“The four-wheel gifts are meant to buy the chiefs' allegiance. This must stop,” wrote Chief Chiduku in Bulawayo 24.
“The fairness of the forthcoming elections is already in doubt, especially in rural areas where chiefs will compete to please Zanu-PF as a thank you for the things they are being given and promised.
“The economic situation remains gloomy, but the government is spending millions of dollars to please traditional leaders. This brings to the fore the question of this government's priorities and commitment to free, fair and credible polls.”
Of course, it is wrong to use chiefs and other traditional leaders as Zanu PF political commissars and an outrage that the rural voters have been turned into medieval serfs beholden to the chiefs and other zanu PF operative. Yes it should be stopped forthwith. It is an outrage that this has happened countless times it is now considered the norm!
But who is there to stop it?
Zimbabwe is not the fairytale Second Republic in which the evil dictator Robert Mugabe was booted out following the November 2017 military coup and everyone lived happily ever after, Mnangagwa would want us all to believe it is. Nor is it a healthy and functioning democracy the opposition pretend it is.
Nelson Chamisa, the leader of the main opposition party MDC A, admitted last week that the chiefs will once again “frog-march” the rural voters to vote for Zanu PF. He said it with the callous indifference of one who does not care that the millions of the rural voters are once again being denied the fundamental right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
Ever since Chamisa and his MDC friends failed to deliver even one democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, they have all but given up the fight for reforms and free and fair elections. Chamisa and company are happy to participate in these flawed and illegal elections and give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy in return for the few gravy train seats Zanu PF has been giving away as bait.
As for Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies; why they stop using chief and the other traditional leaders as political commissars or any of the other vote rigging activities when doing so would risk him and the party losing power. And why take the risk when the country’s economic is in such a mess that Zimbabweans would certainly vote him and the party out of office. More so, when they knew MDC A and the rest in the opposition will participate regardless who flawed and illegal the process happened to be!
If Zimbabwe was a healthy democracy in the true sense and spirit USA President Abraham Lincoln’s “government of the people by the people and for the people”; then the people themselves would be the ones up in arms demanding reforms, free and fair elections and an end to all these vote rigging shenanigans.
Sadly, the Zimbabwe electorate have never ever been knowledgable enough on any subject to held the country’s leaders to account. Even on a common subject such as democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections, many Zimbabweans out there have no clue what constitutes free and fair elections, for example.
The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding, once in power, the party will implement the democratic changes to end the vote rigging shenanigans such as holding the rural voters captive serfs. After 21 years on the political stage, 5 of which in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, MDC has failed to implement even one democratic reform.
The real surprise is many Zimbabweans have no idea the GNU’s primary purpose was to implement the reforms and much less that MDC leaders sold-out big time by failing to get any reforms implemented. The people have not only failed to see MDC leaders for the corrupt, incompetent and sell-outs they are but continue to follow the party with the same blind loyalty - proof they are not yet ready for democracy and good governance.
The very fact that millions of Zimbabweans in the rural areas are going to be corralled like cattle and frog-marched to vote for Zanu PF has not outraged many Zimbabweans out there; it is water off a duck’s back. Many Zimbabweans are gearing to participate in the 2023 elections because MDC A conned them into believing the party has stringent measures to win rigged elections.
Of course, it is insane that anyone would still believe in winning rigged elections after 41 years of rigged elections. By participating the people too will give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and thus help extend Zanu PF’s tyrannical rule.
“Frog-marching voters to vote for Zanu PF is unfair and must be stopped!” Stopped by who? Not Zanu PF! Not MDC A! Not ever the people themselves can stop it! No one has the political will and/or vision to stop it.
Yes KK played a positive role in the fight for independence in Zimbabwe and many other countries. We must give credit where credit is due.
ReplyDeleteHowever we must also mention what a hopeless leader he was in dragging Zambia into the mess from which the country has never recovered.
@ Mavaza
ReplyDelete“Kenneth David Kaunda was born on the 28 April 1924. He was affectionately known as KK was a Zambian politician who served as the first President of Zambia from 1964 to 1991. He was at the forefront of the struggle for independence from British rule. Dissatisfied with Harry Nkumbula's leadership of the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress, he broke away and founded the Zambian African National Congress, later becoming the head of the United National Independence Party (UNIP). He was the first President of the independent Zambia. In 1973 following tribal and inter-party violence, all political parties except UNIP were banned through an amendment of the constitution after the signing of the Choma Declaration.”
Where would Zambia be today if the late Kenneth Kaunda had been a competent and visionary leader like the late Nelson Mandela? Sadly, for Zambia KK was no visionary leader but but just a blundering buffoon who got lucky to be appointed in a position of power and authority way above his level of competence and, like other buffoons notably Robert Mugabe, surrounded himself with idiots and spent all his decades in office hanging on to power.
The only saving grace for KK is that in 1991 he finally accepted electoral defeat and handed over power peacefully. The same happened to Mugabe in 2008 and he and his Zanu PF cronies instituted one of the worst blatant electoral cheating and wanton violence Africa has ever seen just to hang on to power.
