ED asked to stop wasting US$ 400 m on overseas health care - middle finger reply P Guramatunhu

Health minister Obadiah Moyo has disclosed that the country is losing about $400 million annually on overseas medical treatments.

“Having our own up to standard facilities will make wonders and no-one will be airlifted out of the country for health treatment and I have shared this with the President,” Moyo said.

So, Minister Moyo thinks the idea of spending the millions squandered sending the chefs out of the country for their health care would be better spend on local health care had never occurred to Mnangagwa and the rest of the Zanu PF leadership? How naïve!

There are basically two reasons why Zanu PF have allowed the local health care facility collapse:

a)   The chefs, from both sides of the political divide, have continued to enjoy a five-star health care service or be it in SA, India, China, Singapore, etc. instead of within Zimbabwe. So whilst we the masses have suffered greatly from the country’s collapsed health care, the Chefs have not.

b)   In Zimbabwe going shopping in New York, studying in London, having your health check in Singapore, having a honeymoon in LA, etc. are all status statements. One can only imagine the disappointment on Grace Mugabe and her daughter, Bona’s, faces if they were to hear that there was a local hospital in Harare offering the same five-star service after all the money they had spend when Bona her baby in Singapore! And so, the poorer the local service the weightier the symbolism.

c)   Yes, it is very expensive to send the chefs out of the country for all these health care trips but what of it! It does not cost the chefs themselves a dollar, the taxpayer pays it all. Indeed, health care has become just another excuse for the chefs to raid the public coffers.  

President Mnangagwa has just returned from a trip to Japan. He flew there in a hired jet that reportedly costed US$17 million. He probably ordered the jet just hours after Minister Moyo comments above – there was the middle finger reply!

"War veterans living on US$0.48 a day demand own ministry" - I am speechless P Guramatunhu

“War veterans are surviving on US0.48c a day and nothing has been done yet everyone and everybody who could be driving a Mercedes Benz, living in a nice house and things like that; it came from the war veterans,” complained Douglas Mahiya, Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association.

“But when we speak or ask about our welfare, we are told there is no money.”

Yes, Comrade Mahiya there are some Zimbabweans out there who are driving posh cars, live in palatial mansions and are filth rich. What you have clearly failed to grasp is that these are the filthy rich ruling elite whose insatiable greed for political power and wealth has destroyed the country’s economy making themselves power and filthy rich at the expense of the overwhelming majority whom they, the ruling, denied the freedoms and rights and forced into a life of abject poverty.

Whilst you, Mahiya, and the overwhelming majority of your follow war veterans live in abject poverty too, same as the povo; there our roads part ways. Whilst the ordinary Zimbabweans have been fighting for the restoration of all Zimbabweans’ basic freedoms and rights; you and your rogue war veterans (there are many who have remained faithful to the liberation war values of freedom to all and not just the powerful few) have actively supported the oppressive and corrupt Zanu PF ruling elite.

It is important to note that unlike the colonial regime that generated wealth and our quarrel with the whites was that the wealth must be shared fairly; with this Zanu PF regime, our immediate task is dismantle the dictatorship and stop the criminal waste of resources through corrupt and mismanagement. You lot want to keep the dictatorship as long as you get a share of the looted wealth. You do not even have the common sense to see that the country’s economy has been shrinking!

Most Zimbabweans have long realised that the root cause of the country’s economic problems is the corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF rule and they have also realised that they can never remove the party from office as long as it retains its dictatorial power to rig elections. And hence the reason they have called for democratic changes since the late 1990s. It is a great disappointment that these economic and political realities have remained a mystery with the war veterans.

Indeed, Robert Mugabe and the rest of the Zanu PF leadership have continued to exploit the war veterans’ political naivety, using them as the party’s foot-soldiers in harassing, intimidating, beating, raping and even murdering people for selfish political gain. This is all contrary to the values and principles for which they, the war veterans, and the nation at large fought, and many died, for!

How you, Mahiya, and your fellow rogue war veterans have remained, even today with all the benefit of hindsight, shallow, thick and slow is a matter of the deepest regret and national shame! Of course, the nation is ashamed that the generation that liberated the nation from white colonial oppression has itself become the new oppressors and so the nation is once again having to fight for the same freedoms and rights.

