Finance
Minister, Patrick Chinamasa, outline Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC-T leader’s
bribe for MDC-T to participate in this year’s flawed elections.
“When
the President visited the former Prime Minister, he made assurances to him that
he was going to address issues of welfare concerning him,” Chinamasa told
parliament.
“Some of the undertakings that were made by the President to the
former Prime Minister were to do with the ownership of the house which
currently forms his residence and that an arrangement will be made to transfer
ownership of that house to the former Prime Minister.
“There was also an undertaking made by the President to meet all
the medical bills and arrears bills that had accumulated with respect to
addressing the medical condition of the former Prime Minister.
“The President also promised him that he would look into the
issue about his welfare. Having considered the issue, he came to the conclusion
and he has asked me to convey this to this Chamber that he will make a generous
lump sum, gratuity payment to the former Prime Minister.”
For the record, Zimbabwe is in this political and economic
hell-hole today because Morgan Tsvangirai sold-out during the GNU and failed to
implement even one democratic reform. Then President Mugabe bribed the MDC
leader with a generous salary, limo and the $4 million Highlands mansion.
Since
the 15 November military coup President Mnangagwa has been desperate to hold on
to his carte blanche vote rigging power whilst trying to regain legitimacy by
being seen as holding free and fair elections. To pull this off, he needs the
opposition to place its role – contest flawed and illegal elections just as
they did in 2013. The generous offer to Tsvangirai to him the house, golden
handshake, etc. is Mnangagwa’s down bribe payment to the MDC leader.
SADC
leaders advised MDC leaders not to contest the 2013 elections without reforms. ‘If
you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,”
SADC leaders had warned.
Tsvangirai
and friends did not listen. They contest the elections and Zanu Pf blatantly
rig the elections.
It
was only after the elections that MDC leaders vowed not to contest and more
elections without reforms. “No reform, no elections!” they said.
The
pressure on the opposition to honour their “No reform, no elections!”
resolution has been increasing in the last two months in the light of President
Mnangagwa’s failure to implement any democratic reforms necessary for free and
fair elections.
It
does not matter how flawed or illegal this year’s election process happens to
be, one thing is now 100% certain, Tsvangirai’s MDC will contest the election. Morgan Richard Tsvangirai has once again
sold-out!
“I
want us to understand that the President is a man of his word. He will do so as
soon as possible,” Minister Chinamasa concluded.
True
enough, President Mnangagwa promised the Chiefs their new truck bribes and he
has already started delivering them. He will, no doubt pay Tsvangirai the
bribe, as promised. The President’s word is just hot air when it comes to his
promise to hold free, fair and credible elections because he had done nothing
to implement even one democratic reform and his willingness to pay these bribes
only confirms his real intentions!
If
President Mnangagwa fails to implement the democratic reforms necessary for
free and fair elections then the people of Zimbabwe must heed SADC leaders’
advice and refuse to participate in yet another meaningless election process. Tsvangirai
talked the nation into taking part in the July 2013 elections after assuring us
the elections will be free and fair. What would be his excuse for participating
again this year – other than he has been paid to do so!
One
of this fine days, when the democratic reforms have been fully implemented, the
country finally holds its first free, fair and credible election to usher in
its first credible, complete and democratic government; one of the competent
regime’s first task will be to review the rot of the last 38 years. How can
corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrants like Robert Mugabe by allowed to
keep their amassed looted wealth or sell-outs like Tsvangirai kept their bribes
whilst the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have suffered the decades of
their misrule continue to suffer post regime-change.
The trouble with our Zimbabwe political culture is that holding public office is now seen as a ticket to a free lunch. It all started with Robert Mugabe and his brand on nationalism who believe that having spent decades in Ian Smith’s prisons or fought in the liberation war makes them special and they are entitled to rule the country and help themselves to the nation’s wealth as a reward for their contribution in the struggle.
ReplyDeleteMugabe has made it a point to remain the nation of the huge debt we all owe to him and his Zanu PF cronies for forcing the whites to give up power. He and his Zanu PF friends still hold dear the values of freedom, liberty and human rights. They do not talk about one-man-one vote one of the rallying cries before independence, for example, because they quickly realised they could to grant that to the people and still retain their veto that they are the only ones fit to rule the country.
Even when it became self-evident that Mugabe and his regime were incompetent and corrupt and their misrule was a complete disaster for the nation and the nation needed regime change. The Zanu PF regime’s response to the calls for democratic change to allow the rest of the people to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country was to step up its vote rigging, use of violence including murder and even to stage military coups just to stop regime change.
Whilst opposition leaders like Morgan Tsvangirai, Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti and the rest feigned the burning desire to push for democratic change, they were only interested in riding on the popular call to get themselves elected into public office. As soon as they got into power they too joined Zanu PF politicians in claiming their free lunch at public expense. Morgan Tsvangirai and many others in MDC do not have a clue, even now, what democratic reforms were needed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship that is why they failed to get even one reform implemented even when their had the golden opportunity to do so during the five years of the GNU. They had their eyes glued on what they can get for themselves whilst they hold public office!
