“Yesterday (MDC) Mhondoro youths launched
a vigorous voter registration campaign under the 1 million campaign banner in memory
of one the youths who was brutally murdered!” announced mdcmhondora on twitter.
The comment was copied to the party’s leaders, Nelson Chamisa and far and wide.
Murdered by whom?
What crimes had the youth committed?
Where the murderers arrested and
punished?
What assurance are there that this will
not be repeated again?
There are a thousand and one questions MDC
supporters and the Zimbabweans at large should be asking Chamisa and company.
The answer to the first question above is; murdered by Zanu PF operatives. The
answer to the last question is: the wanton violence will return if Zanu PF
should feel the “vigorous voter registration” was posing a serious threat to
its iron grip on power. Chamisa and company’s Win In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies
are a bluff to fool the gullible public who are desperate for change and not a
threat to Zanu PF hegemony!
There will be no meaningful economic and
political change in Zimbabwe without first implementing the reforms. MDC A’s
WIRE strategies, the so-called mass voter registration being one such phantom strategy,
are all a waste of time and space.
Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections were a
watershed in that Zanu PF showed the world there are no limits to what the party
will do to retain absolute power. None! The party ordered the recount of the
March 2008 vote to whittle down Tsvangirai’s 73% vote, by Mugabe’s own Freudian
slip, to 47% - enough to force a run-off.
Zanu PF’s primary focus during the
run-off was to punish the people for having rejected Mugabe and Zanu PF in the
March vote. The party used war veterans and Zanu PF youths backed by the
Police, Army and CIO to destroy property, intimidate, beat, rape and over 500
people were brutally murdered.
“What was achieved by the bullet cannot
be changed by the ballot!” thundered Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe won the run-off with a landslide
84%!
SADC and AU refused to accept Mugabe and
his Zanu PF as the legitimate government because of the blatant cheating and
wanton violence. SADC forced Mugabe to join Tsvangirai to form the 2008 to 2013 GNU whose primary task was
implement the raft of democratic reforms to ensure the vote rigging of 2008
will not be repeated ever again. Sadly, not even one reform was implemented. Not
one!
The task of implementing the reforms
during the GNU fell to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends. Mugabe bribed the
MDC leaders with the trappings of high office and, with their snouts in the
feeding trough, they completely forgot about the reforms for the five years of
the GNU.
SADC leaders, who were the guarantor the
GNU, tried to have the July 2013 Zimbabwe elections postponed until the reforms
necessary for free and fair elections were implemented. “If you go into
elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!” SADC
leaders warned Tsvangirai in June 2013, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza who
attended the SADC Summit in Maputo, Mozambique.
Tsvangirai and company paid no heed.
Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the 2013
elections as SADC leaders had rightly predicted.
There was very little violence in 2013
and 2018, at least nothing compared to 2008, but only because Zanu PF had revamped
its vote rigging schemes to deliver a landslide electoral victory without
having to resort to the use of violence. The party has deployed the war
veterans and other party operatives just to remind the electorate the party will
resort to wanton violence at the drop of a hat if its hold on power should ever
be threatened again.
Chamisa and company did nothing to
threaten Zanu PF’s dominance in 2013 or 2018. This “vigorous voter registration
campaign under the 1 million campaign banner” is just a blast of hot air. But
if it should be a threat, Zanu PF will respond stepping up the intimidation,
beatings, rape and cold-blooded murders.
What is almost certain to happen is that
the 2023 elections will be relatively peaceful because Chamisa and company have
no intention of posing a serious political challenge to Zanu PF. Ever since the
GNU debacle, MDC leaders have given up on implementing the reforms and are now quite
content to be Zanu PF’s junior partner.
Zanu PF has retained all its dictatorial
powers and will exercise them as it sees fit to secure 2/3 majority plus the
presidency. MDC play its role as the opposition party for the sake of keeping
up the appearance of Zimbabwe as a functioning multi-party democracy. MDC
leaders will have the remaining 1/3 of the gravy train seats plus the
corresponding portion of the annual Political Party Finance Act pay-out.
The real losers in this new Zimbabwe Zanu
PF and MDC marriage of convenience are the ordinary Zimbabwean. They have
risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders on the understanding the party will
deliver democratic changes to restore their freedoms and rights including the
right to free and fair elections. After 21 years, 5 of which in the GNU, MDC has
failed to implement even one reform and to add insult to injury MDC is now abusing
the people’s naivety to keep Zanu PF in power.