“The war veterans again are advocating for a Ministry that will look after their own affairs because we don’t understand why it is not happening when the President has already agreed to it,” continued Mahiya.

“So why can’t we have our own Minister who probably will look at issues that affect war veterans.”

So you think if there was an autonomous government ministry for war veterans; all war veterans will all be driving posh cars; live in Blue Roof type mansions; since the country’s health care has all but collapsed, fly each and everyone of you to China or Singapore for your health care needs; etc. I am speechless!

Can still have "successful" economy regardless corruption - excuse for illegitimate ED to hang on W Mukori

“PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is surrounded by good people. Among them, he has great formal and informal advisers; talented and eminent people from different backgrounds, who really can make a difference if given some latitude to express themselves,” wrote Dumisani Muleya, Editor of The Independent, in an article titled ‘Free advice to Mnangagwa’.

“Of course, it is public knowledge that he is also surrounded by criminals; greedy parasites just there to enjoy the gravy train ride and loot public resources. There are certainly thriving scoundrels there. Overnight they are rich, but they can't explain their ill-gotten wealth. But to give the devils their dues, they are innovative and enterprising in their own way.

“Yet there are some genuinely resourceful entrepreneurs who have done well through formal and legal enterprise. Not every successful person around Mnangagwa is a thief. There are credible, honest and hard-working businesspeople around the president.”

I challenge you, Mr Muleya, to name just one “credible, honest and hard-working businessperson” who is SUCCESSFUL!

Of everyone you can name, I will name hundred of thousands of credible, honest and hard-working businesspeople whose hard-work has come to nothing. The economic environment in Zimbabwe is now so harsh it is impossible to survive much less succeed through honest and hard-working alone!

It is impossible to be a successful shop owner when one cannot restock because there is no foreign currency to pay for the imports.

It is impossible to be a successful bus operator when several operating hours every day are wasted queuing for fuel.

How many hundreds of thousands of very productive white farmers had their activities cut short when the Zanu PF back jambanja thugs force them off the land with nothing other than the shirt they were wearing!

Even if one was to hit on a successful business formula and successful keep interfering Zanu PF thugs away; for how long will the business survive given huge burden brought on by mismanagement and corruption. In the last 39 years the burden has grown and spread  

In 2016 the then President Mugabe admitted the nation was being swindled of US$ 15 billion in diamond revenue alone. He never arrested even one swindler and we know the swindling has continued because the then Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament in 2017 that government was receiving only 1/6 of the expected diamond revenue.

Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s successor following the November 2017 military coup, promised “zero tolerance on corruption”. Now, nearly two years later, he too has yet to arrest one diamond swindler.

Zimbabwe’s GDP has dropped to a meagre US$10 billion and it is naïve to expect the country’s economy to revive much less prospect regardless of the US$15 billion diamond revenue haemorrhage alone.  

It is therefore down right irresponsible to advise Mnangagwa and company that there are businesspeople out there who, like the mythological Atlas, can bear the heavy economic burden brought about by the decades of criminal waste of human and material resources and still deliver economic recovery. There are no such business Titans!

Even the mythical Atlas has his limits; he is depicted groaning under the weight of the celestial heavens.

Let us get real here! The real businesspeople out there are nothing more than a skin and bone donkey that has collapsed under the dead weight of the load on its back, hunger, thirst, sickness and of exhaustion. The poor creature is so weak and feeble, it cannot get up much less do so with all the dead weight still strapped on its back!

The Zimbabwe economy needs a huge injection of foreign aid and investment to kick start the economic recovery. Most Zimbabweans are broke and will need help to start and run successful businesses.

But as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs there will be no foreign investment. No one, local or foreign wants to do business with thugs. No one!

The people of Zimbabwe must bite the bullet and deal with the problem of rigged elections and bad governance, the root cause of the nation’s failure to deal with the corruption and mismanagement. Since Zanu PF will never implement the democratic reforms to stop the vote rigging; the regime failed to do so during the 2008 GNU, for example; the regime must step down so the nation can appoint an interim administration to implement the reforms.  

Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections, the party has no mandate to govern and it is per se illegitimate. All pressure must be brought to bear on Zanu PF to step down and allow the implementation of the reforms.  The country’s worsening economic situation only one more such pressure point.

Advising Mnangagwa that he can achieve economic recovery by looking for the mythical Atlas of economics is therefore a self-inflicted wound. Mnangagwa and company will seize every excuse they get to hang on to power.

If Zanu PF is still in office in 2023 then we can be certain the party will rig that year’s elections and extend its rule. The economy will still be in a mess because Zimbabwe will still be a pariah state from which investors will continue to shy away.

"Staying put as long as Ramaphosa plays big brother to ED" - see speck in his eye but cannot see log in yours N Garikai

“As long as Ramaphosa plays big brother to an illegal president (Emmerson Mnangagwa) then we (Zimbabweans in SA) are staying put and not going anywhere,” twittered Kudakwashe Kadenhe

There is no doubt that Ramaphosa, together with all the other SADC and AU leaders, should have condemned Zimbabwe’s last elections because Zanu PF rigged. Still, Zimbabweans must admit that it was none other than our own oppositions leaders who must take the lion’s share of the blame here.

It is a matter of historic record that Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform in five years during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Not even one reform!

SADC leaders fought hard to get MDC to implement the reforms, but all their warnings were ignored. The regional leaders made one desperate attempt to have the 2013 elections postponed until reform are implemented but that too failed.

“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” explained Dr Ibbo Mandaza, in an interview with Violet Gonda.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws.

“And after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

As we know MDC participated in the 2013 elections with no reforms and Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections. History was to repeat itself in 2018, as it always does with those who refuse to learn from the past.

What is particularly annoying here is that MDC leaders know that by participating in these flawed and illegal elections they are giving the process some credibility and Zanu PF some legitimacy; as Senator David Coltart has readily admitted.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility,” confessed Senator David Coltart in his Book The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe.

So, Zimbabweans like Kudakwashe should not blame outsiders like President Ramaphosa for propping up this illegitimate Mnangagwa regime when it is none other than MDC leaders who are whitewashing the Zanu PF dictatorship and undermining efforts to bring about meaningful democratic change in Zimbabwe.

The solution to Zimbabwe’s political paralysis and economic meltdown is ending the country’s curse of rigged elections. And what better way of doing that than declaring “winners” of rigged elections illegitimate and demanding that the said regime steps down.

We must denounce the corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders who are giving the illegitimate Zanu PF dictatorship legitimacy. MDC leaders have been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds; this must not be allowed to continue.

It is up to us, Zimbabweans, to find the solutions to the myriad of problems we have created for ourselves and should not be blaming outsiders our failures and suffering. We must stop seeing the speck in the outsider’s eye when we cannot see the log in our own eyes! 

"POLAD is right but must include MDC" advised EU - would never say such foolishness in EU W Mukori

"We think POLAD (Political Actors Dialogue) is important in its own right. It's good that political parties are discussing, but obviously, we are missing the second largest political party and the biggest contender in the last election. I think it's a major handicap to those discussions," said Timo Olkkonen European Union Ambassador to Zimbabwe.

"We have been discussing with the government about the reform agenda hoping that it will move forward, that we will have reforms on the political side. We are looking at the legislative agenda and also other issues and I think a lot of issues about how Zimbabwe is perceived and I have to say that its recent perceptions about limitations of democratic space and human rights violations are not helping because one has to remember that the reason why the restrictive measures were put in place were related exactly to these same issues," he said.

No Mr Ambassador, POLAD is a waste of time and opportunity both of which Zimbabwe can ill afford to waste. Zimbabwe is in this economic mess and political paralysis because the country has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship for 39 years and now, with the nation’s stability and survival at stake, the country needs to end the dictatorship a.s.a.p. Polad, even with MDC included, will only help Zanu PF to remain in office till 2023 and beyond!

The then VP Mnangagwa, ZDF Commander Chiwenga and many of their fellow Joint Operation Command (JOC) members dubbed their November 2017 coup “Operation Restore Legacy”. In his first speech, on his return from exile in SA, to thank his co-coup plotters, Mnangagwa made it clear what that legacy was.

