"Zanu PF's austerity is in tatters and without political shift, no recovery" says Hawkins W Mukori

Most of us know that Zimbabwe is in serious economic and political trouble. It is only from reading expert analysis that one can start to comprehend the seriousness of our situation. Tony Hawkins a prominent Zimbabwean economic analyst is one suck expert. 

“Countries forced into dollarisation usually find it impossible to de-dollarise and Zimbabwe's mid-year efforts to do so adds another country to the long list of those that tried and failed,” wrote Hawkins in Bulawayo 24.

“Government is unlikely to acknowledge this, but the facts speak for themselves. Finance minister Mthuli Ncube's so-called austerity programme is in tatters and, to all intents and purposes, abandoned.”

This is the microcosms story of Zimbabwe - a government pursuing voodoo economic policies; the imposition of austerity programmes, which have causing great economic suffering with no gain and, worst of all, those responsible for the tragic mess are not democratic accountability to those on the coal face. 

“The hard reality, which the authorities refuse to acknowledge, is that the US dollar is the currency of choice, regardless of what a government - prone to eccentric interpretations of the concept of legality - decrees is legal tender,” explained Hawkins.

“In this situation, restoring confidence in the local currency may turn out to be impossible without an international bailout, which is unlikely, without an equally improbable major shift in the political climate.”

Zimbabwe is in this economic mess with unemployment a nauseating 90%, basic services such as health care all but collapse because of the 39 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. The country used grow enough food to feed its people with plenty left over for export. We used to be the bread basket of the region; not anymore. 

Since 2000, Zanu PF started seizing the farms to give to party loyalists, mostly, triggering the collapse of the agricultural sectors and with it the economy. We are starving in a country which, for all practical purposes, the Biblical Garden of Eden because of the chronic waste of the country’s human and material resource. Such is the damning testimonial of Zimbabwe’s bad governance. 

Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF tyrants who have enjoyed absolute political power these last 39 years and counting because they rig elections. And as long as They do not listen to advice and hence the reason why the country has followed these voodoo economic policies that have dragged the nation deeper and deeper into the abyss. And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, there will be no hope of meaningful economic recovery. None!

End Zimbabwe’s pariah state is the improbable political shift Tony Hawkins is talking about. 

In 2017 President Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections; if he had honoured his promise, that would have been the plate tectonic political shift. He and his Zanu PF cronies went on to blatantly rig the 2018 elections, confirming that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state and all talk of “new dispensation”, “Second (Democratic) Republic”, etc. is just hot air! 

Zimbabwe has had many opportunities to implement the democratic reforms and stop Zanu PF rigging elections. The best opportunities being during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when all Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had to do was implement the raft of reforms Zanu PF had agreed to in the 2008 Global Political Agreement. MDC failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not even one!

Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and, per se, the regime has no democratic mandate, it is illegitimate. The EU, Americans, Commonwealth and all the other election observers with any democratic credentials have all dismissed the elections as a farce. The pressure should have been brought to bear on Zanu PF to step down. Sadly, that effort has been undermined by MDC!

By participating in the flawed and illegal elections MDC have given the illegitimate Zanu PF regime some modicum of credibility. What makes this even more irritating is that MDC leaders knew this too!

“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. He is an MDC senator and the party’s Treasurer.

“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.”

So it is bad enough that MDC leaders have sold-out in failing to implement even one meaningful democratic reform but, to add insult to injury, they are the ones now giving the illegitimate Zanu PF regime credibility! But, what makes it near impossible to get the reforms implemented is that the majority of ordinary Zimbabweans still fail to see MDC leaders’ treasonous duplicity and betrayal, even with the benefit of all the evidence of these leaders’ breath-taking corruption and incompetence. 

By the late 1980s, it has been clear that Zanu PF leaders were corrupt and incompetent and that they were dragging the nation into economic ruins. To this day, the nation has done little to remove Zanu PF from office because the nation, conscientious or otherwise, accept Zanu PF was the only party to rule the nation. 

All the nation’s efforts to saving the nation from economic ruins were done in the context of Zanu PF as the party of government. Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party dictatorship in which the only acceptable election result was a Zanu PF victory.  

