"Elections will be free and fair," insist Mnangagwa - with no reforms, let observers be the judges N Garikai

“President Emmerson Mnangagwa has reiterated his promise to deliver a free and fair election and is confident of winning the looming elections despite the rigging allegations and incidents of violence in the just ended party primaries,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“Mnangagwa took it to micro blogging Tweeter saying, "The upcoming elections will be free and fair, and l am confident that with this ambitious and achievable plan for Zimbabwe, we will be victorious. The voice of people is the voice of God!"

Considering that President Mnangagwa has stubbornly refused to implement even one democratic reform one has to question his sincerity in his insistence these elections are going to be free, fair and credible. He has certainly known about the democratic reforms since Zanu PF was forced to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) following that year’s landmark elections.

The elections were noted for the blatant vote count cheating followed by wanton violence, the rigging was so bad that not even SADC and AU, known for turning a blind eye to questionable election processes, would pretend these were free and fair elections. It was SADC that proposed the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms, designed to stop Zanu PF rigging future elections and a repeat of the 2008 fiasco.

When the Zimbabwe political players failed to get even one democratic reform implemented in the five years of the GNU, SADC did not hesitate for a moment in calling the 2013 elections to be postponed until the reforms were implemented.

“If you go into next month’s election, you will lose; the elections are done!” SADC leaders warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders.

There tell-tale signs of vote rigging signs that SADC leaders had seen before the 2013 elections are there today too, since no reforms have been implemented since the rigged 2013 elections. Zanu PF has once again deployed the war veterans, Chiefs and security services personal to intimidate the voters as it did in 2008 and 2013. There is no free public media. Zanu PF is spending millions of dollars in its vote buying and other vote rigging schemes; all counted, it is set to spend as much as $4 billion compared to $2 million, at most, by the opposition.

It is already a foregone conclusion that ZEC will NOT produce a verified voters’ roll this year. There was no verified voters’ roll and it opened the door to manner blatant vote rigging activities, as one can well imagine.

It is no exaggeration, to say these elections are done!

So, President Mnangagwa’s continued insistence that these elections are going to be free, fair and credible when there is already glaring evidence to the contrary can only mean one of the following:

1)     Either President Mnangagwa has no clue what constitute free, fair and credible elections and so has never seen anything wrong with the way Zanu PF conducted the 2008 elections. He has never understood why the country needed to implement the democratic reforms and hence the reason why he has dismissed all those calling for reforms with contempt.

2)     Or else he knows what constitutes free and fair elections, after all it is common sense, but does not care. All he and his junta regime care about is that Zanu PF must retain absolute power at all cost.

As one of the ordinary Zimbabwean who has been systematically denied their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair elections; I am pleased that the international community will be in the country to observe this year’s elections. What every thinking Zimbabwean will be asking the observers to do is judge whether these elections are indeed free and fair.

“The voice of people is the voice of God!" True but first the elections must free, fair and credible and unscrupulous so! We must allow the international election observers to be the judge of that!