“The MDC Alliance will never join POLAD. It’s not the function of a legitimate opposition party to take trinkets in exchange for cheerleading autocracy. We continue to hold the regime accountable, demand better lives for the people and push for reforms in all areas of governance,” said Fadzayi Mahere, the Spokesperson of the MDC A, on twitter.
This is typical MDC A nonsense making a mountain out of a
molehill!
All the opposition politicians who participated in the 2018
presidential, parliamentary and local elections know that Zanu PF was going to
rig those elections because not even one token reform had been implemented
since the 2013 rigged elections.
All the opposition politicians knew that by participating in
the flawed and illegal 2018 elections they will be giving the process
credibility and, by extension, giving the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy.
So, the opposition politicians knew Zanu PF was rigging the
elections and knew by participating they will give the illegitimate Zanu PF
regime legitimacy and yet the opposition not only participated but did so in very
impressive large numbers.
There were a staggering 23 presidential candidates, over 130
political parties contested many of the parliamentary and local elections races
and there were thousands of independent candidates who threw their hats in the various
rat races. (Fadzayi Mahere was one of the thousands of the independent
candidate who contested and lost!)
Why?
Greed!
Everyone in the opposition also knew that Zanu PF was giving
away a few of the gravy train seats; the generous salary and allowance for
winners of local government, parliamentary and senate seats plus a share of the
annual cash pay-out from Political Party Finance Act to any party that win 5%
plus of the votes.
Zanu PF was giving away the few gravy-train seats as the
bait to entice the opposition to participate regardless how flawed and illegal
the elections process. A price Zanu PF was prepared to pay for legitimacy of
opposition participating and, judging from the enthusiasm of the opposition,
they found the bribe the clearly found irresistible! Each side knew the score
in this political trade-off!
“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,” confessed
David Coltart in his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in
Zimbabwe. Coltart is MDC A Treasurer General and senator, one of the lucky
few to get a gravy-train seat.
“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.”
Of course, it was very childish of Nelson Chamisa to complain
that Zanu PF rigged the 2018 elections when this was known by all, including
himself, that with no reforms in place Zanu PF will rig the elections. “MDC A
has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” Chamisa had
boasted before the 2018 elections.
The real reason Chamisa and his MDC A friends had refused to
join POLAD was because they did not want to be treated as equals to the other
POLAD members. They wanted a different political arrangement in which Chamisa
and a few others hold shadow cabinet posts complete with the salary, ministerial
limo and other perk.
Many Zimbabweans are finding such claims by MDC A leaders as
“pushing for reforms in all areas of governance”, insulting to say the least. It
is common knowledge that the party leaders failed to implement even one reform
when they had the chance to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and have since
given up on reforms.
All the opposition politicians who participated in the 2018 elections did so knowing Zanu PF would rig the elections and that participating will give legitimacy to Zanu PF; still they went ahead because they also knew that Zanu PF was giving away a few gravy-train seats to entice participation. Chamisa did not go on to join POLAD only because he wanted a separate arrangement in which he and a few of his MDC A colleagues will be allocated ministerial positions.
ReplyDeletePOLAD members are now Mnangagwa's cheer leaders, but to portray them as the devils of Zimbabwe's dysfunctional political system is to miss the point. The real damage was cause by all the opposition politicians who participated in the flawed and illegal 2018 elections and gave the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. It is the hail, heavy rains and the gale force winds in Ida Cyclone that cause the damage and not the mist that lasted a whole week that followed. Participating in the flawed elections is the Cyclone and POLAD is noting but the mist that followed!
Zanu PF has rigged elections to stay in power for the last 41 years and throughout that period the country's opposition have participated in the elections even when it was clear Zanu PF was rigging. The opposition has proffered two feeble excuses to justify their continued participation; one, that boycotting the elections will only allow Zanu PF and their stooge opposition parties to get into power and two, the opposition can win rigged elections if they mobilized. Both excuses must be cross examined!
Delete
ReplyDeleteBy A Correspondent-The Auditor-General (AG) has exposed a Covid-19 funding scandal in which senior government officials are reportedly diverted donations meant for the management of the pandemic.