After 39 years of trying to make the dictatorship work it is now clear that we are just wasting our time and resources; there will be no meaningful economic recovery without meaningful political change. 

We, the people of Zimbabwe, must grasp the nettle and tell Zanu PF in, no uncertain terms, that we demand the full restoration of the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections. This illegitimate Zanu PF regime must step down to allowing the political space to appoint an interim administration that will implement the democratic reforms.  

The people of Zimbabwe must also wake up to the reality that MDC snow running with the hare but hunting with the hounds. 

Whilst many Zimbabweans have accepted that Zanu PF has failed to govern, many of them have not had the courage to demand that the party should be removed from office. Zimbabwe Christian Heads of Denominations (ZCHOD) recently called for the formation of a GNU in which Zanu PF was to remain the principle player. 

Many Zimbabweans have been brainwashed into believing no other political body can rule Zimbabwe other than Zanu PF; even with all the mountain of evidence proving the party is corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous oppression. The greatest obstacle to meaningful political change is not Zanu PF but the naive and gullible people themselves! 

"Only a Zanu PF and MDC GNU will move country forward" - a fixation of a panicked housefly P Guramatunhu

Zimbabwe's worsening economic situation has some Zimbabweans in such a panic they have a fixation with the idea of a Zanu PF and MDC GNU as the solution they cannot listen to reason. 

“It's high time we should sit down and declare enough of this untold suffering. President Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa and his leadership must swallow his pride and go for a genuine dialogue with Nelson Chamois and abandon this kangaroo POLAD. The President needs the most powerful young marinated brains in the opposition for the country to move forward,” argued Leonard Koni, in Bulawayo 24.

“Zanu PF and MDC- Alliance must strike a genuine political dialogue ,the two to set conditions and put aside all their political differences. What unites both of them is greater than what divides them. Zimbabwe is such a beautiful country and we can't let that beauty just fade away like that.

“We need to build strong institutions and strong democracies.”

Yes, we desperately need to build strong democratic institutions. The real shock here is anyone with half a brain would trust Zanu PF and MDC to do it, given the two’s well documented past!

Zanu PF has been in power for the last forty years, for Pete’s sake; who or what has stopped the party building these strong democratic institutions? Indeed, the party has spent these years doing the exact opposite; it has systematically destroyed democracy and replaced it with this ruthless de facto one-party dictatorship.

Any hope that Mnangagwa was going to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship when he seized power following the November 2017 coup have been quickly dashed. He promised to hold free, fair and credible elections only to blatantly rig the July 2018 elections. When the people dared to protest the rigged elections; he used brute force to silence all dissent, 17 innocent people shot dead and hundreds were injured.

To this very day, Mnangagwa insists that last year’s elections were free, fair and credible and that Zimbabwe is a model heathy and functioning democratic country. Next Friday, 25 October, Zanu PF will hold mass demonstrations to drive home the point that Zimbabwe is a democracy and the sanctions imposed by the west as punishment for undemocratic behaviour must now be lifted. 

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies built the de facto one-party dictatorship because their have an insatiable greed for absolute power and the wealth that it brings. The dictatorship has delivered. It is naive to expect Mnangagwa and his cronies to reform themselves out of power!

As for Nelson Chamisa and his MDC friends, they had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms and dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They failed to get even one meaningful reform implemented because they are corrupt and incompetent. Again, it is naive to expect MDC to implement the reforms in the proposed new GNU. 

Wikipedia defines fixation (psychology) as “the state in which an individual becomes obsessed with an attachment to another human, an animal, or an inanimate object.” 

Ordinarily, a housefly knows that it cannot fly through a window-pane. But not so with a panicked housefly; it has such a fixation with getting out, it will fly into the window-pane again and again. It is disconcerting when human beings behave like panicked houseflies.

Zimbabwe’s worsening economic and political situation is cause for panic but that is no excuse for people to forget it is 40 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF misrule that landed the nation into this hell-on-earth in the first place. So after four decades of Zanu PF misrule, it is insane, to still expect the same corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime to get the nation out of the hell-hole. Absolutely insane!

