"Zanu PF too fractured to win 2018," Mandaza predicted - yet another feeble excuse for ignoring reforms W Mukori

"The party of liberation (Zanu PF) lost its mass base in the 90s and it has never been able to recover it and will not recover it. It's a fair conclusion to make, that the party of liberation which is tattered, broken, fractured cannot win elections in 2018," said Dr Ibbo Mandaza, a senior academic and publisher.

I must confess, I used to hold Dr Mandaza in high regard as an academic; not anymore! The man makes sweeping statements full of contradictions and, in being confused himself, has helped spread confusion in the nation. It is true that Zanu PF has lost its mass base in the 90s and has never recovered it. But the very fact that the party has nonetheless remained in power and the dominant political party to this day should have forced Mandaza to ask why this is so.

Zanu PF has more than made up for its lack of popular support by having a well-funded and ruthless vote rigging juggernaut. In the March 2008 elections Tsvangirai polled 73% of the vote, according to Mugabe’s own admission. The vote rigging machine kicked in! ZEC was ordered to recount the votes and after six weeks of cooking up the figures Tsvangirai’s vote was whittled down to 47%, enough to force the run-off.  

For the run-off Zanu PF unleashed its party thugs and war veterans to carry out the light infantry tasks of intimidating beating and raping of civilians supported by the Army, Police and CIO who carried out the heavy-duty beatings, abductions and murders. The people were being punished for having rejected Zanu PF and Mugabe in the March vote.

“What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be undone by the ballot!” barked Robert Mugabe, to egg on the wanton violence and barbarism.

In the June 2008 vote Mugabe overhauled Tsvangirai’s 73% to win by a staggering 84%!

  
Whilst it is true that since 2014 the Zanu PF has been torn apart by the dog-eat-dog infighting that started with the “baby dumping”, as Grace Mugabe call it, of the VP Joice Mujuru and her supporters. Before the dust had even settled down after the ouster of Mujuru a new faction, G40 backing Grace Mugabe to succeed her husband emerge to take on the Lacoste faction backing Mnangagwa to take over. The November coup settled that factional war when Mugabe was forced to resign and many of the G40 members were booted out of the party.

It is no exaggeration to say Mnangagwa and many of his supporters were the principle operators of the Zanu PF dictatorship and vote rigging juggernaut. It is therefore not surprising that vote rigging schemes in the post-coup era have been carried out without a hitch. Besides, Zanu PF members are one lot whose loyalty is for sell to the highest bidder. 90% of the Zanu PF leaders who would have voted to impeach Mugabe, for example, would have condemned Mnangagwa if the coup had failed.

So, Dr Mandaza’s conclusion that Zanu PF will not win this year’s election the party is “tattered, broken, fractured” is wishful thinking at best.

Besides, the opposition itself has mutated into no fewer than 129 different parties!

If Zanu PF will not win these elections, we do not need to worry about stopping the party rigging the elections. And yet as recent as early this month Dr Mandaza was calling for the implementation of some reforms as a precaution before the elections are held.

“Security sector containment: As a bare minimum this will require a public statement by the heads of security services that they will be non-partisan in terms of the constitution and their enabling legislation. This needs to be expanded by the removal of security personnel from civilian activities, including ZEC and command agriculture, and the setting up of a multi-party monitoring team to ensure compliance with all of the above,” he suggested.

If we went back even further back in time to 2013, Dr Mandaza agreed with the SADC leaders who wanted the elections postponed until the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the vote were implemented.

In other words, Dr Mandaza was swung from do not hold the elections with the reforms to let the elections go ahead damn the reforms because Zanu PF is too fractured to win. How confusing! How confused!

The rational position is the elections should not have gone ahead without first implementing the reforms. The international observers must judge whether the elections were free, fair and credible given there is no free media, no verified voters’ roll, etc. If the process was not free and fair they must declare the process null and void.

The observers must completely ignore whatever foolish reasons are given by the opposition to justify why they are contesting these flawed elections. The people of Zimbabwe are sick and tired of hearing about these “winning rigged elections strategies” which are then quickly followed by complains of “Zanu PF stole the vote!”