MDC in lying about the party winning
rigged elections, these WIRE strategies are just nonsense. By participating in
these flawed elections Zimbabweans are unwittingly giving the vote rigging Zanu
PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the Zanu PF dictatorship – the very thing
they continue to risk life and limb to end!
How long will it take Zimbabweans before
they finally realise that by participating in flawed elections, they are giving
the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy? It is insane to expect to win rigged
elections, especially given there is no limit to Zanu PF’s blatant cheating and
wanton violence. The sky is the limit!
The are two lessons Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies have learnt following the humiliation of being forced into the 2008 to 2013 GNU. The first lesson was to adapt. Before the GNU, Zimbabwe was a de facto one party state, a Zanu PF dictatorship to be exact. The GNU forced Zanu PF to seek a compromise arrangement in which the party retained its dictatorial dominance whilst maintaining the outward facade of a multi-party Zimbabwe. The party has even allowed the opposition to win a few gravy train seats to entice them to participate in flawed and illegal elections Zanu PF needed to secure its 2/3 majority and win the presidency.
ReplyDeleteThe second lesson Zanu PF has learnt is to tone down its dictatorial powers, be subtle and not blatant. So instead of the blatant, in your face, cheating and wanton violence of the 2008 elections; Mnangagwa even promised to give back the vote to all Zimbabweans in the diaspora only to do nothing about. The party will fine tune some of the old and trusted vote rigging methods such as failing to produce a verified voters' roll, spending a fortune on Chiefs and other key players who will then do the party's dirty bidding during elections, etc.
Zanu PF will only resort to wanton violence if the more subtle vote rigging methods have failed and, even then, the party will go the extra mile to hide the evidence.
Nelson Chamisa and the rest of the MDC leaders know they are corrupt and incompetent and they wasted their opportunity to implement the reforms during the GNU. Robert Mugabe bribed them, exploited their weaknesses, to make sure they forgot about implementing the reforms during the GNU and afterwards they accepted the subordinate role in the farcical multi-party Zimbabwe.
Chamisa and company know they are participating in these flawed elections to win the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is dangling as bait. And by participating they will give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.
No one has ever taken MDC's post election complains that Zanu PF stole the elections seriously because everyone knew without reforms in place Zanu PF would rig the elections. Indeed, Chamisa is just being childish in complaining about rigged elections when he boasted "MDC A had stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!"
If the elections were free, fair and credible it is ZEC that should be launching a vigorous voter registration exercise because it is its duty to make sure as many Zimbabweans as possible are given the opportunity to register and then to vote in every election. The very fact that it is the voters themselves who have to jump the many hoops just to register to vote goes to show this is a flawed and illegal process. The real big question is why are the opposition politicians tolerating this if they were not working in cahoots with Zanu PF?
In a communiqué, the Nelson Chamisa-led opposition party said it had managed to attract the rural populace through the party's Zimbabwe agenda 2021 which is targeting six million voters for the 2023 elections.
ReplyDelete"The national executive council (NEC) noted the significant progress that has been made so far in implementing agenda 2021. The agenda has gathered momentum throughout all provinces in Zimbabwe. The enthusiasm both in rural and urban dwellers on the need for convergence is encouraging. Citizens are mobilising to win Zimbabwe for change," read a communiqué issued by the party after its NEC meeting.
"The people's party is on the move. It's getting stronger by the day. There is a stampede among ordinary people to buy party cards and become party members. The party is accelerating its membership drive in recruiting and mobilising for victory. The six million registered voter target is getting close to being achieved."
But Zanu-PF spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo described the claims by the MDC Alliance as "wishful thinking".
This is just part and parcel of the MDC’s “Win In Rigged Election (WIRE)” narrative to justify why the party failed to implement even one reform during the GNU and why it continues to participate in these flawed and illegal elections.
The opposition would have found many votes from the 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora; they are not so easily intimidated by the Zanu PF thugs as is the case with the rural voters, for one thing. In 2018 Mnangagwa promised the people in the diaspora will have the vote but has not kept his promise.
The regime had time to amend no few than 30 different sections of the constitution to consolidate the party’s dictatorial strangle hold but had no time to extend the postal vote to the 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora. 5 million voted in 2018 and therefore the 3 million is 38% of the 8 million potential voters!
