Wednesday, 16 March 2016

If 2018 elections are NOT free, fair and credible then we must hang our heads in shame! By Patrick Guramatunhu


If the 2018 Zimbabwe parliamentary and presidential elections are not free, fair and credible; be it they are marred by blatant vote rigging as happened in 2013 or, worse still, by wanton violence as happened in 2008; then every thinking Zimbabwean out there will hang their head in shame. Shame, shame, shame on you! Because, after 38 years of independence in this day and age what excuse will anyone of us have for failing to hold free and credible elections!



We cannot blame President Mugabe and his lunatic cronies for rigging the vote or cause the mayhem; we know that their insatiable greed for political power and material wealth has soared to such nauseating heights they cannot be reached by logic, reason, common sense, empathy for the suffering their follow Zimbabwe or any other human emotion. They are so desperate to stay in power they will rig the vote and cause the mayhem including the murder of innocent people just to stay in power without a moment’s hesitation. It is up to us, those still with a conscience and lucid mind to realized the futility, the madness and the tragic consequences of 38 years of incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical rule because we could not effect regime change because we did not have free, fair and credible elections.



We cannot blame Morgan Tsvangirai, Joice Mujuru and all the other opposition politicians for failing to implement the democratic reforms necessary to the 2018 elections are free, fair and credible. People like Tsvangirai have had their chance to implement the reforms during the GNU years and after five years failed to get even one reform implemented. They have already proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are incompetent and corrupt and we are suffering the political and economic consequences of their failure; what else do they have to do and what how much worse do things have to get to finally drive the message home that we cannot count on the likes of Tsvangirai or Mujuru to get us out of this mess. We need people with common sense, people who can think!



When it comes to government, 2 500 years ago the Greeks figure out the democratic system in which every citizen has a meaningful say in the governance of the country as the answer to the failed totalitarian dictatorship President Mugabe has imposed on the nation. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; all we have to do is copy it!



Following the wanton political violence of the 2008 elections SADC helped us to come up with a raft of democratic reforms we need to implement to transform the dictatorship into a healthy and functioning democracy. Ok MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU but what is there to stop us the people demanding that the reforms must be implemented?



We had a five year window of opportunity to get the GPA reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections implemented from 31 st July 2013, day of the last elections, to July 2018, date of the next elections. So far there is no sign any of the reforms are going to be implemented; the signs are we are going to have the wanton violence of 2008.



There is no doubt that the day after the 2018 elections, the nation will list out the usual election irregularities; failure to produce a voters roll, the unfair media coverage, the abuse of State resources by the ruling party, widespread harassment, beating and even murderers. The people will start to mourn about the violence and vote rigging but, to be honest, no one in their right mind will listen because everyone knew in advance these things would happen, what to do to stop them happening and to do nothing but complain afterwards is rubbish.



Zimbabwe is in this political and economic hell-hole because we, as a nation, have failed to come up with a system of government that would stop the criminal waste of human and material resources that have been happen under this Mugabe regime. Are we really that incompetent that even after 38 years of self-rule we are still failing to hold free, fair and credible elections!


Each generation has its challenge; our forefathers’ generation was to end white colonial oppression, this generation’s challenge is to make black majority rule work for the good of all our people. So far we have made a dog’s breakfast of it; I hope and pray that we have learnt from our past 36 years of mistakes and in 2018 Zimbabwe will finally hold free, fair and credible election!


2 comments:

  1. Yes Chaurura, we know that Zanu PF are corrupt and incompetent; if you had implemented the democratic reforms during the GNU years we would not be facing all these problems.


    “Only a legitimate and democratically elected government will be in a position to extricate millions of Zimbabweans from the life penury and deprivation that they are presently experi-encing,” said Gutu.


    Excellent Chaurura, excellent! Now tell what have you done since the July 2013 elections to ensure the next elections are not once again rigged? We have just over two years still to go before the next elections; what have you done to implement the democratic reforms to ensure we have “a legitimate and democratically elected government” at last?

    So you are wasting time telling us how miserable we are under Zanu PF but, as usual, doing nothing to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. You really are a waste of space!

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  2. People like Vince Musewe and his stupid "parardim shift" suggestion assuring Zanu PF that they can continue to have the dictatorship and the people that they too can have the economic recover with no democratic changes are promising everything to everyone. The reality is that unless we ditch this corrupt and wasteful dicatorship we will continue to sink economically.

    I used to read Musewe's articles and thought highly of him; now I can see that he is just one of those confused intellectuals whose ideas are slow acting poison like that idiot Shadreck Guto!


    Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged elections but unless the reforms are implement now this is exactly what is going to happen. We have wasted over half the five years between elections and we still arguing about which reforms to implement. And Vince is not dscounting all reforms in favour of a second GNU whose mandate is to review the economic policies only, just to confuse the whole situation! S***t!

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