“A prominent Zimbabwean activist voiced doubt on Tuesday that upcoming elections - the first since Robert Mugabe’s ouster - will be credible, as the new president's commitment to basic rights was still unclear,” reported New Zimbabwe.
"The message that has been top of his agenda is that Zimbabwe is open for business," Mawarire said, noting Mnangagwa's speech to global financial elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month.
“But, he added, there are "a lot of questions about structural changes when it comes to the law, the rule of law, when it comes to democracy, human rights. They have said a lot about business but little about the freedom of people".”
It is not just that President Mnangagwa and his coup regime have “said little about the freedom of the people” but more significantly they have done NOTHING to restore the individual freedoms and rights. President Mnangagwa was former President Mugabe’s enforcers and pointer man, he would have been involved in all the negotiations leading to the formation of the 2008 to 2013 GNU. He knew and understood the significance of the raft of democratic reforms the GNU were asked to implement. Second to Mugabe himself, Mnangagwa was one of the Zanu PF leaders who were beside themselves with joy when, at the end of the GNU, not even one reform had been implemented.
If Mnangagwa cared about restoring the individual freedoms and rights then why has he not hit the ground running in implementing the democratic reforms. He has instead resisted all calls for reforms. Indeed, he has dismissed all those calling for reforms as barking dogs. Mnangagwa he since bought the Chiefs new trucks, Mugabe had promised them; a bribe for them to play their regular role of intimidating rural voters to attend Zanu PF rallies and then to vote for party candidates in the election.
To anyone remotely familiar with Zanu PF leaders, there was never any doubt that they were paying lip-service to holding free, fair and credible elections. Thugs like Mnangagwa, P Shiri, S Moyo and C Chiwenga would never ever risk their political careers on the outcome of free and fair elections after spending the last 37 years rigging elections for others. It was very naïve of people like Pastor Mawarire to have even thought it possible that President Mnangagwa and his coup regime would hold free and fair elections. It is pleasing to see that the penny has dropped!
The Pastors said he will help people organise and register to vote.
Spoke too soon about the penny dropping! Zanu PF’s capacity to rig elections is such that it is IMPOSSIBLE to defeat the party. In the March 2008 vote, for example, Tsvangirai had 73% of the votes and ZEC was ordered to recount the votes. After six weeks of cooking up the figures Tsvangirai’s vote was whittled down to 47%! In the July 2013 elections, nearly one million voters, Mugabe’s winning margin was just over a million, were denied the vote because their details were not in the constituency voters’ roll they expected. This could have been easily avoided if the voters’ roll was released at least a month before voting day, as is required by law. The regime failed to release the roll and never did.
There will be no verifiable voters’ roll again this year throwing the door wide open to all manner of vote rigging shenanigans.
It is insane to contest in flawed and illegitimate elections and SADC leaders have already advised that Zimbabweans must not take part in such elections. So, what Pastor Mawarire is hoping to achieve in playing any role in these flawed elections, other than give the process some modicum of credibility, beggars belief!
The road to hell is paved with good intentions – good intentions of naïve people like Pastor Mawarire! He has a big heart but not much wit, a dangerous cocktail in a country with more than its fair share of naïve and gullible voters!
"Chako ndechako pfuma yenhaka inoparadzanisa ukama!" (What is yours is yours, what you inherit may divide blood relations!)
ReplyDeleteThe dog fight within Tsvangirai's family and in the MDC has left relatives and colleagues bitterly divided. I hope Tsvangirai had the good sense to have left a detailed will, at least his relatives can fight over which one of them cared about him the most and not who should have the cow, the car or whatever else he left behind.
As for the fighting in the party the fighting will only get worse, I do not see that lot making up any time soon.
@ Brian Hungwe
ReplyDeleteA famous quote by Machiavelli advises politicians: "It is better to be feared than loved - if you cannot have both."
However, the Italian Renaissance author and statesman then warns that if a ruler chooses fear, it is best not to be extreme - as unnecessary cruelty will never win life-long loyalty.
I would argue that it was not only Mobutu who took Machiavelli's advice of being feared too far, Mugabe did too. Mugabe got a golden handshake of $10 million, retained all his extravagant allowances and perks, kept his $ 4 to 5 billion Blue Roof mansion, kept all the billions he salted away in overseas business and bank accounts, etc., etc., etc. No doubt he would have like to be still in power and then handover to his wife; hence the reason he sulking like the wicked witch who has just her broom burnt to ashes!
He should wait for the day when there is a proper regime change in Zimbabwe - what happened in November last year is a none event. The new government will leave no stone unturned to uncover all the corruption, vote rigging and mass murderers he has committed. After it has been established beyond all doubt that he had rigged elections and rob the nation blind; the nation will take away everything from him and he will spend the remaining days of his life of earth in Chikurumbi Prison if the hangman does not get him first. Trust me, he will have something to sulk about then!
Justice is yet to be served in Zimbabwe, to let Mugabe get away with so much evil and looted wealth whilst his victims continue to suffer in damn anguish is a crime against the Gods, the dead and the living!
@ Coltart
ReplyDelete"Turning a blind eye to violence & intolerance was a root cause of the split in the MDC in 2005.It is a disease created by years of violent rule by ZANUPF which has infected the opposition. Some MDC leaders have toyed with the use of violence, but it always comes back to bite," said Coltart via Twitter.
That is just a lame excuse and you know it!
Is that you excuse why MDC politicians are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent - because Zanu PF politicians are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent!
@ Obert Gutu
ReplyDeleteGutu took it to micro blogging saying, "BIG ANNOUNCEMENT
"I am not going to continue associating myself with an organisation that advocates for violence and thuggery.