At least Zambia had the chance to reset its failed political system in 1991. It abolished the one-party dictatorship but failed to produce a healthy and functioning democracy. Zambia is nothing but a broken clay pot, one can fix it but it will never be sound.
In Zimbabwe 2008 to 2013 GNU was the nearest the country ever gone to reset its failed corrupt, tyrannical autocracy. Sadly, the MDC leaders who were given the task to implement the democratic reforms were corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. They failed to implement even one token reform in five years.
Mugabe was finally booted out of office in a palace coup in 2017. The coup removed one dictator only to replace him with another. Zimbabwe’s nightmare of having corrupt and incompetent buffoons in power is far from over, they are deeply entrenched into power and flushing them out after 41 years and counting is not going to be a walk in the park!
The IMF comments followed a virtual Article IV consultative meeting between Harare and the fund. The IMF team was led by Dhaneshwar Ghura. It conducted meetings with Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya and other senior government officials.
ReplyDelete"Zimbabwe has been a fund member in good standing since it cleared its out-standing arrears to IMF in late 2016," Ghura said in a statement.
"The fund provides extensive technical assistance in the areas of economic governance and financial sector reforms as well as macroeconomic statistics. However, the IMF is precluded from providing financial support to Zimbabwe due to an unsustainable debt and official external arrears," the IMF noted.
"A fund financial arrangement would require a clear path to comprehensive restructuring of Zimbabwe's external debt, including the clearance of arrears and obtaining financing assurances from official creditors; a reform plan that is consistent with macroeconomic stability, growth and poverty reduction; a reinforcement of the social safety net; and governance and transparency on reforms," he added.
The position was largely expected, because with a ballooning debt, Zimbabwe's risk profile remains high and lenders have been sceptical to continue pumping more funding as a result of default risks. Without external funding, Harare slipped into a gruelling humanitarian crisis that saw over 500 000 workers lose jobs last year due to COVID-19-induced lockdowns, according to the World Bank.
Almost eight million Zimbabweans relapsed into extreme poverty since the pandemic broke out last year, forcing companies to wind up operations as government rolled out hard lockdowns. However, the IMF also predicted that Zimbabwe's gross domestic product (GDP) will grow by 6% this year, owing to a good agricultural output, increased energy production, and the resumption of greater manufacturing and construction activities. It was the second time in a week that international lenders gave Ncube's reforms a thumbs up, after the World Bank predicted 3,9% growth last week.
The IMF, WB, EU, Americans and anyone who is anyone have all recognised the need for economic and/or political reforms as a pre-requisite condition for Zimbabwe’s economic and political recover. The one notable exception are Zimbabwean’s opposition opportunists, they have paid lip service to reforms.
SADC leaders made their position clear in June 2013 as regards Zimbabwe’s election; they wanted the elections postpone until reforms were implemented. “If you go into the elections, you will lose. The elections are done!” they warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends.
As we know MDC leaders ignored the SADC leaders’ warning and have been participating in these flawed and illegal elections ever since. The reason why MDC leaders are ignoring the reforms is greed. Zanu PF has been dangling a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate and the later have found the bait irresistible.
As long as the opposition continue to participate in these flawed and illegal elections and give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy, Mnangagwa and company will continue to resist all pressures to implement any reforms. We need to turn our attention on the sell-out opposition and pressure them to take reforms seriously too!
MOST citizens have rated President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s government to be performing badly, but if elections were to be held tomorrow, he would win with a narrow margin over his arch-rival Nelson Chamisa of MDC Alliance.
ReplyDeleteThis is part of the findings by Afrobarometer – a South Africa-based non-profit research network.
In 2013 SADC leaders wanted the Zimbabwe elections postponed until reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging were implemented. “If you go into the elections, you will lose. The elections are done!” they warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends.
As we know, MDC leaders paid no heed to the SADC leaders’ warning and Zanu PF rigged the elections and has been doing so ever since. The regime has already denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote although Mnangagwa assured the world in September 2018 that they will have the vote. The 2023 elections as “done”, as SADC leaders so aptly put it.
So if Zanu PF has already rigged these elections, what is Afrobarometer poll based on? This is just nonsense, you cannot keep assuming the elections are free, fair and credible when you know already that is the one thing they are not!
SADC leaders were right, it is an exercise in futility participating in elections whose outcome is predetermined long before the first ballot is cast. If 2023 elections go ahead with no reforms in place then they must be condemned and declared null and void.
Zimbabweans must refuse to participate in any more of these flawed and illegal elections. By participating, people give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.
Afrobarometer did not acknowledge the reality of the blatant vote rigging in Zimbabwe in the past and yet this is the one thing all the election observers have noted repeatedly. To keep assuming the elections are free, fair and credible when they are not is foolish, to say the least!
ReplyDeleteAfrobarometer's agenda is to give MDC and their supporters encouragement that they might win the rigged elections. The more rational position is to stop this nonsense of trying to win rigged elections and insist on implementing the reforms before the elections.
Just because Tsvangirai and company failed to get even one reform implemented does not mean the reforms are no longer necessary and/or that there is no one else who can implement the reforms.
