Chiefs must refuse Isuzu bribe "for more pressing issues," argue MDC - they refused GNU bribes N Garikai

President Mugabe has just splashed US$6 million buying Isuzu twin-cab vehicles for country’s 226 chiefs. The news has sparred the usual suspects to respond with their usual blast of hot air full of sound and fury but signifying nothing!

“It, thus, cannot escape scrutiny that there is a sinister and ulterior motive behind the Zanu-PF regime's decision to buy motor vehicles for chiefs at this juncture,” fired Obert Gutu the spokesman of MDC-T, “Zimbabwe’s biggest and most popular political party” he often boasts.

“At a time when the public health delivery system has virtually collapsed and when most of the country's district hospitals do not even have an ambulance, one can easily conclude that the decision to buy these motor vehicles for the chiefs is nothing but a blatant vote-buying exercise by the desperate, crumbling and bankrupt Zanu-PF regime.

“Chief Fortune Charumbira, the president of the Chiefs' Council, was recently quoted openly calling upon chiefs to campaign for Zanu-PF in the forthcoming election because the regime had bought them cars.

“Chiefs shouldn't be reduced to become Zanu-PF political commissars, whose loyalty and support is bought by the purchase of cars and other perks.”

These opposition idiots would try the patience of a saint to destruction, and I am no saint and have lost all patience!

Gutu, we know Zanu PF is using the new cars as a carrot to motivate the chiefs to wield their very large sticks – deny all those who dare step out of line food aid, agricultural input, harass, beat and even boot them out of their homes - to corral povo to register and then vote for Zanu PF. Zanu PF has been doing this for the last 37 years it is part and parcel of the party’s modus operandi!

The whole purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the raft of democratic reforms designed to severe the undemocratic influence and control Zanu PF has over the nation’s traditional leaders, Police, Judiciary, ZEC, etc. You Mr Obert Gutu, were a deputy minister in that GNU, and your fellow MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not one!

SADC leaders, if you could not figure it out for yourselves, advised MDC leaders not to contest any elections without implementing the reforms first because Zanu PF will just use its undemocratic control over the Chiefs, etc. to rig the vote. MDC leaders refused to listen and contested the July 2013 elections which Zanu PF blatantly rigged.

Now MDC leaders want to drag the nation into yet another utterly meaningless election process in which the same routine of Chiefs, with their palms well-greased, herd povo like cattle to the dip-tank! And Obert Gutu and his opposition friends can do is pay lip-service to condemning Zanu PF’s corrupting influence but will not do anything to end for their own selfish reason. It is no secret that Obert Gutu and his opposition friends will contest Zimbabwe’s flawed elections regardless how flawed and illegal they become, as long as there a few gravy train seats on offer.

“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,” was Senator Coltart’s excuse for contesting the flawed July 2013 elections. 

“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.”

The three main MDC factions have since united to form the MDC Alliance with every intention to contest next year’s elections and not to boycott. Boycotting the flawed and illegal elections is the obvious thing to do, even more so now than in 2013. They are not boycotting because greed has trumped reason!

“Our traditional leaders are the pillars of our cultural values and ethos and we are pretty sure that they would prefer to have an arrangement whereby more pressing national issues are attended to first before they can get delivery of their new cars,” concluded Gutu.

What a hypocrite! Was it not for the similar thirty pieces of silver - the trappings of high office, generous salaries and allowances, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. – that made MDC leaders forget about the reforms for five years of the GNU? Indeed, it is the hope of securing a seat on the gravy train that is stopping you, Gutu and your oppositions, from boycotting elections until reforms are implemented.

The Chiefs cannot refuse the Isuzu vehicles no more than MDC leaders refused the bribe offered to them during the GNU for them to kick reforms into the tall grass! There were pressing national issues during the GNU just as they are today! The national tragedy is that the people, povo, are the ones caught between the corrupt, tyrannical and vote rigging Zanu PF regime, the corrupt and incompetent opposition and the corrupt traditional leaders.

MDC admit 2018 will be rigged but "not calling for GNU 2" - In the name of God, just go! Wilbert Mukori

It has been years, over ten years including the wasted GNU years, in coming but finally it here – MDC has finally admitted it is foolish to contest election without implementing the reforms.  

“Chances are if we go for elections in 2018, the plebiscite will be so massively rigged in favour of the incumbent ruling party to such an extent that no right-thinking person will term the election free and fair,” said MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu.

Not even a month ago, Gutu was the one boosting that the party had devised “Winning In Rigged Elections, WIRE for short, strategies guaranteed to deliver opposition victory. Of course, if you have strategies to deal with all the vote rigging shenanigans, you do not worry about the vote being rigged! 

Sadly, it was all MDC hot air as the on-going BVR exercise showed. Some of us pointing out that the very fact that the voter registration was only starting with less that a year before voting day meaning ZEC will not be able to register the 7 million expected and also produce a verified voters’ roll in time for the elections. This means hundreds of thousands will be denied the chance to register and, worse still, it is ridiculous to expect the election to be free, fair and credible when there is no know who is on the voters’ roll and who voted! It seems, the penny has only now, finally dropped in the empty heads in Harvest House. 

