It was America’s Ambassador to Zimbabwe, 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell who pointed out just how incompetent MDC leaders are and how they can be a burden, not an asset, to the nation.
In a leaked cable back to Washington, Ambassador Dell said Morgan Tsvangirai was “a flawed and indecisive character who will be an albatross round the nation’s neck if he ever got into power.” The Ambassador said similar things about the rest of the MDC leaders.
The MDC leaders’ failure to implement even one democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU proved beyond doubt they were corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. They have compounded their pathetic performance during the GNU by participating in flawed and illegal elections and thus giving the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy.
What is really infuriating is the MDC leaders have known all along that by participating in the flawed elections, they will be giving credibility to the process and legitimacy to the result as David Coltart, one of the MDC leaders, has admitted in his book.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” wrote Coltart.
“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.”
They have always offered one feeble excuse after another participating in these flawed and illegal elections in 2013 it was “failure to agree a coalition”.
Four of the main MDC factions plus three other opposition parties came together to form the MDC A and still there was no talk of boycotting the flawed elections. “MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” Nelson Chamisa announced.
Right now MDC A led by Chamisa and MDC -T led by Douglas Mwonzora are all gearing up to participate in the 2023 elections; without even one token democratic reforms in place, it goes without saying Zanu PF will rig the elections. Each MDC faction is offering its feeble excuse for participating.
Ever since the July 2018 elections, Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A friends have been threatening roll out street protests to pressure Mnangagwa to accept political dialogue leading to the formation of a new GNU. Chamisa and a number of his follow MDC A leaders were hoping to get cabinet positions.
It is now just over two years to the next elections in 2023, Chamisa has but given up all hope of another GNU and the recall of most of the MDC A senators, MPs and councillors in the last year has left MDC A weak, confused and, most significant of all, broke.
Still, Chamisa continues to call for street protest. MDC A is banking on millions of people coming out on the street to vent their anger at this Zanu PF regime that has presided over the economic meltdown. If the people do not come out and join the street protest, MDC A will be hoping they will vent their anger by coming out in the millions to vote for change and thus overwhelming Zanu PF’s vote rigging shenanigans.
Douglas Mwonzora is hoping to use his new found political muscle, many of the elected MDC A senators and MPs have since joined MDC-T to avoid recall, to push for dialogue with Mnangagwa leading to the formation of a new GNU. He and his MDC-T friends will be allocated ministerial position complete with limos, generous salaries, etc.
"If we adopt the politics of confrontation, the members who will be beaten up, tear-gassed, killed and hurt are opposition members,” argued Mwonzora.
"The market will stall and small businesses that will be affected are those of our members. The vendors who will not trade in cities are our members and big businesses will suffer, and this will affect the labour force we represent.
"But dialogue will safeguard our members from harm, death and other losses which may be caused by confrontation.”
There is no denying that Zanu PF’s response to MDC A’s mass protests will be to use brute force to end the protests. As for the coming elections, Mnangagwa will be aware the people are desperate for change, so desperate they will be going the extra mile to get change.
Zanu PF has no choice but to be prepared to go into overdrive with its blatant cheating and wanton violence as happened in the 2008 elections. The party has already called on the war veterans to mobilise and cabinet has just approved the recruitment and training of the party’s “green bombers” youth militia. The two groups played a key role in the intimidation, beating, rape and destruction of property in the 2008 wanton violence.
This time, Zanu PF will be deploying its trusted foot soldiers months ahead of the elections so they can do their dirty work and be done and dusted well ahead of the arrival of the elections observers, a month or so before voting day. Any violence with observers on the ground will be limited to the subtle reminder of the punishment that will be meted out if the party lose the election.
As for the blatant cheating Zanu PF will resist all pressure to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop the party rigging the elections. Both Nelson Chamisa and Douglas Mwonzora know this and hence the reason neither of them has dared provoke Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies to implement the reforms.
Indeed, it was the fear of provoking Zanu PF that stopped MDC leaders implementing even one reform in the five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding the party will bring about the democratic changes necessary to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. It is totally unforgivable that MDC leaders have failed to bring about even one democratic change offering one feeble excuse after another for doing nothing about implementing the reforms.
