“We call for the
unconditional lifting of the political and economic sanctions, which have
crippled our national development,” Mnangagwa told a meeting of the ZANU-PF
central committee in downtown Harare.
“We realise that isolation is not splendid or
viable as there is more to gain through solidarity, mutually beneficial
partnerships.”
That smacks of the usual school bully tactics who
loves trading on other people’s toes, pretends not to notice and then insist it
was an accident. After the blatant cooking up of the vote count in the March
2008 elections and wanton violence during the run-off that follow only an
arrogant regime like Zanu PF would pretend the imposition of sanctions to press
the demand for free and fair elections is unjustified.
“Government will do
all in its powers to ensure that the elections are credible, free and fair.
These elections are nearer than what you expect,” he said without elaborating.
This is nonsense! We
need a free media and freedom of expression for free and fair elections. So if
President Mnangagwa is serious about making sure next year’s election are free
and fair then why does he have a Minister of Information cum Propaganda in his
cabinet, whose purpose is to stifle public discourse and retain Zanu PF’s
strangle hold on the print and electronic media?
Why has President
Mnangagwa institute public sector reforms designed to end Zanu PF’s
undemocratic control of State Institutions such as the Police, ZEC, etc. to
carry out their duties without fear or favour. There is no hope of holding free
elections when the Police are under orders to turn a blind eye to Zanu PF
thuggery.
There is no way ZEC
is going to produce a verified voters’ roll before the next elections.
President Mnangagwa knows only too well that this is a constitutional
requirement and, more pointedly, that without such a roll the sky is the limit
to the vote rigging mischief a seasoned company like NIKUV can do. With no
verified voters’ roll it will be nonsensical to claim the elections were free
and fair!
President Mnangagwa
does not deny that corruption has been a serious problem in Zimbabwe. He must
know that Zanu PF has siphoned billions of dollars from Marange diamonds to
bankroll its many vote rigging schemes. How can an election be free and fair
when one side has access to billions of dollars at taxpayers’ expense when the
other side has very little?
If President Mnangagwa did not agree with all that Mugabe
has been doing all these years including rigging elections then, now that he is
President, he should right all the wrongs Mugabe did. Happily, most if not all
the political wrongs including implementing all the democratic reforms to
ensure free, fair and credible elections can be done quickly and little cost to
the nation. The truth is President Mnangagwa agreed with Mugabe’s agenda to
establish the de facto one-party Zanu PF dictatorship because he too benefited
from the absolute power it brought and all the material wealth it brought. He
has no intention of implementing the democratic reforms and risking it all in a
free and fair election.
I have never ever heard President Mnangagwa promise “credible,
free and fair elections”; he has done so now. Free, fair and credible election
is a fundamental human right and an important pre-requisite for good
governance. We must hold him to account if he fails to hold free and fair
elections next year.
With no democratic reforms implemented there is no doubt
that next year’s elections will not be free, fair and credible. It is our duty
to make sure the international community, especially SADC, dismiss the election
as a sham. With no legitimately elected government, Zimbabwe will then be
forced come up with some interim government which will be tasked to implement
the democratic reforms and to hold fresh free elections.
“Some international observers may be invited at the discretion of the Government of the day,” said Foreign Affairs Minister, Moyo. “As with the previous elections, the Government has always guaranteed a peaceful environment, before, during and after elections.”
ReplyDeleteThere is not even one person out there with half a brain and familiar with Zimbabwe who does not know of the country’s caustic political culture of vote rigging and wanton violence. All these people therefore know that Minister Moyo, is lying when he said Zanu PF has “always guaranteed a peaceful electoral environment before, during and after elections”. Not even SADC and the AU, known for accepting so dodgy election processes, would accept the results Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections as legitimate because of the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence the people had been subjected to that year. Where was the government’s guarantee of peaceful elections then?
There was a lot less in-your-face violence in the 2013 elections – the more subtle type such as villagers being denying food aid or being threatened with a repeat of the 2008 wanton violence should Zanu PF lose, remained. That year, Zanu PF had devised many vote rigging schemes such as tempering with the voters’ roll to deny opposition supporters the vote whilst allowing its supporters the opportunity to cast multiple votes. So Minister Moyo is being clever in guaranteeing “peaceful elections” whilst being very carefully not to ever guarantee “free, fair and credible elections”.
Zanu PF will deliver free, fair and credible elections next year, not without implementing the democratic reforms first. The regime has stubbornly refused to implement the reforms since the rigged July 2013 elections.
The right to free election is not just a fundamental human rights but it is also the pre-requisite for good governance and economic recovery. With the national economy now in total meltdown and unemployment a nauseating 90%, the need for free elections and economic recovery is now a matter of life and death.
Minister Moyo, you can play at words all you wish but you and your reinstituted coup regime will never get away with another rigged election! We, the people of Zimbabwe, demand free, fair and credible elections and will never settle for anything else! NEVER! Read my lips, NEVER EVER!
Parliament should craft a law that punishes people who undermine the interests of Zimbabwe through calling for illegal sanctions, traditional leaders have said. Chief Fortune Charumbira said the law should also disqualify culprits from seeking political or public office as part of measures to protect its interests and that of citizens and nip in the bud what MDC Alliance members led by Mr Tendai Biti did in the United States this week.
ReplyDelete“Zimbabwe should seriously consider the need for a law that punishes Zimbabweans who undermine the country’s political, economic and social interests as what we read in the media as attributed to Mr Biti,” said Chief Charumbira.
“Such people should be disqualified from contesting for political office because they would have expressly shown that their ultimate mission is to seek political office through undermining the interests of Zimbabwe.”
Out of your own mouth Chief Charumbira comes the Lord’s judgement on you. You know the law of the land specifically demands that all Chiefs must be apolitical and yet you have openly supported Zanu PF and encouraged other Chiefs to do the same. The day Zimbabwe end this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship will be the last day you will wear that half-moon and be called Chief.
Biti and Chamisa, thou they have proven in their time to be breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent, they are nonetheless untitled to their own opinion, unpalatable thou it may be to the corrupt Zanu PF ruling elite. It is not Biti and Chamisa who should be banished from holding public office, it is you, Chief Charumbira, and your fellow Chiefs. You have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that Chiefs are corrupt and a dead weight to the nation, a healthy and functional democratic Zimbabwe, has no need for corrupt unelected busy bodies!
Zimbabwe must move on and modernise office of Chief must be abolished and the institution of chieftainship must go too!
President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s special advisor Christopher Mustvangwa and the Chiefs Council President Fortune Charumbira have reiterated statements that the Zimbabwe Defence Forces and war vets will deliver victory for Mnangagwa in the 2018 elections.
ReplyDeleteChief Charumbira has show just how corrupt and irrelevant these traditional institutions have become. The sooner Zimbabwe can get rid of these unelected, corrupt and utterly useless busy-bodies like Chiefs the sooner the country will be able to modernise and move on!
Meanwhile, addressing the same gathering war veterans leader Christopher Mutsvangwa speaking on behalf of the liberation fighters said that his organisation will join hands with the Zimbabwe Defence Forces to make sure that Mnangagwa and ZANU PF win the elections whatever it took.
Zimbabweans are only too familiar with the ZDF playing a major role in making sure Zanu PF win elections. The constitution states very clearly that the Army, Police and CIO must be apolitical but we all know that is not the case in Zimbabwe.
Next year’s elections are not going to be free, fair and credible of that there is no question the task before us now is to make sure the international community declares the process a sham and this force the country into forming an interim administration which will then be tasked to implement all the democratic reforms.