Zimbabwe’s curse is not only in having Zanu PF, a party of
corrupt, vote rigging, coup staging and murderous thugs but to be stuck with
the regime because we also have a corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless
opposition. It is disappointing that MDC leaders have never grasped their
serious shortcomings and thus continue to blunder from pillar to post.
“The new team in power are clearly trying to change things for
the better,” wrote Eddie Cross. “They have no choice as elections loom and must
be fought in just 7 months’ time. They know that they have a real challenge
ahead of them; they are committed to a free and fair election, they know they
have not made any friends in what they have done over the past 4 years, and
they know that that must, to a very great extent, carry the baggage left over
from the Mugabe era.
“For all of us we must accept that this agenda is also in our
interests – even if we are in the opposition. These are national and not
parochial problems that must be tackled if any of us are going to have any sort
of future. The MDC and especially Morgan Tsvangirai have brought democracy back
to Zimbabwe and restored our rights as a people. But right now, with his
illness, other than offering opposition and curbing the excesses of any future
government, we are probably stuck with ED and that is our dilemma. We have no
choice but to make it work.”
First things first, Eddie Cross can repeat the lie that “the MDC
and especially Morgan Tsvangirai have brought democracy back to Zimbabwe and
restored our rights as a people” a million times and a million times again.
Nothing will change, it will still be a damned lie!
The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect
Tsvangirai, Cross and the rest MDC on the promise they will deliver democratic
change, as their party name imply, and central to that change was to stop Zanu
PF rigging elections to allow free, fair and credible elections. Since MDC took
centre political stage in 1999, the party has had many opportunities to deliver
the democratic changes with the golden opportunities coming during the 2008 to
2013 GNU. All the MDC leaders had to do then was implement the raft of
democratic reforms which Mugabe had already agreed to in the Global Political
Agreement (GPA) of which SADC was the guarantor.
Robert Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the honey trappings of
high office; limos, generous salaries, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai,
etc., etc.; and they forgot about the reforms. SADC leaders did their best to
remind MDC leaders to implement the reforms but they were ignored.
In five years of the GNU, Tsvangirai & co. failed to
implement even one democratic reform. Not even one! It is therefore an insult
to the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans MDC leaders sold-out by failing to
implement to hear a very senior MDC leader like MP Cross claiming MDC restored
democracy and people’s freedoms and rights in Zimbabwe.
The fight to have the democratic reforms implemented to ensure
free, fair and credible elections was at the heart of the nation’s struggle in
1999 and is still at the heart of our struggle as a nation today. Nothing,
absolutely nothing, of substance will ever be accomplished until we stop the
curse of rigged elections and the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime
such elections produce.
The one thing we cannot ascribe to President Mnangagwa and his coup-plotter
regime is that they will implement democratic reforms before the elections or
ever. They are the thugs who have masterminded and executed all the vote
rigging, political repression and thuggery, riding roughshod over our people’s
freedoms and human rights, to impose the de facto one-party, Zanu PF,
dictatorship all these years. When, their old boss, Mugabe, threaten to wrestle
power from them the stage a coup to stop him and seized absolute power for
themselves.
Anyone who thinks that Minister P Shiri, Minister S Moyo, VP
Chiwenga and all the other coup plotter who are clearly enjoying their new-found
power and influence will risk losing it all in a free, fair and credible
elections is naïve. These thugs have rigged elections in the past to keep
Mugabe and others in power and now they will not do the same to keep themselves
in power! Be real!
There is no doubt that President Mnangagwa and his team are
passionate about wanting to do something to revive the Zimbabwe economy and
they have already undertaken to do some positive things. Mnangagwa’s zeal is no
different from Mugabe’s scientific socialism zeal soon after independence. It
is a historic fact that Mugabe’s “Gutsva ruzhinji!” (Mass prosperity!” policies
brought free education and health care, price controls, wage increases, etc.
Many of the feel-good achievements did not last but the people did feel good
whilst the lasted. No doubt Mnangagwa will score so economic successes,
particularly given the sorry state the economy is in, and deliver some
feel-good accomplishments.
The principal reason Zimbabwe is in this sorry economic and
political mess is not so much that Zanu PF was corrupt and incompetent, that
was the principal reason the first five years or so; thereafter it was our
failure to remove the regime from office. The party eroded the people’s
freedoms and human rights under the pretext these were petty bourgeois values
the nation should not waste time on and concentrate on the bread and butter
issues of Gutsva ruzhinji.