"Common sense will prevail, form GNU" argue Mzembi - "Less of him we'd have a better land" W Mukori

Albert Einstein, one of the greatest physicist and innovative thinker to ever walk the earth, explained that psychologically, our beliefs and axioms rest upon our experiences. There exists, however, no logical path from experience to an axiom, but only an intuitive connection based on our interpretation of the experience, which is always subject to revocation. 

These interpretations shape our beliefs and perceptions which determine our theories about the world. Finally, our theories determine what we observe in the world and, paradoxically, we only observe what confirms our theories which further hardens our beliefs and axioms.

Socrates, the great Greek philosopher, had the antidote against one following a course of action based long held and hardened beliefs and axioms which are, nonetheless, erroneous. He argued that beliefs, axioms, everything must be subjected to rigorous examination. 

Socrates was a great proponent of freedom expression, democracy and  the importance of and educated citizen for a healthy, functioning and prosperous society. 

Four decades of Zanu PF dictatorship; in which all debate and democratic competition were stifle, no freedom of expression and free media so the only voice to be heard was that on the dictator and his minions, etc.; has produced highly opinionated individuals. Their opinions have never been subjected to any serious cross-examination and hence are, more often than not erroneous! 

In fact, Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because for the last four decades the nation has plough the same erroneous fallow set by dumb and stupid Zanu PF and MDC leaders. They are so dumb they have repeated the same mistakes again and again whilst considering it beneath them to listen to advice.

Zanu PF leaders’ “Misstra know it all” arrogance, as the great Steve Wonder so aptly put it, is insufferable! 

"Rome can't continue to burn while we watch," and something is evidently going very wrong in our country and I apologise upfront if I offend as I attempt to share national experiences that helped similar challenges in the recent past,” wrote Walter Mzembi, Zimbabwe's former minister of tourism now living in exile in SA.

“Proverbs 1:9 will acquit me: "What has been done will be done again, there is nothing new under the sun."

“Great 15th century historian Thucydides rhymes the same: "It is the very nature of humans to act in the future as they did in the past."

“History repeats itself, and humanity learns from past mistakes and recalibrates its decisions and actions based on these past experiences.

“What can we, in pursuit of solutions to the current crisis, learn from the Zanu/PF-Zapu talks of 1987 which resulted in a broad-based unity government; or distil from the Zanu PF/MDC talks that resulted in the Government of National Unity (GNU) of 2009 and how both talks were triggered?”

The article rubbled on and on enumerating the “success” of the 2009 GNU and arguing Nelson Chamisa and Emmerson Mnangagwa to put aside their pride and selfish interests and do the same.

“Contrary to what is happening now, we soon learnt, and this is absolute reality and advice to the Harare administration, that legitimacy is conferred by your political opponents, not by self, your choir, or opportunity and job hunters. It was Tsvangirai's legitimacy lobby and endorsement that became the lifeblood of the inclusive government as Nelson Chamisa can do for Emmerson Mnangagwa and his government, God-willing and common-sense prevailing,” argued Mzembi.

Poor Mzembi he had the presence of mind to quote Proverbs and Thucydides but clearly lacked the intellect to digest and understand the wisdom behind the quotations. Having accomplished the initial challenge of correctly identifying past mistakes no one would knowing repeat the same mistake. What Mzembi had failed to grasp is that the “recalibration” based on the same erroneous data will lead to the same wrong destination or be it by another circuitous route. 

In this case Mzembi saw the both the 1987 Unity Accord and the 2009 GNU as great success when they were in fact failures. It is no secret that from the time they took power in 1980, Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies had worked feverish to create a de facto one-party state. Whilst they felt the legal and political constrains slowing them from achieving their objective the signing of the Unity Accord removed most of these constrains!  

Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the country has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical one-party dictatorship for the last four decades. It was the 1987 Unity Accord that made it possible for Zanu PF to impose the dictatorship.

The primary objective of the 2009 GNU was to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement so that the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence of the 2008 elections will not be repeated ever again. The GNU failed to get even one reform implemented and so Zanu PF rigged the 2013 elections and last year’s elections. 

Mzembi acknowledges Mnangagwa’s regime has the same legitimacy problems because he rigged last year’s elections just as Mugabe had the same legitimacy problems after he rigged 2008 elections. However he is once again woefully wrong in believing “legitimacy is conferred by your political opponents”. Legitimacy is conferred by winning the majority vote of the people of Zimbabwe in a free, fair and credible elections. 

