“Zimbabwe is subject to internal, sovereign dimensions of
intra-state activities including corruption, the rule of law, toxicity, hatred,
contested elections resulting in state failure and fragility,” Tendai Biti, the
President of PDP said in his Independence Day message to the nation.
What he has pointedly refused to admit all these years is
that it was him and his MDC friends who could and should have put an end to
this teething problem of vote rigging. We have been stuck with with this
corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 37 years and counting because
it has rigged elections to stay in power. All MDC had to do was to implement
the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. They had
five years to implement the reforms but failed to get even one reform
implemented.
SADC leaders warned MDC leaders not to contest the 2013
elections with no reforms in place but the warning fell on deaf ears. Samuel
Sipepa Nkomo, one of Mr Biti’s fellow MDC minister in the GNU has since
admitted the party was warned and ignored the warning.
Senator David Coltart, another MDC minister in the GNU, has
also admitted that a few months before the 2013 elections it was self-evident
that Zanu PF was going to blatantly rig the elections and if MDC leaders had
withdrawn from the elections even then they would have forced the
implementation of the democratic reforms. They all failed to do the logical
thing and contested the flawed elections for one selfish reason – greed.
“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,” explained 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.”
Mr Tendai Biti and his political party PDP was one of the
opposition parties that have boycotted all by-elections since the July 2013
rigged election. “No reform, no elections!” they said. They had finally seen
the sheer folly of contesting flawed and illegal elections!
The party has since flip-flopped on boycotting the elections
to force the implementation of reforms. PDP is going to contest the 2018
elections even though not even one democratic reform was implemented since the
July 2013 rigged elections.
“I want to look the tyrant (President Robert Mugabe) in the
eye!” Tendai Biti explained in a recent LIVE Zimeye panel discussion.
Yes, Mr Biti you want to look the tyrant in the eye! But to
what end and purpose? Last time you looked him in the eye you ended up singing
his praises. You called him “Father of the nation, fountain of wisdom,
unflappable, etc., etc.” You were so engrossed in singing the praises you and
all your fellow MDC leaders failed to get even one reforms implemented in five
years.
You were elected back in parliament after the 2013 elections
and was there for a year. What reforms did you implement then?
No Mr Biti you are not doing the people of Zimbabwe any
favours by contesting these flawed elections; you are doing it for one selfish reason
– greed.
Since the 2008 elections President Mugabe and Zanu PF have
learnt that no matter how flawed the election get, they will have no legitimacy
problem as long as they allow the opposition to win a few seats. You are not
contesting the 2018 elections to “look the tyrant in the eye”; you, Mr Biti,
have your beady eyes on the few bait gravy train seats!
“Together Another Zimbabwe is Possible!” concluded Tendai
Biti.
Yes, another and better Zimbabwe is possible but it is
certainly not going to happen as long as we continue to waste one golden
opportunity to implement reforms after another. By contesting flawed election
you and your fellow opposition politicians are not only forfeiting yet another
chance to forces through reforms but are giving the vote rigging the democratic
legitimacy it clearly does not deserve.
By contesting in Zimbabwe’s flawed elections you are saying
do not know constitute free and fair elections and/or such elections are beyond
our reach as a nation and therefore we should just lower the bar and accept the
rigged elections. How then you expect any political change, is a mystery!
If you have no clue
what constitute free and fair elections after 37 years of first-hand experience
of Zanu PF vote rigging and of 2 500 years of democratic history since the
Greek invented democracy under your belt; then you are a hopeless case, you
will never learn.
If you, Mr Biti, with all your University Degree and world
experience still have no clue what democracy is about, what hope is there that
povo, in Zimbabwe’s rural back waters will know any better! You are a
representative sample of the best minds the country has on offer, creme de la crème,
(and judging by your high profile and the high offices you have occupied in the
past, Minister of Finance; you are top-man); then it is little wonder the
country is in a total political and economic mess. What is worse, as long as
the nation continue to follow blindly corrupt and incompetent leaders like you,
the country has no chance of ever climbing out of the hell-hole it now finds
itself in.
With corrupt and incompetent leaders like you in charge, who
will continue contesting in flawed elections hoping for a different result even
after 37 years of rigged elections, a better Zimbabwe is impossible. OUT OF THE
QUESTION! IMPOSSIBLE!
Frequently losing his place as he read out a lacklustre speech to crowds gathered at the National Sports Stadium, the 93-year-old president said: "We celebrate as a vigilant nation."
ReplyDelete"The enemy is ever ready to pounce on any sign of laxity and weakness on our part," he added.
"People have a right to belong to the party of their choice... So let them pursue their own chosen lives as they desire," Mugabe said.
No one will be fooled by his pretence at democratic tolerance because we have all that before, when his hold on power is threatened he will see the “enemy poncing” and will descend on them with the full force of the state powers. We have all heard him say “What was achieved by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” Kuvoimbwa wakavhinga mupini!
People like Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, Morgan Tsvangirai and the rest of the MDC leaders who were in GNU had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which would have ended the scourge of vote rigging once and once for all. They did not implement even one reform in five years and have never bothered to explain to the people why they did not.
ReplyDeleteThe claim by the likes of Tendai Biti that he would like to continue contesting flawed elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF will rig the vote just for the sake of "looking the tyrant, Mugabe, in the eyes!" is laughable if the consequences to the ordinary people of his tomfoolery were not so tragic.
Biti himself acknowledges that flawed elections are the root cause of Zimbabwe’s failure to address its economic and political problems. By participating the opposition politicians are blocking change so the culture of flawed elections and the failed state continue.
