The drongo, “nhengure” in Shona, is a loud quarrelsome black bird with a shrill loud cry to march. Many of Zimbabwe’s church leaders have started behaving like the drongo in their repeated calls for President Mnangagwa to hold political dialogue with the MDC Alliance leader, Nelson Chamisa.
On his part, the administrator - Father Kennedy Muguti - said it was time for Zimbabwe's leaders to put aside their political differences to heal growing divisions in the country.
"It's true that the situation in the country is tense. People are suffering and … are socially, politically and economically depressed,” Father Kennedy Muguti, the administrator of the Harare Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, told Daily News.
"There is a need for everyone to sit down and talk. In talks there is a need to have an element of faithfulness and to tell each other the truth. Telling each other the truth must not be taken as an attack.
"We call upon all political parties, civil society and churches to come together and speak with one voice because the current situation is not healthy.”
What these church leaders are ignoring is the simple fact that Zanu PF and MDC did come together following the blatant cheating and wanton violence by Zanu PF in the 2008 elections. SADC leaders brought the two parties together and drummed out the Global Political Agreement in which Mugabe and Zanu PF agreed to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms to ensure the cheating and violence of 2008 will never be repeated.
The 2008 to 2013 Government of National Unity (GNU) was tasked to implement the democratic reforms. Sadly not even one reform saw the light of day. Not one!
Zimbabwe is in this political crisis because Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2018 elections contrary to President Mnangagwa’s repeated promise to hold free, fair and credible elections. By rigging the elections, Mnangagwa confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs. By rigging the elections he forfeited the country’s hopes of economic recovery because no investors and lenders want to do business in a pariah state.
The church leaders know that Mnangagwa has no political mandate to govern the country and so they are proposing the formation of a new GNU to give him legitimacy. This is just nonsense, Mnangagwa should be punished for rigging the elections and not rewarded with political office even if he has to share power. But most significant of all, Zanu PF and MDC were both in the 2008 GNU and they failed to implement even one reform; it is therefore naive to believe the two will do any better second time around.
After 40 years of appeasing Zanu PF and allowing the party to drag the nation deeper and deeper into this man-made hell-on-earth, the only way forward is to stop dilly dallying and implement the democratic reforms, the pre-requisite for free, fair and credible elections and good governance.
Our church leaders have clearly failed to appreciate the complexities of Zimbabwe politics, to say the least. That is fine, please confine yourselves to religious matters and stop meddling in matters you pretend to know but clearly know nothing. Your repeated drongo call for Mnangagwa and Chamisa dialogue is ill-advised and irritating.
@ Job Sikhala
ReplyDelete“From tomorrow Monday the 3rd of Aug, we urge all of you to have an opportunity to stock food. This is called upon because we need to speak more loudly for the entire week starting Monday the 10th of August to the 15th. That will be the week of action. This time it won’t be a one day event. It will be a week of expression against corruption and looting.”
This is all very well comrade but was it not you who gave this vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy by participating in elections knowing fully well the elections would be rigged? “MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections,” your leader Nelson Chamisa said.
Of course, it is foolish to help Mnangagwa get into power and then spend the next five years playing cat and mouse street protest games with the regime’s thugs only to participate in the next elections and repeat the whole foolish game all over again. Zanu PF has not implemented even one reform since the July 2018 elections and there is nothing to suggest that is going to change. My question is: Will MDC Alliance participate in the 2023 elections with no reforms?
As much as I am desperate for change, I am also smart enough to know when I am being taken for a ride by both Zanu PF and MDC Alliance. I will not join you in your street protests and will argue every thinking Zimbabwean to do the same.
MDC has failed to deliver any meaningful change in 20 years and you lot are not going to do so now! Enough of this nonsense!
One of the most despicable things one can ever do is to abandon their assigned duties for selfish gain; in Zimbabwe it seems everyone is selling-out including the man and woman of cloth! Of course, most of these church leaders falling over each other in their praise of Mnangagwa and now fighting a rearguard charge to keep him in power by hook and by crook would not dare swear on the holy book that the 2018 elections were free, fair and credible. They are stupid but not that stupid not to know Mnangagwa rigged the elections.
ReplyDeleteThe church leaders have all turned a blind eye to Zanu PF rigging elections in the past and are doing so now for selfish reasons. Leaders like Father Fidelis Mukonori SJ relished hobnobbing with the late Zimbabwe dictator, Robert Mugabe; to hear him praise Mugabe is nauseating. Other church leaders have receive land and other benefits from the regime.
The church leaders' stubborn insistence, the rancorous drongo call, that Mnangagwa and Chamisa must remain in power have nothing to do with good governance and ending the people's suffering. It is the exact opposite, it is seeking to perpetuate bad governance and the people's suffering. I totally agree, it is high time someone exposed these church leaders masquerading as messengers of God Almighty for the hypocrites they are. It is high time someone told these toads to shut up!
“The New Dispensation came with the clear goal to improve the plight of the majority of our people, through an elaborate agenda to reform, restructure and rebuild, towards achievement of Vision 2030. Undoubtedly, my Administration has faced many hurdles and attacks since inauguration.
ReplyDelete“These included the divisive politics of some opposition elements, the illegal economic sanctions, cyclones, droughts and more recently, the deadly Covid-19 pandemic,” said Mnangagwa.
The real nightmare, the now 40 years long nightmare, is being told that economic prosperity is just round the corner; when one can see this is just a lie. Meanwhile the country is sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss and one is totally helpless to do anything about it because those in power have their big boot on the nation’s neck, the people are powerless and utterly helpless.
Zanu PF has enjoyed absolute power for 40 years, the regime has always blamed everyone and everything else for the country’s problems but not the regime. It has always claimed to have all the answers and demanded of us to give it time to implement the solutions. After 40 years of chasing this mirage the people must now stand up and demand their meaningful say in the governance of the country. NOW and not in the distant future.
Zanu PF did not hold free, fair and credible elections in 2018 and this must be addressed now because if it is not address it will leave the door open for Zanu PF to rig the 2023 elections and thus perpetuate the regime’s tyrannical rule. Enough is enough!