"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts
absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." Said Lord Acton,
a historian and moralist back in 1887.
He was putting into words a pernicious human phenomenon as
old as human civilization itself. Those nations and generations who have
allowed individual to exercise power without restrains, soon learn they were as
helpless as one riding a wild horse without restraining reins, have suffered
greatly. Whilst those nation who have been fastidiously strict in making sure
no one ever exercise power with restrain and no one ever gets unlimited power;
have enjoyed peace, progress and prosperity.
We, in Zimbabwe, have yet to learn from Lord Acton’s axiom. Our
leaders have very, very low moral threshold a whiff of power is enough to make
them behave as if they alone have the direct line to God Almighty and so
whatever they say and do cannot and must never ever by questioned by us,
ordinary mortals.
Nelson Chamisa had his taste of political power during the
GNU and you can see he, like his fellow MDC friends, were punch-drunk long before
they took their oath of office. The MDC were in the GNU to implement the
democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship but Mugabe
saw to it that they enjoyed the trappings of the gravy train lifestyle so much
they forgot the reforms! In five years of the GNU, MDC failed to get even one
reform implemented. Not even one!
When Morgan Tsvangirai died in February this year, Chamisa
staged his own palace coup by assembling the party’s members to proclaim new
President of the party, to the exclusion of the other party VPs who had as much
right have their names in the hat even if they would have lost the vote. Ever
since seizing power, Chamisa has been drink “red bull”, whiff of state
presidential power, and nothing else, “it gave him wings!”
Chamisa launch his bid to be elected president in this year’s
elections on the promise of bringing bullet trains. He has since become a
run-away bullet train himself because there is no stopping his imagination once
it is fired up.
“MDC Alliance leader, Mr Nelson Chamisa said he will make
sure Zimbabwe will host the Olympic Games and the World Cup finals if he is
elected into office this year,” said ZBC report.
“He said this while addressing MDC Alliance supporters at
Mahusekwa Growth Point in Marondera.”
In a country with unemployment sitting at a nauseating 90%
and ¾ of the population are living on US$1.00 or less a day the nearest they
would ever come to participating in those prestigious events is selling
vuvuzela and other trickles outside the venues. His listeners must have been both disappointed
and bemused by all this stupid talk!
Robert Mugabe hosted the All Africa Games a few years ago,
building an Olympic size swimming pool in Chitungwiza low density suburb. The pool
was never used after the games; the impoverish local council was failing to
keep its clinic and school going, paying the high maintenance bill of a
swimming pool was a luxury they could ill afford.
Mugabe has never said anything about building his $4 billion
Blue Roof mansion, he just went ahead and built it. All the other politicians followed
his example and built their own mansions or demanded government build one for
them. Morgan Tsvangirai, Chamisa’s late boss, demanded and was given the $4
million Highland mansion, all paid for, directly or indirectly with looted
wealth, by the nation. No doubt Chamisa will building a mansion of his own!
It was the wasting of state resources of all these
prestigious projects as Africa Games, Blue Roof mansion, etc., which the nation
did not need but was forced to undertake to message the leaders’ bloated egos,
which have contributed to Zimbabwe’s spectacular economic decline. In 1980
Zimbabwe was in the top five richest nations in Africa, today we are the
poorest nation.
Chamisa and his bullet trains and, no doubt, bigger mansions
for the ruling elite is not going to take us out of the economic hell-hole Zanu
PF has landed us but will drag us even deeper into the hole. Elect Chamisa
president and he will become a runaway bullet train, the longer it is allowed
to run the faster it will go and the greater the impact when all that kinetic
energy is dissipated in the sudden stop!
At the very least, Chamisa is guilt of cherry picking. He has
chosen to concentrate of the prestigious project bullet train; as for hosting
Olympic Games he is getting way ahead of himself; and neglecting the less glamorous
tasks like rebuilding the nation’s all but collapse economy, health and
education services, etc.
History, with the benefit of hindsight, will judge Chamisa and
his MDC friends more harshly; they are corrupt and sell-out. MDC leaders’ love
of power made them forget they were in the GNU to implement the democratic
reforms to end Zanu PF’s vote rigging. Chamisa has been whizzing around in his
imaginary bullet train he has refused to listen to all advice not to take part
in these elections without first implementing the reforms.
MDC supporters have no clue what democratic changes are
required and hence the reason they have remained faithful to the party’s
leaders regardless their repeated failure to get even one reform implemented in
their 20 years in politics and multiple wasted golden opportunities to do so.
