Confusion is when some people say
this and others say that and yet others say something else which is neither
this nor that. It is no exaggeration to say in Zimbabwe you will find many people
who saying, this, that and something else and, given enough time to speak, will
contradict themselves in all three areas! Our situation has not been helped by
having all these intellectuals, analysts, leaders, etc., to whom many look up
to for clarity and guidance, who are themselves the grandfathers of confusion.
The burning question in Zimbabwe
today is: Should the people continue to demand meaningful democratic reforms before
the 2018 elections or should we give up confident we can still have the results
reflecting the true democratic wish of the people even if no reforms are
implemented? Since Temba Mliswa’s electoral victory in the Norton by-election
two weeks ago the number of people arguing that Zanu PF can be defeated without
even one reform implemented has shot up sadly they are just as confused as
ever!
“Thank you for congratulating me,
it is significant in that it has given Zimbabweans confidence,” Mliswa told
Paul Nyakazeya of the Financial Gazette after his electoral victory. “We had
lost confidence in the whole electoral process.
“That is not to say the electoral
reforms are in order. No, there are still a lot of electoral malpractices such
as vote buying, violence and rigging.
“But you must understand that
when people talk about rigging, what kind of rigging is it. It was now in
people's minds - it was a fallacy, a propaganda that Zanu-PF even enjoyed that
every election is rigged.”
Before he was booted out of Zanu
PF in 2014, Temba Mliswa was party provisional chairman and an MP positions
that allowed him to have direct access to President Mugabe himself, as he told
Nyakazeya in the interview. His re-election back into parliament will give him
a lot of political clout. It is reasonable to say many ordinary Zimbabweans
will sit up and listen when MP Temba Mliswa speaks. So let us just debunk what
he has just said here:
The first thing he is that his
electoral victory should restore the people’s confidence in winning future
elections. He acknowledges there are problems of vote buying, violence and
rigging in one sentence and then dismiss them as “fallacy” in people’s minds
and Zanu PF “propaganda” in the next. But just to be consistent with his new
found confidence we are to take home the view that Zanu PF’s vote rigging
machinery is broken and therefore there is no need to demand democratic reforms
designed to dismantle the machinery.
Given enough time confused people
like Temba Mliswa would contradict themselves and he did just that. Last year he
contested the Hungwe West by-election to win back his parliamentary seat after
he was booted out of Zanu PF. He lost that by election.
“The Hurungwe West by-election
was marred by violence and intimidation because war veterans were involved,” he
explained. “War veterans were out of this (Norton) election and they decided to
support me. You do not need many war veterans behind you, what you need is an
endorsement from the war veterans.”
The abuse of war veterans by
President Mugabe as the party’s storm troopers to harass, beat, rape and even
murder ordinary people and force them to vote for Zanu PF since 2000 has been
one of the most shameful and despicable things he has ever done. There is no
doubt that when President Mugabe agreed to pay war veteran the unbudgeted Z$50
000 gratuity, Z$ 2 000 pension per month plus education and health allowance in
1997 triggering the 72% devaluation of the Z$; he was making a down payment bribe
for their blind loyalty to his selfish no-regime-change agenda.
All those war veterans who agreed
to deny the povo their freedoms and basic rights including the right to free
and fair elections betrayed the nation and all the liberation war was about. Of
course they realized they were doing something wrong which is why even those like
Jabulani Sibanda who have fallen out completely with President Mugabe are still
ashamed to take about their role as the tyrant’s storm troopers especially in
the wanton violence of 2008 elections.
It is sad to note that whilst the
rogue war veterans have quarreled with President Mugabe about none payment of
the school fees allowances; many of them have pledged their continued blind
loyalty to VP Mnangagwa. There is therefore no reason to believe they will not
assume their storm trooper thuggery to impose Mnangagwa.
Both Joice Mujuru from Zim PF and
Nelson Chamisa from MDC-T have made no secret of actively encouraging the rogue
war veterans to join them. Even if all the rogue war veterans crossed the floor
and started carrying out their political thuggery for the opposition that will
not mean the end of Zanu PF politically motived violence. Zanu PF has already
replaced the war veterans with party youths as its storm troopers backed by the
usual Police, CIO and other State Institutions, as was shown during the Norton
by-elections.
Even if the war veterans have
indeed switched their political allegiance from Zanu PF, as Mliswa would have
us believe; we do not want the war veterans, youths, or any other grouping
assuming any tyrannical powers. We want free and fair elections where candidate
seek the vote of the electorate and not to ever worry about getting the
endorsement of war veterans of anybody else.
Besides Zanu PF does not rely on
the use of violence alone to rig elections; the party has devised a very
elaborate and expensive vote rigging scheme. As long as the party continues to
enjoy total control of all State institutions and unfettered access to State resources
including the billions of dollars looted from Marange diamonds, Zanu PF will
rig and win the elections.
“We have allowed ourselves to be crippled
by this idea that electoral reform must come from the government or ZEC,”
argued Benjanin Paradza President of ZUNDE, joining the debate. “We have tried
to push them but the answer we got from loonies like Jonathan Moyo is that ZANU
PF will not reform itself out of power. What a painful thing to tell a
suffering, dying nation! But it is true. They will not do that so what do we
do? We are the people, we are Zimbabwe, and we have the power to do anything
including getting rid of ZANU PF from power, if only we do it right.
“For the 2018 election, the right thing to do is to ensure that we turn out in full force to the polls and vote. And to vote, everyone must register and ensure that their names are on the voters' roll. We have less than two years to do this and time is not on our side.”
“For the 2018 election, the right thing to do is to ensure that we turn out in full force to the polls and vote. And to vote, everyone must register and ensure that their names are on the voters' roll. We have less than two years to do this and time is not on our side.”
Zanu PF’s vote rigging schemes
are a lot more sophisticated than you think, my brother Paradza. Nearly one
million voters were denied the vote in the 2013 elections, for example, because
NIKUV, the Israeli company paid a princely sum of $10 million by Mugabe, posted
their details some other constituency voters roll than they expected. Many of
the voters would have picked this up for themselves if the voters roll was
released at least a month before voting day as is stipulated by law. Zanu PF
saw to it that the voters roll was not released, even to this day!
In the coming elections, the country
will be using a new Biometric Voting System (BVS); there is no doubt that NIKUV
is already devising ingenious ways of corrupting the data to deny many real people
the vote whilst allowing many ghost voters to vote for Zanu PF. This time the
regime will release BVS data knowing fully well that few the technical know-how
to read the information let alone analyse it.
Throughout the five years of the GNU,
President Mugabe went out of his way to make sure Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC
friends never doubted for even one minute that MDC would win the 2013 elections
even if no democratic reform are implemented. He spoilt them rotten by making
sure that MDC leaders were afforded all the gravy train trappings of power plus
a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, a former white owned farm for Ncube, etc.,
just to keep them sweet. We must not allow ourselves to fall for that again!