This was revealed in the latest special audit report by AG, Mildred Chiri, on the financial management and utilisation of public resources in combating the COVID-19 pandemic in the country by ministries, government departments and agencies.
The report was tabled in the National Assembly recently by Speaker Jacob Mudenda. In the report, Chiri revealed shocking details on how fake names, identity documents and mobile phone numbers were used as part of a broader scheme to siphon part of the over $890 million from the government.
The audit was undertaken with the aid of the World Bank in the country’s six out of 10 provinces, focusing on disbursement of COVID-19 relief funds, management of quarantine centres and isolation centres, among others.
“The easing of some controls and the streamlining of processes and procedures to facilitate emergency responses and quick actions to the crisis exposed the government to the possible risks of misuse or abuse of public resources,” Chiri said.
In any other countries there would be a blood bath as all those involved in the scandal are forced to resign and/or are fired. Not in Zimbabwe! By doing nothing we are only confirming our position as a Banana Republic in which corruption, mismanagement and lawlessness are tolerated. It is little wonder many people have been reluctant to give Zimbabwe any form of assistance for fear the assistance will be looted or otherwise wasted.
The issue of bad governance is one we have ignored but at our own peril! The vote rigging, the looting and the criminal waste of human and material resource have got progressively worse with time, not better; how much longer and worse are we going to allow this to continue!
Former Movement for Democratic Change official Eddie Cross shocked all and sundry after penning Zanu PF leader Emmerson Mnangagwa’s biography.
ReplyDelete“A life of sacrifice!”
If the book was an accurate historic account of Emmerson Mnangagwa’s life then there would not be a doubt about the hundreds of thousands of human lives he has sacrifice in his search for absolute political power and to retain it all costs!
Mnangagwa has foot tooth and nail to stop regime change and this he will do the rest of his days; he is certain one individual who has many skeletons in the attic, basement, down abandon mine shafts and God knows where else!
The thing is Zimbabwe is well and truly stuck in this hell-on-earth hole Zanu PF dragged us into and with 49% already living in abject poverty the nation is desperate to get out of the hole. It is important that Mnangagwa and his follow Zanu PF cronies must be told in no uncertain terms that the country will have the meaningful political and economic changes, Zanu PF must not hold the nation to ransom for the sake of hiding the past wrongdoing. Mnangagwa and company must face the music and dance! The ordinary Zimbabweans have suffered enough, no one is born to be a sacrificial lamb for the tyrant.
It was USA ambassador to Zimbabwe 2004 to 2007, Chris Dell, who said in a secret cable back to Washington that “Morgan Tsvangirai has a flawed and indecisive character who, if he should ever get into power, will be an albatross round the Zimbabwean nation’s neck!”
ReplyDeleteWell Tsvangirai did get into power in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, the primary task for Tsvangirai and his MDC friends was to implement the democratic reforms designed to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections. Hard as that might be to believe, MDC leaders failed to get even one token reform implemented in the five years.
When the SADC leaders told Tsvangirai and company to their faces not to participate in the 2013 election until reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections, it was their last-minute desperate attempt to make sure Zimbabwe was saved from the curse of rigged elections. “If you take in the elections next month, you will lose; the elections are done!” Only Tsvangirai and company failed to understand the blunt but crystal-clear message!
MDC not only participated in the 2013 elections and have been doing the same ever since allowing Zanu PF to rig the elections and, from their participation, get legitimacy. Talk of Tsvangirai and his MDC friends becoming an albatross round the nation’s neck!
MDC’s position of participating to win rigged election is just too stupid for words; why even one Zimbabwe, much less the thousands, believed such nonsense beggars belief. As much as SADC and the rest of the world would like to help Zimbabweans get out of the mess Zanu PF has landed the nation into, it is hard to see how anyone can help someone who is so naïve and gullible they lack common sense!
THE special audit report which Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, in his other hat as Health and Child Care minister, sought to conceal, exposes massive abuse of Covid-19 funds and fingers executives in deliberate efforts to manipulate figures to evade detection, it has emerged.
