“Behind-the-scenes and indirect 'talks about the talks' appear to be gathering pace with Chamisa now saying that he will accept mediation by "neutral" locals,” reported Dailynews.
“MDC spokesperson Daniel Molokele said at the weekend that the party would be comfortable with an independent judge or clergyman mediating the mooted dialogue.”
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis (the nation has been drifting like a log in a flooded Zambezi River with no one in control for decades) is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. The curse of rigged elections is the elephant in the room that the nation has ignored for the last 39 years.
During the 2008 to 2013 GNU, SADC leaders made a determined effort to deal with Zimbabwe’s problem of rigged elections. They managed to get Robert Mugabe to agree to a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. SADC leaders entrusted Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to implement the democratic reforms.
Mugabe bribe the MDC leaders with ministerial limos, generous salaries, a US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. And with the snout in the feeding tough, MDC leaders forgot to implement the reforms. Not even one reform was implemented in five years. Not one!
SADC leaders made one more determined effort to get MDC leaders to postpone the elections until reforms are implemented.
“In 2013 the (SADC) Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza, Director of the think tank SAPES Trust, told 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.
“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’.”
Sadly, SADC leaders’ stern warning fell on deaf MDC ears! The 2013 elections were not postponed and Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig them, as SADC leaders had predicted.
If both sides wanted the elections to go ahead regardless of the flaws and illegalities, there was nothing SADC leaders could do but accept that reality. They judge Zanu PF the winner of the flawed and illegal 2013 and 2018 elections, a subtle and mooted point that Zanu PF leaders has ignored, naturally.
Still, SADC leaders know last year’s elections were rigged and, more significantly, they know nothing of substance can ever be accomplished in Zimbabwe until the curse of rigged elections in dealt with. SADC leaders will therefore agree to mediate in the Zimbabwe crisis again on one condition; there are cast iron guarantees that the democratic reforms will be fully implemented this time.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF friends know SADC will insist on having the democratic reforms implemented and hence the reason the party is standing its ground and refusing outside mediators. It appears MDC is giving in on this point, not that Chamisa was ever interested in getting the reforms implemented; MDC lost they golden opportunity to do this during the 2008 GNU. All MDC leaders want is a chance to get back on the gravy train and the feeding trough.
What Mnangagwa and Chamisa must know is their political dialogue will be judged a waste of time and opportunity if it does not resolve the curse of rigged elections and bad governance! Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has reached crisis point, the nation wants a solution to rigged elections and not another gimmick!
Any political solution that does not include the implementation of the democratic reforms and guarantee free, fair and credible elections is as futile fixing everything on the car as good as new but would not do anything to seized engine. That car will go nowhere!
The Minister of Finance Mthuli Ncube is seeking parliament to endorse the unauthorised use of money amounting to about ten billion United States Dollars.
ReplyDeleteIf a Government Ministry or Department spends money in any financial year in excess of the amount appropriated, or fora purpose for which nothing was appropriated, the Minister of Finance is required in terms of section 307 of the Constitution to cause a Bill condoning the unauthorised expenditure to be introduced in the National Assembly seeking condonation of the unauthorised expenditure, no later than sixty days after the extent of the unauthorised expenditure has been established.
In line with the above, we seek condonation for unauthorised expenditure incurred by Line Ministries of US$25 305,741 ( Twenty-five million three hundred and five thousand and seven hundred and forty-one dollars) for year ended 2015, US$1,530,890.050 (one billion five hundred and thirty million cight hundred and ninety thousand and fifty dollars) for year ended 2016, US$4,562,064,123 (four billion five hundred and sixty-two million and sixty four thousand one hundred and twenty-three dollars) for year ended 2017, US$3 560,343,130 (three billion five hundred and sixty million three hundred and forty-three thousand one hundred and thirty dollars) for year ended 2018.
Here we are, one day Minister Mthuli Ncube is telling IMF and WB that Zimbabwe has its fundamentals right and the next day he is admitting that government blow US$10 billion.
Mnangagwa rigged last year's elections and the argument that Zimbabwe can join the Commonwealth, a commune of nations that respect the rule of law when it does not, is a nonsense.
ReplyDeleteGOVERNMENT is in the early stages of negotiating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to seek approval in exploring nuclear energy generation.
ReplyDeleteThe IAEA is an international organisation under the United Nations that promotes the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons.
The need for nuclear energy in Zimbabwe comes at a time the country is only generating 650 megawatts (MW) per day, against a demand of between 1 400MW and 1 700MW.
"We need to take advantage of every source of power that we got. It is permissible to use nuclear for peaceful means. We want energy, so it is a process that one goes through with in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and we are at the beginning of that process. The energy would come from uranium," Energy minister Fortune Chasi told NewsDay in a recent interview.
The regime is just seeking high profile projects to bolster its image and message its bloated ego of the leaders. Zanu PF has failed to maintain Kariba Hydro Power Station much less build Batoka Gorge although it had all the ground work for these projects done by Ian Smith’s government.
The regime has even failed to provide something as basic as health care. It starved the country’s health care services for decades they have all but closed.
Everything in the country is in an advance state of rot and decay and instead of sorting out these simple problems the regime was to build and run a Nuclear Power Station! Well this will be one big and very expensive white elephant that will never generate one kilowatt hour!
This is just Mnangagwa’s answer to Chamisa’s 300km/hr bullet trains running on NRZ’s dilapidated 50 km/hr max railway network!
Zimbabwe needs to implement democratic reforms and finally get competent leaders and not these corrupt and incompetent village idiots who have nothing to offer.
@ Batshele Nduna
ReplyDelete“Please give us a break from the nauseating mantra of rigged elections. MDC assured all that it was impossible to rig the elections and we naively believed the good leader. After the plebiscite the leader squealed about the stolen elections that is when everyone joins the chorus of rigged elections.”
Well it sounds like you too believe the “good leader” lied and Zanu PF did rig the elections.
The elections were indeed rigged and you can bury your head in the sand and pretend otherwise, that will not change the reality. I believe this is one reality Zimbabweans must deal with and if it takes talking about the rigged elections every minute of everyday then so be it.
Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and the tragic human suffering it has brought are two realities that will not go away, not even a fool like you can dismiss them as “nauseating mantras”. The root cause of the economic meltdown is the rigged elections; to end the economic poverty, to stop the hundreds dying because hospitals have closed, etc. we must first end the curse of rigged elections.
If you cannot see the linkage between the economic meltdown and rigged elections, between bad governance and rigged elections; even with all the mountain of evidence before you, it is because you are stupid; I can see the linkage and rigged elections is going to remain the number one issue on the nation’s agenda!