"Where is the evidence of rigging?" ED will ask. - Damned to hear "Here is the evidence!" from Mugabe. P Guramatunhu

“Zimbabwe's ex-leader Robert Mugabe sent shockwaves through the party he dominated for decades when he posed with the retired general who will take on the ruling Zanu-PF in this year's election,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“Mugabe grinned broadly in the posed photo, standing beside brigadier general Ambrose Mutinhiri, the leader of opposition party the National Patriotic Front (NPF), which hopes to unseat the government in polls expected by August.”

President Mnangagwa and his Junta know they cannot afford the luxury of implementing the democratic reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections. As much as the regime would want to blame Mugabe for the country’s economic and political mess, they all know that they too are to blame since they were all senior members in Mugabe’s government. Worse still, Mnangagwa’s “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call has had no takers. His call was on the basis that Zimbabwe had change since the coup to a country that respects the rule of law. The foreign investors, he was trying to woo are a shred lot who are not easily fooled.

Yes, the naïve and gullible public believed the coup posse’s portrayal of the coup as “a military assistant transition”. The savvy foreign investors saw through all the clever branding and saw the coup for what it is a coup and graphic confirmation that the country was still ruled by lawless thugs. Investors do not do business in lawless countries!

To hang on to power President Mnangagwa and his Junta know they have no choice but to rig the coming elections. If you are going to rig the elections, then opposition parties like the MDC factions and even Joice Mujuru’s party are no threat; they have no clue how the regime has been rigging elections and therefore are easily bamboozled.

The reappearance of Robert Mugabe, Jonathan Moyo and their New Patriotic Front (NPF) is a totally different ball game. They know how Zanu PF has been rigging elections and the danger of Mnangagwa and company rigging the elections and the details coming out is real.  

Zanu PF is a party of thugs and sell-outs; as much as President Mnangagwa and his Junta would try to cleanse Zanu PF of all G40 elements even he will know that they are many who will change their allegiance like litmus paper. There will many wearing the new Zanu PF regalia with Mangagwa’s face but will revert back to the Mugabe G40 faction if the opportunity should ever arise.

The opportunity to hit back at the Lacoste faction by divulging how the regime has rigged the elections will be irresistible!

There will be nothing no damaging to President Mnangagwa and his regime than mounting an all-out offensive denying the regime rigged the elections only to have details of one incident after another revealed including details of how the regime had done to try bury the evidence.

“Where is the evidence of vote rigging?” Asked President Mnangagwa, rhetorically, in denying that Zanu PF rigged the 2008 elections in an interview with the UK Economist Magazine.

“Here is the documented evidence from the frontline witness!” Mugabe and his NPF will reply.  

A wholesale expose of how Zanu PF rigged the elections will make it impossible for SADC and the AU, who have just turned a blind eye to the November coup much to the fury of Mugabe, to endorse the election as free, fair and credible.

When then President Mugabe was confronted by SADC and the AU with the evidence of how Zanu PF had cheated and used violence to win the 2008 elections, he was smart enough to realise the game was up. He accepted SADC supervision and signed the Global Political Agreement (GPA), agreeing to the implementation of the raft of political reforms and the formation of the Government of National Unity which was tasked to implement the reforms. He lived to fight another day!

Mugabe had the great fortune of having the simpleton, corrupt and incompetent Morgan Tsvangirai and his equally corrupt and incompetent MDC colleague as his partners in the GNU. The tyrant bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office; the classical cockroach milk-trap, they gorge themselves rendering themselves helpless and many drown. In return, the MDC leaders forgot the reforms and not even the SADC leaders’ constant nagging to “follow the GPA roadmap!” would get Tsvangirai and company to budge.

President Mnangagwa must know that whilst declaring the elections null and void is now on the card; it will be sweet revenge for Mugabe to be the bearer of the damaging vote rigging expose, the sweetest thing since the November coup; he must also know that SADC will not make the same mistake they made in 2008. Zanu PF will not be offered the chance to even play a part in the new transitional authority that will be tasked to implement the 2008 GPA reforms!

So, the choice for President Mnangagwa and his Junta regime is as tough as chewing a hippo’s hide to a dog. Either implement all the democratic reforms and try win a free, fair and credible elections. Given the chaos and confusion in the opposition camp, Zanu PF has a good chance of winning the elections. Winning future elections under the same formula, is doubtful.

Or stick to its guns and refuse to implement any reforms and rig the elections, as usual. The risk of Mugabe moles giving away the secrets on how the regime rigged the elections will, politically, bury President Mnangagwa and his Junta regime alive! It is one thing burying the evidence of one’s crime and then pretend to be innocent. You look and feel like a goat if you should be confronted with the evidence and where you had buried it!

Frankly the window of opportunity to implement the reforms has long since closed; the regime cannot implement any meaningful reforms now with five months left to the elections. The only option left is to rig the elections and, with gritted teeth, face the consequences of the details of the vote rigging being paraded to the whole world.

One can well imagine why President Mnangagwa and his cabal are as sick as a dog with a belly full of hippo’s hide – instead of being digested the meal turns into gelatinous glue! Mugabe may well grin, by making him and Jonathan Moyo their enemy Mnangagwa and the Junta may well have eaten more than they can digest!