THE National Council of Chiefs in 2018 bought four vehicles – Isuzu KB 250 Double Cabs D-Tek 4 x 4 – at an inflated price of US$125 000 each, instead of the US$50 500 agreed on.
ReplyDeleteThe discrepancies resulted in the state being prejudiced nearly US$300 000.
The shocking details are contained in the Report of the Auditor General (AG) For the Financial Year ended December 31, 2019, on Appropriation Accounts and Fund Accounts
The looting in Zimbabwe is happening everywhere and it is free for all. How does one justify increasing the price from US$ 50 500 to US$ 125 000 nearly 250%!
The 270 Chiefs got the Isuzu double cab five years ago are now getting new ones at a total cost of US$ 16.2 million (assuming @ cost US$ 60 000). The country is failing to buy enough vaccines to vaccinate the people against the corona virus and yet has millions to bribe Chiefs to be Zanu PF political commissars!
How long are we going to allow this outrageous waste of the nation’s human and material resources to continue!
@ Cathy Buckle
ReplyDeleteAaah, don’t you just love Zimbabwe! Despite 7.9 million ‘extremely poor people,’ according to the latest figures released by the World Bank, and with many salaries not even enough to buy a loaf of bread a day, still people are warm, welcoming, polite and courteous. We are a country of such contradictions that it almost defies understanding. Just last week the Minister of Finance said there had been a budget surplus of 9.8 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2021 and yet where is it? Clearly not being spent on collapsing roads or decaying infrastructure or on over half of our population who are classified as ‘extremely poor.’
Cathy, in Professor Mthuli Ncube Zimbabwe has a Minister of Finance who has taxed the poorest of the poor so he can have his budget surplus. Zimbabwe’s health care and education services have all but completely collapsed because nurses and teachers cannot live on the slave wages they are being paid but this is a price worth paying for the sake of the glorified budget surplus.
What is even more infuriating is that Professor Ncube is taxing the street vendors but not the filthy rich ruling elite who are robbing the nation blind by smuggling gold worth US$1.2 billion per year, the looting of diamonds, etc. The looting is now so bad everyone in a position of power and authority is at it, as the recent Auditor General’s report shows. US$4.5 million of the donation to help the cyclone Ida victims was either wasted or looted with only 1% reaching the victims!
Zimbabweans have done nothing to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance for the last 41 years, there is a real danger the nation will be dragged beyond the point of no return, if we have not gone past it already!
Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD) has launched a massive voter registration mobilization campaign in Masvingo Province through online and offline platforms. The campaign is mainly targeting young men and women, especially those who are reaching voting age and therefore are facing their first opportunity to vote (#FirstTimeVoters). Broadly, the campaign also targets aliens and the older people who have not voted previously despite being eligible to do so, to go and register at their local Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) district and provincial offices.
ReplyDeleteVoter registration after the 2018 harmonized elections has been taking place at a sluggish pace, considering the fact that thousands of youths became eligible to vote after the previous plebiscite. In Masvingo only six people registered to vote in May 2021.
If any of these people being ask to register to vote have any brain at all then they should ask these COTRAD half wits: Was the 2018 elections free, fair and credible?
Of course, it is insane to keep insisting on vote registration when it is already clear the 2023 elections have already been rigged. Zanu PF has already decreed to deny 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote. Mnangagwa promised they would have the vote in 2023 but clearly that is not going to happen.
One has to question the motive of these misguided organisations like COTRAD who are clearly hell bend on getting Zimbabweans to participate in a flawed process for no other reason than to give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF. The people are being taught to be tolerant of the blatant injustice of being denied the fundament right to a meaningful say in the governance of their country. To be tolerant of their economic hardships and suffering, 49% of Zimbabweans now live in extreme poverty! This is just plain brain washing people to accept what no human being with half a working brain should ever accept!
COVID-19 has hit educational institutions, with Harare Polytechnic College and Dambudzo Primary School in Mbizo Kwekwe, recording deaths and a rise in infections.
ReplyDeleteOne person died at Harare Polytechnic early this week, while another was reported dead at the Kwekwe school.
Fourteen members of staff reportedly tested positive during a routine testing at Harare Polytechnic.
In Mashonaland West province, Karoi town, which was put under localised lockdown last week, also lost its town engineer, Oswell Mazvimbakupa, to COVID-19-related complications.
Media reports state that COVID-19 tracker infections are increasing in Zimbabwe, with an average of 119 new infections reported each day.
Zimbabwe will be hit harder than need be by this corona virus pandemic for two reasons:
1) we have not been testing to keep track of the virus. Where SA has been testing over 44 000 per day we, with 1/4 SA’s population, should have been testing over 11 000. We have never carried out more than 2 500 tests per day.
2) We have not been vaccinating. Whilst some nations have already reach their herd immunity and are ready to restart their economies, we have so far vaccinated less than 5% of the 10 million herd immunity and would be luck to get the job done by June next year! Zimbabwe is losing US$1.2 billion per year to gold smugglers alone; just 10% of this would buy all the vaccines we need!
Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess because of 41 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. We have done very little to end the misrule and have paid dearly for our folly. And having a corrupt and incompetent government at such a time as this corona virus pandemic is the stuff of Alighieri Dante’s Divine Comedy!