The 2009 GNU was an interim administration appointed to implement the reforms and hold fresh elections. Whilst we need to appoint a similar body again this time, it would be foolish, to say the least, to entrust the same individuals, Zanu PF and MDC leaders, to implement the reforms when they failed to get even one token reform implemented last time.

Mzembi knows that implementing reforms will end Zanu PF’s carte blanche dictatorial power to rig elections and to use wanton violence. Need to implement the reforms to end the culture of rigged elections, the root cause of bad governance. Mzembi’s primary concerned is to make sure Zanu PF remains in power at all cost; even if that means the economic and political mess and the tragic human suffering and deaths get even worse; hence the reason he does not want any reforms mentioned. 

“If we had less of him

Don’t you know we’d have 

a better land!

He’s Misstra Know-It-All

Hey

you talk too much

you worry me to death”

Sound advice from Master Blaster, Steve Wonder! 

"You are a sell-out!" Madhuku told to his face - highlighting ED's illegitimacy W Mukori

Up to now, many Zimbabweans have not fully appreciated the negative role the country’s opposition politicians have played in our struggle to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. It is pleasing to note that many people are now opening their eyes and asking the opposition leaders the hard questions. 

“You attended the funeral of former President Robert Mugabe, a man you spent half your life fighting, but at the funeral wake, you spoke glowingly about him, what motivated you?” asked NewsDay senior reporter, Blessed Mhlanga.

“Well, opposition was not to Robert Mugabe the person, but opposition was to the politics of Zanu-PF and Mugabe merely happened to be the leader of the party,” came the feeble reply from Professor Lovemore Madhuku, leader National Constitutional Assembly (NCA). “We were making a distinction between Mugabe the person and the Zanu-PF system that was led by Mugabe.”

Each time Madhuku opens his mouth, he has left no one in any doubt that he is a sell-out, a dimwitted sell-out at that! 

The only political dialogue that counted for anything is the elections. 

Madhuku cannot deny that Mnangagwa did not keep his promise to hold free, fair and credible elections.

“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 Election Observer Mission final report. 

“Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

ZEC failed to produce something as basic a verified voters’ roll, for Pete’s sake. A verified voters’ roll is a legal and common sense requirement. How anyone; much less a candidate contesting the elections, to say nothing of the said candidate being a Law Professor as is the case with Madhuku; would participate in an election in which they do not know who is on the voters’ roll and so cannot trace and verify anything, beggars belief! 

The only rational reason why Nelson Chamisa, Lovemore Madhuku and all the other 20 presidential candidates, the 130 political parties, and God knows how many independent candidates participated in the flawed and illegal elections last year is greed. They all knew that Mnangagwa and Zanu PF would rigged the elections but they also knew the party would give away a number gravy train seats as bait to entice the opposition to participate. 

Worse still, the opposition knew that by participating in the flawed and illegal elections they gave the process the modicum of credibility, as David Coltart, MDC senator, readily admitted in his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe.

“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,” explained Senator Coltart.

“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, Nelson Chamisa and his MDC party, Lovemore Madhuku and NCA party and all the other opposition candidates who participated in last year’s flawed and illegal elections sold-out. As long as Zanu PF news there are sell-out like Chamisa, Madhuku, etc. who will participate in elections even if the ZEC fails to produce something as basic as a voters’ roll Zimbabwe will never ever have free, fair and credible elections. 

And without free, fair and credible elections, the country will never ever have a competent and accountable government. 

“Of late, you have been accused of dinning with Zanu-PF, the party you have fought against all these years. This has seen some people describing you as a sell-out. Can you comment?” Blessed Mhlanga followed up, driving the point home.

“I don't know what is meant by dining with them, but I am sure you are referring to being in Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD). It is not about dining with anyone. POLAD is a national dialogue process where political players come together to debate issues to do with Zimbabwe; that is nothing to do with Zanu-PF,” came the reply.

It is parliament that should conduct all national dialogue and not for some extra numeral body like POLAD with no legal basis or power to discuss anything. By participating in flawed and illegal elections the opposition has made it impossible for the nation to elect competent leaders as president, MP, senator, etc. and are offering the superfluous POLAD to govern! 

