MDC Alliance presidential candidate, Nelson
Chamisa, has already reportedly pick his 15-member cabinet! “Mr Chamisa,
concentrate on winning the elections. Unless you stop Zanu PF rigging the
elections, you will never ever win!” If he has been told this once, he has been
told the same thing a thousand times and a thousand times again.
Chamisa’s behaviour is comparable to the
half-shilling hunter who, instead of carefully stalking the game, he starts
making the fire to roast the meat. By the time he has the fire going he then
discovers the game has vanished!
In terms of numbers MDC has enjoyed popular
support that Zanu PF ever since the party was formed in 1999, the only reason
the party has failed to transition from popular support to electoral victory is
that Zanu PF rigs elections. The 2008 elections settled the question of whether
it is possible for Zanu PF to rig the vote and lose the elections. It is
impossible!
In the March 2008 vote Zanu PF ordered ZEC to
recount the vote and after six weeks of cooking up the figures Tsvangirai’s
73%, by Mugabe’s own admission, was whittled down to 47% to force the run-off.
During the run-off Zanu PF unleashed its party thugs, rogue war veterans backed
by the Army, Police and CIO to punish the electorate for having rejected Mugabe
in the March vote!
“What was accomplished by the bullet cannot be
undone by the ballot!” thundered Robert Mugabe. His thugs responded with the
zeal of a mad wolf let lose in a penned flock of sheep!
“Zanu PF has declared war on the people!”
complained Morgan Tsvangirai as he announced his withdrawal from the race.
Mugabe overturned the March defeat to win with
a landslide 84%. The result was announced within hours of the polling stations
closing and not six weeks!
No one, not even SADC or AU would had until
then always turned a blind eye to Zanu PF rigged elections, accepted the 2008
elections as free and fair. SADC leaders forced Zanu PF to agree to the need
for the country to implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop a
repeat of the blatant cheating and wanton violence of 2008. A Government of
National Unity (GNU) was formed and tasked to implement the reforms.
In the GNU, the task of implementing the
reforms fell on the two MDC factions. Nelson Chamisa and most of the MDC
leaders named in his proposed cabinet were cabinet members in the GNU. MDC
failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU. Not even
one!
SADC leaders wanted the 2013 Zimbabwe elections
postponed so the reforms can be implemented. “If you go into next month’s
election, you will lose; the elections are done!” they warned MDC leaders. They
might as well have been talking to a brick wall!
MDC took part in the 2013 elections and Zanu PF
rigged the elections, as SADC had predicted. MDC are take part in this year’s
elections although not even one reform has been implemented. Chamisa has been
wittering about MDC having "stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the
elections" although the party has failed to produce even one such measure
and the voting day is two months away!
Ever since the MDC leaders sold-out and failed
to implement reforms during the GNU, they have played this foolish
cat-and-mouse game with the Zimbabwe electorate in which MDC leaders have
justified their continued participation in these flawed elections against sound
advice not to by pretending they have the power to force Zanu PF to implement
the reforms. They have no such power and they continue contesting these flawed
elections for the sake of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait
to entice the opposition to take part.
To give the flawed election process some
political credibility and earn their own keep, MDC leaders need to keep the
naive and gullible electorate believing the opposition can win rigged
elections; an oxymoron but there it is. Thank God SADC and the international
community are not naïve and they have lost confidence in MDC leaders and their
foolish games. SADC leaders and donors deserted MDC in droves at the end of the
GNU, when it was clear they had sold-out on reforms.
The single most important decision for SADC and
the international community regarding these flawed elections is to rule them
null and void and finally put an end to this cruel political circus that has
caused so much human suffering and deaths. Zimbabwe needs to
go back and implemented the reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU
To take Chamisa and his 15 ministers cabinet sick
joke seriously is the foolishness of the insane. "Kupenga kugezera sadza
ramahumbe rabikwa nemavhu!" as one would say in Shona!
"Further, Zanu-PF would intensify its mobilisation to ensure the voter turnout and victory could not be attributed to rigging alone, but a generous donation of votes by those who could have voted for the MDC-T had it not opted out," you say.
ReplyDeleteThis is plan nonsense! So you agree the elections were rigged and your argument is the victory was not due to "rigging alone". The election result is decided on numbers, whether one wins by a margin of one vote or 1 million 0.1% or 90% it is irrelevant once we know the process was rigged because no one knows how many votes can be attributed to rigging. In this case new already know that in 2008 Zanu PF was able to rig the vote count to whittle down 73% to 47% to force run-off. Then used violence to turn defeat into an 84% landslide victory.
With no reforms in place, we know the regime is capable of turning up its vote rigging to deliver whatever landslide victory it wants. We should not fall into the trap of judging elections free and fair just because the regime did not go into overdrive in its vote rigging capabilities. There very fact that the regime was free to go into overdrive should be of concern to us.
We are here to make sure that what happened in 2008 will not happen again and not wait for it to happen again!
Zimbabwe has concluded a $1.4bn agreement with the Export-Import Bank of China (Exim Bank) to expand power generation and help alleviate the country's perennial electricity shortages.
