“Heal
Zimbabwe Trust (HZT) through its resident human rights monitors in all the
country’s 10 provinces is monitoring the environment during the voter
registration exercise. This is being done with the objective of monitoring the
environment and report on any cases of human rights violations during the
process as well as making referrals where possible for redress. In 2016, HZT
established an early warning and early response system for easy detection and
response to cases of human rights violations,” reported the Trust.
This
is just madness, the very fact that HZT expects human rights violation during
the voter registration exercise is proof we have a serious sick society that
needs healing. What HZT is doing and has been doing with its “13 Million Voices
for Peace” campaigns is not healing the nation but more like giving a placebo
pain killer to someone with a broken leg! It is not working!
“Gokwe Nembudziya
ward 24
On 09
October 2017, ZANU PF ward chairperson Christopher Matsike announced to people
who were registering to vote at Ukomo Primary school that they should submit
serial numbers of the registration slips to him,” reported HZT.
The
report listed 15 more similar incidences. There is no doubt that this is just
the ears of the hippo the rest of the beast is hidden in the muddy water. What
will it take for HZT to finally admit that “early warning and early response
system” is not only a waste of time and money but worse still it is giving our
people false hope of free, fair and credible elections only to see their hopes
dashed again and again.
What
we need is to acknowledge that our state institutions have been captured by President
Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies for the sole purpose of establishing and
retaining the de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship. The whole electoral
process has been reorganised to deliver President Mugabe’s no-regime-change
mantra at the expense of the individual right to free, fair and credible
elections.
Other
than report that Zanu PF Gokwe Nembudziya ward 24 chairperson, Christopher
Matsike, asked villagers to give him the serial numbers of their voter
registration slips; there is little else HZT can do. What we need is to
implement the democratic reforms designed to free the state institutions like
the Police to arrest and charge Matsike for threatening to undermine the
individual right of the villagers to free, fair and credible elections.
SADC
leaders advised Tsvangirai and his MDC friends and the people of Zimbabwe at
large not to contest the July 2013 elections without implementing the reforms
first.
“If
you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are
done,” SADC leaders warned.
Sadly,
MDC leaders did not listen and dragged the nation into a totally meaningless
electoral process with the disastrous consequences we can see today as Zanu PF
blatantly rig the vote, consolidated its dictatorial strangle on the state
institutions and the opportunity to implement the democratic reforms was lost.
The
country has a chance to revisit the reforms if we demand their implementation
before the elections. By contesting the elections again with no reforms MDC and
the rest in the opposition camp are undermining the clarion call for “No
reform, no elections!” And organisation like HZT have no business encouraging
ordinary people to take part in these flawed and illegal elections on the false
promise that the Trust’s activities are a substitute to what statutory bodies
like the Police should do. Heal Zimbabwe Trust is not Republic of Zimbabwe
Police and will never be, so stop masquerading as one!
The need for Zimbabwe to deal with its problem of bad governance has never been more pressing than it is now. The country is facing serious economic meltdown which has seen unemployment soar to nauseating heights of 90% plus, basic services like clean running water, health and education have all but collapsed, 72.3% of the population is living on US$1.00 or less per day, etc. The root causes of the economic meltdown - the four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions under this Mugabe regime. The nation has been stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical regime all these years because it has been rigging the vote.
ReplyDeleteAnother rigged election next year will only mean no political change and thus nothing will be done to address the underlying causes of the economic meltdown. Another five more years of this economic misery is simply unthinkable!
It is no secret that many Zimbabweans are naïve and gullible and have followed blindly some of the most corrupt and incompetent leaders this side of the grave with disastrous consequences. Instead of the heart-breaking suffering they are facing forcing the people to wake up from their comatose state it has doubled their foolishness. How else can one explain why many Zimbabweans still continue to follow someone like Tsvangirai, regardless of his pathetic track record as a corrupt and incompetent leader?
HZT has been conducting their peace campaign meeting up and down the country but Zanu PF operative carried on with their intimidation, harassment, etc. regardless. HZT has never ever reported these thugs to the Police or sued them in a court of law because the organisation does not have the guts to do so. If the people themselves cannot figure out for themselves that they need the Police, Courts, ZEC, etc. reformed so that they, not HZT, carry out the important tasks of keeping law and order, deliver free and fair elections, etc.; then they will continue to suffer until they learn.
What I would want to know is how is bankrolling HZT’s nation wide activities?
