MP Mashakada, we do not need "macro-economic" but free elections to prosper. By P Guramatunhu

MDC MP for Hatfield, Tapiwa Mashakada, is just one of those MDC leaders who is good at regurgitating a lot of rocket science stuff that is completely useless and irrelevant to the simple problem on hand.

“For any economy to grow and develop, it has to invariably balance the uneasy macro-economic triangle. This triangle is made up of the macro-economic trinity of fiscal balance, monetary stability and external balance (which includes the trade balance and the net debt position),” wrote Mashakadain in his latest articles in Nehanda Radio.

He went to town and back on the same vein and got completely animated but all to no end and purpose. Zimbabwe is not in this economic and political mess not because we have failed to understand the complexities of the triangular relationship of macro-economics. Our problem is a very simple one – we are stuck for 37 years now with an incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical regime whose failed economic policies defy common sense!

Corrupt has become so rampant in Zimbabwe that President Mugabe himself has admitted that $15 billions of potential government revenue was “swindled” and a year later not even one swindler has been arrested or one dollar of the loot recovered. Even someone who has not been to school would know that is damaging to the national economy, especial for a nation whose GPD is $14 billions! The person will also know that the solution to the rampant looting is to arrest the looters and fire all those who allowed the looting to happen!

The fact that we have been stuck with an incompetent and corrupt Zanu PF regime for 37 years clearly shows we have a very serious problem of failing to hold those in power to democratic account. One would expect every thinking Zimbabwean out there to understand the nation’s greatest challenge is stopping Zanu PF rigging elections which is at the very heart of our repeated failure to remove the regime from office regardless its track record of failure, ruin and murder.

Of all people, MP Mashakada should not need anyone to remind him the nation’s top priority is the implement democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging election. After all MDC leaders were elected on a ticket and promise to deliver democratic change – as the party name shows! It is clear, like the rest of his fellow MDC leaders, Mashakada has never really grasped what these changes were as the party’s disappointing performance record shows.

MDC had many chances to implement the democratic changes to stop Zanu PF rigging elections, the best and golden chance was during the GNU. They were initially given 18 months to implement the reform but the time was extended to 60 months, five years, and still MDC failed to get even one reform implemented.

At least one MDC leaders, former Senator and Education Minister, David Coltart, saw the folly of failing to implement the reforms and was disappointed that his fellow opposition politicians did not boycott the flawed July 2013 elections.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” lamented Senator Coltart.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

Not even one reform has been implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections. None of the few opposition politicians elected back into power in the July 2013 elections including MP Mashakada have done anything to demand reforms. MP Mashakada will, no doubt, contest in next year’s elections knowing fully well Zanu PF will rig the vote as before and knowing fully too that by contesting the opposition is giving the flawed and illegal process a cloak of democratic credibility.

Indeed, MP Mashakada’s highly technical article peppered jaw-breakers jargon; all useless and irrelevant, of course; is the MP launching his re-election campaign. We will see many more articles all “full of sound and fury signifying nothing” in the true Shakespearean tradition!

Zanu PF has learnt that as long as it gives away a few seats to opposition, the party will never have to worry about the opposition boycotting elections to press the demand for meaningful reforms leading to free, fair and credible elections.

Boycotting flawed and illegal elections may be the “obvious” choice to a full-shilling opposition politician like Mr David Coltart. Contesting elections for the few seats Zanu PF throws away as bait is the obvious choice to the half-shilling opposition politicians like MP Mashakada, Morgan Tsvangirai, Joice Mujuru and many, many others!

In 1980, when the nation attained her independence, the nation took President Mugabe and his Zanu PF colleagues as great national heroes and heroines who could do no wrong. It was to take most Zimbabweans 20 years or so accept Mugabe and his Zanu PF colleagues were not only fallible but worse still, they were incompetent, corrupt and murderous tyrants.

Ever since 1999 when Morgan Tsvangirai and his friends launched MDC, the people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limp to elected them into power convinced they deliver the democratic changes and finally deliver the free, fair and credible elections the nation has been dying for. MDC has had many opportunities to bring about all the democratic changes the nation wanted but have wasted them because the leaders are corrupt and incompetent. The settled position now is that the opposition will never press Zanu PF to implement any democratic reforms and long as Zanu PF reward them with a few seats.

The current crop of opposition politicians is incompetent and corrupt; they will never implement any meaningful democratic changes; the sooner the people of Zimbabwe understand this political reality the sooner they can start searching for the competent and visionary – if not, then at least with some common sense – opposition leaders who will deliver the free, fair and credible elections the nation is dying for.

It too 20 years to see President Mugabe for the corrupt and murderous tyrant he is. One can only hope and pray that Zimbabweans are not going to take a similar period to see Morgan Tsvangirai and Joice Mujuru for the corrupt and incompetent leaders they are; there is already a mountain of evidence to prove it out there, if people bothered to look!