“Zanu PF ichatonga! Igotonga!” (Zanu PF will rule! And rule!) thundered Mnangagwa to a rapturous applaud from his Zanu PF cronies!

Ever since Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980 Zanu PF’s number one priority was to secure absolute power and retain it at all cost. Indeed, the party deployed a large contingent of its freedom fighters throughout the country contrary to the Lancaster House agreement stipulation to have all such personal in Assembly Points. The fighters’ message to the electorate was that if Zanu PF lost the elections then the civil war would continue.

So, instead of free, fair and credible elections the nation was presented with a grime choice of voting to end the war.

Anyone who thought Zanu PF was just bluffing about carrying on with the war; they had their answer when the party launch the Gukurahundi massacre in 1983!

Zimbabwe is in this economic mess because for the last 39 years the nation has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and lawless regime. The people could not remove it from office because the party rigged elections and regularly used wanton violence to silence all dissent.

When Mnangagwa and his putsch seized power in 2017 they appreciated the need to revive the country’s comatose economy and so they promised to hold free, fair and credible elections, to end corruptions, etc. They had just risked everything to wrestle power from Mugabe and restore their legacy; they were not going to risk losing it in free and fair elections! And so, it was not surprising that Zanu PF once again blatantly rigged last year’s elections.

“The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner,” the EU Election Observer Mission final report stated.

“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

The election process was flawed and illegal; Zanu PF does not have the democratic mandate to govern Zimbabwe. In the EU or anywhere where free, fair and credible elections are valued as a pre-requisite to stability and good governance Zanu PF would have been declared illegitimate. Period!

The main reason Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies have been able to rig the elections and impose themselves is because Zimbabwe’s opposition gave the regime the excuse. By participating in the flawed and illegal elections, knowing fully well that Zanu PF was rigging them, the opposition gave the process some credibility. What is more, the opposition understood they were doing so too!

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility,” confessed Senator David Coltart in his Book The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe.

Senator Coltart blamed the MDC factions’ failure to form a coalition for participating in the 2013 elections. This was just a feeble excuse because four of the main factions did form a coalition before the 2018 elections and yet they still participated.

POLAD, with or without MDC, is just another excuse not to challenge the Zanu PF legacy and allow the illegitimate regime to remain in office. As long as Zanu PF remains in power the party will never implement any reforms to undermine its dictatorial rule. If Zanu PF is still in power in 2023 the party will go on to rig that year’s elections too!

The EU was right in condemning last Zimbabwe’s last year elections because the process was marred with flaws and illegalities. The EU would be making a very serious mistake to endorse these futile political dialogues because they are just another excuse for allowing Zanu PF to get away with another rig elections.

With unemployment a nauseating 90%, basic services such as health care all but collapsed, ¾ of the population now living on US$30 or less a month, etc. The country’s economic meltdown is causing heart-breaking human suffering and deaths and the nation is standing on the edge of the precipice, of social instability and worse.

After 39 years of appeasing Zanu PF with the disastrous economic and political consequences we can all see; the people Zimbabwe must finally bite the bullet and deal with this curse of rigged elections. This Zanu PF regime is illegitimate, and it must step down. Period!

"I'm positively impacting Zim's development" says Gutu - are you, "many were called but few were chosen" P Guramatunhu

“I have got absolutely no apology to make to anyone for loving my country, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is currently facing serious political & socio-economic challenges but these challenges aren’t insurmountable. It’s my patriotic calling to positively impact on my country’s development,” twittered Obert Gutu.

Actually, you Mr Obert Gutu and your fellow political leaders on both sides of the political divide owe the people of Zimbabwe an apology and a hell lot more! You are right, “Zimbabwe is currently facing serious political & socio-economic challenges!” Most of these challenges are man-made, deliberate, calculated and born out of selfish greed; surely those guilty of such evil owe the nation an apology.