@ Tinashe Muzamhindo
ReplyDelete“Remember people like ED and his close associates may never sit back and watch, these are people with military and security backgrounds with strong intelligence capacity and they cannot just let things go without a fight,” you said.
I do agree with you that Mnangagwa, these in the security services and the rogue war veterans like Mutsvangwa and his followers are not going to allow themselves to be shoed out of power by the G40. They know if they are shoed out it will not be long before they, like the rest of the people in the country, will be living in abject poverty too. It is the fear of the poverty that will make them fight!
What I dispute is ED, Chiwenga, Chihuri, Mutsvangwa, etc., etc. are intelligent. All these individuals have played their part in the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship that has landed us all in this mess. If they were clever then they would have seen all this coming up years ago and told Mugabe to change course or booted him out of office.
Mnangagwa and his Lacoste supporters are fighting to stop the G40 to be the ones to inherit the Zanu PF dictatorship. They believe once Mnangagwa is safely installed in State House they can finally relax and life will carry on as before. These morons have no clue that the present situation with unemployment at 90%, 72.3% of the population living on US$1.00 or less a day, etc. is socially, economically, politically and morally unsustainable.
The Zanu PF dictatorship is the root cause of the country’s economic decline; the dictatorship must be dismantled a.s.a.p. Mnangagwa and company do not understand this because they are morons have never seen anything wrong with denying the populous their freedoms and basic human rights in their search for absolute power and insatiable greed for wealth and luxuries.
@ Tau Tawengwa
ReplyDeleteThis whole analysis is based on the assumption that elections in the past and next year's elections are going to be free, fair and credible. This is of course totally wrong; Zanu PF has rigged elections in the past and, through the chaotic BVR exercise going on at present, is already rigging next year's election.
Zimbabwe's economic recovery is dependent on the country holding free, fair and credible elections. Those who continue to contest flawed elections, pretending that Zanu PF will not rig next year's elections, are the ones holding this nation back. We need to implement the democratic reforms now because nothing of substance will ever be accomplished until we do so!
@ PM
ReplyDelete“Mugabe is the one who is blocking progress in all spheres of Zimbabweans' lives. No reshuffle which leaves Mugabe as Head of State and government will yield any positive political or economic turnaround,” you said.
You are stating the obvious, everyone knows that as long as Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs remain in power this country is going nowhere. What you have clearly failed to appreciate is that he has managed to stay in power all these decades regardless of his poor performance because he rigs the vote. As long as we continue to hold elections with no reforms to stop him rigging the vote, then Mugabe and Zanu PF will continue to rule this nation.
“It is for these reasons and many others like collapsing health delivery services, corruption, unemployment, vendors abuse, dictatorial practices etc. that Mugabe and Zanu-PF stand no chance to win 2018 polls against the mighty MDC Alliance, you continue.
“The 2017 Cabinet reshuffle is his last Cabinet reshuffle as the voters will reshuffle and drop him out of the Cabinet come 2018 polls. Zanu-PF is finished.”
As long as Mugabe and Zanu PF continue to enjoy carte blanche powers to rig the vote, Mugabe is going to have another landslide victory all you talk is just wishful talk to please the naïve and gullible public!
@ Makoni-Muchemwa
ReplyDeleteTo contest the elections without the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF denying the people the vote by making sure they cannot register regardless how hard they try, to stop the regime looting billions of dollars to bankroll its party activities whilst other parties have no funds, etc. is madness. If the people are foolish enough to keep contesting flawed and illegal elections even after 37 years of rigged elections, then they deserve to be cheated!
SADC leaders have told us what we needed to do, even if one assumes we were not smart enough to figure it for ourselves; do not take part in the elections without implementing the reforms first. We have all heard the warning and there is nothing anyone can do to force us to heed the warning if we choose to ignore it!
If Mnangagwa was to leave or be booted out of Zanu PF he will constitute a serious blow to the regime's ability to rig the vote. Jonathan Moyo and Robert Mugabe were the brains behind the many vote rigging schemes but there is no doubt that Mnangagwa was the one who mobilised the Army, CIO, Police and the rogue war veterans who executed many of the schemes. Mugabe knows that the Zanu PF youths and women's league members he has been courting, two weeks ago he promised to buy them cars worth $3.6 million, will never fill the big shoes Mnangagwa and his supporters will leave behind.
ReplyDeleteIf Mnangagwa left Zanu PF, he would form his own party and call it the Real Zanu or something like that. He will allow the opposition parties to join his party but anyone who thinks he and his thugs will ever be democrats is naïve.
