It has been years, over ten years including the wasted GNU years, in coming but finally it here – MDC has finally admitted it is foolish to contest election without implementing the reforms.
“Chances are if we go for elections in 2018, the plebiscite will be so massively rigged in favour of the incumbent ruling party to such an extent that no right-thinking person will term the election free and fair,” said MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu.
Not even a month ago, Gutu was the one boosting that the party had devised “Winning In Rigged Elections, WIRE for short, strategies guaranteed to deliver opposition victory. Of course, if you have strategies to deal with all the vote rigging shenanigans, you do not worry about the vote being rigged!
Sadly, it was all MDC hot air as the on-going BVR exercise showed. Some of us pointing out that the very fact that the voter registration was only starting with less that a year before voting day meaning ZEC will not be able to register the 7 million expected and also produce a verified voters’ roll in time for the elections. This means hundreds of thousands will be denied the chance to register and, worse still, it is ridiculous to expect the election to be free, fair and credible when there is no know who is on the voters’ roll and who voted! It seems, the penny has only now, finally dropped in the empty heads in Harvest House.
“ZEC is simply not up to scratch. As presently constituted, it would be much easier for one to sell ice to an Eskimo than to expect ZEC to conduct a free and fair election next year. The ongoing BVR exercise has come a shed too late,” admitted Gutu.
“It will definitely not be able to produce a credible and legitimate national voters’ roll in time for the 2018 plebiscite. Experiences in other parts of Africa such as Uganda, Kenya, Cameroun and Namibia, show that the electoral body needed at least three years to roll out an efficient and credible biometric voter registration exercise.”
Morgan Tsvangirai and co. dragged the nation into a totally pointless election process in July 2013 knowing fully well that the process was flawed and illegal. SADC leaders warned them not to contest the flawed elections but the warning fell on deaf ears. And now they were trying to drag the nation into yet another futile election.
The evidence that the 2018 elections would be rigged have been mounting and it was just a matter of time before the opposition politicians were forced to admit the elections would be rigged. The opposition has been losing political credibility by the day it was now certain SADC and the rest of the world were going to reject next year’s elections as a sham.
It was not that MDC leaders have been slow to realise the elections were flawed; they have known that but they still wanted to contest out of greed as David Coltart, MDC Minister of Education in the GNU readily admitted in his book.
“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 elections,” explained Senator Coltart.
“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.”
The three main MDC faction have since formed the MDC Alliance but there was no talk of boycotting the elections, until no, because of greed. As long as long Zanu PF was throwing away the few gravy train seats as bait the opposition was going to contest the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process.
The growing mountain of evidence that Zanu PF is already rigging the elections and the opposition has no chance of winning the rigged elections, they are contesting for the scraps, has all forced the opposition to finally admit that contesting the elections with no reforms was insane!
“This writer is not, by any stretch of the imagination, proposing that Zimbabwe should have a GNU (Government of National Unity) 2; not at all,” concluded Gutu.
There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of GNU, the country will need some form of government arrangement which will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. What was wrong with the 2008 to 2013 GNU was that it failed to get even one democratic reform implemented; that will not happen again, you can be certain of that!
For a start, you Mr Obert Gutu and your MDC friends and Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies will not be consulted as to what format GNU mark 2 should take much less be invited to play any role. You lot had many golden opportunities during the last GNU to implement the democratic reforms and get the country out of the mess and you wasted them all. Now, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
The people of Zimbabwe will all join Oliver Cromwell in his dismissing a sleazy, corrupt and utterly useless parliament of his day!
“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
"Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone!
“So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"
In like language and like spirit this corrupt and murderous Mugabe regime complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition must go. In the name of God, just go!
So Mutsvangwa is prepared to apologise to Jabulani Sibanda for not supporting him over the "bed room coup" jibe but will not apologise to the ordinary Zimbabweans the rogue war veterans terrorised, especially in the last 17 years to impose the Mugabe dictatorship of the nation. These buffoons still do not get it!
ReplyDelete“It’s now water under the bridge and I am happy my comrades decided to bury the hatchet and work against a common enemy trying to destroy the gains of our liberation struggle. I know I have been arrested for undermining the authority of the President — a matter which left me with legal expenses amounting to $12 000, but that won’t deter me from joining my fellow comrades. I am glad they have realised their mistake and took a humble decision to apologise,” replied Jabulani Sibanda, with saintly modest!
The thug who earned his notoriety in the 2008 operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) in which millions of our people were harassed, beaten and/or raped and over 500 murdered. President Mugabe, having lost the March 2008 vote to Tsvangirai, was using wanton violence to force the people to vote for him in the contrived run-off. Sibanda was the field-marshal of the war veteran thugs, his storm troops in operation Mavhotera papi.
