“Blacks are incapable of self-governing!” was the standard justification for continued white colonial rule. Not many things said and done by the white supremacists got under my skin half as deep as that remark!
There was no deny that many African countries had gained their independence and, it must be said, not many had set a good example of self-government. Indeed the great majority of the nations who had gained their independence before Zimbabwe had made a dog’s breakfast of majority rule.
So the white supremacists remark, blacks were incapable of self-rule, got deep into the marrow of my bones because there was a real fear it was true. And time has proven my fears where completely justified.
41 years after independence there is no deny that Zimbabwe has become the text-book case of failed state because of chronic poor human failure, inability to govern oneself. What has happened to Zimbabwe’s agricultural sector under this Zanu PF rule captures the essence of failed national leadership.
Before independence Zimbabwe produced enough food to feed its own people with plenty left over to be the bread basket of the region. The country also produced cash crops like tobacco, cut flowers and beef; earning the country a fortune in foreign currency.
In 2000 Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF had sucked the life out of every other sector of the economy and so they turned to the only other asset left - land. The regime instituted a programme to seize farms from mainly white farmers to give them to party loyalists; the latter failed to maintain production and the agricultural sector completely collapse and with it the economy.
By 2005, Zimbabwe had lost her coveted bread basket title to become just another basket case failed state now dependent on imported foreign food aid to feed its people. With the economy in melt down we could not even afford to pay for the imported food!
So Zimbabweans are starving in a country that is, for all practical purpose, the Biblical Garden of Eden; a truly damning indictment on Zimbabwe’s leaders and the nation at large.
So were the white supremacists right that Zimbabweans we are incapable of self-government! Well, so far there is clearly no denying we have fcuked up big time!
There are many, many reasons one can give why Zimbabwe is in this economic mess, with the economy in total melt down and millions of our people living in abject poverty. And political paralysis as neither the ruling party and many opposition parties have a clue how to get the nation out of the mess because they are all corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless. The economic failure and political paralysis stem from the nation’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections.
We started on the right footing, before independence the clarion call was “One man, one vote!” By the time the country gained her independence in 1980, Robert Mugabe and his cronies wanted absolute power and they realised the only sure way to get it was to deny the people a meaningful vote.
Zanu PF made it clear that if the party did not win the 1980 elections, the bush war would continue. The people voted to end the bush war, not knowing they would not only lose a meaningful say in the governance of the country but with it their freedoms, all the other human rights and their economic rights too.
“Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you”, said Ghana's first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He was right!
It took the people of Zimbabwe nearly 20 years for them to finally realise that the nation was stuck withe the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship and will never be rid of regime as long as it retained the carte blanche dictatorial powers to rig elections.
The people have risked life and limb, as we might well imagine Zanu PF was not going to give up absolute power without a fight, to elect the opposition to specifically implement the democratic changes, reforms, to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. Reforms to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful vote.
The best opportunities to implement the reforms were during the 2008 to 2013 GNU; the SADC sponsored 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) forced Mugabe to agree to the implementation of of a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship.
The task of implementing the reforms were left to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC colleagues in the GNU. Sadly, MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform in five years.
The people of Zimbabwe had risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power for the purpose of implementing the democratic changes, as the party name implied. Sadly, the taste of power made MDC leaders forget their obligation to the people to deliver change just as Zanu PF had done in 1980.
“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC leaders have learned to enjoy the spoils of power quietly, they will not rock the boat!) boasted Zanu PF cronies when asked why MDC leaders were not implement the reforms during the GNU.
To be fair to the SADC leaders, they did try to have the 2013 elections postponed until the democratic reforms were implemented. “If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!” SADC leaders had warned Tsvangirai and company.
The warning was a waste of time, as we know. Tsvangirai and company participated in the 2013 elections and, as expected, Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the elections. And, most important of all, by participating MDC leaders gave credibility to the flawed and illegal elections process and thus, by extension, gave legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF.
