“Parties
went into the 2018 elections after they had already been rigged as Zanu-PF had
implemented cosmetic electoral reforms,” wrote Chief Chiduku. He was spot on
there.
Parties
did go into the 2018 elections when the process had already been rigged. Zanu
PF denies 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote. And the party denied hundreds
of thousands more Zimbabweans the vote by failing to produce something as basic
as a verified voters’ roll; they had registered but only discovered on voting
day that the name was not on the voters’ roll.
“The
best the opposition can do amid Zanu-PF political intransigence is to galvanise
its supporters to vote en masse so that there is little room for manipulation
of the results.” He continued in the next breath, completely contradicting himself.
What difference
would galvanising someone who has no vote do in an election?
The
opposition likes to talk of devising “strategies to win rigged elections” or “mobilising
its supporters to protect the vote”; this is all pure nonsense. You cannot
protect a vote you never had. What good will come of bolting the stable door
long after the horse has bolted out!
Zanu
PF does not have the right to deny Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote because
the law is clear that every Zimbabwean has the right to a meaningful say in the
governance of the country.
It is
a legal requirement that ZEC must produce a verified voters’ roll at least a
month before nomination day. In all the 41 years of our independence Zimbabwe
is yet to produce a verified voters’ roll.
Zanu
PF has again and again flouted the rules governing the conduct of elections.
The opposition’s willingness to participate in flawed and illegal elections
have only served to encourage Zanu PF to flout the rules and rig election.
Nelson
Chamisa, Tendai Biti and all the other MDC leaders who were in the 2008 to 2013
GNU have a lot to answer for. They had the golden opportunity to implement the
democratic reforms ending Zanu PF’s dictatorial powers to deny the people their
freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote. They failed to
implement even one token reform in five years.
Having
failed to implement the reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections, MDC
and the rest in the opposition camp have been participating in flawed and illegal
elections, regardless, for selfish reasons. They knew Zanu PF was rigging the
elections but, more significantly, they also knew that the party was giving
away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate. They have
found bribe irresistible; greed has trumped reason; self-interest has trumped
the national cause of free, fair and credible election.
“Boycotting
the coming elections as announced by MDC Alliance secretary-general Chalton
Hwende at the weekend is not even an option. The opposition must prepare and
harden its membership for the impending "war",” continued Chief
Chiduku.
No
one with any common sense would ever believe that MDC A boycotted the 2023
elections to press for electoral reforms. The same individuals have ignored calls
to boycott the elections, notable the call by SADC leaders in June 2013. So why
are MDC A now heeding the call?
The
obvious explanation why MDC A leaders are now serious contemplating boycotting
the election is because they are broke. Many of the MDC A leaders who lost
their elected office position following the recalls also lost their only source
of income. The party is not getting a penny from the Political Party Finance
Act and the party has lost so much political credibility there will be very few,
if any at all, donors to bankroll MDC A political activities.
Make
no mistake about it, Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A friends would solely love to
contest the 2023 elections but only if there is a realistic chance of winning the
few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away. They will be contesting the election
on a shoe-sling budget and their main challengers vying for the same gravy
train seats, Douglas Mwonzora and his MDC-T, will have all the cash.
The
decision to boycott the elections is one MDC A must now seriously consider and is
one forced upon them by financial considerations and nothing else. Of course,
the party would want to claim they are making to force Zanu PF to implement
reforms, a lead balloon only the naïve and gullible will believe can fly.
“In
short, people must not expect free, fair and credible polls. That is a myth. It
will never happen as long as the Zanu-PF regime is in charge of national
affairs,” persisted Chiduku.
By
participating in the flawed and illegal elections, the opposition are the ones
giving the process credibility and, by extension, giving the vote rigging Zanu
PF regime legitimacy. How anyone cannot see the futility of participating in
these elections beggars belief. It is insane!