MDC supporters have followed the party leaders as blindly as sheep to the
slaughter! With no party member to hold them to account MDC leaders have
enjoyed absolute power and it is little wonder they are thoroughly corrupt!
Bullet train Chamisa should have never dragged the nation
into these elections without first implementing the reforms. Zanu PF is rigging
these elections and, if the international community allow the junta to get away,
we face the nightmare of another five more years of this corrupt and tyrannical
Zanu PF dictatorship. All because bullet-train Nelson Chamisa dragged the
nation into these flawed elections and would not listen to advice, even from
SADC leaders, not to!
If there is justice this side of the grave then Chamisa and
his MDC friends must account for their treasonous betrayal by failing to
implement the reforms during the GNU and wasting the nation time, treasure and
opportunities wittering about bullet trains, Olympic Games, etc.!
"All candidates must be granted free and full access to State media - equal time and coverage to all registered parties," you say
ReplyDeleteThere has not been a free public media and you think granting it now will change the situation enough to say there was a free public media?
There are other areas such as the failure to produce verified voters' roll, the way Zanu Pf is robbing the nation blind to bankroll its vote rigging schemes, etc. which makes it impossible to anyone to say these elections are free, fair and credible.
President Mnangagwa knows about the 2008 reforms and has stubbornly refused to implement even one reform. Of course, he has done this deliberately with the view of retaining as much of Zanu PF's carte blanche powers to rig the vote as possible.
If the international community, particularly SADC, were to allow Zanu PF to get away with these rigged elections it would not be because they did not see the blatant vote rigged. They will be doing so because they have given up on Zimbabwe ever holding free, fair and credible elections. They will have lowered the standards for free and fair elections to allow these flawed Zanu PF elections to pass.
This Zanu PF junta will use the next five years to regroup and consolidate the dictatorship's strangle hold on power. Future elections will be similarly rigged or worse! If the junta was susceptible to pressure to accept the reforms it is now before it has regained some of the lost legitimacy following the coup.
It is incumbent on every thinking Zimbabwean out there to make sure Zimbabwe is not written off as a lot case doomed to holding rigged elections forever amen. The best outcome of these flawed elections is for them to be judged null and void so we can go back to the 2008 reforms and implement them!
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has said the MDC Alliance demonstration proves that there is democracy in Zimbabwe.
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa’s comments were flighted in the state media as he said this on the sidelines of a meeting with a commonwealth delegation currently visiting Zimbabwe to assess it’s preparedness for free and fair elections.
There are hell lot more to free, fair and credible elections than making sure Zanu PF's thugs are penned in and only allowed out on a short leash and muzzled like dogs. Zanu PF still has the Chiefs and war veterans reminding people what happen in 2008 will happen again if Zanu PF does not win the elections. The public media is not free; forget the nonsense of giving MDC token coverage two months before the voting day. There is no verified voters' roll. Zanu PF has billions of dollars of looted public funds to bankroll its political activities and the opposition is stone broke.
These are flawed elections, period! The international community MUST declare the elections null and void! If Zanu PF cannot hold free, fair and credible elections it is high time the nation found someone who will implement the reform and get the nation out of the mess!
The MDC demo was nothing more than a chihuahua barking at the elephant. It annoys the elephant at most but most important of all it makes the chihuahua feel important. But in terms of the elections, the demo changes nothing; there is no chance of even one reform being implemented this late in the process.
ReplyDeleteMDC has been stringing the nation along, pretending they will force Zanu PF to implement the reforms BEFORE the elections hence the reason they are participating in the elections. On the other hand Zanu PF has known that MDC politicians will participate in these elections even if not even one reform was implemented because they are after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is giving away as bait. The real big issue here is are the Zimbabwe public foolish enough to believe the demo would achieve anything, foolish enough to believe the chihuahua can stop the elephant destroy the crops!
These elections should not be going ahead without first implementing the reforms because it is insane to keeping hoping that Zanu PF will lose an election the party has been given a free licence to rig! After 38 years of rigged elections how can we still foolishly believe this year will be different.
SADC leaders did not mince their words in advising MDC leaders not to contest the 2013 elections without reforms. "If you take part in next month's elections, you will lose; the elections are done!" the told the corrupt and incompetent MDC village idiots to their faces. The question is how long are the ordinary Zimbabwe going to follow blindly these village idiots and believe the chihuahua's barking will stop Zanu PF rigging these elections!