Before independence and for the first 20 years after independence Zimbabwe produced enough food to feed her people with plenty left over to be the breadbasket of Southern Africa. The country also earned a fortune selling cash crops like tobacco and cut flowers. All this changed at the turn of the century when Robert Mugabe started to seize mainly white-own farms to give to his cronies and party loyalist mainly to bolster his party’s sinking political popularity. Agricultural production plummeted and so too did the national economy.

Ever since the farm seizures, more often than not, Zimbabwe has failed to produce enough to feed her own people and had to rely on imported food aid. In the day and age when mankind ingenuity has turned deserts into green pastures and blooming orchards; we, living in a country that is for all practical purposes the Garden of Eden, are starving! Such is the damning testimonial of Zimbabwe’s failed Zanu PF leadership!

Credit where credit is due, by the late 1990s many Zimbabweans finally came to the conclusion that Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs were dragging the nation deeper and deeper into economic hell-on-earth. The people had failed to remove Zanu PF from office because the regime rigged the elections. What the nation needed was to implement democratic reforms designed to dismantle the de facto one-party state and to stop Zanu PF rigging elections.

The people risked life and limb to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends including the unapologetic Obert Gutut into power on the promise the party will implement the democratic changes the country was dying for. MDC had their best opportunities ever to implement the reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Sadly, MDC leaders sold-out and failed to implement even one reform.

It is now clear that MDC leaders have since forgotten the need for reforms and free, fair and credible elections as the basis for good governance. These leaders have been participating in elections knowing that Zanu PF would rig them. They also knew that Zanu PF would give away a few gravy-train seats to entice the opposition to participated; it was these the opposition politicians have been after.

The failure to stop Zanu PF rigging elections all these last 39 years is the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess.

The country is facing serious economic meltdown and that has not stopped you, President Mnangagwa and president Mugabe before him and many others, drumming your chest like a silver-back gorilla and boast about the development you brought.

Zimbabwe is still groaning under the corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. You, Mr Obert Gutu, insist Zimbabwe is a “multi-party democracy” to ingratiate yourself to the dictatorship.

“It’s my patriotic calling to positively impact on my country’s development!” Name one positive thing you have achieved and I will name twenty negative things you have caused!

As for apologising, you do not have the intellect to comprehend the enormity of your betray to the nation by failing to implement even one reform during the GNU. How can you apologise for something you have clearly failed to comprehend, even with the benefit of hindsight!

“But when the king came in to look at the guests, he saw there a man who had no wedding garment. And he said to him, ‘Friend, how did you get in here without a wedding garment?’ And he was speechless. Then the king said to the attendants, ‘Bind him hand and foot and cast him into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ For many are called, but few are chosen.” Matthew 22:11 to 14.

J Moyo's Excelgate, to "expose how elections were rigged" - rubbish, don't learn tango from fiddler crab W Mukori

“A NEW case study done by exiled former cabinet minister Jonathan Moyo, a political science professor, in collaboration with publisher Ibbo Mandaza, under his Southern African Political Economy Trust (Sapes), reveals how last year’s presidential election was systematically rigged by state institutions for President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa,” reported The Zimbabwe Independent.

“The detailed monograph which will be released soon as a book to be published by Sapes exposes the mechanism used to manipulate the vote dubbed “Excelgate”.

One of the common criticisms of last year’s election is that the whole election process from start to finish was full of errors one could not trace or verify anything! If the extracts from the book are anything to go by, then instead of the book bringing clarity it is muding the muddy waters!

“The completion of fresh V.11s, which occurred after the authorities realised that Chamisa had won the presidential election by 66% of the vote, with Mnangagwa getting 33%, based on the results that Zec had received through its server in the morning of 31 July 2018 after which it commenced a bogus verification exercise at its National Command Centre with ‘a group of people, in excess of 20, punching in what was identified as V.11 data into an Excel spreadsheet’ for a period of two days,” reads one extract from the Book.

“Against the backdrop of the evidence that has been presented in this monograph, this culminated in the massive rigging of the result of the 2018 presidential election.”

66% of what? How does the Server total compare to the Excel spreadsheet total?