It was only when the party’s mass prosperity was turning into
mass poverty that people wanted to exercise their right to have a meaningful
say in who ruled the nation that they discovered they had lost the right to a free
vote. The nation has been fighting to get the democratic reforms implemented
since the late 1990s, as stated above, and, also as stated above nothing will
be accomplished until restore the individual freedoms and rights.
If this year’s elections are held without implementing the
reforms then President Mnangagwa and his cronies will be allowed to carry
through the carte blanche tyrannical powers that Zanu PF has used all these
last 38 years to rig elections and stay in power. We should have never allowed
Mugabe to establish the de facto one-party state in the first place and have
paid dearly for our folly. No regime should ever again be allowed to usurp the
people’s power to hold it to democratic account.
It will be folly to allow this Mnangagwa regime to fail to
implement reform necessary for free and fair elections and get away with it.
“But right now, with his (Tsvangirai) illness, other than
offering opposition and curbing the excesses of any future government, we are
probably stuck with ED and that is our dilemma. We have no choice but to make
it work,” says Eddie Cross.
Of course, we are NOT “stuck with ED”, this is just another
feeble MDC excuse for contesting this year’s elections with no reforms
implemented just as they did in July 2013.
“If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the
elections are done!” SADC leaders had warned MDC leaders at the time.
As we know, MDC leaders ignored the warning and Zanu PF rigged
the elections. The nation has paid dearly for having another five years of Zanu
PF rule. It will be folly to allow Zanu PF to rig this year’s elections too,
knowing the regime will use the five years to consolidate its hold on power and
its ability to rig future elections. We do not want to be stuck with this
Mnangagwa cabal just as we have been stuck with Mugabe! We must end the culture
of rigged elections, this year and not postpone that fights to 2023!
It is insane to keep contesting elections one knows are flawed
and illegal. We must stop the madness; we must refuse to take part in any
elections until all reforms are implemented. If Zanu PF and some of the corrupt
and incompetent opposition parties disregard our demands and go ahead with the
flawed and illegal elections; we must make sure the process is declared null
and void!
It is all very well for MP Cross to say Mnangagwa is “committed
to a free and fair election”. He has not implemented even one of the raft of
democratic reforms required for free elections and, for many of the reforms, he
has already run out of time!
@ Tsvangirai
ReplyDelete“The starting point for this envisaged take off for our great nation is a return to legitimacy through a free, fair, credible internationally supervised and monitored election whose outcome is not contested,” you wrote.
“Anything short of this will spell doom for our great nation. I therefore call upon the interim leaders of our country not to miss this opportunity by dipping their heads in the sand and wish away our crisis by not implementing the necessary reforms required before elections——for history will judge you harshly.”
1) You had five years of the GNU, how many reforms did you implement?
2) There are less than six months before the next elections, how many reforms do you seriously expect to be implemented in that period?
3) If no reforms are implemented, will MDC honour its own “No reform, no election!” 2014 party resolution? Or is this all just hot air, MDC will contest the elections regardless how flawed and illegal they happen to be just as you lot did in July 2013!
“We are expecting our two leaders to meet to map out the blueprint of the future development of our two countries,” said Ping, China’s ambassador.
ReplyDeleteYeah, we know that China has played a major role in Zimbabwe’s rigged elections in the past; no doubt will be doing the same again this year!
Where did all this jejune nonsense come from is what I would want to know? Mnangagwa an “amiable, honest to goodness person”! He is the man Mugabe has trusted to carryout some of the dirties jobs the regimes has carried out in its 37 years of reign of terror corruption and blood murders! The man has just carried out a military coup, his second in ten years! The man is a thug!
ReplyDeleteAfter decades of corruption, vote rigging, coups, and murderous oppression I thought those it was obvious to all that the de facto Zanu PF dictatorship had failed and need to be changed. I also thought the that the democratic changes we needed were obvious. When Tsvangirai and company failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU I was disgusted by their betrayal, they had sold-out for the Judas price!
ReplyDeleteSince the GNU I have since realised that MDC leaders are breathtakingly corrupt, yes, but they are also breathtakingly incompetent. It was then that I got the full import of what USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, had said of Morgan Tsvangirai; “a flawed and indecisive character”. The man is a village idiot, no offense intended just pointing out the hard facts.