Now he mourns the injustice he has endured ever since he fell out of favour with President Mugabe and yet he has never acknowledged the misery he visited on innocent and helpless civilians to earn the tyrant’s favours.
The Zanu PF dictatorship has failed the nation, it must now be totally destroyed and replaced with a healthy and functional democratic system where every Zimbabwean's freedoms and basic human rights are respected and guaranteed. These buffoons are still fighting to remove one tyrant but only to replace him with another!
The only solution to ending Zimbabwe's culture of political violence is to implement the democratic reforms and only then hold the elections. The call by Election Resource Centre (ERC) for ZEC to disqualify parties found sponsoring violence, is more foolish than the fable of mouse tying the bell on the cat; ERC want the cat to ty the warning bell on its own neck!
ReplyDeleteThe unreformed ZEC is for all intend and purposes a department of Zanu PF committed to the party mantra to ensure another party landslide victory come sun, come rain and come what-may. The party has accepted political violence as just another “come-what-may” out of the party’s tool box the party has had to use to ensure victory. How can ZEC disqualify Zanu PF for using violence when ZEC and Zanu PF are one and the same!
Zimbabwe’s curse is that the country’s find itself with a whole army of these NGOs and civic societies like ERC, Heal Zimbabwe Trust and ZLHR who are more interested about milking the donors than doing anything remotely relevant to promote the human rights – the work they are supposedly paid to do!
Indeed, some of these good-for-nothing NGOs are the ones telling the populous the country does not need to implement the democratic reforms designed to end the human rights violations because they will guarantee human rights through their peace campaigns and workshops! Who is bankrolling these morons is what I would want to know!!!!
Speaking at the same event, Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet Misheck Sibanda said $270 million was incurred in losses by 93 of the overall 107 state entities surveyed in 2016.
ReplyDelete“Whereas management, including line ministries attribute the state of affairs to harsh operating economic environment, legacy debt issues and failure by government to adequately recapitalize after the hyperinflationary period, the fact remains that corporate governance weaknesses and ineffective internal control systems identified by the survey and confirmed in many cases by the Auditor General’s annual reports, significantly contribute towards perpetual underperformance of the sector,” said Sibanda.
Ignatius Chombo and Misheck Sibanda should just shut their traps! How much did President Mugabe alone over shoot his already very generous travel budget in the same period?????
The culture of reckless spending is endemic in Zimbabwe today and it will never stop until there is meaningful democratic change, until the country has free, fair and credible elections – the one thing the regime has been spending billions of dollars to make sure it does not happen.
Managing this fractious Alliance is going to occupy the partners, they will do little else. The very fact that none of the partners have any common sense much less vision was going to be a challenge for the Alliance but now it turns out each partner is bringing along to the Alliance their own teething internal problems as well makes a bad situation even worse!
ReplyDeleteMorgan Tsvangirai has brought along his deputy Khupe to the Alliance and all she and her posse are interested in is to throw the spanner in the works. It is not clear whether Tendai Biti is joining the Alliance alone because many say he was booted out of PDP and so many have resigned from the party. And now we hear ZimPF's musical chairs has resulted in one lot of leaders being booted out and replaced by recycled recycled-deadwood.
Now that MDC-T have finally admitted the MDC Alliance will do nothing to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections, their claim to have Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies was all nonsense; they want the 2018 elections postponed. That has really blown all this circus wide open - who needs an Alliance to contest postponed elections!
If the elections are postponed, I believed that they must be postponed because we are sick and tired of holding meaningless elections, this will be a very important and significant milestone in Zimbabwe’s history.
ReplyDeleteAlbert Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result.”
After 37 years of taking part in flawed and illegal elections, ignoring the warning of others such as SADC leaders not to contest; it is a significant moment in the nation’s history for us to finally stop contesting flawed elections. I know that one had to twist the arms of our political leaders, from both sides of the political divide, before they accepted postponing the elections. Be that as it is, this moves means there are at least a few Zimbabweans sane enough to see the folly of contesting flawed elections. And, most important of all, Zimbabwe has the chance to implement the reforms and finally create a healthy and functional democracy to guarantee all individual freedoms, human rights and economic prosperity.
I am disappointed that instead of seeing the bright future opening before us all you can see is spelling mistakes. It is sad that anyone can be so shallow, thick and slow but there you are! No wonder we wasted the opportunity to implement even one democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Mugabe produced his usual volumes of cabinet decisions and parliamentary discussion all rubbish but totally acceptable to morons like you, Vincent, because they were all written a perfect prose and that is all that matters.