It
should be remembered here that most the leaders in both Nelson Chamisa and his
MDC A and Douglas Mwonzora and his MDC-T were key players in the 2008 to 2013
GNU that failed to implement even one reform in five years. The dramatic events
of the last year have pitted the former colleagues in dog-eat-dog which have
only underlined why they failed to implement any reforms – they corrupt and breathtakingly
incompetent.
Both
MDC A and MDC-T have lost political credibility. Don’t tell Mnangagwa and Zanu
PF, that!
Mnangagwa
is still banking on the opposition participating in the flawed and illegal
elections to give the process credibility and, by extension, give the vote
rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy. A discredited opposition cannot give the
process credibility nor, by extension, give the vote rigging Zanu PF regime
legitimacy!
Zanu
PF lost legitimacy following the 2008 elections, no one, not even SADC and AU
would recognise Zanu PF as the winner because of the blatant cheating and
wanton violence. History is set to repeat itself in 2023; Zanu PF will not be
recognised as the legitimate government because the elections were not free,
fair and credible and a discredited opposition will not give the regime
legitimacy!
The
idea that the nation is stuck with the vote rigging Zanu PF and must expect no
change, is absurd. Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are mere mortals and there
is no prison built by mortals that man cannot escape from. The Zanu PF
dictatorship has been a curse to the nation and its demise is long overdue.
Luke Tamborinyoka, you and your fellow corrupt and incompetent MDC friends have a fixation with street protests, they are the panacea to all the nation’s problems.
ReplyDelete“In the case of Zimbabwe, section 59 of the Constitution, a Constitution written by the people themselves and affirmed in a referendum in May 2013, gives citizens the inalienable right to protest and petition the government, provided they do it peacefully in line with the dictates of the supreme law of the land,” you argued.
The same constitution also calls for free, fair and credible elections, does it not! Zanu PF has blatantly denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. You and your MDC A friends ignored all those flaws and illegality and participated in the elections because you were after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF offered to entice the opposition to participate.
By participating, you gave the flawed elections credibility and, by extension, gave the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy. And now you want the people to risk life and limb staging street protests; we both know that the protests will never be peaceful and the regime will use brute force to end them; to remove the regime you gave legitimacy.
Lest people forget, MDC leaders had the best opportunity to implement the reforms and end the curse of rigged elections during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Mugabe bribed them and the chance went begging.
The best solution is to make sure there are free, fair and credible elections and right now it is MDC leaders who are frustrating all efforts to get the reforms implemented. Street protests will only result in suffering, death and destruction. This is pure madness and it must end!
"It is difficult to enforce the wearing of masks, sanitising and social distancing among pupils single-handedly as teachers are on go-slow," he said.
ReplyDelete"That is the reality on the ground. The situation is better for day schools as pupils can go to their homes, but here at boarding schools, we have to take care of them."
Amalgamated Rural Teachers Union of Zimbabwe (Artuz) president Obert Masaraure said government should address the incapacitation crisis, as it was likely that school would close due to the bleak COVID-19 situation in schools.
There is no denying that teachers and nurses have been the first sacrificed by the regime. Government revenue has been dwindling because the regime has failed to revive the economy and education and health care services are been starved of funds. The security services have just had their wages increased four fold and the best government is offering teachers and nurses is 75% wage increase.
"The (Education) ministry will not be deterred from its mandate of providing inclusive and quality education by perceived threats of job action," said Primary and Secondary Education ministry spokesperson Taungana Ndoro.
In January 2019, before the corona virus outbreak, schools in Chiredzi South constituency posted 3% or less pass rate at all levels from grade 7 to “A” levels. The corona virus has made the situation a lot worse. If that is “quality education” then I don’t know what is not.
Zimbabweans must now address the problem of bad governance at the heart of economic meltdown with the urgency and seriousness the matter demands because a nation in economic ruins, with collapsed health and education services is a nation in serious trouble and no future!
Zimbabweans have earned a reputation for being hard workers wherever they go and it was the same story before independence. Ever since independence it has been a different story, Zanu PF has brought the new ethos. The filthy rich in Zimbabwe are the ones who do nothing but steal and loot and corruption has been institutionalised with the state machinery backing the corrupt.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe is a Police state in that it has more soldiers, Police and CIO personal than teachers, nurses and social workers. And yet the country is losing a staggering US$1.2 billion worth of gold to smugglers. The reason is clear enough, the bloated security is there to protect the looters, they are the looters.