So we are have an opposition busy destroying democracy and replacing it with autocracy and we are expected to view that as progress. How nauseating!

Zimbabwe has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for the last 40 years because the party rigged elections. How much longer Zimbabwe sell-out opposition’s political credibility will last! 

“Kana muonde wodonhedza mashizhe, chirimo chazvika!” (When the fig tree start shedding its leaves, it is autumn!) as one would say in Shona.

People are now openly calling Madhuku, Chamisa et al “sell-outs”; proof the opposition’s political credibility is wearing thin and fast. 

Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections rendering the regime illegitimate. Mnangagwa’s legitimacy is still a big issue because he has failed to sell the election as credible process because the opposition was not credible! 

ZCHOD 7 year GNU to save Mnangagwa from rotting illegitimate albatross but at what price P Guramatunhu

The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic and political crisis is 39 years of corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF dictatorship. When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup, he promised to end corruption and to hold free and fair elections but failed to keep his promises. 

Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs and as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there is no hope of meaningful economic recovery because it is near impossible to do business in a pariah state. 

The solution to Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis is to finally deal decisively with this curse of pariah state. As things stand Zimbabwe is ruled by a regime that does not have the mandate to govern since it rigged last year’s elections. So the immediate first step to dealing with our pariah state problem is to get the illegitimate Zanu PF regime to step down. 

Zanu PF must step down for three good reasons:

1. the party rigged last year’s elections and, per se, has no mandate to govern. For the last 39 years we have allowed Zanu PF to rig elections and rewarded the party with absolute power; this set a very dangerous precedence and one we must now end. 

2. by step down Zanu PF will create the political space for the appointment of a independent body the nation can entrust the key task of implementing the reforms. We need the reforms implemented if we are ever to break the vicious cycle of Zanu PF rigging elections. It is naive to trust a Zanu PF regime or GNU in which Zanu PF is playing a leading role to implement any reforms because Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office. The 2008 to 2013 GNU failed to get even one reform implemented. 

3. If Zanu PF is allowed to stay in office, for whatever reason, until the next elections, whenever that happens to be; we can be 100% certain that the party go on to rig those elections. After 40 decades of rigged elections the greatest gift this generation can give to ourselves, our children and posterity is delivery free, fair and credible elections. This is why getting Zanu PF to step down and implementing the democratic reforms is the holy grail of this generation. 

Zimbabwe Christian Heads of Denominations’ (ZCHOD) call for Zimbabwe to suspend the holding of elections for seven years is but a clumsy attempt to grant the illegitimate Zanu PF legitimacy by the back door. All the political turmoil the church leaders are concerned about and from which they now seek seven years of peace were caused by Zanu PF’s failure to hold free, fail and credible elections. Whereas the nation had made the tragic folly of reward Zanu PF with political power for five years after each rigged elections the church leaders want to reward the regime with seven years with no elections. 

In other words the ZCHOD’s proposal is nothing but an appeasement to Zanu PF, even more generous than the appeasements the regime has received so far. When we should be striving to end the folly of rewarding Zanu PF for rigging elections, reason a) above, we are being pulled in the opposite directions. 

Deputy Government Spokesperson Energy Mutodi called the ZCHOD’s proposal “foolish and irrational” and even denounce them as “false prophets, Baal prophets”. Some well known Zanu PF apologists have gone one step further and suggested that it is MDC leaders who are behind the proposal, implying only MDC will stand to benefit and not Zanu PF.

This would not be the first time Zanu PF has denounced something which the party was actively promoting, just to mislead the naive and gullible. 

When the new 2013 constitution was tabled Zanu PF rejected the document and submitted a whole raft of amendments. MDC claimed the new constitution was a democratic one and a “MDC baby”. 

It was all smoke and mirrors Zanu PF trick, the party wanted the new constitution approved. It was none other than Mugabe himself who had “dictated it”, as Paul Mangwana, Zanu PF co-chair on the parliamentary committee that drafted it, boasted after the March 2013 referendum. The new constitution was approved by a staggering 95%.

MDC has been calling for a power sharing arrangement with Zanu PF ever since last year’s rigged elections. MDC is taking advantage of the worsening economic situation and Zanu PF’s illegitimacy to push for the power sharing demands.    