Worse still, MDC leaders have participating in flawed and illegal elections giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. So instead of MDC leaders bringing about democratic change they are the ones helping to perpetuate the Zanu PF dictatorship. MDC leaders are now the albatross round the nation’s neck stopping the democratic changes the nation has been dying for!
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the country has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF regime that has rigged elections to stay in power. MDC leaders have wasted many golden opportunities to implement the reforms and end the dictatorship. Implementing the reforms would have upset Zanu PF and so the MDC leaders sort the easy route of doing nothing about the reforms to appease it.
Today, with the nation in a perilous situation, with basic services such as education and health care collapsed and 50% of our people now living in abject poverty; with the nation’s very survival on line; it is imperative that we finally bite the bullet and demand democratic change over appeasement of Zanu PF thugs.
Zimbabweans must demand the implementation of the reforms following by the holding of free, fair and credible elections. If the next elections go ahead with no reforms implemented, then the plebiscite must be declared null and void. Enough of this nonsense of rigged elections and turning a blind eye to it all to appease Zanu PF!
What Zimbabwe needs is to have the democratic reforms implemented so we can finally have free, fair and credible elections. Neither Chamisa nor Mwonzora will dare push Mnangagwa to implement the forms, they did not dare implement any when they had the chance to do so, because they would rather appease Zanu PF than do what the nation needs. It is high time Zimbabweans accepted the reality that MDC leader are not going to implement the reforms and start looking for other people who will!
ReplyDeleteIt is shocking to note that Douglas Mwonzora readily accepts there is a culture of violence in Zimbabwe and that the ordinary Zimbabweans are the victims of the violence. What he conveniently failed to mention is that Zanu PF are the instigators and perpetrators of the violence and that it is all for the sole purpose of denying and stopping the people exercising their basic freedoms and rights including the right to a free vote and even the right to life!
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Mwonzora, Chamisa, Biti and the rest of the MDC leaders may be divided on many other issues but they are united in that nothing should be done to upset Zanu PF hence the reason they did not implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Neither MDC faction has any intention to push Zanu PF to implement the reforms and both factions will participate in the 2023 elections with not even one token reform in place.
Both Chamisa and his MDC A and Mwonzora and his MDC-T are blissfully indifferent to the heartbreaking human tragedy happening in Zimbabwe other than hoping that the situation will force Zanu PF to give them a bigger share of the spoils of power as their reward in helping to subdue the masses. Even now with millions of people living in abject poverty and the nation on the edge of the precipitous abyss, MDC leaders' top priority remains one of appeasing Zanu PF even at the expense of the nation sinking into the abyss.
It is insane that the people's freedoms and rights, indeed the nation's very survival, should ever be given away to gratify Zanu PF thugs' insatiable greed for power and looted wealth.
All the democratic reforms must be implemented to make sure the next elections are free, fair and credible. If Zanu PF will not implement the reforms then the nation must find others who will.
It is unforgivable that the nation has allowed the vote rigging and bad governance culture to last these last 41 years and dragging the nation into such perilous danger. The right to free and fair elections is not negotiable no more than Zanu PF or MDC have the right to push the nation over the edge into the abyss.
Does she know what the green bombers have been doing ever since Border Gazi's days? Is she the one who asked cabinet to approve the relaunch of the green bombers or was she nothing more than the ventriloquist's dummy!
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe is cursed in many ways and one of them is having more than our fair share of sell-outs. Of course, many of the professionals who have worked for these Zanu PF regimes have done so out of opportunism. They knew Zanu PF was a party of corrupt, incompetent and ruthless murderers who rigged elections to stay in power. They did not mind working for the pariah state and thus perpetuate the dictatorship as long as they were paid the thirty pieces of silver.
Kirsty Coventry should be pleased to read about the many Zimbabweans who will be harassed, beaten and raped by her green bombers as the 2023 election campaign hots up! Of course, she knows that is their set task in the fight to keep Zanu PF in power at all cost.