You have never once, as far as I know, ever complained about what Mugabe or Tsvangirai has done to this nation. The tyrant has murdered over 30 000 of our people, today 90% are unemployed, etc. all this is fine. Make a spelling mistake and Vincent Mnkandla will foam with rage! What a twat!
You look for the prose; I will look for substance. I will damn well make sure that all the democratic reforms are implemented during GNU 2, of that you can be sure.
Mugabe Meets Chiefs After Buying Them Expensive Cars.
ReplyDeleteMugabe has been spending money right, left and centre to buy votes of buy the support of those who will do his dirty work on the ground of wielding the stick to coerce people to vote for him. At a time when basic services like clean running water, health and education have all but collapse for lack of funds Mugabe continues to splash millions of dollars buying cars for traditional leaders, Zanu Pf Youth and Women's league members, holding party congress, etc., etc. By the time the last vote is cast and counted Mugabe will have spend US$ 10 billion, ease!
The US$ 10 billions will be looted from Marange diamonds and other national sources; Mugabe is using our own money to rig the elections, he is using our own money to deny us our democratic freedoms and rights; how cynical is that!
The Zanu PF vote rigging machine is well-oiled with all the looted billions anyone who thinks they can take on the regime and defeat it is daydreaming. After decades of daydreaming Zimbabwe needs to wake-up. SADC leaders have already proposed a solution to stop Zanu PF looting and using the looted wealth to bankroll its vote rigging activities – demand the implementation of the democratic reforms and refuse to take part in any elections until the reforms are implemented. It is the only way for us to effect any meaningful political change.
Mugabe has all but rigged next year’s elections; it is insane to take part in these elections.
It is now clear that the opposition politicians taking part in next years’ elections are doing so out of greed! These are sham elections and the whole world can see it and are going to condemn the whole charade, especial SADC leaders who will suffer the consequences of Zimbabwe’s worsening economic meltdown if nothing is not done to end the rot.
President Robert Mugabe and his family are beneficial shareholders in an airline that is expected to be handed lucrative long-haul licences to London and the far East, multiple aviation sources said this week
ReplyDeleteNo wonder Mugabe would never allow free and fair elections in Zimbabwe, he simply has too much to lose if he was to lose the elections!
ZEC did not produce a verified voters' roll for the 2013 elections but that did not stop MDC contesting those elections even after MDC member could see how the regime was blatantly rigging the vote. David Coltart, MDC Minister of Education in the GNU, is one of the few who have been honest enough to admit the elections were being rigged but MDC contests regardless out of greed.
ReplyDelete“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 elections,” explained Senator Coltart.
“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.”
You were all preparing to contest next year's elections even thou you all knew Zanu PF would rig the vote and even though you had come together to form the coalition for the same reason as before - greed. The only reason you are now asking for the elections to be postponed is because you know the opposition has lost political credibility for anyone to rule the process anything other than what it is - a sham!
Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because of you and your fellow MDC leaders' greed, you failed to implement the democratic reforms when you had the golden opportunity to do so.
“Zimbabwe is currently in a political cul de sac. And as the Italian political scientist and scholar, Antonio Gramsci once state “the old is refusing to die and therefore, the new cannot be born,” you said.
You are right, the country is in a political cul de sac and the sooner you, your MDC friends and your Zanu PF counter parts all depart the political stage the sooner this nation can start the important work of implementing the reforms and build a healthy and functional democracy. Depart and let this nation be done with you!
Several opposition parties and civic society leaders have attacked the Zimbabwean government for buying more than 230 new vehicles, costing nearly US$ 6 million, for traditional chiefs, saying the country should have used the money to purchase drugs for struggling hospitals or engage in other programs.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe started buying vehicles for chiefs a couple of years ago but critics say the cars are normally bought ahead of crucial elections.
Chiefs have over the years been accused of coercing people in rural areas to vote for the ruling party in council, parliamentary, senatorial and presidential elections.
The real surprise here is that reaction by the opposition parties and civic society leaders, they all know that this is the modus operandi of the carrot for the chiefs, party thugs, etc. (all paid for from looted national wealth) and a big stick for the impoverished povo. And yet time and time again they complain about it as if they did not know what is happening!
Worse still, the opposition and civic leaders know that the only way to stop Zanu PF looting and using the looted wealth to bankroll its vote rigging activities for the nation to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed during the 2008 GPA. It was the MDC politicians who had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms and yet failed to get even one reform implemented in five years!
SADC leaders have made it very clear, in the case of those of us who failed to figure it for ourselves, Zimbabweans should not take part in an election without first implementing the reforms. Both the opposition and civic leaders make a long song and dance about Zanu PF rigging the vote and yet they are the ones encouraging povo to take part in flawed and illegal elections! They cannot see the misconnect, the insanity, of contesting flawed and illegal elections and hope the result will be legal and the process free, fair and credible!
