“We are demanding electoral reforms from ZEC and as citizens and youths it is our democratic right to call for reforms from ZEC. Today is the beginning of some weekly action. In our next demonstration, we will be demanding a stop to the use of spikes by the police on motorists. We will not rest until our demands are met,” said MDC-T Harare Province Youth Secretary Denford Ngadziore.
MDC-T, together with many other opposition parties in the NERA grouping, have been clamouring incessantly for electoral reforms for years now. They have never giving any details on what these reforms they are, who was to implement them, how they could be implemented, etc. It is therefore no surprise that MDC-T leaders like Ngadziore should find themselves talking nonsense.
Demanding reforms from ZEC is a meaningless statement because Justice Rita Makarau and her fellow commissioners have no power or authority to change, give, deny, etc. anything. ZEC is only the messenger carrying out the instructions they were given. Some people have been calling for the Justice and her team to be fire; Zanu PF will only appoint another team and give them the same instructions.
If we are serious about getting ZEC deliver free, fair and credible elections then we must look at implementing the constitutional and structural reforms necessary to end the undemocratic control Zanu PF has introduced over the years. These reforms should have been carried out during the GNU by MDC leaders. One of the reasons, why MDC failed to get even one reform implemented is self-evident - they did not have the foggiest idea what reforms were much less how to implement them.
Ngadziore was speaking at the wake of an MDC-T anti-ZEC demonstration in which the riot Police stepped in and dispersed the crowd using tear-gas and water cannon. MDC-T has vowed to continue with the demos demanding reforms! Even with the political will, no meaningful reforms can be agreed and implemented this late. MDC-T are just wasting time barking up the wrong tree!
Having failed to get even one reform implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections and with the grand coalition, still heralded as the game changer, now dead in the water; those in the opposition camp are desperate for something they can hold up as a success and excuse for contesting next year’s flawed elections. They have hit on barking up the wrong tree - one of the MDC-T’s speciality!
If Ngadziore and his fellow MDC-T wildebeest herd were not such scatter-brains then they would have seen to it that their party leaders implemented the democratic reforms during the GNU when the nation had the best chance ever to get this important task done. As for now, the MDC-T mob would be doing something useful for a change if they were to march to Harvest House, MDC-T HQ, and demand the party must stop contesting flawed elections.
Stop opposition contesting in flawed elections and Zanu PF will be forced to implement the reforms. By contesting the flawed elections, the opposition are giving the process credibility. David Coltart got these two key points rights.
“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 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.”
Ngadziore and his fellow MDC-T friends can march to ZEC offices every day for a thousand years demanding reforms they will never get any because they are barking up the wrong tree. They have no clue what the reforms are and how they are to be implemented. They will only be grandstanding, content to be doing something even when it is the wrong thing. From his demands Ngadziore is just a mouse pretending to be a lion!
@CZ
ReplyDelete“My only prayer is that Morgan does not clutch at his usual electoral reform fig leaf to justify boycotting the elections. I need him in the ring to make the elections worthwhile. Whatever it is we do, we should just make sure that we do not give him an excuse to pull out because he gives our electoral victory credibility. We cannot allow him to deny us the sweetness of a sound electoral victory,” you said.
Not to put a finer point on that one, Zanu PF needs Tsvangirai not just to contest next year’s flawed elections but to be seen to be a credible opposition because the regime’s legitimacy is now hanging by a spider’s thread! Tsvangirai’s political credibility is disappearing like water poured out in the Sahara Desert.
He has failed to get even one reform implemented since the July 2013 rigged elections. He has failed to justify why he is then abandoning his “No reform, no elections!” pledge other than greed. Everyone knows Zanu PF has been forced to give away a few gravy train seats, a small price to pay for “electoral victory credibility” as you would admit. MDC-T are abandoning their “No reform, no election!” to join all the other opposition parties in the fight for these scraps.
MDC-T contested the flawed 2013 elections for the gravy train seats scraps and got away with it but not this time. There is absolutely no excuse for contesting next year’s elections and there is nowhere for MDC-T to hide on this issue! Tsvangirai is as exposed as a hippo in a dried-up dam!
