Moses Mzila Ndlovu, Interim
President of Alliance for National Salvation (ANSA) was spot on in his scathing
criticism of Morgan Tsvangirai.
“In the last seventeen years Morgen has clearly failed to
comprehend the task at hand for the opposition, clumsily squandered public
goodwill of the Zimbabwean people, leaving himsilf obscured from the realities
of the struggle against ZanuPF as a system. ZanuPF has deeply entrenched
itself, embedded itself within the institutions of the state. It is now clear
that Tsvangirayi is ambitiously angling to become just another Muzorewa of the
seventies who was under state capture of the Rhodesian State,” wrote Ndlovu.
There is no doubt that Tsvangirai
and his MDC friends have had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF
dictatorship but wasted them all. It is sheer madness to drag the nation into
yet another flawed election knowing fully well the elections will be rig and
not the free and fair elections the nation is dying for.
The root cause of our all economic
and political problems is our failure to hold free, fair and credible
elections. MDC were elected to bring about the democratic changes necessary to
stop the vote rigging and deliver free, fair and credible elections.
Tsvangirai and his MDC friend have
had many opportunities to deliver on their promise to bring change with the
best changes being during the GNU. They had SADC support and five years in
which to implemented the agreed democratic reforms. They failed to get even one
reform implemented.
Having wasted the GNU golden
opportunity to implement the democratic reforms, MDC compounded the problem by
contesting in the 2013 elections with no reforms in place as this gave the
flawed process the modicum of legitimacy it did not deserve. It is not surprising
that, having rigged its way back into power, Zanu PF has once again been
flexing its political muscle and resisting the implementation of reforms.
“You can’t
expect us to reform ourselves out of power,” boasted Professor Jonathan Moyo,
Zanu PF’s self-anointed propaganda guru. Of course, not! Only the politically naïve
in the MDC-T and the NERA grouping are expecting that!
No tyrant in
history has ever given up power; we, the people, will have to wrestle power
away from the regime. What must be crystal clear to us as well as the regime is
that individual freedoms and rights including the right to free, fair and
credible elections and the right to life are not privileges. They are birth
rights and per se cannot be denied or bargained like mangoes with a street
vendor! Zanu PF as the party in government has a constitution obligation to
implement the reforms and restore all the individual freedoms and rights. It is
not for the regime to choose whether or to implement the reforms; it is legally
obliged to do so.
Tsvangirai and
his MDC friends were elected by the nation on the ticket they will hold Zanu PF
to account and demand the implementation of the reforms. It is deeply regrettable
that Tsvangirai & co. have since failed to get even one reform implemented
even when they had the golden opportunity during the GNU to do so.
Tsvangirai and
his MDC friends are sell-out and not fit to be elected ever again into public
office.
Where I and
many thinking Zimbabweans would differ with Ndlovu is his tribal and regional agenda!
“Tsvangirayi should be reminded that the public support which
raised him to his current dizzying political heights came from the regions
affected by the Gukurahundi and continue to be marginalised and treated
unequally in a country they worked so hard to free,” wrote Ndlovu.
Ndlovu must name the region(s) in Zimbabwe that has done well
out of the 37 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption under this
Mugabe rule? After travelling extensively round the country, I have yet to see
one town, growth point or village untouched by poverty, rot and decay.
“Trying to steer away from talking about the consequences to
ZanuPF for killing people because they belonged to the 'wrong tribe',
consequences for rape and plunder, consequences for bribery, for deception,
consequences for looting and sabotaging the economy, for stashing
money in foreign countries, for abuse of state power is an act of cowardice,”
Ndlovu tells us.
This is yet another misrepresentation of the reality.
Gukurahundi was not so much a tribal massacre but rather a party-political one
as its sole purpose was create and impose a de facto Zanu PF one-party
dictatorship. Dr Joshua Nkomo, himself, was very clear this was not a tribal
issue and said so.
“Here I am talking as one who knows,” Dr Nkomo told a BBC
reporter, Jeremy Paxman in 1983. “It is a mistake for anybody to believe that
the Shonas have organised against the Ndebeles. … It (Five Brigade) is a
political army and not a tribal one.”
