When the spokesman of the military coup of 15 November 2017 announced to the world that they had taken over all the country’s key institutions of government and had the then President Robert Mugabe under house arrest it was all surreal. Could it be possible that Mugabe was finally being forced out of office after 37 years of sticking to the presidency like a binnacle to a rock.
Thanks to Mugabe’s chief enforcer, Emmerson Mnangagwa, whose ruthlessness and vote-rigging abilities have helped to create the de facto one-party state and keep the dictator and Zanu PF in power all these years. The breath-taking incompetent of the opposition MDC had help the dictatorship survive the 2008 to 2013 GNU years when it should have been dismantled.
With no democratic reform in place and Zanu PF safely back in the driving seat it all seemed set that President Mugabe’s wish to be life president or also handover power to his ambitious wife was a given. The whole world was therefore astonished to hear his own chief enforcer and his cronies – the very people had broken all the laws to keep the tyrant in power – were kicking the tyrant Mugabe out of office.
“This is not a coup but a military assisted transition!” insisted now Foreign Affairs Minister, Sibusiso Moyo, the spokesperson of the coup plotters.
What was surreal about that statement is that the coup actually expected people to believe this could ever be anything else other than what it was – a military coup. Sadly this has now become a habit of this junta to come up with all manner of outrageous statements no one believes.
“General Philip Valerio Sibanda asked for an explanation from President-elect Emmerson Mnangagwa, his advisers and intelligence chiefs of the events on Aug. 1 that left six people dead in the capital, Harare, and raised questions about who controls the security forces,” reported News Day.
“At the meeting with the president, Sibanda, a respected figure who commanded a multinational peace-keeping force in Angola, also wanted to know the identity of armed men dressed in ragtag uniforms that were shown on social media beating people and riding in military vehicles.
“He said publicly that no Zimbabwean soldier was ordered to fire on unarmed civilians and no such directive would ever be given.”
Are we expected to believe that Zimbabwe was invaded by a group of armed individual in army uniforms and using army trucks and who went on to open fire and killed civilians. A week after the incident, the second most senior commander of the ZDF, second only to the President, still does not know who these armed individual are! If General Sibanda is telling the truth, then he must be one of the most incompetent General in history.
“We’re witnessing what are purported soldiers, but they’re not soldiers, and we’re very busy investigating this,” Foreign Minister Sibusiso Moyo, a retired general, said Tuesday by phone. He is the man who announced last November’s coup was not a coup; this was just another hen’s teeth story.
“Mnangagwa, who was declared the winner of the presidential vote on Aug. 3, told reporters the police were legally entitled to request the army’s assistance to maintain public order when they were overwhelmed,” continued News Day.
“He ignored a question about whether he was told in advance of the deployment and promised to set up an independent probe into the violence.”
When questions were coming thick and furious about his role in the Gukurahundi massacre, President Mnangagwa responded by appointing a commission of inquiry. The people know there has been the Judge Chihambakwe report on Gukurahundi and during the GNU years there was a whole ministry with a minister from each of the three partners in the GNU.
There really was no need for President Mnangagwa to appoint yet another commission other than to kick the issue into the tall grass. He promised free, fair and credible elections but stubbornly refused to implement even one reform to make this possible. He is just kicking army killing into the tall grass too!
Three very important African observer missions to Zimbabwe endorsed the just ended controversial elections in Zimbabwe. The watershed elections gave Zimbabwe a chance to breakaway with the past and embark on a new chapter. But the process fell way short to meet the international standards largely because of influence of Zanu PF and the failure by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to be an independent arbiter and discharges its mandated duties in a transparent manner.
ReplyDeleteThe three observer missions that endorsed this sham election were the African Union Electoral Observer Mission (AUEOM), the SADC Electoral Observer Mission (SEOM) and the COMESA Election Observer Mission. The three observer missions were quick to endorse the sham election only a few hours before the start of the deadly post-vote violence that has left at six people dead so far.
How many African countries do you know that have held free, fair and credible elections in their history. Many of these African leaders will be studying how ED rigged the elections with a view of doing the same. The sad reality is many ordinary Africans are not aware what has happened in Zimbabwe was wrong and they are going to be the next victims.
"Politically partisan positions were taken as if there were no practicing duties the morning after. In desperation the lawyers so affected have signalled distress by communicating their desire to dissociate themselves from the losing candidate in order to go back to quiet practice," the source said added.
