Mutasa is latest ZPF leader pretending to be a democrat only to fluff his line. By Patrick Guramatunhu

“Should I say yes or should I say no!” That is the question that must have occupied Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) members ever since they were kicked out of Zanu PF and decided to go back into politics. When they launched their party on 1 st March 2016 and thus take the decisive step to go back into politics all their well-rehearsed answers to the questions about their past were forgotten. In a recent interview Didymus Mutasa fluffed his lines; he answered yes and no and flip-flopped, proof he is still the same incompetent, corrupt and murderous tyrant of his Zanu PF days.

 

 

“We can’t divorce ourselves from the things done by an organisation we were members of,” said Didymus Mutasa in an interview with the Standard.

 

 

“We can only say we are sorry, and genuinely reform ourselves into the new organisation we have launched and hope that within that organisation, mistakes that happened when we were in Zanu PF will never be tolerated or happen again.”

 

 

Even in his opening pitch he could not hide that he is lying; what Zanu PF has been doing are deliberate and calculated criminal acts, not mistakes!

 

 

“Did Zanu PF ever rig elections?” asked Standard reporter, Richard Chidza.

 

 

“(Laughs)… I do not know,” replied Mutasa. “Well, the rigging could never have been done by members of the party because they did not take part in the administration of the elections. If there was a structure to rig, then the minister responsible for elections should tell us.”

 

 

If Senor Mutasa is a born-again democratic, fresh from the mint, he is trying to make the nation believe he is then he would know that the issue of rigging elections is no laughing matter. Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because for 36 years the nation was stuck with an incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical regime unable to remove it from power because Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs rigged the elections. They denied the people of Zimbabwe their freedom, liberty, human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections.

 

 

Senor Mutasa rigging elections is no laughing matter; it is treason!

 

 

“But did you think there was some underhand dealing in how the party won elections?” Chidza asked him again.

 

 

“No. If I had I would have discussed this with the president. I would have faced him on it. There are many things we told him, that they were not correct. I have written letters to tell him such and such is wrong,” answered Mutasa.

 

 

“Now that you are in the opposition, do you think there is a structure somewhere used to rig elections?” asked Chidza for the third time.

 

 

“Yes. And this is why we are demanding electoral reforms and setting up of a structure within the confines of the Constitution to administer elections independently,” Mutasa finally admitted.

 

 

When Joice Mujuru was asked what she knew about rigged elections she too gave an ambiguous answer.

 

 

"I never saw the rigging… I am sure it was a very small clique that was doing it," said Mujuru.

 

 

Both Mujuru and Mutasa knew of Zanu PF’s abuse of state resources to finance the party’s elections campaign, the active cooperation of ZEC and other state institutions in the rigorous and yet very selective application of the law in favour of Zanu PF. They were aware of Zanu PF’s culture of political violence; the harassment, beating, rape and the murder of opposition members by Zanu PF thugs, war vets and state security agents. By denying knowledge of vote rigging and violence the ZPF leaders are once again proving that they are not willing to dismantle the dictatorship.

 

 

“No it wasn’t, you cannot allow your tongue to slip three times in the process of saying something,” admitted Mutasa, when he was pressed on the election results of the March 2008 elections. “He (Mugabe) said it three times, that Tsvangirai won by 73%. That is what the man at the top is saying now. Why would I not believe it?”

 

 

Mutasa was asked whether the people should not be afraid of the State.

 

 

“Yes I do,” he answered. “But do not blame us for people being afraid. Blame those who are afraid. Let us encourage them to stand up and be counted.

 

“If they continue to be afraid of the State machinery, there will be still state machinery under ZPF and people will still be afraid. So the change we are promising them will not take place if people live in fear.”

 

It is the only honest thing he said that day! What people like him have completely failed to grasp is that the State machinery is not there to serve the selfish interests of the ruling elite but to serve the public good. We are in this political and economic mess because yesterday’s liberators have become today’s oppressors and so we need yet another generation of liberators! Surely we have other pressing national matters to attend to than wasting time and human and material resources fighting endless liberation wars! The challenge is to break this stupid cycle once and once for all!

 

We need to implement the GPA reforms which are designed to end the ruling elite’s undemocratic control of the state institutions so people will never again have to fear or fight the state institutions! Implementing the GPA is the heart and soul of the democratic change this country is dying for. It is not surprise Mujuru, Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF team have failed to understand this; they are not true democrats, they are corrupt and incompetent tyrants pretending to be democrats!