Discredited NERA holding "mother of all rallies" next week - guess who is bankrolling it all. Wilbert Mukori

So, there is going to be “the mother of all rallies” NERA rally, in Bulawayo this next Saturday, 17 June 2017.

“Youth members of the coalition calling for reforms before elections in 2018 are mobilizing all the people in the country to make sure they attend the event to show cause for a change in the electoral process so as to have transparent and democratic elections in 2018,” we are told.

This is downright stupid; NERA has been “calling for reforms” these last four years, we all know that not even one reform has been implemented in that period and we have gone past the cut-off date anyone can realistically expect any reform to be implemented and put into effective use before next year’s elections.

The 17 or so opposition parties led by Tsvangirai’s MDC-T who formed NERA have been calling on the Zanu PF regime, which won the presidency plus more than two thirds majority in the rigged July 2013 elections, to implement the reforms. Zanu PF has flatly refused to do any such thing.

“You can’t expect us to reform ourselves out of power,’ said Professor Jonathan Moyo, Zanu PF cabinet minister and a member of the party’s politburo. Of course, he has just rubbing it in; this was self-evident except to those who chose to bury their heads in the sand.

It is now four years since the rigged 2013 elections and not even one reform has been implemented. The mother of rallies NERA rally is being held with exactly one year to go before the next elections and the organizers are still calling for reforms to be implemented. How stupid is that!

Anyone even vaguely familiar with what the raft of reforms, we are talking about here, are about would know the reforms cannot be implemented and put into practice in 12 months, even with the best political will. The SADC supervised GNU was given 18 months to implement the reforms. In the end, the GNU lasted for 60 months but even not even one reform was implemented. Are we now to believe that the mother of all rallies will produce the mother of all calls that will finally force Zanu PF to implement all the reforms in next month or two at the very latest!  

What is sickening here is that the same individuals, now expecting Zanu PF to implement the reforms in record time; are the ones who failed to do the same thing in five years, when they had the power and opportunity to do so. They wasted the golden opportunity to implement the reforms then. They ignored calls for them to implement the reforms and instead strung the nation along with the lies that the new 2013 constitution would deliver all the freedoms and human rights, guaranteed. Now they are doing the same thing again, stringing the nation along with a string of new lies.

Those in the opposition camp have decided to contest next year’s elections knowing fully well that with no reforms in place Zanu Pf will rig the vote. They are coming up with all manner of lies to justify why they are once again contesting flawed elections. The mother of rallies, the NERA rally next week, will not force Zanu PF to implement even one token reform.

The much talked about grand coalition of the opposition parties will not stop Zanu PF blatantly rig the vote, as has happened in the past. The opposition’s planned voter registration and mobilization will not stop the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut. These are all lies peddled by opposition politicians who do not have the guts to admit they failed to implement the reforms, even when it was in their power to do so, and are contesting the flawed elections for selfish reasons.

Since the election fiasco of 2008 which gave birth to the GNU, Mugabe and Zanu PF have learnt that they can still continue to rig elections and resist all pressure to implement reforms provided the party allows the opposition to win a few seats. It was to win these bait seats that MDC leaders contested the 2013 elections even when it was obvious Zanu PF was going to rig the vote, as Coltart admitted.

“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 David Coltart in his recent book, The Struggle Continues 50 Years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

“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.”

Mugabe and Zanu PF know that by denying the people of Zimbabwe their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life, the regime is committing high treason. The opposition politicians who continue to contest these flawed elections are, in reality, partners in crime; Zanu PF is bribing the opposition with the few gravy train seats, down payment for giving the flawed elections some modicum of credibility.

“May we all mobilise our structures in & around Bulawayo to attend in their numbers," announced the NERA Organising Committee chairperson Mugari Joelson.

The NERA rally will not get even one token reforms implemented. NERA lost all political credibility a long time ago. What would be of great interest to the nation is the answer to: Who is bankrolling this “mother of all rallies” NERA rally? It will come as no surprise to find NERA and Nikuv are paid by the same paymaster – Robert Gabriel Mugabe!