MDC leaders learned nothing from their blunder of participating in the 2013 elections with no reforms in place as they repeated the blunder and participated in the 2018 elections with not even one token reform in place.
Indeed, MDC leaders are set to participate in the 2023 elections with no reforms for the same reasons they participated in past and failed to implement any reforms during the GNU - greed and incompetence.
So if Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies had honoured the “One man, one vote!” promise Zimbabwe would have been save the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Still, we would have cured ourselves of the curse if Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends had implemented the democratic reforms.
Where are we, exactly?
We are still stuck with the Zanu PF dictatorship which still enjoys the carte blanche powers to rig elections, as we had before the 2008 to 2013 GNU, with the subtle difference that de facto one party dictatorship is now thinly disguised multi-party democracy. Zanu PF has given up a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate in the elections regardless how flawed the process got.
We started with a Zanu PF dictatorship; it is still there. We risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders to dismantle the dictatorship; they not only failed but, worse still, they are now perpetuating the dictatorship by participating in flawed elections giving it legitimacy.
We are where we are! What can we do now to cure ourselves of this curse of rigged elections and bad governance?
We cannot stop Zanu PF, as the government of the day, going ahead with the 2023 elections even with not even a token reform in place. It is as clear as day that Zanu PF is rigging these elections.
Zanu PF will be offering the usual few gravy train seats plus the POLAD perks to entice the opposition to participate in the 2023 elections. No doubt, the usual opposition opportunists will participate.
What we, the people of Zimbabwe, must do is make sure these elections are seen by all with eyes to see for what they really are - a farce.
“The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU 2018 Zimbabwe Observer Mission Final Report.
“As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”
SADC’s observer mission concluded the 2018 elections were “substantially free, fair and credible”. No doubt SADC observers were using a one foot long yard stick. This time, SADC observers, especially those nations that have successful held free and fair elections, will be expected to use the same international accepted three-foot yard stick standard!
Of course, it is insane to keep participating in flawed and illegal elections expecting a different result, especially after 41 years of rigged elections.
If the 2023 elections go ahead with no meaningful reforms in place, then the process must be declared null and void. The declaration will mean the need to appoint an interim administration as happened in 2008 only this time measures will be taken to ensure the democratic reforms are fully implemented and the nation finally cured of the curse of rigged elections and bad governance.
Zimbabwe is prima facie failed state, a nation incapable of self-governing, because we have failed to hold free, fair and credible elections. The cure is - implement the democratic reforms and hold free and fair elections.
Chiwenga, quoted by NewsDay, said : “You have heard the chairperson (Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri) saying that last month in October we held the national people’s conference that was chaired by the chairperson and all provinces including yours endorsed him.”
ReplyDelete“You said you wanted Shumba, Murambwi, President Mnangagwa, a competent leader, a leader who will be our candidate in the 2023 elections, so that he can achieve his vision 2030. His detractors have been defeated and are now saying this and that. Zanu PF will rule forever and if they dare (the naysayers), we will amend the law that we want (President Emerson Mnangagwa) forever.”
There are those who keep wittering about winning 2023 elections with some mythical “winning in rigged elections strategies”. Zanu PF will never ever lose elections in which the party has carte blanche powers to rig - that is a fact.
By participating in these flawed and illegal elections the opposition is undermining the voices of all those demanding reforms before elections and giving vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Zanu PF is offering a few gravy train seats and the POLAD perks, to keep the number of presidential candidate high. This is insane and must be stopped.
In a statement on Twitter, MDC Alliance said: President @nelsonchamisa’s plan to win Zimbabwe for change:
ReplyDelete1) 6 million votes Presidential election
2) Two thirds majority in Parliament
3) Majority in Local Govt elections
4) Communities will select candidates by consensus
5) The party will have a new name for 2023
This is not a plan but a wish list!
Zanu PF is denying 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote and the party is, once again, not producing a verified voters’ roll. These are concrete plans by Zanu to rig these elections and all we ever hear from MDC is “mumbo-jumbo” as Tsitsi Dangarembga called Chamisa’s SOLID plans!
