Dear Mr Bishow Parajuli, UN Resident
Co-ordinator
Many thinking Zimbabweans out there are asking:
What organisation is Mr Bishow Parajuli working for?
On paper, you are the “UN Resident Co-ordinator
for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Zimbabwe” but it is impossible to
see how you can be working for the UN because your assertion that Zimbabwe’s
elections are “free and fair” contradicts everything the UN says it stands for!
“The mission of the
Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is to work for the protection of all
human rights for all people; to help empower people to realize their rights;
and to assist those responsible for upholding such rights in ensuring that they
are implemented,” we understand.
Instead of working to protect and empower the ordinary Zimbabweans to realize their democratic right to free, fair and credible elections you are doing the exact opposite by falsifying the political reality in Zimbabwe.
"As far as we see it, there are some good signs because the new voters' rolls are being developed, with 5,4 million in new voter registration," you said, according to report in Bulawayo 24.
Instead of working to protect and empower the ordinary Zimbabweans to realize their democratic right to free, fair and credible elections you are doing the exact opposite by falsifying the political reality in Zimbabwe.
"As far as we see it, there are some good signs because the new voters' rolls are being developed, with 5,4 million in new voter registration," you said, according to report in Bulawayo 24.
"There is a lot of engagement between political
parties and the ruling faction; engagement between the election commission,
civil society and others. The political parties themselves are getting together
to agree on a code of conduct for holding peaceful elections. So, all these
signs are positive."
As the UN Representative in Zimbabwe, Mr
Parajuli, you should know that many Zimbabweans will be denied a meaningful
vote in these elections. The voter registration exercise, for example, was
started very late, September 2017 when it should have started in January 2015
at the very latest, and so only 5.4 million were registered instead of the
expected 7 million. So, nearly 25% of the voters have already been denied the
vote for no fault of their own!
The 5.4 million registered voters have been
given 10 days to check their details in the provisional voters’ roll. After the
first five days only 694 030 voters had done so physically. The authorities say
over 3 million others have done so using text messages, this is wilfully
inadequate since this is supposed to be purely a biometric voting system and
not a name, ID, etc. system. It is clear these elections are going ahead with
no verified voters’ roll.
In the past Zanu PF has blatantly rigged the
elections but it was impossible to prove this without a verified voters’ roll,
it was the missing smoking gun. Since there is no verified voters’ roll again,
it is clear the elections will be blatantly rigged as before and, once again,
there will no smoking gun.
Zanu PF has pointedly refused to implement the democratic
reforms to ensure a free public media, to ensure the Police is free and
independent, etc. It is laughable that anyone would agree with President
Mnangagwa’s suggestion that a code of conduct agreed between political parties
can ever be a substitute to implementing the reforms.
SADC leaders wanted Zimbabwe’s 2013 elections
postponed so the democratic reforms agreed at the onset the GNU could be
implemented. “If you go into next month’s elections, you will lose; the
elections are done!” they warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders.
As we know, Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig
the 2013 elections and, still with no reforms implement since the last
elections, the party will likewise rig this year’s elections. As the UN
representative one expected you, Mr Bishow Parajuli, to be “assisting
those responsible for upholding such rights (Zanu PF) in ensuring that they (reforms)
are implemented!” Instead you are helping the regime dodge its obligations to
the common people!
Zimbabwe is in this economic mess and political chaos because,
for the last 38 years, the nation is stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical
Zanu PF dictatorship that has rigged elections to stay in power. The people of Zimbabwe are fighting for the
country to hold its first ever free, fair and credible elections as their only
hope to get out of this hell-hole.
Mr Bishow Parajuli, if you are not going to speak truth to
power then, please, please shut up!
Yours truly,
Wilbert Mukori
Secretary General
Zimbabwe Social Democrats.
PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa sneaked out of the country late Sunday to neighbouring South Africa with government sources indicating he had gone for "medical checks".
ReplyDeleteJust how long are we going to have this nonsense of the ruling elite going out of the country for the health and education needs whilst the ordinary people are forced to make do with the collapse services in the country.
The irony is if all the money being wasted on transporting, fee, etc. by these chefs and their relatives was channelled to improve just a few the local schools and hospitals there is no doubt these institutions will provide a comparable service and, as a bonus to the nation, they will be used by the ordinary citizens too when the chefs are done.
What has been noticeably lacking in Zimbabwe for decades is leaders with some common sense!
This afternoon, EU Ambassador to Zimbabwe Philippe Van Damme and Foreign Affairs Minister Sibusiso Moyo signed a memorandum of understanding for the deployment of the EU Election observation mission.
ReplyDeleteThe EU Election observation mission will come to Zimbabwe as soon as possible.
The EU will see for its self why Mugabe did not want EU elections observers. The blatant vote rigging Mugabe has been doing is still happening the only thing the EU will not see is the wanton violence of 2008 - Zanu PF has its thugs on leashes like dogs.
Fiery former ZANU PF strongman and former war veterans leader Jabulani Sibanda may be soon finding his way back into the ruling party.