ReplyDeleteChiwenga sat in the report for months, resulting in Auditor General Mildred Chiri resorting to directing the a copy of the report to National Assembly Speaker Jacob Mudenda for tabling in Parliament.
Auditors noted systematic abuse of funds, including how fake names, identity documents and mobile phone numbers were used in the grant looting scheme in which $890 million may have been stolen.
The audit was funded by World Bank and it focused mainly on how Covid-19 relief funds were disbursed, management of quarantine centres and isolation centres, among other issues.
On money meant for the drilling of boreholes, she said: “Out of the 48 boreholes that DDF had planned to drill in the six provinces I visited, 31 boreholes were drilled, but were not functional as water pumps had not been installed. Eight boreholes were not drilled, three boreholes were drilled and water pumps installed, six were dry holes as at December 12, 2020.”
“An estimated total amount of $6 650 000 was spent on the 38 non-functional boreholes. The pumps were not installed due to inadequate planning and prioritisation to ensure that each borehole is worked on to completion rather than partly working on many boreholes, exhausting the available resources.
This is heart breaking!
This is just one of the many reports on gross mismanagement and rampant corrupt and it, just like all the other reports, will be swept under the carpet and so the mismanagement and corruption will continue. If we are serious about ending the criminal waste of human and material resource behind the country’s economic meltdown then we must address the issue of rigged elections the root cause of the bad governance.
Nothing, absolutely nothing, has been done to stop Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections and so the criminal waste of resources will continue!
One can understand why donors are cutting back on helping Zimbabwe, they know their donations will be looted or otherwise wasted! There other nations who will put the help they get to good use, surely it makes better sense to help them than waste the donation on Zimbabwe.
Said Moyo, "SERVICE CHIEFS: witnessing Eddie Cross, an ex-Rhodesian who busted sanctions for Ian Smith's UDI & cofounded the MDC, revelling over the launch of his intimate biography of Mnangagwa. So why does the military bash the MDC for Mnangagwa and treat it as the enemy of Zimbabwe?
ReplyDelete"SERVICE CHIEFS fought for majority rule under one person one vote; in line with s67 of Zim's Constitution that gives citizens the right to vote MDC, if they so choose; yet they bash the MDC for Mnangagwa, who's just had his biography authored by an ex-Rhodie & MDC cofounder!"
Moyo urged the military to take advantage of the month of August to implement the delinking process.
Everyone knows that to restore democracy and good governance in Zimbabwe the nation will need to implement democratic reforms design to end Zanu PF’s corrupting control of the various State Institutions such as the judiciary, Police, CIO, Army, etc. These reforms should have been implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU but, sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends sold out and failed to implement even one reform.
Professor Jonathan Moyo’s position of singling out the army’s November 2017 military coup as the act that pushed Zimbabwe’s military beyond the pale is pathetic, to say the least. The army together with the Police, CIO and Prison Services have all been corrupt and have each played a major role in establishing and retaining the Zanu PF de facto one-party dictatorship for decades.
Jonathan Moyo must know the role Joint Operation Command (JOC); the junta comprising top brass in the Army, Police, CIO and Prison Services, plus a few select Zanu PF leaders headed (right up to the 2017 November coup) by Mugabe with Mnangagwa as his assistant; played in the blatant cheating and wanton violence in the 2008 elections, for example. MDC leaders and supporters got their worst ever bashing then!
Why Jonathan Moyo has never criticise MDC leaders for failing to implement all the democratic reforms and why he has always, since the November 2017 coup, given the impression that all Zimbabwe needs is to reform the Army, delink it from Zanu PF, points to one thing – Moyo is hoping for a comeback and would want to enjoy the same dictatorial powers! Of course, Moyo knows that MDC leaders like Nelson Chamisa are corrupt and hopelessly incompetent; he will use them to get back into power.