Zimbabwe cannot afford another meaningless election process just to give vote rigging legitimacy to Zanu PF.
Zimbabwe's research institute under the Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation Science and Development ministry has been rocked by reports of graft, maladministration and corporate misgovernance costing the parastatal millions.
ReplyDeleteSenior management at the National Biotechnology Authority of Zimbabwe (NBA) has been reported to the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (Zacc), the country's prosecuting authority and the respective ministry over the reports.
Documents at hand show that there has been little movement resulting in the whistleblowers on June 30, 2021 writing to Zacc chairperson Justice Loice Matanda-Moyo checking progress on the investigations.
Zanu PF leaders are the godfathers of corruption and they appointed ZACC, it is naive to expect the later to stamp out corruption.
@ Mbofana
ReplyDeleteI have often wondered whether Zimbabweans were the easiest people to oppress on this planet.
I once even wrote any article, some years ago, postulating that Zimbabweans themselves were the main reason why they were oppressed - since their inexplicable docility in the face of the most brazen mismanagement, corruption, and incompetence, on the part of both their national and local leaders, naturally attracted dictators.
To be brutally frank, I honestly do not believe that the problem faced by Zimbabweans is the misfortune of being ruled over by power-greedy tyrants - but, instead, their own passiveness, even when spat at in the face, can be an irresistible temptation for any leader to become authoritarian.
I have never made a secret of the bullying I was subjected to, and endured, in my early schooling years - which opened my eyes to the world and psychology of dictators from a very young age.
Mbofana, when all is said and done, nations get the government they deserve. We in Zimbabwe certainly deserve this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of equally corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition parties, all 130 of them at the last count.
Yes Zimbabweans are very passive but worst of all they are mentally challenged, to put it kindly. It took most Zimbabweans nearly 20 years to finally acknowledge that Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies were corrupt and murderous thugs. You would think the nation had learned the important lesson to chose leaders careful after that!
The nation went on to elect Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC banded mongoose friends to champion the fight to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. MDC has failed to implement even one reform in 22 years, 5 of which in the GNU. Worse still, MDC are now the ones keeping Zanu PF in power by participating in flawed elections!
Even now with the benefit of hindsight, many Zimbabweans out there have no clue what the 2008 to 2013 GNU was about much less that MDC leader sold out! And so many continue to follow MDC leaders blindly like sheep to the slaughter.
A healthy and functioning democracy demands an informed and diligent electorate, we have a naive electorate whose brain has ossified into fat!
When the coronavirus first emerged last year, health officials feared the pandemic would sweep across Africa, killing millions. Although it’s still unclear what COVID-19’s ultimate toll will be, that catastrophic scenario has yet to materialize in Zimbabwe or much of the continent.
ReplyDeleteScientists emphasize that obtaining accurate COVID-19 data, particularly in African countries with patchy surveillance, is extremely difficult, and warn that declining coronavirus trends could easily be reversed.
But there is something “mysterious” going on in Africa that is puzzling scientists, said Wafaa El-Sadr, chair of global health at Columbia University. “Africa doesn’t have the vaccines and the resources to fight COVID-19 that they have in Europe and the U.S., but somehow they seem to be doing better,” she said.
Fewer than 6% of people in Africa are vaccinated. For months, the WHO has described Africa as “one of the least affected regions in the world” in its weekly pandemic reports.
Some researchers say the continent’s younger population — the average age is 20 versus about 43 in Western Europe — in addition to their lower rates of urbanization and tendency to spend time outdoors, may have spared it the more lethal effects of the virus so far. Several studies are probing whether there might be other explanations, including genetic reasons or past infection with parasitic diseases.
On Friday, researchers working in Uganda said they found COVID-19 patients with high rates of exposure to malaria were less likely to suffer severe disease or death than people with little history of the disease.