ReplyDeleteAs one of their resolutions at a meeting held in Lupane at the weekend, the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWA) pushed for ZANU PF to re-admit its deposed former chairman into the party without conditions.
Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs and the thugs are regrouping ready to relaunch the party in all its ruthless savagery after years of dog-eat-dog fighting. But even as the thugs try to regroup divisions are already developing, old ones that will never be paper over.
With the national economy in total meltdown and 3/4 of the population now living in abject poverty and basic services such as health all but collapse it is no surprise than many of the party's cadres have been caught in the drag net of poverty. A few cadres will be saved from the ravishes of poverty as the result of the changes brought by the November coup, the overwhelming majority will not be saved.
Even the party leaders like Mnangagwa and Chiwenga are themselves caught in the system. After decades of looting they cannot stop. After decades of enjoying absolute power; they cannot give it up. They are surround by the sea of abject poverty and they cannot stop looting or give up an inch of their power for fear they will be swallowed by the sea of poverty. They are doing their best to hang on to a failed system that cannot be allowed to continue if this nation is ever to survive!
Former president Robert Mugabe has reportedly been offered political asylum in Equatorial Guinea.
ReplyDelete"This is my home‚ I will die here. I will visit you as and when I want to but I will never abandon my people‚" Mugabe is reported to have said.
Here is an incompetent, corrupt and ruthless tyrant who has completely destroyed the nation's economy forcing unemployment to soar to 90% and 3/4 of the population living in abject poverty whilst he looted the nation's resources to build his $4 billion Blue Roof mansion, 13 farms and other business interest whilst wasting billions of his luxury lifestyle. Zanu PF blatantly rig elections and used violence including mass murders to establish and retain the de facto one-party state that kept him in power all these years.
Zimbabwe will never get out of the mess Mugabe and Zanu PF landed the nation without confronting Mugabe, Mnangagwa and all the other Zanu PF and MDC leaders with the truth of their corrupt and murderous past. It will be irresponsible to allow Mugabe and his descendants to keep the Blue Roof and all the other looted wealth whilst those he robbed blind and their descendants continue to languish in poverty and damn anguish!
"I will never abandon my people!" No you heartless tyrant, the nation would have been saved if you had never been born! In your 37 years in power, you and your murderous thugs, led by none other Emmerson Mnangagwa, have ridden roughshod over the people's freedoms, human rights and hopes and dreams and crashed the life out of over 30 000 like bugs! All this, to feed your insatiable appetites for absolute power and the luxuries at the nation's expense! No, do not go anywhere, not until you face justice!
@ F William Engdahl
ReplyDelete"The agriculture-based economy went into freefall. Before 2000, farming accounted for 40 percent of all exports. By 2010 it had dropped to just 3 percent. GDP almost halved from 1998 to 2008 and hyperinflation came as the central bank printed money endlessly in a vain effort to keep the economy afloat," you said, and you are right.
Zimbabwe is for all intend and purpose the Garden of Eden and before independence the country produced enough to feed all its people and had surplus to sell. Since the 2000 farm invasions the country has relied on imported food aid almost every year. We are starving in the Garden of Eden; there is a severe testimonial to the sheer incompetence of the country's leaders since independence!
"The country is enormously rich in untapped minerals including copper, platinum, gold, diamonds and iron ore. Only five countries in the world, for example, produce platinum, a rare metal used among other places in catalytic converters for vehicles. The leading producers are South Africa and Russia. Zimbabwe is number five."
When it comes to our mineral wealth it has become the nation's curse and not a blessing! Mugabe and his cronies have tapped the nation's bounty to enrich themselves beyond their own wildest dreams and have used some of their ill-gotten wealth to make sure they stay in power at all cost. Right now, the country's economy has completely collapsed, unemployment has soared to 90%, basic health services have all but collapsed.
Zimbabwe is the poorest nation in Africa!
You would not believe you are still in the world's poorest nation to look at the sheer extravagance and grandeur of Mugabe and his cronies' mansion and lifestyles! In 2013 Zanu PF must have spent US$4 billion to bankroll its various vote rigging schemes and shenanigans; each party candidate was given brand new vehicle plus $10 000 spending money, NIKUV the party's Israeli vote rigging experts was paid US$10 million, etc. The opposition was stone-broke, they were lucky is they managed to get $2 million.
How ironic that the nation is being robbed blind by Zanu PF and the party is using some of its ill-gotten loot to rig elections, so it can stay in power even longer to continue the brutal oppression and looting!
Still, Zanu PF's reign of terror is about to end. In 2008 Zanu PF was forced to form a GNU following the blatant vote rigging and use of wanton violence in that year's elections. History is going to repeat itself.
After last November's military coup, the Zanu PF regime promised to hold free, fair and credible elections and now it must deliver. Even the Chinese, who do not hold elections in their own country, know what constitute free, fair and credible elections and would be loathed to judge the charade taking place in Zimbabwe as free and fair elections. By refusing to accept the elections are legitimate, the international community will force Zanu PF to accept the need for Zimbabwe to revisit the democratic reforms all agreed were necessary for free and fair elections to be implemented followed by the holding of fresh elections.
