Zanu PF is blatantly rigging the 2023 elections!
“Zanu PF bigwigs, Chief Serima and members of the dreaded Central Intelligence Organization have instructed the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education to transfer a Gutu teacher for allegedly denouncing Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa,” reported Zimeye.
“Zanu PF MP for Gutu West Constituency, John Paradza also claims the teacher, Batsiranai Ngugama of Serima High School, is mobilizing the local community to vote against him.”
This is not only common occurrence, but worse things have happened to those considered a threat to Zanu PF’s strangle hold on power. Many opponents of the regime have been beaten, raped, had property destroyed and some have been murdered in cold blood.
In November last year, Nyasha Zhambe, a MDC activist was murdered by Zanu PF operatives for attending an MDC rally at Mupandawan Growth Point, less than 30 km from Serima High School. Nyasha named his assailants and yet to date no one has been arrested.
Rural areas are Zanu PF strongholds for no other reason than that the party has total control over the people’s lives, they are nothing short of medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing Zanu PF lords. The rural voters constitute 50% plus of the electorate.
How can the elections be free, fair and credible when 50% plus of the electorate are frog marched to vote one way?
The Police and CIO should not be turning a blind eye to Zanu PF thuggery much less be actively involved in the lawlessness. Zimbabwe’s elections should not be taking place without first implementing the democratic reforms to ensure the Police, CIO, etc. are free to carry out their duties of maintaining law and order and guarantee free and fair elections.
Zimbabwe had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who were tasked to implement the reforms turned out to be breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. They failed to implement even one reform in five years. Not even one reform!
Worse still, MDC leaders are the ones who have insisted in participating in these flawed and illegal elections in which rural voters are frog marched to vote for Zanu PF, with no verified voters’ roll, when 3 million (in 2023) Zimbabweans in the diaspora are denied the vote, etc.
By participating in these flawed elections, MDC has given Zanu PF legitimacy.
What has made this situation totally intolerable is that MDC leaders have known all along the futility of participating in flawed elections and readily admitted it.
“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,” admitted David Coltart in his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe. Coltart was a MDC-N minister in the GNU.
“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.”
Four of the main MDC factions plus three other opposition parties did form a coalition, the MDC Alliance, and still participated in the 2018 elections. Proof it was greed not the failure to form a coalition that was forcing the MDC leaders participate in flawed elections.
Indeed, it was greed that had stopped the MDC leaders implementing even one reform during the GNU.
“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC leaders have learned to enjoy the spoils of power and not rock the boat!) boasted Zanu PF cronies during the GNU when asked why MDC leaders were not implementing the reforms.
MDC leaders have repeatedly claimed that they have “winning in rigged elections strategies”; all hot air, of course. They said it to justify why they have been participating in the flawed and illegal elections and cover the real reason – greed.
With not even one token reform implemented since the 2018 elections; of course, Zanu PF is blatantly rigging the 2023 elections just readily as the party rigged the 2018 elections! The elections should be declared null and void and Zanu PF denied legitimacy.
However, there are some Zimbabweans who are hell bent on participating in these flawed elections; hell bent on giving Zanu PF legitimacy. Still, come the morning after the 2023 elections, no Zimbabwean with half a brain should ever be in any doubt about the following three things:
1) 1) That Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2023 elections, the whole election process was not free, fair and credible.
2) 2) That MDC leaders insisted in participating in these flawed elections out of greed; they knew their “winning in rigged elections strategies” were all hot air.
3) 3) That by participating in the flawed elections Zimbabweans gave vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and thus extended the Zanu PF dictatorship’s rule – pretty dumb thing to do in this day and age, especially after four decades of rigged elections.
ZIMBABWE Electoral Commission (ZEC) has so far recorded 5 647 000 registered voters countrywide for next year's elections, with 22 000 dead people being removed from the voters roll.
ReplyDeleteIn a statement, ZEC Commissioner Joyce Kazembe said the voter registration was voluntary and continuous according to the law.
"By end of November 2021 we had recorded 5 647 000 registered voters for 2023 elections including the new ones and those that had registered in the previous elections," she said.
"The figure provided by the commission was of voters registered in 2021 and is not the cumulative figure in the country's voter's roll. Please note that the figure is added to already registered voters in the voters roll."
ZEC failed to produce a verified voters’ roll for the 2018 elections. Indeed, ZEC has never ever produced a verified voters’ roll since the country’s independence in 1980. Never!
If ZEC was serious about producing a verified voters’ roll for 2023 then it should have the Polling Station voters’ roll used for the 2018 elections available for inspection and updating plus the registering of new voters. So, it is certain there will be no verified voters’ roll in the 2023 elections. Election without something as basic as a verified voters’ roll is just a farce!
@ NewsDay
ReplyDeleteWith just over a year before the next round of general elections, many are losing hope in the country's electoral system — hence the great trek to South Africa.
Crossing the border by any means has become the new hope for many who just want to feed their families and worry less about the country's political dynamics.
The recent cancellation of the Zimbabwe Exemption Permits by South Africa President Cyril Ramaphosa's administration has not deterred hard-pressed Zimbabweans from flocking to the neighbouring countr
While an outsider may wonder why Zimbabweans are fighting so hard to remain in a foreign country despite many threats which include xenophobic attacks, the immigrants know better.
The number of hustling youths and vendors at every street corner in Zimbabwe's urban centres is a reflection of desperate times compounded by a greedy and selfish leadership which unleashes terror on its citizens at the slightest provocation.
Faced with all this, it is no wonder that many now seek greener pastures by whatever means necessary. It is a fight for life.
It is time citizens demand a redress of the economy and push for democratic rule.
Without these changes, these border wars will degenerate into diplomatic fights.
No one wants to leave the comfort of their home unless it is no longer there and is beckoning from across the border. Poverty knows no diplomacy."
If one wanted to be cynical one could say the ordinary Zimbabweans are beginning to see Mnangagwa’s upper middle-income Zimbabwe fast approaching, in 2030, in eight years. The people are so frightened by the new economic prosperity they are leaving the country in droves.