If we can fight the scourge of rigged elections that has allowed Zanu PF to stay in power all these 41 years and restore the ethos of hard work Zimbabwe can be a totally different nation. Sadly, our reputation for hard work has not extended to ensuring good governance.
It was for Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU; they took their eyes off the ball and failed to implement even one reform. Zanu PF announced it from the rooftop that MDC had not submitted even one reform proposal and therefore it was MDC leaders’ fault not even one reform had seen the light of day.
ReplyDeleteMDC leaders would have looked like clowns boycotting the 2013 elections to force the implementation of reforms when it turns out it was the MDC leaders themselves who are had failed to submit reform proposals. Still, MDC leaders have looked even worse than clowns for participating in elections knowing Zanu PF was set to rig.
“MDC A has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” argued Nelson Chamisa before the 2018 elections. If any one of the MDC leaders had any pride, they would be cringing with shame every time they are reminded of the Chamisa’s foolishness.
The one saving grace for the MDC leaders is that many Zimbabweans have, to this day, remained clueless what the 2008 GNU was about much less blame MDC leaders for selling out. Still, there is no excuse why Zimbabweans have allowed themselves to be dragged into flawed, illegal and utterly meaningless elections on the nonsensical basis that MDC has devised strategies to win “rigged” elections!
Why should we have even one more rigged election? Who needs rigged elections? The common sense position is just stand firm and demand the implementation of the reforms and end this scourge of rigged elections once and once for all!
Signs are, Zimbabweans are going into the 2023 elections confident of opposition finally winning rigged elections!
Often, people get the government they deserve; good or bad. We in Zimbabwe certainly deserve this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the entourage of equally corrupt and incompetent opposition parties!
"I share this report with you in the week where Zimbabwe marks the return of over 200 000 migrant returnees since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020," he said.
ReplyDelete"These migrants have returned to the very communities which led them to look for a better life elsewhere and have no livelihood opportunities to sustain their return and overall socio-economic stability."
Malanca said IOM had supported the national COVID-19 emergency response to reach these returnees with assistance through the different pillars of co-ordination and partnership, risk communication and community engagement, disease surveillance, points of entry, infection prevention and control, protection, temporary water sanitation and hygiene and reintegration assistance.
"The support we and our partners have provided migrant returnees is commendable, we however must remember that these migrants are returning to communities that are often ill-equipped to accommodate them," he said.
This is the tragedy of Zimbabwe; these migrants are returning to a country in a worse economic state than the one he had left behind. All this points to one thing: we have sat on our hands and done nothing to stop the economic rot that is behind Zimbabwe’s decades of economic decline.
Zimbabwe’s economic decline is a result of four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption have taken their toll on the once promising and robust economy. We have been stuck with a corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF regime throughout these 40 years because the party rigged the elections. This is a man-made problem we should have solved by making sure elections were free, fair and credible. We have sat on our hands and did nothing and now we are paying dearly for it!
@ Dr Mavaza
ReplyDeleteHowever, Wadyajena retorted that the MDC-T's policy on land was that no party member should benefit from the land reform.
"Minister, the burning issue here is that MDC's land policy in the past was that no one member should accept a farm from the government. Now … they also want farms," he said.
"Give them farms when they come to your offices and treat them as citizens. Do not look at politics. They are citizens of Zimbabwe and want to engage in farming as well.”
Dr Mavaza if you had been paying attention then you would know that MDC leaders sold-out big time during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when they failed to implement even one reform.
“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC people have earned to enjoy the gravy train good-life without rocking the boat!) boasted Zanu PF cronies at the time when asked why MDC leaders were not implementing the reforms.
So the fact that MDC leaders are now asking for farms; they will get these A1 and A2 farms, if they are lucky and not the vast multiple farms their Zanu PF counterparts got, there are none left; is small potato.
