delay. It is to be expected that the regime will all its usurped power and authority to resist change and the mascots opposition will, in their egotistic foolishness, resist change too on the grounds that they are changing the system.

    Like it or not, Morgan Tsvangirai and Joice Mujuru will never bring about democratic change in Zimbabwe no more than Ndiweni and Chirau could deliver one-man one-vote in Rhodesia. The first pair have already wasted the golden opportunities to bring change and it is naive to think they will do any better if they had another chance. We must get the reforms implemented and stop wasting time on guess work and wishful thinking.

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  3. Most Zimbabweans came to the conclusion years ago that there will be no meaningful economic recovery as long as Zanu PF remains in power. The regime is still in power and the economy has continued to get worse and worse; there is no surprise there. What pisses off every thinking
    Zimbabwean out there is that we have failed to end Zanu PF's corrupt and tyrannical rule because of MDC's breath-taking incompetence!

    We had our best chance to end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the GNU when all MDC had to do was implement the democratic reforms. They had five years to do so but still failed to implement even one reform. Not one!

    MDC leaders like Obert Gutu are rubbing salt and hot chilli in our eyes by talking about how bad the economic situation is when they are the ones who betrayed us by failing to implement the reforms. They have their eyes on the coming elections and hope the people will forget of their betrayal and vote MDC back into power.

    Voter beware! A leopard does not lose its spots because it was caught in the rain, so too do sell-outs. Just because MDC leaders were thrown off the gravy train last time does not mean they will not betray the nation again if they ever got back into power!

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  4. "Shoko harivhikwi!" (The truth can never be denied!) Of course President Mugabe is a frail old man whose physical and mental state is feeble and should not be holding high office!

    Of course Zanu PF leaders are cowards who have allowed Mugabe to bully them and treat them like naughty grade one kids all these 37 years. It is mind boggling that even with President Mugabe half-dead already these Zanu PF thugs can still not muster the courage to tell him to go.

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  5. The mental blockade that there cannot be anyone else to lead other than the current leader, regardless how corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless he/she has already proven to be, is a serious problem in Zimbabwe. Zanu PF are stuck with Mugabe, MDC with Tsvangirai and now Zapu with Dabengwa. What a shame!

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  6. If Mai Mujuru does not mind being cheated as happened when she was booted out of Zanu PF, that is her own affair. What she must understand is Zanu PF is cheating the ordinary Zimbabweans even more that they are cheating the contestants when it comes to national elections. Whereas the contestants walk away after the elections and do whatever it is they had dropped to contest the elections.

    The ordinary people have to suffer the intimidation, beating, threats and even murders during the campaign period. Sometimes the harassment continue after the elections. Then there is the consequences of bad governance; the country is facing economic meltdown and political paralysis because of 37 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship.

    Contesting elections for the sake of the few seats that Zanu PF allow the opposition to win is not going to help the ordinary people who have been stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical de facto one-party dictatorship for 37 years. The nation needs regime change and not just to tinker around replacing one opposition candidate with another whilst the Zanu PF regime remains in power untouched.

    Free, fair and credible elections is not just a nice human right to have and exercise, in Zimbabwe it is now the defining political change that will determine whether the country is going to recover economically or continue to sink into the abyss.

    By participating in flawed elections, the opposition politicians are fighting for the selfish advantage of a seat on the gravy train and they will never accomplish anything of substance because the system is corrupted to delivered a pro Zanu PF government that is not accountable to the people in any way. It is unacceptable that a few opposition politicians should continue to give credibility to a flawed system for selfish gain and at the expense of the nation at large.

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  7. “In 2013 a coalition of opposition parties flopped ahead of general elections which ZANU won overwhelmingly largely because opposition parties could not agree on basic fundamentals of an alliance which included nominating a single presidential candidate to challenge Mugabe,” wrote Divine Dube. 

    It is self-evident, you must be desperate to find justification for the formation of this grand coalition because you are now resorting to telling lies. President Mugabe did not win the 2013 elections because the opposition failed to come up with “a single presidential candidate”. President Mugabe had 62% of the vote so the single opposition candidate would have 38% and still lost.

    President Mugabe rigged the 2013 elections in that nearly one million, mainly opposition supporters, failed to vote because their data was deliberately posted in the wrong constituency and they did not know this because the regime refuse to make the voters’ roll public. Zanu PF supporters, on the other hand, were bussed from one polling station to the next to vote at each station.

    For the umpteenth time, Divine Dube, Zanu PF “won” the 2013 elections because it was able to blatantly rig the vote. The regime use intimidation, threat and vote buying to rig and win the Bikita West by-election a week ago. When are you going to wake up and accept that Zanu PF rigs elections and unless we implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop vote rigging Zanu PF will rig and win the 2018 elections, regardless of whether the opposition form the coalition or not!

    Zanu PF has been rigging elections for the last 37 years and some people bury their heads in the sand and pretend not to notice because they do not want to confront Zanu PF on implementing reforms! No doubt Dube will be admit the elections were rigged afterwards, they always do, and pretend they did not know Zanu PF rigs elections! What a circus clown! No wonder the country is in a mess!

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  8. @R M Simango

    President Mugabe has politicised ZEC, the Police, Judiciary, etc. and appointed individuals the run these institution who will help him deliver his long cherished goal of no regime change. Yes it would be necessary for free, fair and credible elections to appoint professionals with humility and integrity to run ZEC, the Police, etc. but President Mugabe, who has sole power and authority to do so, will never appoint anyone like that and undermine his cherished goal.

    If you want a professionally managed ZEC then we must implement the democratic reforms designed to break the undemocratic control Zanu PF has over ZEC.

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