It is telling that MDC leaders have once again said nothing about Zanu PF denying 38% of the electorate their right. It is all water off a duck’s back as far as Chamisa and company are concerned. They know Zanu PF will rig these elections and they are participating to win the few gravy train seats Mnangagwa is giving away as bait. They false narrative of winning rigged elections is to hide their greed.
The challenge is for the ordinary Zimbabweans to finally open their eyes and see MDC leaders for what they really are – corrupt, incompetent and sell-outs. It is insane to believe in this WIRE nonsense especially after 41 years of rigged elections.
Like it or not by participating in these flawed and illegal elections Zimbabweans are shooting themselves in the foot by giving legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF. And we are being conned again and again by Chamisa and company, village idiots in their own right! “Benzi inyama yegakava!” (The village idiot is stubbornly idiotic!) as one would say in Shona.
@ Abednico Mweembe Mweembe
ReplyDelete“That is great stuff more work must be done in rural areas before rotten maize is delivered to those areas.”
The rural areas are Zanu PF strong holds because the party has reduced the rural voters into nothing but medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing Zanu PF operatives including war veterans, party youths and the traditional leaders. Last Tuesday, 25 May, Mnangagwa handed over 18 twin-cab Isuzu trucks, the first batch to be given to the country’s 270 chiefs – down payment for their part in frog matching the rural voters to attend Zanu PF rallies and to vote for the party.
Abednico, it is either you are a Zanu PF double agent playing the dumb MDC supporter or you are indeed a dumb MDC supporter. Sadly for Zimbabwe we have more than our fair share of idiots from both camps and hence the reason the nation is stuck!
@ Sondela Kuboni
ReplyDelete“We want our Mthwakazi state, where political parties will get into an election mode for 3 month in every 5 years as opposed to election mode for 4yrs with one year reserved for development. Continue outdoing each with more and more electioneering mode.”
Yes Zanu PF and MDC have been in electioneering mode for 4 out of 5 years if not 5 out of 5 years because they have brought about nothing of substance.
As for you and your Mthwakazi friends you have spend all your time sabre-rattling. You are itching for a tribal/regional confrontation, you want to drag the nation into yet another meaningless bloodshed just as Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs did in 1983 with Gukurahundi.
You talk of seeking development and yet has never ever articulated anything of substance because you cannot think of any. You are no different from Mnangagwa and his 2017 “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra that was still born. Investors are a shrewd lot, they could see that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state and would not be fooled by the rhetoric.
Your sabre-rattling is marking Zimbabwe as a politically unstable nation stumbling for one crisis to the next. Only a fool like you would think that is conducive to stability, peace and development.
If there is any more innocent blood shed in Zimbabwe, history will remember that it was people like you who started the fire! There is absolutely nothing to be gained by dividing the country. Nothing!
MDC leaders know that without reforms Zanu PF will just rig the elections just as happened for the last 41 years. MDC leaders are participating because they are after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is offering to entice the opposition to participate. By participating the opposition are giving legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF who would otherwise find themselves in the sin-bin as happened in 2008.
ReplyDeleteMDC leaders have to keep up the narrative they are winning rigged elections to justify why they keep participating in the flawed elections and to hide their real reason - greed.
“In our last election, one of the reasons that led to the MDC-Alliance losses was lack of election agents in some rural areas which made it easy to stuff up ballots and ramp up the numbers,” you said.
ReplyDeleteWe have heard this repeated many time but this does not change that these people don’t know what they are talking about. ZEC’s affidavit to the Constitutional Court in 2018 did not have all the V11 forms, about 10% were missing, from which Mnangagwa’s 2.4 million votes was based.
So, if ZEC, the body constitutionally empowered to manage the election process did not have all the V11 forms what hope is there that the opposition would have them? There is the official Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) fronted by chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba and her staff and then there the unofficial and secretive ZEC doing its own things that Chigumba has no control over and pretend does not know is happening although she accepts everything without question.
With Army, Judiciary, ZEC and all the other State institutions in Zanu PF’s pockets the regime has a thousand and one different ways of rigging the elections and the notion that the opposition can come up with Chamisa’s “SOLID PLAN”, another one of the tried and failed “Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies”, is just as foolishness on steroids!