As for Zanu PF creating 1 million jobs; the party has been promising to create 3 million job in the past but failed to deliver. Only an apologists like you would make a big song and dance about yet another empty Zanu PF promise.
“This (sanctions) is now behind us. We no longer talk of sanctions; the land has been reunited with its people and the people with their land and that is now over. We now move on,” said Chiwenga.
ReplyDeleteHe was speaking at the launch of the Zimbabwe Leather Sector Strategy (2021-2030) in Bulawayo Friday.
“That period has given us the chance, the time to think outside the box and we now have to rebuild our livestock and leather products. We want all of us, not in the too distant future, to talk about the best leather in Zimbabwe globally. Zimbabwean leather has to be the best and that way we will rebuild our glorious past.”
He said the continued imposition of the restrictive measures by the EU, UK and the USA would not stop Zimbabwe’s economic transformation as the country was building robust internal capacities for wealth creation and job expansion.
The government, two years declared 25 October of every year, a public holiday to mark the SADC Anti-Sanctions Day.
This is just cheat talk. Sanctions were imposed 20 years ago and the nations was told at the time the sanctions will have no effect. Mugabe came up with his “Look East!” policy and yet he was the one who complained no end about the sanctions.
The truth is Zimbabwe was already in a serious economic mess before the sanctions were imposed and the regime has since used them as a scapegoat for all the nation’s ills. Th regime has dismissed the sanction as an act of defiance only to revisit it again in its desperate search for an excuse for its failure.
This Zimbabwe Leather Sector Strategy is doomed to come to nothing just like so many other Zanu PF initiative and mark my words, the regime will be back to blaming sanctions!
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who rig elections to stay in power, there will be no meaningful economic recovery!
Ever since 2001 when the sanctions were imposed Zanu PF has blamed the sanctions for all the country's economic problems, conveniently overlooking the fact that the country's economy was already in meltdown by then. Mugabe announced his "Look East!" policy as an act of defiance designed to render the sanctions ineffective and revive the flagging economy.
ReplyDeleteThe “Look East!” policy was short lived as the Chinese soon stopped giving Zimbabwe any financial assistance for the same reason IMF, WB and other financial institutions had stopped doing the same in 1999 - Zimbabwe did not repay its debts.
The economic meltdown had continued with a short pause during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when the government of the day was forced to ditch some of its misguided economic policies. The economy recovered by as much as 12% in 2009 from a negative 6% before the GNU. The sanctions were still in place throughout the GNU, further proof it was not the sanction that was causing the economic meltdown.
At the end of the GNU Zanu PF rigged the elections and restored the country’s status as a pariah state and the economic meltdown took off once again. The regime’s response was to blame the sanction for the economic woes and has announce one sanctions busting policy after another, just as Mugabe did with his “Look East!” policies. So far none of these policies have worked and the economic meltdown has only got worse and worse.
This Zimbabwe Leather Sector Strategy is one of many Zanu PF sanctions busting policies that is doomed to fail just as all the other policies before it.
As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by vote rigging buffoons like Chiwenga, there will be no meaningful economic recovery.
Appearing before a lands parliamentary portfolio committee hearing last week, Masuka confirmed the Bankers Association had rejected government's offer citing the 99-year- leases were not worth the paper they were written on.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the minister argued, before the committee, the leases were bankable and the government had since informed the Bankers Association it would revive the AFC to provide finance to resettled farmers' projects.
Masuka said under the AFC loan scheme, farmers would to inject 15% upfront to get requested loans.
To get the farm one must have political connections and the connections must remain strong; we all know that the dog-eat-dog infighting in Zanu PF has left many, even the bigwigs like Didymus Mutasa and Joice Mujuru, in the “wrong basket” and serious trouble. The dog-eat-dog is not over and is being fuelled by the worsening economic situation.
The bank manager will want to see proof that the applicant has strong political connections and guarantees the connections will last and transferable! No wonder they are refusing to give out any loans!
In any case, in those days of hyper inflation who would want to give a loan for more than a few months!