We are in a hell-hole, which every way OUT is uphill - implementing the GPA reforms. By Wilbert Mukori

There is no thinking Zimbabwean out there who would dispute that the country is in serious political and economic trouble. The economy is in total meltdown with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus and 76% of the population now living in poverty with over 3 million of them so poor they cannot afford even one decent meal a day! Zanu PF is imploding and 36 years of political repression has made it impossible for a competent opposition party to emerge.

So we are facing a double tragedy here; an economy in total meltdown and have no working political system to chart the way out of this hell-hole! Wait, correction, Vince Musewe has a solution!

“I, therefore, propose a gathering of coalition forces,” he wrote in his latest article (Time to save Zimbabwe) “where all political parties come together to give Zanu PF notice that unless we enter into substantive negotiation on a political transition now, we will bring Zimbabwe to a standstill until change comes.

“For me that is the only power we have and it’s time to use it. There is no doubt that we all want the same things, we all want Zanu PF to go and it is time we put aside our differences and save our Great Zimbabwe.”

To the regular readers this is nothing new, we have all heard Mr Musewe’s hare-brain plan before and know exactly what he will say next!

“I continue to insist that those who continue calling for political reforms (implementation of the 2008 GPA reforms, to be exact) without offering us the practicalities of it are really wasting our time. These are times for solutions and not change rhetoric,” wrote Musewe.

For those not too familiar with the GPA forms, these were the democratic reforms everyone in 2008 agreed should be implemented to ensure the rule of law, human freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections and the right to life itself. The principal task of the GNU was to implement the democratic reforms so that the madness of the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence of the 2008 elections will never ever be repeated.

 The task of implemented the reforms fell on Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti (who is the president of PDP of which Musewe is Secretary for Finance and Economic Affairs) and the other MDC leaders in the GNU. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not one!

Soon after the rigged 2013 elections which saw Mugabe reclaim the presidency and his party secure the two thirds majority in parliament (MDC has since increased these a few more freebees) SADC complained that MDC leaders “were busy enjoying themselves in the GNU and forgot why they were there (to implement the reforms)”. MDC leaders have never owned up to their betrayal of the nation in failing to implement the reforms.

Mr Musewe’s smart-Aleck jibe about “those who continue calling for political without offering us the practicalities of it” is just part of the MDC leadership’s attempt to falsify the facts about the GPA reforms. MDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU not because it was not practical but because they sold-out!  

Vince Musewe is not the only who has been calling on the opposition parties, civic society and all the other stakeholders in Zimbabwe to unite and confront Mugabe and Zanu PF demanding an end to the tragic misery the economic meltdown has brought to the nation. The coalition has never materialized because people would not agree on what exactly they would be demanding from Mugabe, amongst other things.

Tsvangirai and his MDC-T followers plus a few other opposition parties wanted to demand the implementation of the electoral law reforms, wishy-washy watered down variation to the GPA reform. Veritas, a local think tank on legal matters, have dismissed the reforms as “inadequate and incomplete”!

Musewe has dismissed the demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms because Mugabe will never accept any. So Musewe is proposing that we demand the formation of “political transition”, a second GNU, and to make this attractive to Mugabe, he will be assure that there will be no democratic reforms leading to free, fair and credible elections at the end of the transition.

If we are going to confront Mugabe then we must demand of him something worthwhile; if not an immediate end to the corrupt and oppressive dictatorship and the holding of free, fair and credible elections then a clear roadmap with solid rock guarantees that the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair election will be implemented this time without failure! To ask people to risk life and limp to demand the implementation of useless electoral law reforms or the formation of yet another GNU which will leave Zanu PF with its dictatorial powers untouched is not just a waste of time but it is downright stupid!

We are in this hell-hole because for the last 36 years we have been bending over backwards to appease Mugabe. Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders did not implement even one democratic reform during the GNU because Mugabe would have been most displeased if they had done so! Even now with the nation is serious economic and political trouble people like Musewe still continue to discount the only viable solution out of this hell because Mugabe will not approve of it.

Damn it Musewe; are we looking for a solution out of this hell-hole or a solution to appease Mugabe it regardless of whether it works or not! The dictatorship is the problem here and it must be dismantled. We cannot have a healthy and functioning democracy, which we all agree is absolutely essential in solving our teething economic problems, and still keep the dictatorship just to appease Mugabe, the dictator.

We are in a hole; we can pick the direction to take but, if we want the way out, then they will all be uphill. There is no such thing as an easy downhill route out of a hole, it is an oxymoron. For 36 years we taken the easy downhill path and allowed Mugabe to do as he pleased. We must now confront him with the truth; his no-regime-change mantra is not just unworkable it is destroying the nation and it must be dismantled, period!

It is the confused messages coming from the likes Tsvangirai and Musewe which have allowed Mugabe to hang on to power this long; why would he want to give up his dream of no-regime-change if he is being told he does not have to. However the economic meltdown will continue and get even; it is the economic mess and/or the social consequences flowing from it that will, in the end, force Mugabe to accept free and fair elections and regime change.