For Mnangagwa, the illegitimate label has been hanging round his neck like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's albatross round the mariner’s neck. The albatross round Mnangagwa’s neck is rotting and, needless to say, he is desperate for a way out. The church leaders are offering Mnangagwa a chance to legitimise his rule now and not having to face another risky election process for seven years. 

Zimbabwe's political and economic crisis has dragged the nation to the very edge of the economic collapse and social and political instability. The nation is facing stack choice either we demand than Zanu PF steps down so we can finally end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state. 

Or we foolish continue with the policy of appeasing Mnangagwa and his fellow Zanu PF thugs, whose insatiable greed for power and wealth landed us into this mess in the first place,  whilst they drag the nation beyond the point of no return! Of course, it is insane to go down this path, especially with the mountain of evidence of the disastrous consequence of 39 years of travelling the same.

"MDC leaders with no eyes to see supported Mnangagwa coup" - sadly, blind are still leading P Guramatunhu

“Rinemanyanga hariputirwi!” (The truth will always come out no matter how much one tries to conceal it!) so goes the Shona adage. After 20 years of blundering from pillar to post the truth is now coming that MDC is a party of breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent individuals. 

"Exclude me, I did not participate in that nonsense (support of the November 2017 coup). Firstly, being a scholar of history not as a lawyer alone, knowing well that where the military has taken a leading role in the changing of government, nowhere in Africa have soldiers led a democratic change,” remarked Job Sikhala, MDC Alliance deputy national chairperson.

"We knew we were going through a military coup and a military coup would only be supported by those people who did not have the eyes to see that we are being taken into a trap of a worse dictatorship.” 

It is interesting to note here that most MDC Alliance leaders including the late Morgan Tsvangirai and the current party leader Nelson Chamisa publicly and unreservedly supported the military coup. Of course, Sihkala is right; supporting the November 2017 coup was foolish because the coup was never going to bring about any meaningful democratic changes as events have since shown.

What was the blind as a mole MDC leaders hoping to achieve, one might well ask. 

Chamisa and Tsvangirai said they supported the coup because Mnangagwa, through his emissaries, had promised to replace the Mugabe regime with a National Transition Authority (NTA), in which MDC was to play a role, and to postpone the upcoming 2018 elections. The elections due in July 2018, were to be postponed to allow the NTA to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections, MDC argued. 

We all know that MDC leaders had failed to get even one reform implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Mugabe had bribed them with the trappings of high office, ministerial limos, very generous salaries and allowances, a US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. With their snouts in the feeding trough; MDC leaders completely forgot about implementing the reforms. 

MDC leaders failed to implement even one reform in five years. Not even one!

“We got in the inclusive government and just sat there, spent five years in there. We came out without doing anything,” Nelson Chamisa admitted in July this year.

Of course, Tsvangirai and company were going to get the same royal treatment of ministerial limos, generous salaries, etc. in the proposed NTA. One has to be really naive to believe the NTA would have implemented any meaningful reforms; Tsvangirai et al would have, once again, sat there, eat and did nothing else.

Indeed, if MDC leaders were truly interested in making sure the reforms were implemented BEFORE the elections, then why did the party participate in the 2018 elections knowing fully well that Mnangagwa had not implemented even one reform? 

Chamisa has often commented on how Tsvangirai “died a bitter man” because Mnangagwa did not keep his NTA promise. Even with the benefit of hindsight of the broken promise to have NTA and the broken promise of holding free, fair and credible July 2018 elections; he still fails to see  the folly of having trusted the Zanu PF dictatorship to deliver democratic change. 

Indeed, even now, MDC is still fighting for the NTA as a way out of the country’s worsening economic and political mess. Even now, with millions of Zimbabweans living in abject poverty, with all basic services such as supply of clean water and health care all but collapse and the nation at the edge of edge of the precipitous abyss, all MDC leaders care about is another chance to sit, eat and do nothing! 

Job Sikhala is spot on Mnangagwa has indeed “taken (the nation) into a trap of a worse (than the Mugabe) dictatorship” and MDC leaders too corrupt and incompetent to even see it! And to make matters worse, there are many Zimbabweans out there who still continue to trust MDC leaders to deliver free and fair elections and follow them blindly like sheep to the slaughter. 