So if Mnangagwa and his lacoste faction lost the factional war to G40 the elections next year will be a contest between these two factions with those in the opposition being nothing more than spectators. As for the ordinary Zimbabwean their lives will continue to be a misery which ever Zanu PF faction prevails; it does not matter to the goat whether it graces the lion or hyena's dinner table!
The ordinary Zimbabweans would be better advised to force on getting the democratic reforms implemented before the elections because only then can they be certain of meaningful political change.
The chairperson of Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association in Bulawayo, Caphas Ncube, has said that they are “watching them [G40] closely” and would “defend the revolution we fought for”.
ReplyDeleteHe added, however, that they were not against the proposed extraordinary conference, but were against the continuous “changing of the party’s constitution to suit personal and individual interests”.
It is true that President Mugabe has tampered and/or ignored the party's constitution again and again to suit his own selfish interests just as he has done with the national constitution. It is high time people put their foot down and told him in no uncertain terms NO! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
The Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) on Tuesday said, so far, 485,827 people had been registered to vote in the 2018 general elections since Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) started a month ago.
ReplyDeleteZEC chief elections officer, Constance Chigwamba, was quoted by the state broadcaster ZBC as saying that the figure, however, excludes submissions from 610 out of the 2,591 voter registration centers as at October 15.
We know that the number of registered voters will shoot up to the seven million mark towards the end of the voter registration exercise when Zanu PF supporters, real and imaginary, are added to the voters' roll! When you do not have to produce a verified voters' roll, you can do what you like!
Zanu PF is rigging the vote already before our own eyes and those who continue to close their eyes and hope the elections will be free, fair and credible are the ones foolishly giving the flawed process credibility. If Zimbabweans had any brain at all then they would listen to SADC leaders' advice not to contest the elections until democratic reforms are implemented.
Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess today because for 37 years the nation has been stuck with the same corrupt, tyrannical and vote rigging regime. This nation needs meaningful change, another five more years of the same misrule is the nightmare scenario this nation must avoid. The only sure way to avoid it is to refuse to be dragged into another election with no reforms in place.
Let President Mugabe, his Zanu PF thugs and the cortege of opposition politicians, after the scraps the tyrant throws at them to entice them to follow, go ahead with their flawed and illegal elections. We, the ordinary Zimbabweans, have absolutely nothing to gain from participating in the whole business. We are the only who are the greatest losers in all this.
We are being invited to take part to give the flawed process that is doing us nothing but harm credibility. The real challenge is, after 37 years of being taken for a ride, are we now smart enough to finally realise what is going on and to do something to end the whole charade. Refusing to take part in any of the flawed election proceeding is certain one way tell both Zanu PF and the opposition enough is enough.
President Mugabe has run rings round his Zanu PF MPs and cabinet members alike which is why Margaret Dongo called them "vakadzi vaMugabe" (Mugabe's subservient concubines). It is easy to see why the tyrant surrounded himself with simpleton like the late Simon Muzenda and Joice Mujuru, they make the most malleable concubines one could ever wish for.
ReplyDeleteOnly a fool would believe Mujuru's claim that she used to "clash with President Mugabe over his economic policies when she was in government". She was in government for 34 years, 10 of which she was VP, how many times did she clash with President Mugabe and, more significantly, what did she ever accomplish? Considering the economic mess the country is in, we know the answer has to be precious little, if anything at all!
Zimbabwe must start taking the business of electing competent leaders with the seriousness and urgency the matter demands. To even consider Joice Mujuru or Morgan Tsvangirai, given their well documented track record of blundering incompetence, as suitable for any public office much less the highest office in the land shows the nation is not yet ready for good governance.
Government plan to half the budget deficit next years.
ReplyDeleteThis is just a poor man who cannot afford a loaf of bread putting a Rolls Royce Phantom in his Christmas wish list! Will Chombo ever tell Mugabe to stop his globe-trotting? No! So all this is just hot air coming out of some one desperate to be seen as a new broom when he does not have the common sense to even do the obvious!
@ Bofana
ReplyDelete"It is always fascinating to my dear wife Tinta whenever I tell her that the president is not my boss, but the chief of my servants," you say.
This is just childish nonsense. When was the last time you or the Zimbabwe electorate at large held your "chief of your servants" to account for any of the mismanagement, corruption and over 30 000 politically motivated murders? Yes it is the dog that should wag the tail but not in Zimbabwe; Mugabe is the boss in Zimbabwe and we all bow down to his tyrannical whims.