It is another 12 months before the next elections and with Tsvangirai losing credibility by the day, how long will he last. As you know CZ, hippo out of water in the midday Africa sun will start to cook due to overheating! You may end up in a one-horse race as in 2008 and we all know what happened next – everyone, even SADC and AU refused to accept your electoral victory. If this was to happen again, this time it will not be the GNU sin-bin but something worse!
“Meanwhile, I notice that this Nkosana fella has decided to embarrass himself further by throwing his name into the hat for next year,” you continued.
“Like the sages say, dreaming is a human right granted to man at the beginning of time. It is his right to dream, just as it is his right to make an idiot of himself.”
Have to agree with you there 100%, Nkosana is a certified idiot. With no reforms in place the elections have already been rigged and only an idiot would still want to contest regardless!
Still with our Save hippo already starting to stew, Zanu PF may have to step in and bankroll Dr Moyo’s campaign just to create the illusion of a race. If only the world had not dismissed Dr Moyo as an idiot already!
Well CZ the only thing that is certain next year is your electoral victory but whether anyone, anyone at all, will recognise the rigged elections as “free, fair and credible” is the billion (I know you like dealing with big numbers CZ) dollar question. If they do not, well you, CZ, are well and truly FCUK! Pardon my French!
ReplyDelete@ Mujibha
Even if the car is insured this act is part of the vote rigging by Zanu PF because it is instilling fear on the nation. People will go and vote for Zanu PF than risk life and limp - no insurance company will give you your limp back much less your life.
We need not suffer all this political madness. All we need to do is implement the reforms. Tsvangirai has dragged us into this mess by failing to implement the reforms when he had the chance to do so and now by contesting flawed elections when the most sensible thing to do is to boycott the elections!
Tsvangirai fighting to conclude his coalition by the end of July.
ReplyDeleteIf Tsvangirai tires the knot to form this grand coalition then this will be one marriage made in a hurry and to be regretted for a long, long time to come!
We sometimes overlook the issue of funding in our political discourse as one area that must be look at in creating a level political playing field. Part of the democratic reforms must include compelling all contestants to declare how much they plan to spend, how much they spend and on what in their elections and the source of the funds.
ReplyDeleteIt is no secret that Zanu PF is spending billions of dollars to bankroll its many vote rigging schemes some of them such as paying Nikuv US $ 10 million to corrupt the voters’ roll are high treason. Meanwhile the opposition are stone broke!
“I managed to provide food for them in the morning but I am appealing to all party members and leaders to chip in so we can provide them with lunch and an evening meal,” begged MDC-T Secretary for Harare Province. He was referring to two MDC youths who were arrested following the party’s demonstration demanding reforms.
“One thing that is almost as important as our struggle itself is the solidarity we show to each other in times like these. Aluta!”
He is just putting on a brave face. He only managed to get the two one meal and he is already out with a begging bowl.
Of course, Zanu PF knows the opposition is broke and will be doing everything in its power to squeeze them financially. The only reason the opposition are contesting is for the give-away scraps, they know Zanu PF will have its pick and they have to settle for whatever!
“Heal Zimbabwe is concerned by the assault of 12 people yesterday in Harare CBD by the police during the protest march organised by MDC T youth assembly. The police responded violently to the protest and started using water cannons, throwing teargas and beating up people randomly including those who were not part of the demonstration,” Heal Zimbabwe reported.
ReplyDeleteI am looking forward to the day when Heal Zimbabwe and all the myriad of NGO and civic society will finally come to their sense and accept that this madness is not going to stop until we demand that it stopped. SADC leaders told us how to stop the madness – implement the raft of democratic reforms. It is shocking that organisations like Heal Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Peace Project, etc. have faithful reported on the madness but have never ask anyone in authority why not even one reforms to stop the madness was implemented during the GNU.
@ Nomazulu
ReplyDeleteWe all have a father and a mother and they each have a totem and a tribe. I do not think one's tribe, totem, father or mother will make one a better or worse candidate for public office and those labouring such matters are wrong.
Indeed, people with nothing useful to offer or are incapable of comprehending the substantive issues are the ones who always want to focus on trivial matters like tribe, region, etc.
Dr Moyo has come up with some interesting ideas, why some of these empty heads are focusing on who his father came from, etc. is only proof of their shallow minds.