Can the Right Honourable Tendai Biti, former MDC MP and Minister of Finance in the GNU, please tell the 90% plus unemployed, the millions now living in abject poverty, etc. that he and his MDC friends have deliberately prolonged their suffering because they want Mugabe to remain in office so the can “look the tyrant in the eyes!” None, not even one, of these people will be amused by his admission; that I will vouch for!
“Think of it; after the GNU if Mugabe had said, now that you have been working together for the last five years very well, why not go for another five years as GNU and then you go for elections,” Tsvangirai told mourners at the late MDC Harare Province Senator, Ronia Bunjira.
ReplyDelete“What a better country will this nation would have been.”
There we have it from the horse’s own mouth! Tsvangirai was fishing for the GNU to be extended by another five years and that would explain why MDC leaders ignored all calls for them to implement the democratic reforms.
There can be no doubt that Tsvangirai and many of his MDC friends had no idea what the democratic reforms were about, why the country needed them implemented and, much less, how they were to be implemented. Even today, with the benefit of hindsight, Tsvangirai and many of those in the opposition notably Mai Mujuru, still have no clue what these democratic reforms are!
If we are ever going to have free, fair and credible elections then we must get someone to implement all the democratic reforms fully. Zanu PF know what the reforms are and they would implement them if it was not for one impediment – they are the once who have deliberately corrupted the system to serve their selfish purpose of no-regime-change. After 37 years in power the regime’s desire to retain absolute power is keener now than ever. However, the regime also knows that the people’s resolve to remove them from office has never been greater given all the evidence of the regime’s economic and political failures.
So, Zanu PF will never win free and fair elections and, naturally, the party will never ever implement the reforms which will result in free and fair elections, it knows it cannot win.
“Zanu PF will never reform itself out of power!” Zanu PF Minister Jonathan Moyo and a few others in the party have readily admitted.
We cannot trust Tsvangirai or Mai Mujuru to implement the reforms because they do not what they are. But even if someone can explain to them what they are; once in power even they would soon realise they too would benefit from maintain the status quo!
The only body that can be trusted to implement all the reforms fully is an independent body, the National Transition Authority (NTA). How the NTA is to be structured and staffed can be worked out and agreed in due course, what matters now is for the people of Zimbabwe to appreciate that the nation is caught between a rock and the deep blue sea, between the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF and the corrupt and incompetent opposition. We can neither continue with Zanu PF nor go along with the opposition. What we must do is reject both and set back to reset our political system, that is what the NTA will do.
Police in Zambia have arrested and jointly charged Mr Hichilema and five others with treason. They even went on to invade his home and harass his family.
ReplyDeleteMr Hichilema is the leader of Zambia’s main opposition party and many believe President Edgar Lungu is doing this for selfish political reason. The move are echoes of what Zambia’s first post-independence President Kenneth Kaunda used to do.
When the people of Zambia finally kicked out Kenneth Kaunda (KK) from office, after 27 years of misrule; they should have made sure that all the corrupt laws, practices and quirks that KK had fostered for his selfish purpose of staying in power were all removed BEFORE his successor, President Frederick Chiluba, took office and settled down.
The corrupt laws, practices and quirks help the incumbent consolidate their hold on political power and it is therefore not surprising that President Chiluba did not do anything to dismantle any of these laws. If anything he has used them to extend his own power and so has all the others who followed. President Lungu is doing the same!
Zambia is stuck with an inherently corrupt and undemocratic political system which all can see is corrupt and undemocratic and whilst those seeking public office will promise to change none of them will ever keep their promise because once in office they are the ones benefiting the most from the status quo.
No one, once elected, will ever reform himself/herself out of power; that is a imperial historic truth.
Of course, Zambia is stuck with a corrupt and undemocratic political system, the people know they need to change but no one knows how to bring about that change now. Zimbabwe, if we too fail to get the democratic reforms fully implemented when we finally end Mugabe’s corrupt and tyrannical rule, will find ourselves in a similar predicament!
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Chairperson Justice Rita Makarau says two companies, Luxton Group Systems from China and Dermalog Identification Systems from Germany, have been shortlisted to supply the BVR kits. The two will be demonstrating their BVR kits on 24 and 25 April 2017.
ReplyDeleteAny system made by man can be corrupted by man.
If we accept that ZEC is corrupt and therefore incapable of delivering free, fair and credible elections - there is a mountain of evidence proving that ZEC is indeed corrupt and that not even one reform has been implemented to make one believe ZEC is anything else but a corrupt body. One has to question why NERA are therefore focusing all their time and energy on who buys the BVR kits and from whom as if the kits themselves will be enough to deliver free, fair and credible elections regardless of the fact that ZEC, the body tasked to operate the kits are still as corrupt as ever!
It is a historic fact that there were more voter registration centres in Mhondoro a rural area (Zanu PF stronghold) with a population of 100 000 than in Harare or Bulawayo urban areas (opposition strongholds) with a population of 2 million each. What would the most advance BVR system do to stop this happening again!
We need all the democratic reforms implemented BEFORE holding the next elections and all those focusing on BVR kits and other trivia are wasting our time! We now why these opposition are obsessed with trivia, they are desperate to have something to cover up for why they are going to contest elections they know are flawed because no reforms have been implemented. They want to present the BVR kits as a victory although they know it is an empty victory!
Former State Procument Board(SPB) chairperson Charles Tawonerera Kuwaza died after jumping from 9th Floor of Club Chambers building. Some people it was suicide and others believe he was pushed.
ReplyDeleteKuwaza under investigation theft of a Toyota Land Cruiser worth $120 000 from RBZ and for failing to pay tax on allowance worth nearly $1m dollars.
Corruption in Zanu PF is rampant they can longer sweep everything under the carpet because the huge lumps on the carpet are themselves too big not to be noticed!