To get out of the economic and political mess Zanu PF thugs like Moyo and Mnangagwa landed the nation, we must implement all the democratic reforms and not just the selected institutions that played a role in the toppling of Mugabe and his G40 friends. Zanu PF and MDC leaders failed to get any reforms implemented that does not mean no one else can do it.
@ Mbofana
ReplyDeleteThe book is trash because it seeks to portray Mnangagwa as a heroic figure when he is a tyrant through and through! There are so many stories left hanging and others left out altogether, it is neither a historic record nor a fictional one, the book is not even worth reading!
@ Newsday
ReplyDeleteSome people like to be melodramatic but with some Zimbabweans they have allowed themselves to be washed away they are, for all intent and purpose, brain dead.
“Chamisa is not in isolation, he has the back of the populace of Zimbabwe. He represents millions of Zimbabweans who did not receive Polad cars. He is a leader who don't shut the door for people and feast on looted funds. He is from the people, by the people and for the people,” you say.
If he is indeed a man of the people and for the people then please name just one democratic change he has brought to the people in MDC’s 21 years, 5 of which in the GNU, on the political centre stage. The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect Chamisa and company into power on the understanding the MDC will bring about the democratic changes the nation has been dying for.
You cannot name one change because the MDC has failed to implement even one reforms in the five years of the 2008 to 2013 GNU, when the party had the golden opportunity to do so.
Zimbabwe will not still be in this mess if MDC leaders had implemented the reforms and it is nauseating that anyone, even with the benefit of hindsight, will still be wittering about Chamisa’s greatness when the evidence on the ground shows him for whom he is – just another corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless leader!
Joining POLAD is nothing compared with the damage of participating in the elections and thus giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. And right now, Chamisa and company are gearing to participate in the 2023 elections although it is already clear Zanu PF is rigging those elections. Chamisa claims that he has a “SOLID PLAN” to win rigged elections (he always has a plan and he always ends up the one crying of rigged elections).
Only village idiots will fall for such idiotic nonsense as plan to win rigged elections, the insane watering the garden with a leaking bucket. Try using a bucket that is not leaking, implement the reforms and stop the rigging; why is that so difficult to comprehend!
@ Nomazulu
ReplyDelete“Mnumzana Eddy Cross is disregarding atrocities of geocide that Zanu PF government perpetrated in the early hours of independence. Cross lives in Matabeleland: he is versed in Mnangagwa's mass murders and criminal activities in this region as Security Minister in Mugabe's Zanu PF government. He chooses to overlook the pain that this region is going through, instead he pens a biography about Mnangagwa. Did he include the Gukurahundi atrocities in the book or omitted what he termed "inappropriate" and "inconsistent" with the language of bootlickers like Cross? Why is he insensitive to the people of Matabeleland? I would think he is openly provoking and insulting the people in the region and does not give a second thought: it is about Eddy Cross, never beyond.
Not only was Eddy Cross party member of the MDC-T in 2008: Tsvangirai won the elections by 74%. His praise for Tsvangirai amazed us: he called him "Inkosi yami". Eddy Cross, back then was sure Tsvangirai was going to take over as President of the second Republic. He nearly made it to the top. In the making of the GNU, initially Tsvangirai had chosen him to be one in his cabinet. That did not happen for reasons we were not facilitated with. However, he was Bulawayo MP on an MDC-T ticket. Me included his articles about the economy of the nation back then were positively read. We valued them, a professional graduate economist, we thought.”
Eddie Cross was MDC Secretary of Policy and Morgan Tsvangirai’s right-hand man for donkey years but particularly during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. MDC leaders’ primary task during the GNU was to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship; they failed to implement even one reform. Not even one reform!
There are many reasons why MDC leaders betrayed the nation by failing to implement even one reforms in five years of the GNU and here are three of those reasons:
1) MDC leaders are corrupt; there is no denying Mugabe bribed them with the ministerial limos, generous salaries and allowances, a US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. and with their snouts in the feeding trough they all but forgot about the reforms.
2) MDC leaders are breathtakingly incompetent: there is no denying that many of the MDC leaders had no clue what the reforms were much less how they were going to be implemented. Some of the leaders still have no clue what the reforms are even to this day.