We are told that MDC had election agents at 10 985 Polling Stations and no agents at the remaining 518 station. So MDC had 95.5% of the original election data, the same data that was down loaded on the Server. MDC must have done their own addition, one does not need a massive computer to add 10 985 figures adding up to less than 5 million. No doubt, Professor Jonathan Moyo would have cross checked the figures and addition. The reader is to then assume that Chamisa won 66% of this vote count.

With no MDC agents at the remaining 518 Polling Stations there is no doubt that ZEC had the opportunity to tamper with the figures. Are we to believe that ZEC overturned the 66% Chamisa victory from the 10 985 stations using figured from the remaining 518 stations? There would have been more votes cast in the 518 stations than were cast in the 10 985 stations!

Professor Jonathan Moyo’s book is clearly a waste of time, the work of one who have plenty of time to kill and is senile after nearly two years holed up in Kenya. We already know that election process cannot be traced and verified he is adding to the confusion by making his own claims that cannot be traced or verified. One will learn as much about tango dance from fiddler crabs than would learn about Zimbabwe’s 2018 rigged elections from reading Professor Moyo’s Excelgate!

We already know that Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections; the process was flawed and illegal and must be condemned. Zimbabwe has no legitimate government. 

We should be focusing all our time and energy in pressuring Zanu PF to step down so the country can appoint an interim administration to implement the reforms and end this curse of rigged elections. And not wasting it on trivial pursuits like watching fiddler crabs or worse still reading Jonathan Moyo’s Excelgate trash!

"Diplomats are sowing disharmony" - by pretending we are a democracy MDC is causing death P Guramatunhu

When MDC was launched in 1999 the party’s mission was simple and straightforward: to bring about the democratic change to end the corrupt, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship, as the party’s name implied. There is no doubt that MDC had its golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms and fulfil its mission during the 2008 to 2013 GNU.

Sadly, MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not even one! Mugabe was able to bribe the entire MDC leadership with generous salaries and allowances, ministerial limos, former white-owned farm for Welshman Ncube, a $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. and they, in return, ditched all the reforms. Everyone of the reforms!

Not only did MDC leaders fail to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU but worse still, ever since the GNU they have behaved as if all the reforms were implemented. They have participated in elections whilst paying lip service to calls for the implementation of reforms.

“MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging elections!” said Nelson Chamisa dismissively, clearly irritated by those demanding to know why MDC was participating in the elections when it was self-evident, without reforms, Zanu PF would rig the elections. Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the 2018 elections, as expected.

The Americans, Commonwealth, the EU and all the individuals, nations and organisations with any credible democratic credentials have all dismissed last year’s elections as a farce. “The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner,” stated the EU Election Observer Mission final report.

“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

It is therefore shocking that not even one of the 130 opposition political parties and 23 presidential candidates who participated in the elections have said anything the election process. Chamisa has disputed Mnangagwa’s victory on the basis of the vote count and not the process. Zimbabwe’s opposition parties and candidate have all accepted the process was free, fair and credible and thus the result legitimate.

Obert Gutu, a deputy MDC minister during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, had the audacity to claim Zimbabwe was a “multi-party democracy”. Prompting Nomusa Garikai to ask: “When did the metamorphosis from the dictatorship to a democracy happened?”

 Sadly, it is now that MDC leaders are stepping up their campaign to falsely claim Zimbabwe is now a democracy.

“National Peace Trust (NPT) Chairperson and founding member of the MDC, Mrs Sekai Holland has implored the diplomatic community to help Zimbabweans find each other, instead of dividing the nation through statements based on unverified information,” reported ZBC.

“The European Union (EU) and other western nations have recently accused the government of not respecting human rights, amid reports of alleged abductions of human rights activists and opposition members.

“But the former Co-Minister of State for National Healing, Reconciliation and Integration, Mrs Holland dismissed the claims, arguing that ‘some of the statements border on falsehoods, misinformation and outright malice.'

"It is our hope that the role of the diplomatic community at this stage is to help all Zimbabweans find their space and role in contributing towards the peace-building initiative through constructive and impartial interventions instead of sowing seeds of disharmony," she said.

Madam, it is not the members of the diplomatic corps who are sowing seed of disharmony, suffering, death and destruction in Zimbabwe; it is MDC leaders who sold-out on implementing the reforms and are now propping up the Zanu PF dictatorship by pretending Zimbabwe is a healthy and functional democratic nation.