So, why has the other MDC leaders elected a village idiot to lead them and, worse still, let him lose for all these years? The answer was obvious, they genuinely thank him a genius. A “flawed and indecisive” village idiot, a genius!
When MP Eddie Cross says, “The MDC and especially Morgan Tsvangirai have brought democracy back to Zimbabwe and restored our rights as a people.” He has failed to name even one democratic change MDC has brought because there is none, he has failed to comprehend the enormity of MDC’s betrayal during the GNU, etc., etc. And yet he will crow to his grave of MDC’s democratic achievements because he is a minion of little intellect and it comes natural to minions to see greatness in a blundering clueless village idiot!
If MDC had implemented the reforms during the GNU, the 2013 elections would have been free, fair and credible and Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs would have been given their marching orders!
There is no way President Mnangagwa can implement all the democratic reforms in the remaining six months, even if he wanted to. With no reforms, there is no way the elections will be free, fair and credible; that is obvious. If MDC and the other corrupt and opportunistic opposition politicians do not participate in the flawed and illegal elections, as SADC leaders have advised, Zanu PF will be forced to deal with this problem of rigged elections once and once for all!
MDC is a party of corrupt and incompetent politicians just as Zanu PF is a party of corrupt and ruthless thugs we are stuck with the later as the ruling party and the former as the opposition who had many opportunities to remove the thugs but wasted them all!
ReplyDeleteNations get the government they deserve we deserve Zanu PF thugs complete with the entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition because we, the electorate, have failed to take on the important task of electing competent leaders with the seriousness the matter demands. The cure to Zimbabwe’s crippling problem of bad governance is waking up the Zimbabwe electorate from their comatose-like mental slumber!
Those who see Mugabe in the context of the land issue alone and refuse to see him in the context of other issues such as the wholesale looting that has rob the nation blind of its resources making Zimbabwe the poorest nation in Africa. Refuse to see the brutal political repression of the people and the murder of over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain his de facto one-party dictatorship. Are very selective in their choice of what they want to see. We, ordinary Zimbabweans, who have suffered the consequences of his corrupt and tyrannical rule have no choice but to see Mugabe for what he is - an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant.
ReplyDeleteWhen he was finally forced out of office, millions of ordinary Zimbabweans cried with joy. They did not care that it took a coup to remove him, the coup plotters were national heroes although they are the same thugs who had imposed Mugabe on the nation, etc. It all shows how desperate the nation was to get rid of Mugabe.
No nation on earth should have to suffer what the people of Zimbabwe have suffered under Mugabe's corrupt and tyrannical rule. But clearly the suffering of the ordinary man and woman is of no consequence to great intellectuals like this Black Education presenter!
The whole farm allocation business has been chaotic from the word go and will require a more sobber approach that P Shiri is offering to resolve the matter. It seems Shiri is targeting those individuals who have the offer letters but had not acted on them yet and those with multiple farms like Mugabe and his 14 farms.
ReplyDeleteWhat about those who got the farms but are doing nothing with the land, those with one farm but it is so big even Mugabe's 14 farms will fit in, etc.?
Zimbabwe's economic recovery will dependent of sorting out the mess Mugabe created in the agricultural sector a.s.a.p. A dimwit like P Shiri is just blundering along and wasting time and the opportunity!
Only in Zimbabwe will someone commit high treason and be considered a hero! The duplicity of Zanu PF thugs is a wonder - they used to trip over each other to praise Mugabe and now they falling over each other to praise the man who pointed a gun at the tyrant and forced him to resign. Not that Chiwenga himself is any better; he has rigged elections and masterminded all manner of violence including cold-blood murders to impose Mugabe on the nation all these years. In the end he is the one who held the gun to the tyrant to force him to resign.
ReplyDeleteThe real tragedy is the nation's troubles are far from being over; the coup has allowed thugs like Chiwenga to bask in power and he is loving every minute of it. It is inconceivable that having tasted power Chiwenga would ever risk losing it all by holding free and fair elections. Here is a season thug and a seasoned thug he will remain to his dying day!
Government will investigate Grace Mugace's land acquisition and Doctorate degree.
ReplyDeleteAfter all those years of leisure and luxuries and looting, it must be hard on Grace to see it all her amassed wealth being taken away one truck load after another, one diamond ring after another, one mansion after another, etc.! The years of shopping are now behind her and she must be wishing she never asked for that phony doctorate degree!