“ZEC is simply not up to scratch. As presently constituted, it would be much easier for one to sell ice to an Eskimo than to expect ZEC to conduct a free and fair election next year. The ongoing BVR exercise has come a shed too late,” admitted Gutu.

“It will definitely not be able to produce a credible and legitimate national voters’ roll in time for the 2018 plebiscite. Experiences in other parts of Africa such as Uganda, Kenya, Cameroun and Namibia, show that the electoral body needed at least three years to roll out an efficient and credible biometric voter registration exercise.”

Morgan Tsvangirai and co. dragged the nation into a totally pointless election process in July 2013 knowing fully well that the process was flawed and illegal. SADC leaders warned them not to contest the flawed elections but the warning fell on deaf ears. And now they were trying to drag the nation into yet another futile election.

The evidence that the 2018 elections would be rigged have been mounting and it was just a matter of time before the opposition politicians were forced to admit the elections would be rigged. The opposition has been losing political credibility by the day it was now certain SADC and the rest of the world were going to reject next year’s elections as a sham.

It was not that MDC leaders have been slow to realise the elections were flawed; they have known that but they still wanted to contest out of greed as David Coltart, MDC Minister of Education in the GNU 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.”

The three main MDC faction have since formed the MDC Alliance but there was no talk of boycotting the elections, until no, because of greed. As long as long Zanu PF was throwing away the few gravy train seats as bait the opposition was going to contest the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process.

The growing mountain of evidence that Zanu PF is already rigging the elections and the opposition has no chance of winning the rigged elections, they are contesting for the scraps, has all forced the opposition to finally admit that contesting the elections with no reforms was insane!

“This writer is not, by any stretch of the imagination, proposing that Zimbabwe should have a GNU (Government of National Unity) 2; not at all,” concluded Gutu.

There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of GNU, the country will need some form of government arrangement which will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. What was wrong with the 2008 to 2013 GNU was that it failed to get even one democratic reform implemented; that will not happen again, you can be certain of that! 

For a start, you Mr Obert Gutu and your MDC friends and Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies will not be consulted as to what format GNU mark 2 should take much less be invited to play any role. You lot had many golden opportunities during the last GNU to implement the democratic reforms and get the country out of the mess and you wasted them all. Now, you are part of the problem, not the solution. 

The people of Zimbabwe will all join Oliver Cromwell in his dismissing a sleazy, corrupt and utterly useless parliament of his day!

“It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? 

"Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! 

“So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"

In like language and like spirit this corrupt and murderous Mugabe regime complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition must go. In the name of God, just go!

"Mugabe is our asset for 2018," says Zanu PF Minister - count on brute to rig Wilbert Mukori

“The long (bank) queues (for cash) are very worrisome. These may lead to voter apathy and we need to seriously look into this issue and find a lasting solution. We cannot afford to have voter apathy because our aim is to consolidate on the votes we gained in 2013. We should surpass those numbers because 2018 is a watershed election,” admitted Zanu PF’s Secretary for transport and welfare, Oppah Muchinguri – Kashiri.

In the next breath, she was off at a tangent!

“As Manicaland, we are rallying behind President Mugabe. We know his well documented history. He is our candidate for 2018 and anyone thinking otherwise is lost. He is a giant among giants as he is the only president who challenged USA President Donald Trump at the just-ended United Nations Summit. President Mugabe is our jewel and asset.”

Zimbabwe has gone from being one of the most prosperous nations in Africa in 1980 when Mugabe took over from the white colonial regime to become the poorest nation in Africa.

Once upon a time Zimbabwe was rightly proud to not only produce enough to feed its own people but had enough surplus to be the bread basket of the region. That was so until Mugabe seized the farms to feed his and his cronies’ insatiable greed for looted wealth. Today, except for the odd good year, Zimbabwe is relying on imported food aid – aid because it is too poor to pay for it.

In this day and age when human ingenuity has turned deserts into blooming orchards; we are starving in the land which for all intent and purpose is the Garden of Eden. Such is the damning testimonial of Mugabe’s incompetence as a leader!

On the political front, Mugabe has had to murder a staggering 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans; to say nothing of the millions harassed, beaten and raped; to establish and retain his 37 years old de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship.

“President Mugabe is our jewel and asset!” Only a real sick sycophant would still say that!

Oppah Muchinguri and her equally brainwashed Zanu PF sycophants are stuck in a rut. They can all see that the country is in a mess because of the decades of misrule by this corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant, Robert Mugabe. His poor health and advance age makes him even less appealing as presidential candidate. The only reason they all want him to be Zanu PF’s presidential candidate for next year is because they are stuck.

Zanu PF needs a candidate who is ruthless enough to blatantly rig the elections, even shed innocent blood if necessary; in Robert Mugabe the party members know they have one such brute.

The country’s only hope of stopping yet another Zanu PF landslide victory next year is for the people to demand the implementation of all the democratic reforms BEFORE elections are held. Morgan Tsvangirai is encouraging the people to take part in these flawed and illegal elections on the basis that MDC has devised Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies. This is utter nonsense!