3) Then there are MDC leaders who are or should not be incompetent because they had a good education or whatever but are nonetheless shockingly stupid. People like Tendai Biti, David Coltart, Welshman Ncube, Eddie Cross and a few others have again and again done such foolish things such as bootlicking tyrants like Mnangagwa or idiots like Tsvangirai and Chamisa; they have left the observer speechless. Many people cannot believe that even Eddie Cross would grovel this low as to falsely portray a corrupt, incompetent and murderous Emmerson Mnangagwa as a hero, but clearly he has done just that and there is the book in black and white to testify for it!
@ Tawanda Manjoni
ReplyDelete“It's a pity, though, that those that insist on his loss have never managed to produce the V11s and the V23s.
At the end of the day, it's your guess as much as it is mine if he won or lost.
Never mind the Constitutional Court ruling that permitted him to get the presidency.
That court didn't say he won. It simply said there was no proof that he cheated.
And he is in power today. By all odds, he still wants to be in power in 2023 and beyond, after the next elections.
Like any foxy politician worth talking about, he is doing everything he can to get who he thinks are strategic people on his side.
Schemer or scammer?
In 2018, he herded in some outfit that got known as the Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC).
Well, that was a political tautology because he already had a cabinet that advised him.
Note one thing. This PAC included some people who had had a dim view of him.
Some of them, of course, have remained critical of him to this day, but there were some who got charmed by him.
The thing about Polad is that, whether you like it or not, it has been some kind of a game-changer.
It has diverted attention from the troubled economy to some extent.
It can also be easily used to give legitimacy to Mnagangwa's rule now and tomorrow.
Say, for instance, if Chamisa says he will boycott the next election and the Polad members go ahead, technically, there is no fuss about it.
After all, Zanu-PF is one party with a celebrated history of surviving through technicalities.
After that, there were these defections of key opposition members to Zanu-PF.
They included Lillian Timveous, Blessing Chebundo and Obert Gutu. Not only did Timveous go to the Zanu-PF school of ideology.
She was subsequently made a board member at Petrotrade.”
Another first class analysis, thank you!
Two points:
1) The 2018 elections were rigged in that the whole election process was flawed and full of illegalities no one could trace and verify anything. It was comical that both sides claimed victory and neither side was able to produce the V11 or V23 forms, etc. The Constitution Court accepted there were contradictions and yawning gaps in the two affidavits from both ZEC and Chamisa, proof the election process was flawed and illegal. However, this is where Justice Luke Malaba and his team made complete arses of themselves and the law, they accepted ZEC’s declaration that Mnangagwa was the winner on the assumption the “primary source evidence” did not have any of the flaws and illegalities. The Constitution Court did not dare ask the sealed ballot boxes, the primary source, to be opened – it was better not to know!
2) Like it or not Chamisa and his MDC A friends can boycott the elections but no one will ever believe that they did not because the election was not free, fair and credible. SADC leaders literally begged MDC leaders not to participate in the 2013 elections with no reforms and MDC leaders ignored the warning then and again in 2018. So why should reforms matter now? Chamisa and company are broke and Mnangagwa’s continued generosity to MDC A’s rivals will, no doubt, continue to the polling day and vote counting – who knows how many V11 forms may be generated to favour his rivals! Chamisa knows that if he loses the rat race for the few gravy train seats his name is mud! He may well be forced to boycott the elections, better to lose the battle and live to fight another day than lose the war and with it your chance for a rematch.
@ Majoni
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa is just a buffoon, he does not have the intellect to be a schemer or scammer. He is just lucky to have political opponents like Chamisa who had brain dead. MDC leaders had their best chance to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, they failed to get even one reform implemented in five years! Of course, Chamisa shot himself in the foot by seizing power after Tsvangirai's death and has paid dearly for that folly ever since the High Court confirmed the seizure was unconstitutional, we all knew that already.
Have some one with a brain as opposition and Mnangagwa and his cronies will be at sixes and sevens lost in their confusion.