This is a matter of public record; Google “Joshua Nkomo
Interview in Exile”.
Indeed, President Mugabe has since the end of Gukurahundi gone
on to murder another 10 000 innocent Zimbabweans in pursuit of his selfish de
facto one-party dictatorship agenda. The murders were carried out along
party-political lines and not tribal or regional lines.
After 37 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption President
Mugabe and his regime have completely destroyed Zimbabwe’s once vibrant and promising
economy. Zimbabweans are today the poorest in Africa and this included everyone
across the tribal and regional divide. Poverty has touched us all including the
Zanu PF ruling elite grandees like the late Nathan Shamuyarira, he died a
pauper.
It is the country’s economic meltdown that is fuelling the
implosion in Zanu PF itself as members fight over the fast shrinking national cake
like hungry hyenas.
The demise of the Zanu PF dictatorship is creating the golden
opportunity for the nation to start afresh; implement the democratic reforms to
create the healthy and functional democracy we want. And to get on with the
difficult task of rebuilding the schools, hospitals, roads, etc., etc. out of
the ruins Mugabe has left. We must not make our work even harder than it is
already allowing Mugabe’s cursed legacy degenerate into tribal and regional divisions.
Will forming a grand coalition stop Zanu PF rigging the vote to win the presidency? The answer is no!
ReplyDeletePresident Mugabe won 62% of the vote in 2013 and so having the one coalition candidate will have change nothing as he/she would have got 38%.
Will forming a grand coalition stop Zanu PF rigging the vote to win two thirds majority? Again the answer is no!
Zanu PF won 74% of the votes in the recent Bikita West by-election, for example, and so having a one coalition candidate will not have changed anything. In rural areas Zanu PF has openly bought votes and threatened the voter with violence or worse if they failed to vote for the party. This is exactly what happened in 2013 and in the Bikita by-election.
Everyone in the opposition camp agrees that Zanu PF rigged the 2013 elections and will do so again next year as long as no reforms are place. The question then is why are the same people pretending reforms are not important?
Answer: the opposition politicians have failed to get any reforms implemented and so instead of admitting failure, they are now pretending that reforms are not important. They have settled for the few seats they know Zanu PF will give away during national elections as David Coltart readily admitted in his book.
“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.”
So, the opposition accomplished nothing by contesting flawed elections in 2013 other than help Zanu PF get away with not implementing the reforms and allow free and fair elections. By participating in next year’s election the opposition will once again just help delay the day Zanu PF is going to be forced to implement the reforms.
For all their pretences the opposition are now working against the nation’s public interest of ensuring free, fair and credible elections. The political challenge here is to stop opportunistic opposition politicians short changing povo by selling out on reforms again!
“All we are simply saying is if you do not register to vote, you will have to endure Zanu PF for another five years, because that is what they are counting on,” said Chihwayi, MDC-Ncube spokesperson.
ReplyDeleteThis is just nonsense. In 2013 nearly one million voters were denied the vote by the simple act of posting their details in the constituency voters roll other than the one the individual expected. The same corrupt ZEC is still in place to perform more dirty tricks and with the help of the NIKUV Israelis; there is simple no limit to the mischief that can be done here. All the hundreds of man-days spend in door-to-door campaigns and queuing to register can all be undone by the click of a computer mouse-button.
In 2013 the regime refused to release the voters roll although it is a legal requirement because the authorities knew it was the smoking gun in its vote rigging operations.
It is not voter registration we want but reform of ZEC and all the other State Institution to stop the deliberate vote rigging. It is sheer madness to expect Zanu PF to rig the vote and lose the elections!
Welshman Ncube knows Zanu PF will rig and will the elections and all he and his opposition friends are going for is the few seats the regime gives away, the bribe to keep the opposition in the contest and give the process legitimacy. The opposition are selling out on free and fair elections just as they sold out on the same point during the GNU. It is for the people themselves to see through the opposition’s smoke-screen if they are ever to have free and fair elections and a competent government!