For all Dr Moyo’s brilliance however, I have failed to understand why he decided to contest an election which we all know is flawed. I do not buy his argument that Zimbabweans have so far failed to remove this Zanu PF regime from power because they lack the “will”! Tsvangirai won 73% of the vote in the March 2008 vote, by Mugabe’s own admission, but after six weeks of cooking the figures this dwindled to 47%.
Vote rigging is the cancer behind the nation’s political paralysis and economic mess and nothing of substance can ever be accomplished until we deal with this curse. SADC have already proscribed the cure, even if we did not want to admit it ourselves, implement the democratic reforms designed to stop vote rigging.
SADC leaders warned Tsvangirai and his MDC friends not to contest the July 2013 elections with no reforms because the elections would be rigged. Dr Moyo can choose to bury his head in the sand and pretend the opposition lost because they failed to mobilize.
The decades of Zanu PF misrule have left the country in economic ruins and today the nations is sitting on the knife edge; the threat of social and political instability is real and imminent. Another rigged election could send the nation tumbling into the abyss and it would be foolish to take such a gamble on the basis on what an ostrich, with its head buried in the sand, sees!
Contest another flawed election and hoping against hope that the ostrich will win is madness. We know the only way to stop Zanu PF rigging the vote is by implementing the reforms; we must focus all our energy on that and nothing else. One way to force Zanu PF to accept reforms is by making sure the flawed elections lack credibility by making sure the opposition honour their “No reform, no elections!” and all those who refuse are discredited.
Zanu PF is already painfully aware that it is not going get any political mileage from the discredited Tsvangirai or a discredited ostrich!
@ Felix
ReplyDeleteExactly! People should not vote for someone because he/she "is one of ours"! If the people in Zvimba, for example, had vote for Mugabe on that basis all these years they will be the first to admit they made a big mistake. Zvimba is not an oasis of economic prosperity in the middle of the desert of abject poverty. Even the lucky few in Mugabe's home village who had the low-density type houses built for them cannot afford a decent meal, replace a broken window, etc. Their houses are still standing but the desert sands of poverty are everywhere!
The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association (ZimRights) says it is “gravely concerned” by the rise in political conflict that led to the burning of the MDC vehicle.
ReplyDelete“Given that Zimbabwe has previously witnessed worse election-related violence, these alarming incidences and political developments should be taken seriously by the international community to avert a slide into more violence,” it said in a statement.
Of all people, ZimRights people, must know that SADC have advised Zimbabweans, in the 2008 Global Political Agreement that led to the formation of the 2008 to 2013 GNU, to implement a raft of democratic reforms designed dismantle the de facto one party state behind this culture of political violence. Of all people, ZimRights people, must know that not even one reform was implemented in the five years of the GNU. Not one!
SADC leaders literally begged Tsvangirai and company not to contest the 2013 elections with no reforms in place because Zanu PF will rig the vote. We all know that MDC leaders ignored the warning and lo behold Zanu PF blatantly rigged the vote.
The opposition camp is contesting next year’s elections knowing fully well that not even one reform has been implemented and in totally disregard of the SADC warning, which is still valid, and their own “No reform, no election!” pledge. Tsvangirai and company are contesting for the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to contest and thus give credibility to the flawed process. The opposition know the vote will be rigged and the violence may escalate; they do not care how many people are frogmarched to rallies or even how are killed as long as they get one of the scraps!
It is all very well for ZimRights to call on the international community to take the culture of political violence “seriously”, as if it is the international community’s failure to do so that is causing the problem. SADC leaders rolled up their shirt sleeves and were have been involved at the coal-face of Zimbabwe’s mess politics. They helped formulate the GPA and did they best to encourage the implementation of the reforms only to be ignored at every turn. If the people in ZimRights do not know this, even now with hindsight, then they should just shut up and stop blaming outsiders for all our problems.
MDC failed to implement even one reform during the GNU and they are the ones dragging us into yet another flawed election for selfish reason. ZimRights people know that and must stop trying to find scapegoats for why we have failed to end the culture of political violence.
Mutasa said Mugabe should realise that his continued stay in power was detrimental not only to the country but his legacy as well.
ReplyDelete“We still want to meet him so I will soon call him once we have had discussions with other opposition parties so that we engage him on what we think should be done to get the country working again; to come up with a new vision that is in line with what we fought for because, clearly, this is not what we went to war for,” Mutasa told the Daily News.
