Four Zanu PF wins!
Surprise, surprise it is once again a four!
I
for one was not fooled by Mugabe’s one-million man march, his is a loaded dice;
but clearly some people were impressed.
“Critics
say although the numbers were far less than 100 000, love him or hate him,
President Mugabe showed he is a master at commandeering the full might of
everything at his disposal to round-up the populace despite the bulk of the 13
million citizens wallowing in abject poverty,” said a Fingaz report.
The
operative word here being “commandeering”!
Zanu
PF spent a cool $2 million to stage the 7 April 2016 meeting of 10 000 war
veteran members and Mugabe, according to the War Vet Minister’s own statement
who organized and paid for everything. So for the 1 000 000 man-march the
regime would have spent $200 million.
$200
million is a fortune to anyone but more so to a party like MDC-T that is broke
it was asking its councillors to contribute to pay for a party rally in Kadoma
recently.
To
Zanu PF $200 million is small charge; this is a party that gave its
parliamentary candidate in the 2013 elections brand new car plus $15 000, paid
NIKUV $10 million to tamper with voters roll, etc. According to Partnership Africa
Canada, Mugabe pocketed $2 billion from his share of looting of Marange
diamonds in 2012 alone; of course the tyrant is loaded!
So
with $200 per head to spend it is not surprising the one-million man march was
well supported!
"Indeed
numbers do matter in politics," says Maxwell Saungweme.
"Whether by hook or crook (President) Mugabe has shown he has support," he said.
"But numbers matter more if they are numbers of declining unemployment levels, declining poverty levels, increased household incomes, improved corruption perception indexes, improved human rights indexes, increased access to drugs, housing, among other things lacking in Zimbabwe," Saungweme added.
If
unemployment can soar to dizzying height of 80% plus and stay there for donkey
years as has happened in Zimbabwe and one is still able to have a landslide victory
as Mugabe has done again and again surely that proves that as long as you can
rig the vote nothing else matters!
“Politics
is a game of numbers!” true; but only a fool confines himself to a simple head
count at a rally, demo or cast vote because with a war chest full of cash there
is no limit to the size of hired-crowd and come elections pay those who
organize and count the votes and suddenly it is a totally different ball game!
Everyone
has a right to meaningful say in the governance of one’s country, this is
fundamental right not a privilege, and hence the reason the elections must be
free, fair and credible. So if the count is suspect then the primary task must
surely be to have this put right first and not be sucked into a head count
contest of “by hook or crook” count.
The
primary task of the opposition parties must be implementing all the democratic
reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections; until this is done it is a
waste of time to do anything else! Zanu PF does not want to hear anything about
implementing democratic reforms because the party knows it will never win free
and fair elections.
So
the only logical reason why the opposition has still not implemented any
meaningful reforms, especially during the GNU when they had the golden
opportunity to do so, is because they are breathtakingly corrupt and
incompetent.
Throughout
the GNU years, Mugabe saw to it that Tsvangirai and his MDC enjoyed the gravy
train lifestyles plus a $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, bribes to
stop them implementing the reforms. There is no doubt the tyrant is still doing
his best to keep the opposition occupied with demos, rallies, coalition building,
anything except implementing reforms. He is even allowing them to hold demos
and rallies without the usual accompaniment of Riot Police beatings and
tear-gas and, just to stop the implementing of reforms, would even fund the
demos and rallies. He is loaded!
The
greatest challenge facing this nation today is implementing the democratic
reforms and thus ensure the next elections are free, fair and credible; until
this is done this nation will not do anything of substance. The economic
meltdown the nation is facing and the tragic human suffering it has brought is
the heavy price we are paying for having failed to carryout out this key task
until now. The longer we drag our feet over this the harder the task becomes
and the heavier the penalty we have to pay, the economic meltdown is getting
worse!
The more you have talked about implementing the democratic reforms the more you have turned me round and now I do agree with you that implementing the democratic reforms is indeed the first step to ending all our political and economic problems. We have failed to address these problems all these last 36 years because President Mugabe would not let us do so. For the best time he pretended there were no problems and when he has forced to admit the problems his first instinct was to find escape-goats for the problems so in the end the problems have been allowed to fester and grow.
ReplyDeleteAs long as Mugabe or Zanu PF remains in power the country's economic and political problems will never be dealt with the urgency and resolve they demand. The only stable way to achieve peaceful regime change is to implement all the democratic reforms and then let the spirit of free debate and democratic competition select the most competent leader of the day.
I have no doubt that the electorate have a lot of catching up to do, they will not elect the best lead-ers available but what better way for them to learn than for them to make their own mistakes!
The economic meltdown is working its wonders because this is the one reality that President Mugabe has failed to falsify and get away with. The economic misery is hardening the people's resolve for regime change; Zanu PF is going to have a real serious fight in its hands come the elections.
@ Mudhara
ReplyDeleteThere are genuine war veterans who believed in freedom and liberty and human dignity during the war of independence and believed in these things are 1980 and still believe in them to this day. Then they are rogue war veterans, dzakutsaku, who never really believed in freedom and liberty but saw their involve-ment in the war as a means for them to acquire power and have maintained that power even when it meant denying the rest of the people their freedom and basic rights. If the nation is ever going to get out of this mess then we must see the distinction and act accordingly!
Leaders like Mugabe and Mnangagwa corrupted the war veterans turning them into dzakutsaku for selfish political gain. What these leaders have done during Gukurahundi and since in rigging elections, etc. is serious stuff that no nation in its right mind can sweep under the carpet; there must be some truth and reconciliation commission at the very least.
As for the likes of Chris Mutsvangwa and the other rogue war veterans they too need to come out and admit what they have done in denying the people’s freedoms and rights was wrong. They cannot continue hold the gun to the nation’s head with all this nonsense of being “the stockholders of Zimbabwe” with a veto over the democratic will of the people.
Some people will believe anything and nowhere is this more true than in Mugabe’s feeble attempts to blame Zimbabwe’s economic problems on sanctions. Ever since the time the sanctions were first imposed, he has come up with various solutions to counter the sanctions but only to come back to the sanctions when the economic recovery he had predicted failed to materialize.
ReplyDeleteHe is the one who came up with his “Look East” policy, he has never explained why the policy failed.
His ZimAsset plan to revive the country’s economy was proposed in 2012 knowing fully well that the sanctions were in place. The plan was a complete waste of time as it failed to create even one job and once again the tyrant is blaming sanctions. If anything the sanctions have eased over the last three years as the EU have ended the sanction on everyone else except Mugabe and his wife!
Of course sanctions is just a feeble excuse for the country’s economic woes, Mugabe cannot tell the nation he is responsible for the mess because it is in the nature of a dictator to deny all responsibility for every-thing regardless of the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. He is do so also because he knows there are always some suckers out there who will believe anything put to them regardless how stupid and baseless it happens to be!