I agree, now that Tsvangirai has received his down payment for taking part in this year’s elections, it is a waste of time to try to talk his and his opportunistic opposition friends not to contest.
The way forward is for the people of Zimbabwe to now realise that they not only have to fight Zanu PF thugs to regain the freedoms and human rights including the right to free and fair elections but they have to fight the politically compromised opposition who fight for the common people day but have been cooperating with Zanu PF all the time!
Both Zanu PF and MDC want the elections to go ahead and to be judged free, fair and credible regardless of how flawed and illegitimate they happen to be. All we, ordinary Zimbabweans, can do is continue to demand the implementation of all the reforms as we have done these last two decades. We must now publicly join by SADC leaders in demanding that elections must be postponed until the reforms are implemented. Since both Zanu PF and the opportunistic opposition politicians are determined to ignore our demands just as they ignored SADC leaders in June 2013 at the SADC summit we have no choice but to refuse to participate in this meaningless charade.
Our task now is to highlight the serious shortcomings in the elections process unfolding in Zimbabwe to prove beyond all doubt that the elections are NOT free, fair and credible. We must not undermine our own position by participating in the process and be accused of sour grapes. We will then robustly demand that the process be declared null and void.
President Mnangagwa is taking with him a whole plane load of his Zanu PF thugs to Davos on an all-out charm offensive to win the West over to the regime's "Zimbabwe is now open for business!" drive. What the regime is acknowledging, without saying so in words, is the country had been indeed been closed for business for decades because it had become a lawless nation ruled by Mafia type thugs. The world is to believe that the 15 November 2017 coup, which was not a coup, brought an end to the lawlessness.
ReplyDeleteThe business people the regime is trying to woo are not as naïve and gullible as the Jokoniyas and Chimbwidos who swallowed the regime’s nonsense and trooped out on 18 November to celebrated the coup; they are hard nose people with fortunes to lose if they get it wrong. They will not be impressed by the inauspicious start of the new dispensation; how can the regime be committed to rule of law when it shamelessly dismisses something as serious as a coup as a lawful act. The regime has even got the country’s judiciary to endorse this foolish position.
The would be foreign investors will not be impressed by the regime’s double talk of promising free and fair elections whilst back in Zanu PF HQ it is all hands on the pump with the party’s usual vote rigging activities. Zanu PF’s failure to implement reforms shows the country is not yet ready for free, fair and credible elections.
There will be no Foreign Direct Investment flooding into Zimbabwe any time soon until the country sorts out its reputation as a lawlessness nation. Investors would like to invest in a country in which there will be a democratic change of government and not one in which change only comes at gun point!
“My message is simple – the new #Zimbabwe is open for business, looking to the future, and ready to retake its place in the family of nations,” says President Mnangagwa from Davos!
ReplyDeleteThis is very simplistic and therefore nonsensical!
By saying Zimbabwe is open for business you are acknowledging, or be it tacitly, that it has been closed for business for decades and out in the cold as a pariah state. The important question then is; has Zimbabwe addressed those issued that had earned it the pariah status and forced business people to shy away? The simple and honest answer to this must be a NO!
Zimbabwe is still a lawless nation ruled by Mafia type thugs. It is a joke that President Mnangagwa and his coup cabinet should claim they restored the rule of law when they did so by staging a military coup – cannot think of a more inauspicious starting point. The regime has been publicly promising free, fair and credible elections and yet President Mnangagwa is spending huge fortunes bribing the Chiefs and now Morgan Tsvangirai – proof the vote rigging juggernaut is full steam ahead.
Mr President Foreign Direct Investors who you are in Davos to woo are hard-nose and shrewd people who will not be easily bowled over by your claim that Zimbabwe is ready to do business; they want to see concrete evidence that the country has indeed returned to rule of law. The evidence on the ground shows your promise of free, fair and credible elections is all hot air. Investors do not want to do business in a country in which the next regime change could well be decades away and will too have to be at gun point.
You can say what you want, President Mnangagwa, the truth is the 15 th November 2017 coup was an act of high treason and all it accomplished was remove one ruthless dictator with another, you. The same thugs who have kept Mugabe in power by rigging elections, using wanton violence and even staging military coup in 2008 are the same thugs in power today; Zimbabwe is still a lawlessness nation!
Reports reaching The Standard last week said many Zanu-PF legislators wanted elections postponed by at least three years.
ReplyDeleteThe MPs were allegedly now mulling engaging Parliament to make amendments to the Constitution to postpone the plebiscite due in five months.
Zanu-PF legislators are said to be afraid of losing their seats to soldiers who have been given a blank cheque to contest in parliamentary elections under the Zanu-PF ticket.
This is said to be a move to reward the military for the successful operation that handed over power to the present administration.
Why am I not surprised!
The MPs can forget postponing elections to extend their worthless stay in parliament, that will never happen. If the nation was to allow that to happen then there will be no end to this chicanery as each set of MPs will all want to do the same thing making a mockery of the phrase “hold regular elections”. We may just as well remove it and put “do not bother holding elections”.