It is true that Africa has been spared the worst of the corona virus, so far at least. The fact still remains that if everything else had been equal then there is no doubt that the death toll in Africa would have been far, far worse than in India or Brazil because in terms of capacity to deal with the virus Africa was far worse prepared than India or Brazil.
So Africa has just had a lucky break and must now use this time wisely and address the continent’s root causes for its economic mess and backwardness and political instability. The corona virus is still with us, it could still evolve into a more deadly variant than what we have seen to date; and if we continue to be the least prepared we will pay dearly for it!
There is no reason why Africa is at the bottom of the economic parking order. We, Africans, owe it to ourselves and posterity to sort out the problems of bad governance that have bedevilled the continent all these years.
Said Zivhu: “One good thing about Mugabe aiva asingadakwi kana kusvutsa fodya. – ONE GOOD THING ABOUT ROBERT MUGABE IS THAT HE WAS NEVER DRUNK OR A SMOKER.”
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa replaced his former boss in a violent military coup in 2017, and has since then struggled to hold the nation together, amid mass looting of state money and a sharp rise in drunkenness and drug taking in the community.
Zivhu’s comment shoots-straight-in the-eye of Mnangagwa’s recently leaked video during the launching of the ED-University Of Zambia scholarship program, designed to give disadvantaged Zimbabweans an opportunity to go and study at the UNZA.
Mugabe was corrupt, incompetent and a murderous tyrant and we must reject this nonsense that we should be grateful for little mercies such as he did not drink or smoke!
Comparing Mugabe and Mnangagwa is as foolish as a mouse comparing a cobra to a black mamba - the two snakes mean certain death to the mouse!
@ Steven Nyoni
ReplyDelete“Wilbert ZANU became greedy from morogoro Tanzania. It is said they killed zipra combatants and their instructor for a pot of sadza. They axed the instructor and killed more than 40 zipra combatants.”
I would not want to comment on the case because I don’t know the details. What I can say is that both Zanu and Zapu were as keen as mustard to establish a one party state with each vying to be the dominant party. The rivalry between the two parties did boil over into inter-party violence the worst case of which was the Gukurahundi massacre.
The blatant betrayal of the people to deny them their freedoms, human rights and dignity by Robert Mugabe and his fellow black nationalists is exactly what the white supremacists had predicted.
And, if truth be told, many ordinary black Zimbabweans were not exactly surprised to hear Zanu Pf say the bush war would continue if the party lost the 1980 elections - the people knew these black nationalists care more about political power than they care about the freedoms and rights of ordinary people!
The ability to govern one-self as a community, tribe or nation entails those put in the position of power and authority seeing the bigger picture and putting the communal interest above one’s selfish interests and acting accordingly. Our leaders have failed to do this again and again hence the reason yesterday’s liberators have always become today’s oppressors.
The standard Anacyclosis cycle is;
Kingship - tyranny - aristocracy - oligarch - democracy - mob rule - anarchy - back to kingship.
In Africa the cycle is much simpler:
Oppressors - liberators - back to oppressors
Indeed, one can even say in Zimbabwe the liberators are nothing but the oppressors impatient to seize power, so impatient that they even start the oppression as soon as they get half a chance!
@ BBC
ReplyDelete“Most recently, tough US sanctions on oil exports, introduced as a result of the disputed 2018 presidential election, have contributed to the crisis.
The Encovi report estimated that the Venezuelan Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which is the total of all value added created in the economy, shrank 74% between 2014 and 2020.
The economic collapse has led to a humanitarian crisis in the country of 28 million. Before the pandemic, the United Nations' World Food Programme (WFP) estimated that one in three people struggled to get enough food to meet the minimum nutrition requirements.
The situation has resulted in one of the largest displacement crises in the world, according to the UN, and more than 5.6 million people have left the country.”
Zimbabwe’s economy shrunk by a staggering 50% between 2000 and 2008 fuelled by the country’s hyperinflation which soared to 500 billion percent and the country’s collapse of the agricultural sector following the chaotic and violent seizure of white owned farms.