Dear Secretary General of the Commonwealth, Ms Patricia Scotland
We hear your office is pursuing Zimbabwe’s request to re-join the
Commonwealth. We humbly suggest that you should not do anything regarding this
matter until there is evidence the country has changed and will now up-hold the
democratic values. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has promised to hold free, fair
and credible elections, these elections will take place by August. We must wait
and see if he will keep his promise.
“COMMONWEALTH secretary-general Ms Patricia Scotland will
"imminently" dispatch a high-level delegation to Zimbabwe to assess
the country's eligibility to re-join the group following the country's
expression of interest to return to the 54-member block,” reported Sundaynews.
“President Emmerson Mnangagwa wrote to Ms Scotland on 9 May expressing Zimbabwe's willingness to end its 15-year hiatus from the group.”
“President Emmerson Mnangagwa wrote to Ms Scotland on 9 May expressing Zimbabwe's willingness to end its 15-year hiatus from the group.”
There is growing mountain of evidence to suggest that President
Mnangagwa is paying lip service to the promise to hold free and fair elections.
He has pointedly refused to implement any reforms necessary for free and fair
elections and has, instead, been implementing Zanu PF’s usual vote-rigging
schemes and shenanigans.
It would therefore unwise for your good office, Madam, to be send a
high-level delegation to Zimbabwe in pursuit of the re-joining issue in the
light of the very distinct certainty these elections are not going to be free,
fair and credible.
The Zimbabwe government has extended an invitation to Commonwealth to
send an official election observer team. Send the team.
The people of Zimbabwe have been denied the basic freedoms and human
rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections for the last 38
years. The country is in this economic mess and political turmoil because the
nation has been stuck with an incompetent, corrupt and murderous regime that
rigged elections to stay in power.
So, for us, Zimbabweans, the fight for free, fair and credible elections
is not just a fight for basic freedoms, human rights and human dignity; it is
also a fight to end the economic meltdown that has seen unemployment soar to
90% and left ¾ of our people living on US$1.00 or less a day.
Today Zimbabwe is the poorest nation in Africa all because of the
decades of bad governance. We are fighting to end bad governance.
If this year’s elections are NOT free, fair and credible; the signs are that
they are not; then the nation’s focus will be in make this Zanu PF regime is
put under maximum pressure to accept meaningful political reforms to guarantee
free, fair and credible elections. Making sure the regime understands that
holding free and fair elections is a litmus test it must pass before Zimbabwe
can be readmitted to the Commonwealth is the start of that maximum pressure.
In President Mnangagwa and his junta regime believe the whole world is so
pleased with the removal of the bombastic Robert Mugabe they do not need to do
anything else to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship. To therefore start the
process of re-admitting Zimbabwe back in the Commonwealth whilst the regime is
going full steam ahead with its vote rigging activities will only encourage the
regime in Harare to do nothing about dismantling the dictatorship.
The message that must be send out, loud and clear, is that Zanu PF must
shape-up and deliver on the promise to hold free, fair and credible elections
or ship-out. Until there is meaningful political change, full restoration of
the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair
elections; there will be no meaningful economic recovery and no meaningful re-engagement
with the international community including the Commonwealth.
Yours truly,
Wilbert Mukori
Secretary General of Zimbabwe Social Democrats
Zimbabwean must not be fooled into believe that Zimbabwe is now a free and democratic country; nothing could be further from the truth. The political freedom the people are enjoying is mainly because Zanu PF itself is taking a breather after all the battering the members have suffered in the dog-eat-dog factional fighting on the last five years. The political truce is also because the Mnangagwa regime knows that it is illegitimate since it was born out of the military coup and therefore does not want to push its luck with the international community. But most important of all Mnangagwa and his junta have seen their popularity increase significantly after the removal of Mugabe. The chaos in the opposition camp has also help.
ReplyDeleteZanu PF is certainly being seen by many Zimbabweans as the only game in town.
However, the party has never had the confidence and courage to implement the democratic reforms to end Zanu PF's carte blanche dictatorial powers. Indeed President Mnangagwa is using all the usual subtle vote rigging tactics of the past to rig this year's elections just to be absolutely certain Zanu PF wins. As for the political violence the regime has changed nothing, it can turn on the violence just like that!
Those who think Zanu PF is no longer a party of corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs are very naive!
Former CIO boss Happyton Bonyongwe and his police colleague Augustine Chihuri were plotting a counter operation against the military generals, details narrated to the African Union claim.
ReplyDeleteThe counter operation was to be specifically led by Augustine Chihuri, who is a Robert Mugabe loyale from early days when he was given a Presidential pardoning after being convicted for a crime.
Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs, the November 2017 coup was not about the good guys removing the "criminal elements" as President Mnangagwa and his posse of coup plotters would want us to believe. The coup was about one lot of thugs prevailing over the other lot! The corruption, vote rigging and tyranny has continued since the coup.
We, the ordinary people, should have retained our neutrality and refused to be drawn into the factional war. After the coup we should have stood our ground and demanding the implementation of the democratic reforms and totally reject the nonsense of the "new dispensation"!
Same s***t! What else, given we still have the same bulls**t idiots in power with the same undemocratic draconian powers!
The problem here us the people, we never learn and those who fail to learn from the past are destined to repeat the same mistake over and over again!
Joice Mujuru' s National People's Party (NPP) has described controversial Deputy Minister of Finance Terrence Mukupe as a dangerous element in a democratic society.
ReplyDeleteHow does warning us that Zanu PF is rigging these elections make Minister Mukupe "a dangerous element in a democratic society"? The trouble with some of our corrupt and incompetent leaders is that they have no clue what they are talking about, they just vomit!
@ Charles (student)
ReplyDelete"From the moment he assumed office, President Emmerson Mnangagwa has set about reversing the slide into the economic decay, isolationism and a foreign investor's nightmare," you say.
"The numbers have spiralled upwards from modest beginnings and now stand at a whopping $16 billion. Perhaps by the time you are reading this they will grow even more substantially, such is the faith international investors are showing in the new Zimbabwe, and Mnangagwa's reform policies and investment-friendly politics."
This is just plan nonsense! First of all, all this attempt to suggest that President Mnangagwa and many of those in his present government were totally helpless to stop "the economic decay, isolationism and foreign investors nightmare" for all the years, 37 for the likes of Mnangagwa, Chinamasa and many others, they were senior members in Mugabe's government is laughable. If we take into consideration that it was none other than ED and his November coup thugs who have rigged elections and even committed mass murders to make sure Mugabe stayed in power all these years; there can be no doubt this is cheap propaganda.
Of course, ED and his junta are as guilty of the economic decay, etc. of the last 38 years as Mugabe himself. Indeed, they must should the blame even more given they are the one who stopped the nation ending the Zanu PF rule by ruthlessly imposing this corrupt and tyrannical regime on us!
Second, investors had shied away from Zimbabwe not only because they did not like Robert Mugabe but because they did not like the whole system of government; the dictator, his army of the corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs, the lawlessness, etc., etc. The removal of Mugabe and a few others last November has not change the reality on the ground; Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs.
Investors are not going to invest in a pariah state. The "whopping $16 billion in investment" is a figment of your imagination!