Mnangagwa is desperate to emulate Kagame's success, hires same PR - can't make silk purse out a sower's ear W Mukori

There is one thing we can say with absolute certainty; President Mnangagwa and his fellow Joint Operation Command (JOC) junta members, comprising the top brass in the country’s security services and a select Zanu PF party leaders, have no intention of giving up absolute power. They risked their looted wealth, life and limb, everything in the all-or-nothing November 2017 military coup to wrestle power from their erstwhile JOC colleagues and leader Robert Mugabe. They clearly have no intention of losing all that now.

Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation is putting Mnangagwa and his regime under ever increasing pressure; their continued hold on power is now dependent on the regime reviving the “dead economy”, as Mnangagwa  himself admitted the other day. 

It is no surprise then that President Mnangagwa has taken concrete steps to try replicate what President Paul Kagame has done in Rwanda; revive the economic fortune and still keep an iron grip on power! 

“PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa is trying to emulate his Rwandan counterpart Paul Kagame's economic development model, which blends authoritarian practices and homegrown solutions with international best practices, as he hired yet another public relations (PR) firm in a desperate bid to spruce up the country's battered international image,” reported the Independent.

This model is, at best, a short term solution in that it will deliver economic success but for a short period. We can be 100% certain that authoritarian monster will awaken and reassert itself with disastrous consequence. The awakening may happen during Paul Kagame’s time, no one can be certain when exactly; the point is the monster is there already.

If anyone still doubts that Rwanda’s economic success is doomed to fail, they need only look at China. The country descended into new depths of depravity, poverty and despair under Chair Mao. His successors had the wisdom to open up China and, for the last four decades, China has enjoyed unparalleled economic and social transformation. But other than introduce the fixed ten year term for the presidency, they have retained the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) authoritarian system.  

China’s authoritarian dragon was reared it ugly head once again. President Xi Jinping, China’s current president, has since scrapped the fixed ten year presidential term; has carolled millions of China’s Muslim minority into detention camps, euphemistically calling them “education camp”; he is clawing back the democratic rights of the people in Hong Kong, they are putting up a fight to stop him; etc. 

If China’s economic boom was to falter, for whatever reasons, the CCP will revert back to its default setting of using brute force to retain its iron grip on power. 

A country’s economic success under an authoritarian system will not last; it is a house built on clay, it will stand as long as the ground remains dry. The foundation will sink in the wet and soft clay causing in innumerable and irreparable structural problems. 

As much as Mnangagwa would wish to emulate Paul Kagame’s success, he will never do so. First and foremost, Mnangagwa is a seasoned corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous tyrant forsaking these dirty habits has already proven mission impossible. After the November 2017 military coup, he promised to end corruption, hold free elections, etc. but has failed to deliver or blatantly broke his promises. 

“BTP, the PR company hired by Mnangagwa successfully led a campaign to exonerate Kagame from the 1994 genocide. A 2009 report from the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative acknowledged that the BTP's "excellent public relations machinery" had succeeded in hiding "the exclusionary and repressive nature of the regime" in Kigali,” said the Independent. 

BTP had its work cut-out trying to hide Mnangagwa’s role in the corruption, vote-rigging and murderous tyranny during Mugabe’s days given he was the dictator’s chief enforcer throughout the 37 years. Even if the company did succeed; how is it going to hide the reality of the continuing corruption, vote rigging, killings, economic collapse, etc. of the last two years and going on as we speak! 

How can BTP sell Mnangagwa as a changed man when everything confirms that Zimbabwe is still a pariah state and he has not change one bit!

As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state, there will be no meaningful economic recovery. It is impossible to do business is a pariah state given all the economic chaos and lawlessness.

BTP will never make a Paul Kagame out of Emmerson, it will be making a silk purse out of a sower’s ear.  Mnangagwa is just wasting the nation’s money and time. 

Mnangagwa and his illegitimate Zanu PF regime; they rigged the elections, they have never had the legal mandate to govern; must step down. Zimbabwe needs the political space to implement the democratic reforms and lay the foundation, on sold rock, for a democratic system of government.