Zanu PF blatantly rig last year’s elections confirming that Zimbabwe is still the same pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs who ruled before the 2008 GNU. MDC leaders were supposed to end the dictatorship but failed to do so. Burying our heads in the sand is not going to get the nation out of this mess.

Ever since the failed 2008 GNU MDC leaders have abandoned their mission to deliver democratic change. They have been running with the hare and hunting with the hounds; the sooner Zimbabweans grasp this reality the sooner they can finally stop following MDC leaders blindly like sheep to the slaughter and move on.

"Plans afoot for second coup to consolidate Zanu PF rule with MDC as window dressing" N Garikai

“So dire is the situation and boiling tensions in the corridors of power, that Mnangagwa is said to have pleaded for a political grace period of until August 2020 to step down, as a faction aligned to Vice President Rtd General Constantino Chiwenga, wanted him gone by December this year,” reported Spotloght Zimbabwe.

“The presidency insiders said indications are that Mnangagwa might actually be forced out early, and the military was likely to tap into the oppositions series of protests and stayaways, as a vehicle to show Mnangagwa the door.”

MDC leaders had a taste of gravy-train lifestyles during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, they completely forgot about implementing the democratic reforms, and ever since they have participated in flawed and illegal elections just to win the few gravy-train seats Zanu PF gave away as bait. They will do anything to get back on the gravy-train. Anything!

Of course, the November 2017 military coup was high treason, even if it was to remove a vote rigging tyrant. Two wrongs do not make a right! Besides, the coup was setting a dangerous precedence no nation should never ever allow.

Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders overlook all that as soon as Chris Mutsvangwa, Mnangagwa and the coup plotters’ envoy, assured the MDC leaders Mnangagwa was going to form a new GNU in which MDC would play a part. Tsvangirai left his SA Hospital bed in a huff, convinced he was going to be appointed in a senior position in the post Mugabe government.

As soon as Mnangagwa and his putsch had Mugabe and his G40 faction neutralized, they share the spoils amongst themselves; Chiwenga became VP, Perence Shiri and Sibusiso Moyo were appointed ministers, etc. Mnangagwa announced that there would be no GNU and the planed elections would go ahead. Tsvangirai felt betrayed and died a few weeks later “a very disappointed man!” according to Nelson Chamisa.

As expected, MDC participated in the 2018 elections knowing fully well Zanu PF would rig the elections; MDC participated even when ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. Beggars are no choosers; the party was after the bait seats and did not care about the blatant vote rigging.

MDC has withheld the endorsement of Mnangagwa as the legitimate president to take advantage of the EU, Americans, Commonwealth and everybody else with any democratic credentials who have all dismiss the elections as a farce. MDC wants Mnangagwa to appoint Chamisa and a few other MDC leaders cabinet ministers in return for the legitimacy endorsement.

The MDC planned demos starting 16 August 2019 are geared at piling the pressure on Mnangagwa to share the spoils of the rigged elections.

MDC leaders are want power sharing arrangement, National Transition Authority (NTA), a watered down version of the 2008 to 2013 GNU which failed to implement even one democratic reform and hence the reason Zanu PF has continued to blatantly rig the elections. The NTA will not do any better.

Indeed, the NTA is just an excuse to allow the vote rigging and therefore illegitimate Zanu PF regime to remain in office until 2023. If Zanu PF is still in office in 203, the party will rig that year’s elections; of that we can be 100% certain. MDC leaders do not care about that as long as they get seats on the gravy-train by hook or by crook.

So, Nelson Chamisa and his fellow MDC leaders are thrilled to read there is yet another military coup on the cards especially when the MDC is promised a share of the spoils.

“They’re advanced plans to turn these opposition protests and stayaway campaigns into a military managed and sponsored path to get rid of Mnangagwa, and the opposition will take shared credit for the process,” said the Spotlight Zimbabwe source.

Many Zimbabweans are aware of the sheer futility of the NTA and hence the reason many have been reluctant to support the MDC demos. The military backing of MDC demos will therefore be welcomed by Chamisa and company. Whether the new putsch will share power with MDC is academic what matters is the arrangement will never restore the people's freedoms and rights. Never! 

