“What democratic changes has MDC accomplished ever since the party’s formation in 1999?”
An innocent question which any MDC leader and supporter would have welcome as an opportunity to boast of the party’s many achievements. In this case, it is a question very MDC members dreads - the party has failed to bring about even one democratic change in 20 years. Not one!
“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” said USA President Abraham Lincoln.
After 20 years, 5 of which in the GNU, and nothing to show for it; it is no exaggeration that MDC leaders are now finding they can no longer fool even some of their most naive and gullible supporters.
The people of Zimbabwe have risk life and limb to elect first Morgan Tsvangirai and now Nelson Chamisa and his MDC colleagues on the understanding the party will deliver the democratic changes the nation was dying for. The holding of free, fair and credible elections has become the epitome of the democratic changes.
It is true that the overwhelming majority of ordinary Zimbabweans did not have a clue what these democratic changes were the nation was dying for much less how they were to be implemented. Still, they believed Tsvangirai and company knew what the reforms were, how they would be implemented, etc.
The people believed MDC was, the movement for democratic change, as the party name implied. “As it says on the tin!” as the salesman would say.
Most people were not alarmed that MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform during the 2008 to 2013 when they had the golden opportunity to do so. They did not understanding what was going on then and many still don’t understand to this day.
However, what everybody understands is that Zanu PF is still in power, the regime has continued to rig elections and their lives is still hell-on-earth. You can fool the blind colour of rice but not on the hot chilli!
Zimbabweans know MDC has failed to deliver any meaningful democratic changes to stop Zanu PF rigging elections.
“MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging elections!” Chamisa assured the nation before the July 2018 elections. The people had no clue what the measures were, nor did that really matter; what mattered is none of the measures worked!
Chamisa has been promising “to stop the 2023 elections until comprehensive reforms are implemented to end disputed elections.” Even the most adamant Chamisa supporters know this is just hot air, the party will participate in the 2023 elections even with not even one token reform implemented.
It is not just that MDC have failed to bring about any democratic changes in the last 20 years but that things are getting worse. If this was a physical journey, then we have been going in the wrong direction.
On the economic front, the last 20 years has seen the economy sink deeper and deeper into trouble, education and health care services have completely collapsed, million of our people now live in abject poverty and despair.
The corona virus pandemic has hit hard every nation on earth; economic recovery will be a hard slog lasting five to ten years. For a country like Zimbabwe whose economy and health services were already in a total mess, corona virus has crashed the nation; economic recover will be a truly Herculean task.
If the nation was in desperate need for meaningful political change to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance 20 years ago; well the country’s desperation has increased a thousand times! If 20 years ago, the need was to save the people from their long economic suffering today it is to save lives.
In 1980 Zanu PF inherited a country with one of the most robust and promising economies in independent Africa. “A jewel, look after it,” the late Tanzania President Julius Nyerere told Mugabe at the time. Zimbabwe’s economic decline started there and then and has been relentless rat race to the bottom.
Before independence Zimbabwe produced enough food for her own people with surplus to be the breadbasket of the region. Not anymore! We are starving in what, for all intend and purposes is the Garden of Eden - a damning indictment to Zanu PF corruption and incompetency.
Zanu PF cannot revive the country’s economy given the sorry state the country is in right now. If the regime dragged us into this hell started from a sound economic base what hope is there for it to do so starting from nothing!
To save the country from the ravages of the economic meltdown, made even worse by the corona virus, Zanu PF must go. No if, no but! But, unless we replace MDC, Chamisa et al are not going to perform any miracle and deliver change, we are stuck with Zanu PF.
But sources close to the restructuring exercise, which is ostensibly being rolled out to “achieve greater efficiency as envisaged in the National Health Strategy” told the Zimbabwe Independent that the number of recalled staffers was high, as fears of attracting legal action mount. A source in the Ministry of Health and Child Care said the manner in which the restructuring exercise was being done, in particular putting staffers on indefinite paid leave, presented grave legal ramifications, if they are challenged in the courts. The source revealed that the exercise was also gobbling substantial amounts of money.
ReplyDeleteIn the correspondence undersigned by HSB chairperson Paulinas Sikhosana, seen by this newspaper, dated July 10 advising the workers to go on indefinite paid leave, the institution did not give any specific charges or reasons for the move.
Chiwenga is just a buffoon who was promoted way above his level of competence. At a time like this with the economy in total meltdown and made even worse by the corona virus the country need a competent government and not this troop of buffoons!