Mugabe crossed the point of no-return decades ago, he has no legacy to protect. The only thing the tyrant is concerned about is holding on to what he has looted, he knows that in a country now gripped by grinding abject poverty justifying his fabulous wealth much less hanging on to it, will be impossible once he lost power. It is not just the loot he is concerned about but all the skeletons in the artic, abandoned mine shafts, etc. The tyrant has murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans in his 37 years in power, that is one heck of a lot of skeletons to hide and he cannot trust anyone else to be president and keep his secret.
Zimbabwe will only have a meaningful economic recovery if we implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. There is nothing to discuss on that point, especial with a usurper, Mugabe is president only because he has been rigging elections!
When in power for 34 years, it never occurred to Mutasa to asked Mugabe “to come up with a new vision that is in line with what we fought for” although he had the tyrant’s ear throughout. This is just Mutasa putting on his old ‘liberation war hero’ hat to worm his way back into power.
The very fact that Didymus Mutasa should see himself as one qualified to get Zimbabwe out of the political and economic mess he helped to create only goes to show he still has the deeply ingrained Zanu PF arrogance born out stupidity that he knows best and we should all listen to him. The simple message that must be hammered into the heads of Mutasa and his kind is that they fcuked up big time and must fcuk off!
"The only person whom he has trusted to involve in the discussions is Mr James Timba. He is the one who is privy to the nitty-gritties of the agreement otherwise all other members of the standing committee or national executive know very little if anything about these agreements. You will notice that Mr Timba is the one who will be running around with papers to be signed during these ceremonies and not any other official," said a source.
ReplyDelete"This is why Mr Tsvangirai has not only negotiated at his residence but it is the same reason why such MoUs are being signed at his residence. Other members of the standing committee and national executive are just called to witness the signing ceremony. It is the same reason why some senior members have not attended these signing ceremonies."
Tsvangirai said the coalition agreements will be signed and sealed by the end of this month. It has taken four years just to get to four out of a possible 20 opposition parties just to agree to talk about the coalition talks. To expect the negotiations themselves to then take four weeks is a tall order.
If the talks are ever concluded these senior MDC-T members will have plenty to complain about because one thing is certain many of them will be asked to stand aside in the coming elections to allow a coalition partner to contest a seat in their place. The only thing many of the opposition parties are after in the coalition is that MDC-T support them in the coming elections!
Tsvangirai has since signed a deal with Jacob Ngarivhume of Transform Zimbabwe, while Mujuru signed one with the Zimbabwe Union of Democrats (Zunde).
ReplyDeleteSo ZUNDE are in coalition talks with Mujuru, that is interesting but not surprising. ZUNDE has been desperate for a political role, they would have signed a blank sheet of paper from any party! Mai Mujuru is corrupt and incompetent and of all the opposition parties she and her NPP are the worst of the scum but beggars are no choosers!
Comrade Mutasa still sees himself as God's blessing to Zimbabwe and hence the reason he still sees himself as the one with the answers to all the country's problems. He cannot accept that he and his fellow Zanu PF thugs have been a curse to the nation, they are the ones who landed us in this mess. Worse still, as long as any of these thugs remain in power this nation will never get out of the mess! Never!
ReplyDelete“If we impose sanctions which actually work, you will then get half a million or a quarter of a million Zimbabweans or whatever emigrating to England and suddenly we will be landed with large refugee population from Zimbabwe. This was Thatcher’s argument and we don’t want to do that and therefore that’s why we don’t want to impose sanctions,” Mbeki said.
ReplyDeleteWhat President Mbeki and anyone in SA and SADC cannot deny is that the deepening political crisis in Zimbabwe has held back the economic development in Zimbabwe and the region and now poses the greatest threat to the region’s political stability. If Zanu PF rigs next year’s elections, with not even one reform in place it is hard to see how this can be stopped, this will drag the country’s economy into even deeper trouble forcing a new wave of political and economic refugees to flee the sinking ship.
So SADC and SA in particular did not save their national interest by allowing the Zimbabwe political mess to go unresolved during the GNU when the region group failed to use its authority and power to force the corrupt and incompetent MDC to implement the reforms. They kicked the can down the street now it turns out to be a ticking time bomb that has just boomeranged back at them.
Zimbabweans can deny it as much as they please but the truth is we are masters of our own destiny and per se must accept the responsibility for all that has happened!
