Zimbabwe’s economic decline is there for all the
world to see; 90% unemployment rate, millions now living in abject poverty,
education and health services that have all but collapsed, etc. The root causes
of the economic mess are not hard to discern; the decades of mismanagement,
corruption and lawlessness. What is near impossible to understand, especially
to outsiders, is why Mugabe, the man at the heart of the misrule, has managed
to stay in power for the last 36 years and is the favourite to win in the next
elections set for 2018 given the country holds regular elections!
What the outsiders have to understand is that
Zimbabwe is a multi-party democracy on paper but a de facto one party
dictatorship in practice. Mugabe has become the grandmaster at holding undemocratic
elections, claim they were free, fair and credible and get away with it. Having
corrupt and incompetent political opponents has worked in the tyrant’s favour,
the ease with which he has again and again set them off on a wild goose chase
is uncanny!
“The likes of (ZimPF leader Joice) Mujuru are
boasting saying we have many supporters, and we said its okay, we will see come
2018. Let the likes of (Dzikamai) Mavhaire and (Kudakwashe) Bhasikiti boast,
while at their People First party with Mai Mujuru there,” Mugabe boasted in
turn.
“Those who cross the floor, we say go. You were
bringing disharmony, leave us in peace in Zanu PF.
“The likes of (MDC-T leader Morgan) Tsvangirai
are having pot bellies and are relaxed because of Zanu PF and you are now
hoarding women and we leave you with your traits. We only ask; ‘How has Zanu PF
erred? Show us then how you want to run the country’? They want to return the
farms to the whites,” Mugabe charged.
If Zimbabwean elections were won or lost on the
basis of one’s ability or otherwise to run the country then Mugabe would certainly
have been kicked out of office a long time ago. Zanu PF made a big song and
dance about the party’s 2013 economic recovery plan, the $27 billion ZimAsset,
and promised it would deliver 2.2 million new jobs. The people of Zimbabwe were
not easily fooled; they have heard Mugabe promise economic prosperity a
thousand times but never delivered. Mugabe himself knew the people would not be
fooled and hence the reason he spent his time, energy and billions of dollars
in treasure in the elaborate and very expensive vote rigging scheme. He threw
ZimAsset as a decoy to draw the attention of his political opponents away from
the democratic reforms and it worked.
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends were supposed to implement
the democratic reforms necessary to ensure the elections in 2013 were free and
fair; they wasted the golden opportunity formulating their own economic blueprint
Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and the Environment or JUICE to match
Zanu PF’s ZimAsset decoy.
Without even one reform in place, Mugabe went on
to blatantly rig the 2013 elections and retain his iron grip on political power.
MDC-T’s JUICE plan never saw the light of day but so did ZimAsset because the
party failed to get anyone to bankroll it but Mugabe knew that would happen, it
was a decoy.
Since the rigged 2013 elections the MDC opposition
parties vowed to implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop Mugabe
rigging the next elections and yet three years down the line still not even one
reform has been implemented. Tendai Biti’s PDP has since produced its own
economic blueprint HOPE and so has Joice Mujuru’s ZimPF with its BUILD in
response to Mugabe’s challenge of how “to run the country”.
If no reforms are implemented before the 2018
elections then Mugabe will once again blatantly rig the elections, claim they
were free and fair and, once again, get away with it!
The
greatest challenge for this nation since we attained our independence in 1980
has been to make the independence work for all our people and not just the
select few in power as has happened. 36 years after independence and we still
have not figured out how to create a free, fair, just and prosperous Zimbabwe!
Until we figure out how, this country will never ever get out of the economic
and political hell-hole Mugabe has landed us in. Never!
Zimbabwe is not the first
nation to find itself in the misfortune of being ruled by a corrupt and
murderous tyrant, many other nations have suffered a similar fate. They
suffered for a long time until they devised meaningful political change to
deliver good governance. Whilst we do not need to devise what constitute
meaningful political change, reinventing the wheel; there is a body of historic
evidence to show that what we need are meaningful political changes, democratic
reforms, to guarantee the individual freedoms and human rights including the
right to free and fair elections and the right to life itself.
Our political challenge is
to demand the implementation of the democratic reforms to ensure Zimbabwe is a healthy
and functional multi-party democracy on paper and in practice!
Times are changing in Zimbabwe as Mugabe’s end nears, but would-be successors are facing uncomfortable questions and equally uneasy choices. The way they react to these dilemmas will shape the country’s future. By STUART DORAN.
ReplyDeleteDr Stuart Doran is a historian and the author of a forthcoming book, Kingdom, Power, Glory: Mugabe, Zanu and the quest for supremacy, 1960–87.
“Rinemanyanga hariputirwi!” so says the Shona adage. (Bad things cannot be hidden for long!)
What Mugabe has been doing to stay in power is coming out and the whole world is seeing for the incompetent, corrupt and murderous tyrant he is. To get their share of the absolute power and the looted wealth it brought people like VP Mnangagwa, Joice Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa, etc. have made themselves willing tools in the tyrant’s hands; they cannot pretend their did not play their part when they have the looted wealth and, for many of them, their hands are red with the shed blood of the innocent.
As Zanu PF implode it is certain the truth will come out even first as both side of the warring faction take turns to discredit each other by revealing secrets of their opponents. President Mugabe talked of $15 billion of Marange diamonds were looted and Higher Education Minister, Jonathan Moyo has since revealed that Joice Mujuru is heavily implicated in the looting.
The Mujuru faction has hit back already with Kudzai Mbudzi saying he will be releasing a book detailing Zanu PF misrule written with the help of Joice Mujuru!
The truth, the whole truth, will be so damaging to both Mnangagwa and Mujuru and all the other Zanu PF leaders they will be forced to retire from all public life and thus delivering the political change the nation has been praying for all these last 36 years!
“The likes of (ZimPF leader Joice) Mujuru are boasting saying we have many supporters, and we said its okay, we will see come 2018,” said President Mugabe.
ReplyDeleteWell of course he is not bothered even if ZimPF’s members was five, ten or fifty times Zanu PF’s members when you have total control of who gets on the voters roll and who does not, who does not vote, who does and how many times, who counts the votes, etc., etc. It is obvious those with the greatest membership do not necessarily “win”! It is amazing that none of our opposition leaders have yet got this simple message!
I have never, until now that is, gone along with those who said our opposition are a curse to our cause for democratic change. They are indeed breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent and thus constitute a curse to the nation.
President Mugabe’s long stay in power is understandable; with such corrupt and incompetent opponents cheating them is child’s play!
I really do not see anyone in the opposition implementing any reforms in the next year and as for the ordinary Zimbabwean, many still do not have clue what the reforms are about. There two possible outcome come 2018; either Zanu PF will blatantly rig the elections are again or the economic hardships will harden povo’s resolve to get meaningful change to the 2008 level and thus forcing Zanu PF to resort to the 2008 barbarism to secure electoral victory. It is doubtful if Zanu PF will be able to hang on to power if the party used violence.
"We have ideology as Zanu-PF, something that opposition parties do not have, whether it's MDC-T, MDC-N or MDC-Z, I do not know or whether its Makoni's Mavambo/Dawn/Kusile, or that small par-ty, which calls itself People First, what is People First?" he asked rhetorically.
ReplyDeleteWhat is Zanu PF’s ideology?