The real story to tell here is that the Zanu PF hardliners still view themselves as the only people fit to govern Zimbabwe regardless of the mountain of evidence of the country’s economic mess under their rule. Whichever Zanu PF faction emerges the winner in the on-going war each is counting on MDC support in return for a share of the spoils of power. 

If the people of Zimbabwe are serious about implementing the reforms and finally end the Zanu PF dictatorship, then we must demand that vote rigging and illegitimate Zanu PF regime steps down. We need Zanu PF to step down to create the political space for the appointment of an interim administration tasked to implement the reforms. 

Allowing Zanu PF to remain in office until 2023, on its own or in a Mnangagwa or Chiwenga led NTA, then we can be certain no reforms will be implemented and the party will rig the 2023 election. This will be insane just as the consequences to the nation will be catastrophic!   

"Zimbabwe needs international help" admit Japan - above all, help to end bad governance P Guramatunhu

It is now nearly two years since Mnangagwa launched his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” campaign. He was cocksure this was going to open the floodgates on new foreign and local investments. That has not happened, and many would say “Zimbabwe is open for business!” is dead in the water. The regime has not given up and is making a desperate attempt to revive the campaign.

President Mnangagwa is visiting Japan next week for the Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) “a major engagement set to unlock mutually beneficial opportunities between Harare and Tokyo,” The Sunday Mail reported.

Zimbabwe needs “international help” during its reform process which Japan is willing to provide; Mr Kenichi Kasahara, Japanese embassy’s counsellor to Zimbabwe, told The Sunday Mail.

“The topmost point is that the President himself, President Mnangagwa, is going to Japan and he will meet Prime Minister (Shinzo) Abe. We are actually arranging a bilateral meeting to be held on the sidelines of the summit,” explained Kasahara.

Of all the countries, Japan knows that Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs. Japanese investors have shied away from doing business in the country because the know no honest businessman or woman would ever want to do business with thugs.

Mnangagwa is hoping that a floodgate of Japanese investors will follow his visit to Japan; everyone knows he is a drowning man clutching straws!

The people of Zimbabwe have known these last 39 years that Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs. Powerless to remove the regime from office, the nation has tried work with the dictatorship and get on with their lives as best as they could. This has allowed the Zanu PF inspired mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness to grow and spread to the deadly cancers they are today!

In 2016 then President Robert Mugabe admitted that Zimbabwe was being “swindled” out of a staging US$15 billion in lost diamond revenue alone. We know the swindling had continued because his Minister of Finance, Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament in 2017 that government was getting 1/6 of the expected revenue from the diamond industry. By the time he was booted out of office in November 2017, he had not arrested even one diamond swindler nor recover one swindled dollar.

When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”. It was just one of the many promises he made but failed to keep. It is now nearly two years since the coup and Mnangagwa is yet to arrest his first diamond swindler and recover his first swindled dollar!

No nation on earth can survive much less thrive given the extend of the economic haemorrhaging in Zimbabwe. For a country with whose GDP is a mere US$10 billion, losing US$ 15 billion through corruption is the equivalent of bleeding from the jugular artery! No wonder the Zimbabwe economy is in a comatose state!

As much as Zimbabwe needs help to revive its comatose economy it is clear the country needs to deal with the criminal waste of human and material resources that landed the nation into the economic mess in the first place. After 39 years of pretending we could work with the dictatorship; it is insane to do so for one more day.

Zimbabwe must now bite the bullet and demand an end to corruption, mismanagement and lawlessness which are only possible if the people’s democratic freedoms and rights are restored. We must bite the bullet and demand an end to bad governance and the Zanu PF dictatorship.

Yes, Zimbabwe needs “international help” in the form of generous injection of foreign aid and investment to revive the economy but what good will that do if the criminal waste of resources through corruption is allowed to continue. Zimbabwe needs international help to end bad governance, the jugular artery haemorrhage; as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state nothing of substance can ever be accomplished!

As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” is dead his trip to Japan will do nothing to revive the mantra or the economy!