Zanu PF will never win free, fair and credible elections, not with such a checked track record of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption, vote rigging and mass murder! Never!
It is bad enough that we have the incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical ruling party, Zanu PF but by having a corrupt and incompetent opposition too the nation has found itself caught between a rock and the deep blue sea!
ReplyDeleteMost of our people are so ill informed on everything it is no exaggeration to say they hardly know their left hand from the right; it is therefore not surprising that their thinking is very limited. They think in binary, good or bad, black or white. Having judge MDC the good guys and Zanu PF the bad guys the electorate has failed to see that MDC have sold-out by failing to implement the reforms during the GNU. Even now the people continue to follow MDC blindly into these flawed elections.
For the people to see MDC leaders as corrupt and incompetent they will need to have an open mind, to see MDC not always in the context of Zanu PF but in the context of the bigger picture, to see not just the two black and white but the full colours of the rainbow. A quantum leap and one the majority of Zimbabweans have failed to make.
I agree, Zimbabweans have a knack to shoot themselves in the foot and by foolishly taking part in these flawed and illegal, elections even after Zanu PF cadres like Minister Mukupe have just reminded them the elections are going to be rigged, is just one example of the nation's collective act of folly!
"I'm not losing sleep over remarks by a government official that the army won't allow me to become president if I win the presidential election," said Chamisa.
ReplyDeleteThis is the kind of macho grandstanding the nation has come to expect from the corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders! Zanu PF's vote rigging juggernaut is going through all the gears and is now in overdrive, Zanu PF is blatantly rigging these elections just as the party has done repeatedly in the past. People like Chamisa keep wittering about having "stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging elections" and, so far none of these measures have stop the vote rigging. None!
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because, for the last 38 years, the nation has been stuck with this corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship with rigged elections to stay in power against the democratic wishes of the people. The nation cannot afford yet another rigged elections and five more years of this Zanu PF ruinous reign!
Minister Mukupe is right in saying this junta has no intention of risking losing power by holding free, fair and credible elections. Instead of taking this warning seriously and demanding meaningful reforms our silver back MDC gorilla is drumming his chest oblivious of the vote rigging in full swing already! I cannot think of anything more irresponsible that this! What an idiot!
Since February, Wicknell has been under the microscope over the Gwanda Solar Project in which he was advanced US$5 million without the requisite bank guarantees.
ReplyDeleteThe Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines and Energy has been piling pressure on both Chivayo and Zesa to have action taken over non activity at the area set aside for the project.
A defiant Chivayo says the matter is civil between Zesa and himself and should not be handled anywhere but the civil court.
Ever since the battles with the Temba Mliswa-led parliamentary committee started, Chivayo has been turning to the social media with subtle attacks at the parly team, media and other critics.
What the Wicknell Chivayo story has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that:
1) That corruption in Zimbabwe is just as rampant since the November 2017 coup which promised to eradicate corruption as it was before the coup.
2) For all Temba Mliswa and his parliamentary committee's grandstanding and posturing, they are in fact just a bunch of fools pretending to know what they are doing when in fact they do not. Yes, they have wielded the constitutional power parliament has but to no avail, it was "all sound and fury signifying nothing!"
3) The present political system is oppressive and rough and hence the reason only corrupt and incompetent individuals now crowd the political stage. We must implement the democratic reforms designed to open up the political stage for debate and democratic competition from which quality leaders will emerge.
"I'm always the last man laughing," boasted Chivayo. He would be have given back the looted wealth he is now splashing around on new BMW and other luxuries if we had competent MPs!
TENSIONS appear to be rocking the opposition MDC Alliance with a key coalition partner complaining that "we have been hoodwinked and taken for fools by those who think they own the electorate simply because they have a leader who is 'youthful'".
ReplyDeleteAccording to New Zimbabwe.com, former finance minister Tendai Biti's People's Democratic Party (PDP) demanded Monday that 'bullying in the Alliance must stop".
In a social media post, PDP's Harare province raged at Chamisa's MDC-T party, accusing the latter of reneging on a constituency-sharing agreement which was reached as part of the Alliance agreement.
Of course, MDC-T are reneging on the constituency-sharing agreement. Many of the MDC-T members who lost in the party's recent primaries are targeting the constituency with an Alliance partner in which they will contest as an independent (no doubt, with the tacit support of many of the MDC-T leaders). Wait until nomination day and you will see!
@ Thata
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe is caught between a rock and a hard place, the nation is being asked to choose (assuming the elections are free and fair which they are not) between a corrupt and incompetent murderous thug, Mnangagwa, and a corrupt and incompetent village idiot, Chamisa!
The best outcome for the nation id for these elections to be declared null and void because they are NOT free, fair and credible, Zanu PF is rigging these elections just to be absolutely certain Mnangagwa stays in power. By declaring the election null and void the international election observers will have done this nation a great favour in allowing the nation to replace its corrupt and dysfunctional autocratic political system with a democratic system from which competent and quality leaders will emerge and replace the thugs and idiots.