"I'm a principled politician and professional.
"I'm NOT quitting politics.
"I'm going to contest in Harare East constituency in 2018 elections."
So, it has taken you 18 years before it finally dawned on you that MDC is an "organisation that advocates for violence and thuggery"! It is either you are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent not to have seen this all these years or you are quitting because the party has rejected you. The third possibility is all the two are true and applicable. Your decision to contest this year's elections will confirm the third possibility is applicable.
You would agree that 2013 elections were rigged. You also agreed that since that election not even one democratic reform has been implemented and so the elections will certainly be rigged. You are going to contest because you have "Winning In Rigged Election (WIRE) strategies", you have said.
I apologise, I should have said you are breathtakingly incompetent, corrupt and greedy. It is greed that is making you contest these elections. You know Zanu PF gives away a few gravy train seats as bait to attract greedy opposition politicians like yourself to contest the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process happened to be. By taking part you are giving the flawed process credibility and thus making the nation forfeit the chance of getting the reforms implemented so we can finally have free and fair elections. You do not care about everyone else and the suffering another rigged election will bring to the nation.
"I'm a principled politician and professional," you said. You are scum, sir!
Civil servants are fretting over government's delay in paying them their 2017 bonuses, two months into 2018.
ReplyDeleteIf the regime can pay Mugabe $10 million plus all the other generous allowances and let him keep all the billions the tyrant has salted away over the decades; it can surely afford to pay the poorly paid civil servants whose wages are the difference between having something to eat or going hungry!
The one thing that the November coup has not changed in any way is the way government treats the filthy rich few and the filthy poor majority. Mugabe used to splash $10 million so his daughter can have her baby in the Far East whilst even big hospitals like Mpilo and Harare did not have baby incubators. President Mnangagwa is spending $12 million buying trucks for Chiefs when one would be hard pushed to find one rural hospital with a working ambulance.
The more President Mnangagwa claims the November coup changed Zanu PF turning it into the new dispensation the more people can see this is just a white-wash tomb, a new look exterior hiding the rot within.
Chamisa and Mudzuri were appointed VPs months ago, it was not at all clear why Tsvangirai was in such a hurry to appoint the two when he could have assembled the party's executive committee or whatever body is tasked to make key decisions between party congress to make the appointment. He had the chance to get the EC to endorse his appointment all these last months, he did not. Tsvangirai was a "flawed and indecisive character", as US ambassador to Zimbabwe Chris Dell once said in a leaked cable to Washington. The chaos in MDC today could have been easily avoided was Tsvangirai's own making and it is just one of the many blunders he has made, proving the Ambassador was right!
ReplyDeleteThe very fact MDC leaders and members have followed Tsvangirai for nearly two decades, many of them, and never ever admitted to Tsvangirai's serious leadership deficiencies and blundering incompetence bespeaks volumes of these followers. MDC did not only have a corrupt and incompetent leader in Morgan Tsvangirai, it also had equal corrupt and incompetent leaders like Welshman Ncube, Tendai Biti, David Coltart, Khupe, Chamisa, Mudzuri and a host of the other senior leader and, to crown it all, very naive and gullible membership who followed blindly like sheep and never questioned anything.
If the truth is said, it must, Zanu PF had the same problem as MDC. An incompetent, corrupt and murderous tyrant Robert Mugabe who ruled over his down trodden "vakadzi", (servile concubines), as Margaret Dongo called Zanu PF MPs, cabinet members and other senior party and government leaders and below them the usual naive and gullible membership.
Zimbabwe is in this hell-on-earth because of four decades of blundering from pillar to post. People get the government they deserve, we deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF complete with its ever growing entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition parties, 84 last week. Until the people of Zimbabwe themselves snap out of their comatose state and take the business of understanding the big issues affecting the nation and electing competent leaders to address them with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands; this nation will remain stuck in this hell!
If Save knew Khupe was already in the "political wilderness", why did he not say so and act decisively to settle the matter instead of leaving it to fester. Now he is dead the matter has exploded and the MDC-T is falling apart like a house of cards! Khupe is doomed but so too is the rest of the MDC-T members and, most important of all, the nation. For MDC-T to be exploding now, just four or five months before the elections is only going to add to the confusion in the already very confused opposition camp!
ReplyDelete@ Naome
ReplyDeleteAll that you are proposing above is very sound and should have been done a year or six months ago but now, given the events of the last week, Tsvangirai's death and Chamisa seizing power, etc., your proposals are a waste of time. MDC-T is like a broken clay pot whose liquid contents have soaked into the earth; the pot cannot be put together and the contents is lost. The dye is cast! It is a waste of time pointing accusing fingers at each other. The only logical thing to do now is to accept the reality, have a clean break and start the process of building a new party with whatever one has left.
Former President Robert Mugabe is going to be grilled over the missing diamond revenue amounting to over $15billion.
ReplyDeleteMugabe is set to be investigation soon after former Mines Minister Obert Mpofu who Thursday afternoon bolted out of parliament, the event which was filmed LIVE by ZimEye.com.
The Chairperson of the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines, Temba Mliswa told ZimEye.com, "everyone is equal before the law and it must be investigated and discovered what became of the revenue. The former President will soon also be summoned," he said.
The committee failed to get Mpofu to answer even one question on the shaky grounds that the chairman of the committee once visited him at his rural home years ago. Zanu PF leaders and officials have always shown that they are above the law and not even parliament can get them to do anything.
Getting Mugabe to appear before the committee will be a great achievement in itself! If the committee should get the former tyrant to say anything, he would open a Pandora's box that everyone in Zanu PF will live to regret it was opened!