ReplyDeleteI agree, that SADC did save President Mugabe from being evicted out of State House in 2008 but one has t ask why MDC agreed. Tsvangirai did not need to agree to the GPA especially when his role was no more than a tea-boy called Prime Minister!
The second point is, it was MDC and not SADC who saved President Mugabe from eviction from State House post 2013. MDC had the chance to implemented the reforms designed to stop vote rigging; they had five years to implement the reforms and failed to get even one reform implemented.
We, Zimbabweans, have been our own worst enemy because we have corrupt and incompetent leaders and a very naive and gullible electorate; it is little wonder the country is in a real mess.
Zimbabweans have laid the blame for the failure to deliver free and fair elections after the GNU on SADC and have, even now with the benefit of hindsight, failed to see our own role in this. Even if SADC was 100% to blame, the question we must answer is why did we do nothing to stop them?
We cannot be masters of our own destiny but refuse to accept responsibility for what happens. If we give up the power to be masters of our own destiny then we have only ourselves to blame for
being so irresponsible and giving up our power over our destiny to total strangers.
Zimbabwe is an independent and sovereign country and all Zimbabweans are free and enjoy the same freedoms and rights as anyone else including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. It is assumed that the people have knowledge and understanding of what is at stake to the right say in the governance of the country, for example. If any of the freedoms and rights should be denied, it is assumed the people have the good sense to fight and demand their full restoration. In short it is assumed Zimbabweans are masters of their own destiny and so whatever happens we must accept ultimate responsibility – the buck stops with us!
@ Nhamodzenyika
ReplyDeleteThe Governor is just talking nonsense as usual. He admitted that Zimbabwe is only getting financial help from two or three banks. Does that mean there are only two or three banks out there which are not controlled by the West?
There are many, many other banks out there who could be giving Zimbabwe all the financial assistance we need, they are not doing so because the West has sanctions on Zimbabwe. They are not doing so because Zimbabwe is a high-risk country as Dr Mangudya readily admits.
This Zanu PF regime has perfected the art of lying, misinformation and hiding behind a finger. Of all people, Dr Mangudya must know that the country is losing billions of dollars a month from all the looting taking place in Marange and Chiadzwa, for example. We would not be needing outside financial help if the money was not being wasted. So instead of focusing on the looting he is hiding behind his finger by blaming sanctions!
The country needs competent leaders and not useless and corrupt individuals like Dr Mangudya. What a waste of space!
Then why is MDC-T contesting the elections regardless the failure to get even one reform in place, escalating violence, countless cases of Zanu PF frogmarching people to attend its rallies, etc., etc.?
ReplyDeleteThis is a rhetorical question because we already know the answer - greed. Zanu PF learnt after the 2008 elections that as long as it throws away a few seats it can rig the vote and still have enough opposition candidate contesting to give the election credibility. David Coltart admits this 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,” wrote 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.”
Chamisa in the MP of Kuwadzana and even if Zanu PF burnt down every house in Kuwadzana, he will still contest the elections in the hope of retaining his gravy train seat! He does not care that the country is in a real mess because of MDC's failure to implement the reforms to stop the vote rigging; all he cares about is him getting his gravy train seat back!
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has given an assurance that the country-wide Biometric Voter Registration [BVR] exercise will be completed by the end of this year or just into January next year. They have said they will then take eight weeks to complete the cleaning up, de-duplication, compilation and printing of the voters roll. And then they have allowed four weeks for the printed roll to be inspected. This means that ZEC could, but only just, conduct elections based on the very earliest Proclamation date.
ReplyDeleteZanu PF is dragging its feet over the voter registration, for example, for the sake of creating a stampede. The regime is like a crocodile, deliberately stirring up the mud so it cannot be seen. A voters’ roll produced in a hurry will allow the regime to smuggle a lot of stuff its opponents will never notice because there will just be no time for them to do so.
Zanu PF total control of every aspect of the whole electoral process and every aspect is being adjusted to suit its own selfish vote rigging schemes. It is naïve to even expect the elections, even this early in the process, to be free, fair and credible.
“If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders warned MDC leaders in June 2013.
Nothing has really changed since the rigged July 2013 elections; the SADC leaders’ warning was valid in June 2013 is still valid today. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from contesting yet another flawed election. Nothing!