ReplyDeleteIt is hard not to see this as vote buying at an international level! China has been asked to fund this project and has dragged its feet until now, why?
We know Zanu PF is rigging these elections just as readily as the regime has rigged other elections in the past. We should not be having these elections, not without first implementing the reform. The only reason why these flawed elections are going ahead is because the corrupt and incompetent opposition are selling-out just as they too have sold out many times in the past.
ReplyDeleteNelson Chamisa and his MDC friends were tasked to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU. That was, without doubt, the nation's golden opportunity to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years.
When SADC leaders realised that MDC leaders had failed to implement the reforms they asked both Zanu PF and MDC to postpone the 2013 elections. Again MDC would not listen. Zanu PF offered a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to take part and Tsvangirai and company swallowed the bait. MDC leaders and the rest of the other opposition politicians are all fighting for the scraps Zanu PF is throwing at them.
It is bad enough that the nation been stuck with these corrupt and murderous Zanu PF thugs for decades what is making our situation even worse is that the MDC opposition are now giving Zanu PF a smoke screen behind which to hide by participating in flawed elections for sake of the scraps Zanu PF is throwing at the opposition!
@ Multiverse Dungani
ReplyDeleteTen years ago, Chamisa was even younger than he is today but that did not stop him and his fellow MDC friends selling out on reforms.
30 years ago, Mnangagwa was the same age Chamisa is today and that did not stop him and his fellow Zanu PF thugs murdering over 20 000 in the Gukurahundi massacres!
Age has nothing to do with whether one is a good or bad leader and it is only the naive and gullible people out there who are refusing to look at the person's track record and what he/she is saying and doing in judging leaders.
What good is your digital age knowledge if you so blind and stupid you cannot even see that Zanu PF is rigging these elections for the umpteenth time!
@ Standard
ReplyDelete"We should all go out to vote without fear - only favour of political leaders of our choice," you said.
"The key requisite that allows us to exercise our constitutional right to vote is a peaceful environment. Politicians from across the political divide have agreed and their leaders have publicly pledged such an environment to prevail."
Are you ignorant or stupid or both ignorant and stupid!
There is a lot more to free, fair and credible elections than Zanu PF successfully keeping its thugs on the leash! There is no free public media and so the voters only know what Zanu PF stands for but denied information on everyone else. By failing to start the voter registration exercise in January 2015 at the latest, Zanu PF has managed to register 5.3 m voters out of the targeted 7 m and so 25% have been denied their right to vote. Worse still, ZEC has failed to produce a verified voters' roll for these elections; opening the door to NIKUV inspired vote rigging. Zanu PF is robbing the nation blind and squandering the loot on vote rigging schemes and luxurious for the party candidates and thugs. All these things and many, many others beside, are of critical important in a free, fair and credible elections.
President Mnangagwa has stubbornly refused to implement the raft of democratic reforms necessary to ensure a free public media, independent ZEC, etc., etc. Zanu PF is using other subtle ways to rig these elections and they are working, this is why the junta has gone out of its way to withdraw its thugs! Each time there has been a serious threat to Zanu PF's hold on power, the party has unleashed it thugs to harass, beat, rape and even murder many civilians as we saw in 2008!
For anyone therefore to just focus on "peaceful" elections show just how thick, shallow and slow they are!
The Zimbabwean government this month awarded civil servants a 15 percent salary increase but the pomp and fanfare was short-lived when basic commodity prices shot up as businesses sought to cushion themselves against losses.
ReplyDeleteSo civil servants get 15% pay increase and yet the regime continues to squander billions of dollars to bankroll its vote rigging schemes and on party candidates and cronies. Zanu PF is rigging these elections and is using public resources to deny the people a meaningful vote so it can stay and continue with the oppression and looting.
The only rational outcome is for these flawed elections to be declare null and void so the nation can revert back to the 2008 reforms and make sure they are implemented this time!
@ Peacemaker
ReplyDeleteMDC had the golden opportunity to implement the raft of democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections during the GNU. After five years they failed to get even one reform implemented! Ever since the party has blundered from pillar to post.
SADC advised MDC not to take part in the elections without first implementing the reforms Chamisa and company a whole bail of cotton stuffed in each of their ears. They are after the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to contest these flawed elections and hence the cotton in the ears.
MDC have promised to have reforms in place but only as an excuse for disregarding the advice not to contest. As we all know, there has been no reforms and the planned demos are just a gimmick. No meaningful reforms can ever be implemented now two months before voting day! You are spot-on, the demo is "MDC Alliance running out of ideas"!
The people of Zimbabwe must ignore the demo and focus on making sure the international election observers KNOW that they, the ordinary Zimbabweans, have lost confidence in the MDC and the opposition. These village idiots betrayed the nation during the GNU and now they are running with the hare and hunting with the hounds.
Zanu PF is rigging these elections just as the party has done in the past. The international observer MUST declare these flawed elections null and void and give Zimbabwe a chance to revisit and implement the raft of reforms agreed by all at the onset of 2008 GNU!