"Era of bussed voters is over," says Muchinguri - meaning Zanu PF will go extra mile to hide damning evidence W Mukori

“The Zanu PF National Chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, National Political Commissar, Retired Lieutenant General Dr Engelbert Rugeje and the principal of the Chitepo Ideological School, Munyaradzi Machacha have agreed that Zanu PF has to change its work ethic, adding that the era of bussing people around is over,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“The three were addressing Zanu PF provincial chairpersons and provincial commissars in Harare this Wednesday.”

Is this the party now admitting that it bussed people around to attend its rallies and, more significantly, to cast multiple votes?

I do not believe you can teach an old dog new tricks much less teach it to forget old tricks. I firmly believe Zanu PF has no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections next year; it will rig the vote as before. What the party will do different next year is go the extra mile, ten miles whatever it will take, to hide the evidence of vote rigging.

There are four bench marks to show Zanu PF has no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections:

a)     ZEC will not have the time to register 7 million, by its own estimate, voters and, worse still, to produce a verified voters’ roll. Until the Mugabe’s last cabinet reshuffle two months ago now President Emmerson Mnangagwa was VP and also Minister of Justice. He would have known that the voter registration exercise should have started January 2015 at the very latest for ZEC to given all would be voters a chance to register. Instead the registration only kicked off in mid-September 2017 and ZEC has been given five months to register the voters. A week ago, ZEC officials admitted they will only register 5 million instead of 7 million. How can this process be legal when it has disenfranchised nearly 30% of the electorate just like that!

Worse still, ZEC will not have the time to produce a verified voters’ roll, there is simple no time left with the voter registration finishing mid-February and voting set for July at the very latest. It was because there was not verified voters’ roll that nearly a million opposition supporters were denied the vote in July 2013 because their names were not in the constituency voters’ roll they expected. Also with no verified voters roll Zanu PF was able to bus its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple votes. The party will do the same again next year or bus marked ballots not people to avoid detection.

b)    Two years ago then President Mugabe admitted the country was being “swindled out of $15 billion in diamond revenue”. No one has ever been arrested and not one red cent has ever been recovered. A year ago, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament he was receiving 1/6 of the expected diamond revenue. In other words, the swindling is still taking place. Some of the money has been used to build Zanu PF ruling elite’s ten bedroom plus mansions and their multi-million business empires. However, some of the looted money has been used to bankroll the party’s multifaceted vote rigging schemes.

How can we have a fair election when Zanu PF spends $15 billion plus on its campaign activities whilst the opposition will be very luck to amass $1.5 million?

c)     Zanu PF’s monopoly of the public media is totally unacceptable because it has denied the electorate the opportunity to hear the opposition’s points of view.

d)    SADC came up with a raft of democratic reforms including reforms to free ZEC and the Police to carry out their duties without fear or favour. None of these reforms were implemented during the GNU and the regional leaders recommended that the July 2013 elections must be postponed to allow time to have the reforms implemented.

MDC passed a party resolution not to contest future elections until reforms are implemented. “No reform, no elections!” Sadly, they have since disregarded the resolution in pursuit of the few gravy train seat Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to take part.

With no reforms in place it is IMPOSSIBLE to hold free, fair and credible elections.

“The three also called for people to register to vote in next year's general elections,” continued the report.

Well there lays the political dilemma, the catch-22 of Zimbabwe politics. With not one sign of movement in any of the four areas above there is no doubt that Zanu PF is determined to rig next year’s elections or be it go the extra mile, ten miles or whatever it takes, to hide the evidence. The catch is if people register to vote or participate in any other way, they cannot complain after the event that the elections were rigged.

If people participate in the elections knowing, as we all do, that the process is flawed and illegal then it is assumed they are doing so because they have devised “Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies” as MDC-T put it. If the strategies do not work, well tough luck; one must not complain that the elections were rigged.

So, for anyone with no WIRE strategies the choice is pretty simple do not register to vote or play any part because doing so gives the flawed process credibility.

Since there is very little the individual can do to stop the likes of Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Fadzai Mahere and all the others in the opposition camp contest next year’s elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process. Their beady eyes are set on the bait seats Zanu PF gives away and nothing short of shooting them dead is going to stop them contesting. The only this the ordinary Zimbabweans can do stay clean out of the whole thing; do not register to vote, do not attend any opposition rallies, etc. Show the whole world that these opposition politicians have lost public support and credibility.

Starve the flawed electoral process of political credibility and the international community including SADC will have no qualm in declaring the result null and void. SADC leaders would have never advised MDC leaders to boycott the July 2013 elections and then validated Zanu PF’s one-horse election result.

“If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders had warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders in June 2013, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza who attended the Maputo SADC summit too.

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and political and social stability hinges on the country proving to the world that its days of lawlessness and thuggery are over. Removing the old dictator Mugabe and replacing him with another dictator, worse still in a military coup and then rewarding the coup plotters with cushy government post, will not fool anyone into believing the country has changed. Hiding all the evidence bussed voters when not even one reform has been implemented will impress the politically naïve and gullible Zimbabwe electorate but not the shrewd foreign investor.

President Mnangagwa must stop messing around, continue to rig the vote and hide the evidence. He must implement all the democratic reforms and then and only then can the country be certain the elections are free, fair and credible!