ReplyDeleteWhat has made the lawyers position more untenable, the source said, was that not only is the MDC-Alliance case frivolous and vexatious in the absence of the V11 forms, but very senior lawyers within the Alliance had not been favoured with evidence that goes towards making a good case for the planned court challenge.
"When they challenged the MDC-Alliance leader to provide them with evidence, they were branded Zanu-PF agents," the source said. According to the source Alliance Principal Tendai Biti, who was on the run, has been asking for some kind of reprieve so that he gets back to normal life as a lawyer and parliamentarian.
Biti is reported to be worried that should he be convicted for wilfully violating the Electoral Act, he would lose his parliamentary seat and the tantalising prospect of being the leader of the opposition in Parliament. Some senior members of the MDC-Alliance with a legal grounding are reported to be so agitated that they are accusing Chamisa of wanting to 'die with the party' which they built over the years.
"Chamisa at this stage is ripe for shaking," said the source.
One can well believe that all self-respecting lawyers are deserting Chamisa; in his desperate effort to win power he became so reckless, he dived into the crocodile infested water ignoring all those warning him not to do so. Chamisa was warned not to go into these elections without first implementing the democratic reforms but would not listen.
"MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!" Chamisa claimed.
Well the stringent measures did not force ZEC to produce a clean and verified voters' roll, for example. Why MDC agreed to go into these elections without something as basic as a voters roll beggars belief.
ZEC did not produce a verified voters' roll in the 2013 elections and we know nearly one million voters were denied the vote by the simple act of posting their details in the wrong constituency voters' roll. We also know that Zanu PF was able to bus its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple votes. Zanu PF has done the same thing this year but again with no voters' roll, the smoking gun, it will be impossible to prove anything.
Chamisa went into these elections convinced from the attendances at MDC rallies, etc. that the party had the numbers to win rigged elections. Now that he has failed to win it is idiotic he should mounting a challenge accusing Zanu PF of rigging. To prove the rigging he needs the voters' roll, the very document he did not bother to secure!
General Sibanda "wanted to know the identity of armed men dressed in ragtag uniforms that were shown on social media beating people and riding in military vehicles. He said publicly that no Zimbabwean soldier was ordered to fire on unarmed civilians and no such directive would ever be given."
ReplyDeleteGeneral Sibanda must be sacked for being incompetent. How can armed men wearing army uniforms and using army vehicle run riot in the city and a week later the ZDF Commander still has no clue who these rogues were?
What an utterly useless army we have here. What good is this Army if it can be overrun by thugs in ragtag uniforms. The only things the ZDF is harassing civilians forcing them to vote for Zanu PF, staging military coup to stop the opposition taking over as happened in 2008 and staging military coups to boot out the dictator they had imposed on the nation for 37 years but only to impose another one!
We need to bite the bullet and implement the democratic reforms if we are ever going to have any confidence in the integrity of ZDF, ZEC, etc.
By failing to hold free, fair and credible elections ED has just confirmed that Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by thugs. Investors do not do business with thugs.
ReplyDelete"There is little likelihood that Zimbabwe’s electoral commission or courts will overturn the results, posing a difficult choice to the International Monetary Fund and other donors and investors whose help is desperately needed to sort out an economic mess that has sent more than a quarter of Zimbabwe’s citizens abroad to work," commented the New York Times.
Investors can see what is happening and they are not investing in a country in which regime change is by a coup, violent street protests or worse!
These elections should have never gone ahead without first implementing the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections.
ReplyDelete"MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!" insisted Nelson Chamisa.
All hot air of course! MDC failed to get ZEC to produce a verified voters' roll and how anyone would agree to take part in an elections with no verified voters' roll beggars belief! And yet that is exactly what MDC did and not for the first time too!
MDC's blundering incompetence has landed us into this mess!
The way out now is to demand that these elections must be declared null and void!
He also encouraged the opposition to make their electoral complaints through the established legal channels, said Haq.
ReplyDeleteGuterres stressed the continued support of the UN for Zimbabwe in the post-election period and his hope that all the people of that country will advance along a path of unity.
UN Secretary General should read the reports on the nation before opening his mouth. If he had done so then he would have known that the Courts he is asking us to seek recourse is the same Court that judged last November's coup as "legal". Where in history has any nation made coup legal? If the Courts can judge high treason, military coup, legal the same Court will have no problem judging someone tampering with the voters' roll legal!
We are seeking a way out of this mess and not an excuse for continuing to go round and round in circles! Zanu PF rigged these elections and the way out is for the flawed and illegal process to be declared null and void and not asking the same flawed institutions to validate the flawed elections.