Povo are totally dependent on these opposition and civic leaders for political guidance; they follow them blindly like sheep to the slaughter and they have paid dearly for their foolishness as they have been led from one blunder into the next.
Poor povo, mankind is a creature of reason but povo have been condition to do as they told and to ask no questions and now they have, effectively, lost their ability to think! So many Zimbabweans will be frogmarched by the chiefs, whose palms have been greased, to register and then to vote; we have seen it all happen thousands of times and yet appear shocked when we see it happen again!
Deng took charge and in a series of what we would call “Tweets” today he enunciated the changes he wanted. “Do not worry about the colour of the cat, does it catch mice?” “When you walk across a river and cannot see the bottom, feel your way with your toes.”
ReplyDeleteMany sophisticated observers showed little interest in what to them seemed like Chinese folk sayings. But what he was saying was, and in China they understood immediately, was “we remain Chinese, we support socialism and Marxist thought, but we are pragmatists and will back the policies and strategies that work for China”. The results have changed the world and nowhere more than in China itself.
Mr Eddie Cross, you are a big-headed simpleton with no common sense and, typical of all such shallow-minded individuals who try to impress by punching way above their weight, have always ended making a complete ass of yourself.
“In Africa, those States that are under the control of the new elite, the post-independence generation, are making huge strides. Those States like South Africa and Zimbabwe that remain under the control of the “veterans of the long march” (to choose a Chinese phrase) are going backwards and this is entirely because the present generation of liberation leaders simply do not know how to manage the States they control so that they can survive and thrive in this new world order,” you write.
It is clear, you do not consider yourself one of the “veterans of the long march” but rather the “new elite, the post-independence generation”. You and your MDC friends have had many golden opportunities, especially during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, to implement the democratic reforms which would have dismantled the President Mugabe de facto one-party dictatorship. Yet you wasted them all, you failed to get even one reform implemented because you are corrupt and incompetent.
You can posture around portray yourself as the progressive “new elite” with new ideas to take the nation forward all you wish; the truth is you are just an empty-headed fool. It is true that the “veterans of the long march” have taken the nation backwards – the country is in a real economic mess with unemployment a nauseating 90%, 72.3% of the people living on US$ 1.00 or less a day, etc. – proof they are corrupt and incompetent. But do not make the mistake of considering yourself any better because you have already proven beyond doubt that you too are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent!
You are not Zimbabwe’s Deng!
Joice Mujuru has already proven beyond all doubt that she is corrupt and incompetent why anyone still considers her presidential materials is only because the individual has no clue what he/she wants in a president and so even the corrupt and incompetent Mujuru will fit the bill! It is either the individual is too lazy to think what they really want in a good leader or they are mentally challenged, they are simple incapable of and such coherent mental process.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe is not in this economic and political mess by accident nor did this happen in the last few months or years; we are in this hell-hole as result of decades of blundering from pillar to post. Whether is iy because of our laziness or that of mental weakness what cannot be denied is that we deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition politicians!
Mugabe, Tsvangirai, Mujuru, etc. these leaders have already proven that they are corrupt and incompetent and yet they still have huge following in the country!
In a hard hitting speech Chiwenga issued a chilling warning to “mafikizolos” in Zanu PF that they will never be allowed to rule the country, sidelining those like him who had “suffered” for it.
ReplyDeleteSpeaking at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of a clinic in Sengwe Area, Chiredzi South, on Tuesday, Chiwenga indicated he was not prepared to leave office.
It is one thing for Chiwenga stopping Grace Mugabe becoming president, however it is another matter he and his cronies thinking they can impose Mnangagwa the same way they have imposed Mugabe on the nation these last 37 years with the disastrous consequences we all can see today.
We want the democratic reforms implemented to ensure free, fair and credible elections. From hence forth it must be the people of Zimbabwe and them alone, not Chiwenga or any of his fellow war veteran thugs, in a free and fair election who will decide who rules the country – that is not negotiable! Enough of this nonsense of hot heads giving themselves the power to veto the democratic wishes of the people.
“We will never allow puppets to take over the country,” thundered Chiwenga who openly contradicted Mugabe’s sentiments.
Zimbabwe is going to put an end to this madness where each generation must fight the generation before it just for their basic freedoms and human rights and, having secured them, denies the generation that follow the same freedom and rights on the pretext that they “suffered” and those behind them are “puppets”. This must stop here and now!
Chiwenga is nothing but a nincompoop who should have never ever been promoted Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander! The sooner this nation can get rid of such scum bags like him the sooner we can get on with the serious and urgent business of rebuilding this nation from the ruins 37 years of corrupt tyrannical rule have brought!