Dear Anglistone Sibanda
Thank you very much for your insightful
article “A Case for reforms ahead of the 2018 watershed elections” in The
Zimbabwean. Whilst most people have made the mistake of treating the ordinary
Zimbabweans as anyone else in any other country, you have drawing attention to
their helplessness compared to the all-powerful ruling elite.
“Democracy in Zimbabwe has not helped in
alleviating human suffering and facilitating people-centred development and
giving the masses a voice but has served to create a systematic manipulation of
the too poor, too weak, too desperate, too fearful and vulnerable majority that
is ready to sell their soul and abdicate their rights to the too powerful black
minority that captured the state post 1980,” you wrote.
Zimbabwe’s
political contestation is therefore not one pitting one citizen standing for
public office trying to win the support and votes of his/her fellow citizens but
rather one of the overbearing lord and master whipping his subjects to do as there
are told!
The ordinary Zimbabweans have lost their
freedoms and the basic human rights and dignity a long time ago. They are not
citizens with a vote and thus meaningful say in the governance of the country;
they are serfs to be frog marched to attend rallies and to vote as there are instructed.
If we are serious about restoring democracy
and good governance in Zimbabwe, God knows how much the people have suffered
and how many have died under this corrupt and tyrannical dictatorship; then we
could do no better than demand the full restoration of all individual freedoms
and rights. We want all Zimbabweans to be treated as citizens and not serfs.
Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is dependent on
end the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption which will never
happen as long as those in positions of power and authority are a law unto
themselves and cannot be held to democratic account by the governed.
“Unless Civil Society interventions begin to
be pragmatic and address the fundamental issues of rural human vulnerability
and coordinate to demand electoral reforms first before any election, there
will be no progress in the democratization endeavour and ZANU PF will continue
to be a beneficiary of the poverty and vulnerability that sustains its
patronage system,” you concluded.
The pragmatic first step, I would suggest,
is for Shalom Project (of whom you are the Chairperson) and all the other civil
societies, NGOs, Church Groups, etc. to come out in the open and publicly
endorse the demand for democratic reforms before elections. Both Zanu PF and
the opposition parties, who have given the flawed process credibility by their
continued participation, must be left in no doubt the strong objection to holding
elections with no reform.
The second step would be to demand free and
fair elections and the third would be, never tire until the day the country
finally holds its first democratic elections!
The present political system has left the too
poor and too weak impoverish majority with no vote and thus no democratic voice.
Until the democratic reforms are implemented complete with the solid rock
guarantees that the elections will be free, fair and credible, there is very
little point in holding flawed elections. What is the point of asking the
people to vote if their vote will count for nothing; to speak if their voice
will never be heard!
Best regards
Wilbert Mukori
Secretary General
Zimbabwe Social Democrats
Tsvangirai can be criticized, he “is not a God”, says Linda Masarira.
ReplyDeleteGood for you Linda!
I beg to differ on the point of President Mugabe cannot be removed through the vote. He can but only if the elections are free, fair and credible. Zanu PF will never win free and fair elections in Zimbabwe, that is a fact.
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had the golden opportunity during the GNU to implement the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the vote. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of power, $4 million Highlands mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. and they kicked the reforms into the long grass.
We can still revert to the reforms if we can stop the opposition contesting these flawed elections as David Coltart acknowledged.
“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,” admitted Senator Coltart in his book.
“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.”
He was referring to the 2013 elections but the argument is even more valid in 2018 because we should be even wiser!
Stop the sell-out opposition contesting the 2018 elections and Zanu PF will have no choice but to accept the implementation of the reforms!
Tsvangirai is one of the most corrupt and incompetent politicians in modern history the very fact that there are still some people who have confidence in him as a leader is a reflection on how many naïve and gullible people there are in Zimbabwe. We are in this mess because we have a very naïve electorate and we are not getting out as long as many of our voters continue to bury their heads in the sand and treat a failed leader like Tsvangirai as if he is a God!
ZanuPF youths declare Mbare a “no go area” for MDC-T says ZPP report.
ReplyDeleteIf these Zanu PF thugs can do this with impunity in urban centres, where there is a possibility of close public scrutiny by such organisation like ZPP what more in the rural back waters where these thugs rule the roost.
With no reforms in place Zanu PF is set to win the presidency and its minimum two thirds majority next year. The nation gained nothing from contest the 2013 elections but lost the golden opportunity to boycott the elections and force through reforms. If we participate in next year’s elections history will just repeat itself – a Zanu Pf landslide history, a few token opposition members winning seats on the gravy train and yet another lost opportunity for real change for the rest! It will be madness to allow this to happen ever again!
On Tuesday, May 23,2017, one Simbaneuta Mudarikwa uttered some very unsavoury and thuggish remarks about the political situation in his constituency, Uzumba Maramba Pfungwe (UMP). Mudarikwa is the Member of Parliament for UMP in the 8th Parliament of Zimbabwe. He declared that there is no space for the opposition in UMP and also that Zanu PF is guaranteed of getting 80 000 votes in this particular constituency in the 2018 harmonized elections.
ReplyDeleteAnd yet MDC is still determined to contest the election elections regardless!
“NPP has made significant in roads into UMP with complete structures in place which will stun Mudarikwa, Mugabe and Zanu PF come election time, Zanu PF has for along time been a dead walking party in UMP let alone Zimbabwe as a whole as they have brought no meaningful development to the area as NPP Mashonaland East we would like to reiterate that come 2018 we will bury Zanu PF in the entire province,” responded Setfree Mafukidze – NPP Mashonaland East Spokesman.
ReplyDelete“We will not be intimidated by people like Mudarikwa and the whole Zanu PF, the time has come for us to take them to the cleaners”
This is just dragging the country back into the dark days of the 1960s when povo had to carry Zanu and Zapu party cards and, worse still, they caught up in party political infighting that ensues.
There is a solution here, we can implement the democratic reforms and free everyone of the political nightmare of 2008 and the 1960s.