There is no point in participating in these elections with no reforms to stop President Mugabe rigging the vote. Look at the BVR exercise and you can already see that Zanu PF is systematically denying hundreds of thousands if not millions the right to vote by making sure the whole exercise is as chaotic as one can imagine.
"2018 not choosing masters but our servants!" Tyrants thrive on such foolishness! You have never in 37 years ever cast a meaningful vote and yet you still believe that next year will be different!
"The traditional leaders bemoaned that they are being given directives by some politicians to discriminate against opposition supporters in the issuance of proof of residence. This came out during four interface meetings organised by Community Action Accountability teams (CAATs) from the 10th – 13th of October 2017 in Zaka and Bikita. The interface meetings were part of commemorations to mark the International Day of Rural Women that is commemorated annually on the 15th of October," reported Heal Zimbabwe Trust (HZT).
ReplyDeleteThis is an old song the nation has heard before. What is tragic here is that there are organisation like HZT who would not accept that we need to implement the democratic reforms designed to end the blatant denial and violations of the people's freedoms and human rights. HZT keeps lying to the people that we do not need reforms because its peace campaign is enough to do the same thing!
Zanu PF does not want any reforms to be implemented and so does HZT, that much is now clear!
Is it going to take Heal Zimbabwe another rigged elections for them to finally accept that their peace campaigns are not enough to deliver free, fair and credible elections? I am finding their stubborn refusal to accept the obvious extremely frustrating!
ReplyDeleteSpeaking at a dialogue meeting facilitated by Community Tolerance Reconciliation and Development (COTRAD) at Chenhara in Mwenezi last week, the concerned villagers said the Zanu PF Councilor and ruling party officials threatened to eliminate members of opposition parties ahead of the 2018 elections.
ReplyDeleteForcing a entrench dictatorship like Zanu PF that is determined to stay in power at all cost to abandon its undemocratic practices and hold free, fair and credible elections is going to be a serious challenge for us all. The challenge becomes mission impossible if those supposedly fighting for free and fair elections are pulling in opposite directions.
We can force Zanu PF to end its culture of political violence and vote rigging by demanding the implementation of the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 Global Political Agreement. Those who believe they can achieve the same by going around the country holding these COTRAD meeting are misleading the nation, especially those in the rural areas.
There have been countless of such COTRAD meetings and yet the problem has not gone away and as the political temperature has started to rise as we approach elections the cases of human rights violations have started to go up. There is no nation in the whole human history that has transformed a ruthless dictatorship by appeasement.
Those facilitating these COTRAD meetings are not fighting to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but are instead seeking to extend its rule by making a big song and danger about ending it whilst undermining the practical initiatives to end it.
"COTRAD peace committee members in Mwenezi district are deeply worried about intimidation and threats of political violence soon after the commencement of the Biometric Mobile Voter Registration on 10 October 2017. COTRAD therefore calls on the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to enforce the electoral code of conduct to combat politically motivated violence," said the report.
This is utterly, utterly hopeless! The people of Zimbabwe have awaited for the last 37 years for the country's first ever free, fair and credible elections and, with this lot, the nation will wait in vain!
The Centre for Community for Development in Zimbabwe (CCDZ), which is conducting a project to encourage citizen participation in local government and service delivery issues, and has community monitors, also noted the culture of fear in parts of Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, and Mashonaland West where it operates. CCDZ director Phillip Pasirayi said they had received reports of systematic intimidation of villagers by traditional leaders.
ReplyDelete“In our quest to encourage participation of citizens in service delivery, we have noted that in rural areas, the culture of fear is so entrenched that citizens are afraid of participating in issues that affect them in their daily lives like service delivery and this is coming from the ruling party’s tight control of the areas,” said Pasirayi.
This is the tragedy with Zimbabwe, we have people who can see that these elections are not going to be free and fair, they have seen the same vote rigging antics by Zanu PF being played on the people again and again and again. And yet they still actively encourage the people to contest the flawed elections.
People like Pasirayi have a mental blockade; they believe political change will come through voting what they cannot get their heads round is that in Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, the people do not have a meaningful vote. If the people are frogmarched to polling stations and instructed on whom they should vote for, for example; those people have no meaningful vote.
Mugabe has won elections based on the votes of those frogmarched to vote for him and, unashamedly, declared himself “democratically elected”.
Pasirayi and company, because of their mental blockade, are not helping the people reclaim their right to a meaningful vote by encouraging them to participate in a flawed electoral process. All they are doing is, foolishly, giving the process some measure of credibility and the principle beneficiary of their foolishness is Mugabe.