Kirsty Coventry in not the only sell-out in Mnangagwa's cabinet there are others like Professor Mthuli Ncube and many others. As a nation we really need to make a stand against sell-outs! Judas Iscariot ended up committing suicide, an example our sell-outs should be actively encourage to follow!
THE Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education requires at least 40 000 more teachers to address the critical manpower deficit in the education sector with science subjects and early childhood development (ECD) classes being the worst affected in terms of staff complement.
ReplyDeletePresident Mnangagwa has directed that all qualified, but jobless teachers be employed. This was to enable schools to run smaller classes in line with Covid-19 mitigatory measures, and the jobless staff is estimated to be more than 15 000.
The teachers who are there now are working three-day week because their wages are so low they cannot afford to work five-days! Government has known about this for donkey years and yet continue to pretend the problem will go away.
Where would government get the money to pay the 40 000 addition teachers?
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who have been rigging elections to retain their iron grip on power. The economic has completely collapsed because of the criminal waste of human and material resources. With the economy in total meltdown there is no money to maintain even basic services such as education and health care.
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. None! We are well and truly stuck in this man-made hell-on-earth!
THE governments of Zimbabwe and Russia this week signed an agreement that will see the Russians assisting the southern African nation setting up a nuclear power station to provide alternative sources of energy to the country facing years of perennial power cuts.
ReplyDeleteThe agreement was signed with the Russian state-owned company, State Atomic Energy Corporation.
Information Minister Monica Mutsvangwa confirmed the development at this week’s Post-Cabinet press briefing held Tuesday.
For a country with a skilled manpower deficit of 80% one has to question the wisdom of choosing the power option that demands very highly trained man power. This is just yet another examples of inflated egos trumping reason! Billions of dollars will be poured into this project and not a single kilowatt will ever be generated. This is going to be a very expensive white elephant.
President Chamisa urged citizens to assume a common position in the struggle for freedom.
ReplyDelete“WE ALWAYS WIN ELECTIONS IN ZIMBABWE!
We’ve always won elections but without winning power.
They lose elections but refuse to lose or pass on power. That we must and will fix. We must do it. It’s not easy but it must happen.
This is not a puzzle! MDC has always participated in elections knowing that the process is flawed and illegal on the ground the party will still win the elections regardless. “MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” Chamisa boasted before the July 2018 elections.
Well Zanu PF rigged the elections.
Instead of admitting MDC A’s claim of have stringent measures to stop the rigging were just hot air and the will never repeat the same idiotic mistake ever again; the party is gearing to participate in the 2023 elections under the same flawed and illegal conditions.
Chamisa and his MDC A friends are participating in the flawed elections because they know Zanu PF gives away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate. By participating in flawed elections MDC A is giving the process credibility and the result legitimacy. Chamisa and company will never admit this political reality just as they will never admit to their greed.
It is for the ordinary Zimbabweans themselves to open their eyes and see the sheer futility of participating in flawed and illegal elections. And to finally demand that the reforms must be implemented before the elections.
Zanu PF is certainly gearing to rig the coming elections and, unlike 2018 elections, the party will be using wanton violence too to secure victory.
ReplyDeleteThe best course of action is to insist on the implementation of the democratic reforms as the only way to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. All the claims of devising strategies to win rigged elections are just nonsense!
The MDC Alliance Namibia has urged youths in the country to distance themselves from the “evil” Border Gezi National Youth Service.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday, Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration announced the decision to reestablish the National Youth Service.
The plea to the youths not to join and not to harass, beat and rape did not work in the past and will not work now! Anyone saying otherwise has never lived in the rural areas where Zanu PF thugs rule the roost!
The nation needs realistic solutions and not wishful thinking!
@ Tinashe
ReplyDeleteA Strategic Opposition should never be a cry baby but should move away from the dependency syndrome type of politics, transform itself from activism into Statesmanship.
What the opposition has lacked above all else is common sense. They have been fooled time and time again into believing they can win rigged elections and hence the reason they have kept participating in flawed and illegal elections. What kind of village idiot would agree to participate in an election in which there is no verified voters’ roll!!!! Zimbabwe has never ever produced a verified voters’ roll.