"MP Cross has failed dismally," says equally clueless challenger - nonsense season is hotting up W Mukori

The elections are round the corner; Zimbabwe’s endless season of nonsense, in the Poet Tom Guarnera sense of the phrase, is heating up.

"He (MDC-T MP Eddie Cross) has failed dismally; nothing in the whole of Bulawayo South has improved, not even Belmont industrial sites in his constituency but companies have continued to collapse, he has not taken business community issues to the government," said Clayton Jones, an aspiring candidate from Joice Mujuru People’s Rainbow Coalition (PRC) eyeing the seat in the coming elections.

"He is talkative in Parliament but he focuses on issues that don't help people in his constituency. He is more concerned about issues happening in other political parties than his own community."

Jones is 100% correct that Bulawayo South is in an advanced stage of decay and rot. What makes his pitch totally nonsensical and foolish is his insistence on seeing the problem as a constituency problem. In a country where unemployment nationwide has soared to the dizzying heights of 90%, ¾ of the population now live on US$1.00 or less, etc.; it is nonsense to expect Bulawayo South to be thriving and prospering, an oasis in the middle of the desert.

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has moved on from being a local, constituency or individual city or regional, to a national matter. Bulawayo South alone could not have guaranteed clean water and electricity supply, for example, when the rest of the city was suffering regular water cuts and load shedding from ZESA.

What is telling is in all his wittering Clayton Jones did not come up with even one suggestion to make Bulawayo South an oasis of order and economic prosperity against the tide of chaos and poverty in the rest of the city and the nation at large.

Zimbabwe is in a serious political paralysis and economic mess. The economic meltdown is cause by decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions. Mismanagement and corruption are common enough in every nation what have made these problem grow and spread to the killer cancer they are in Zimbabwe is the nation’s failure to address these problems. Although the nation realised the only effective way to deal with mismanagement and corruption was to remove the Zanu PF regime which itself was corrupt and incompetent, the nation soon learnt that they could not remove the regime. Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs had undermined the nation’s democratic institutions to impose a de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship – hence the political paralysis.

If Clayton Jones want to be relevant to the national debate then he should be talking of how MP Eddie Cross and his MDC friends let the nation down by failing to implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed with SADC leader at the start of the 2008 GNU. MDC failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU. Not one!

SADC leaders, literally begged MDC leaders not to contest the July 2013 elections without first implementing the democratic reforms. “If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders had warned.

Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his friends paid no heed. As we all know, Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections, hence the reason the nation is still stuck in this hell-hole.

Zimbabwe’s economic recover it totally dependent on the nation wrestling the carte blanche powers to rig elections that Zanu PF has amassed over the years. The only viable and peaceful solution is to demand the implementation of the raft of reforms agreed in 2008 BEFORE elctions are held. SADC leaders’ advice to MDC was sound back in 2013 and is even more so today. If Clayton Jones and his PRC friends were not just as corrupt and incompetent as Eddie Cross and his MDC friends, then they would be demanding the implementation of the reforms and refuse to contest flawed and illegal elections.

Jones is joining the rat race for the few gravy train seats Zanu PF throws as bait to the opposition to give the flawed and illegal elections some modicum credibility. As for Jones’ claim that he will, if elected, turn Bulawayo South constituency into an oasis of economic prosperity; that is nonsense. Indeed, the nation is going to hear a lot of nonsense from all sides of the political divide; typically, the 2.2 million new jobs from Zanu PF. It is the endless season of nonsense is hotting up!

“And so, the endless season goes ….

Until the point all meaning ends:

That nonsense and that travesty

They call “the base on balls.”

It is my job to get a hit –

The pitcher’s job, get me out.

We both fail, I win the base

For no compelling reason.

(The ump was blind, the hurler wild,

Next batter up a lesser threat –

Though hard to figure how.)

Do not praise my “good eye”

Or my patience at the plate.

I’m burning for a frozen rope,

To smoke the ball to kingdom come!

Ball Four by Tom Guarnera

The subtle difference is after 38 years of Zimbabwe’s endless nonsense political game has left the country’s once promising economy in ruins and millions in abject poverty. This cannot go on for much longer. We must now focus all our time, energy and treasure on implementing the democratic reforms and restore the people’s fundamental right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country.

Zimbabwe is like an old-fashioned analogue radio that a child has been playing with; it requires the use of the “course” tuning dial and then “fine” tuning dial. Zimbabwe needs a competent government to address the problems of mismanagement, corruption and lawlessness. The country will never have such a government as long as Zanu PF retains the carte blanche powers to rig elections. We need to implement the reforms to stop the vote rigging, that is the course tuning!