"Mnangagwa is rigging the elections, I will repeat under oath!" confess Moyo - it is now impossible to ignore this reality W Mukori

Just a month before the 2013 elections, SADC leaders advised both Zanu PF and MDC leaders to postpone the elections to allow democratic reforms to be implemented. This was unwelcome advice because each party wanted to keep up the façade that the elections were free, fair and credible. In the end both parties ignored SADC leaders and, as we now know, Zanu PF went on to rig the elections, just as SADC leaders had predicted.

This year it is Professor Jonathan Moyo, Zanu PF’s former Minister of Education and the party’s chief political strategist who is ringing the alarm bells that Zanu PF is rigging the elections. SADC leaders’ warning against Zanu PF rigging the elections was a stink bomb compared to Moyo’s nuclear bomb, whilst the SADC warning was not widely known and was easily dismissed as speculation because it lacked detail the same cannot be said of Professor’s warning.

“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza of SAPE explained to Violet Gonda in an interview in April 2017.

“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections.

“If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws, and after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”

Not many Zimbabweans understood what the democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the GNU were about, much less that Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends had failed to implement the reforms. So, it was little wonder that very few Zimbabweans had fully appreciated the seriousness of SADC leaders warning of the folly of holding the elections without first implementing the reforms.

When Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections, the dire consequences of that rigged elections have forced many Zimbabweans to pay attention to problem and to appreciate the futility of participating in rigged elections. And so, Professor Moyo’s warning that Zanu PF is rigging this year’s elections is seed falling on fertile ground!

Many people have been complaining about ZEC’s performance and have expressed their doubts that the commission will deliver free, fair and credible elections, for example. Professor Moyo has provided even more detail to substantiate these fears.  

“ZEC run by Govt to run elections is not set up in terms of the Constitution. Most of its full-time staff are former or current Army, CIO & ZRP. ALL of TECHNICAL staff is 100% from security organs & ALL polling officers are civil servants!” wrote Professor Moyo in his opinion article in Zimeye.

“On the back of the Nov coup, and the fact that Zimbabwe is under military rule, it’s unreasonable to expect a Govt run ZEC to run free, fair & credible elections. With securocrats managing its TECHNICAL operations, ZEC is a rigging tool!

“Govt has seconded to ZEC a team of Chinese BVR & cyber experts from the People’s Liberation Army linked to a top Chinese university. Their remit is to manipulate the voters roll through shadowy & virtual polling stations & fake voters!

Chinese team seeks to manipulate the BVR system & create virtual polling stations to guarantee victory for Mnangagwa, whose appeasement strategy of disinformation would be used by UK govt to justify declaring the poll free, fair & credible!”

No one can dismiss what Professor Moyo is saying as mere speculation because as Zanu PF’s chief strategist, he certainly knew Zanu PF’s vote rigging tactics. President Mnangagwa, for 37 years Mugabe’s Chief Enforcer, as Moyo call him; executed most of the regime’s vote rigging schemes, the ruthlessly carried out the politically motivated harassment, beatings, and even murders and the looted to raise the cash to bankroll all the party activities. The tyrant turned to Professor Moyo to provide the intellectual finesse to the vote rigging schemes, etc.

“Some 11 days after BVR closed for 2018 poll & a day before sitting of Nomination Court, ZEC continues to deny the opposition access to the roll, yet it has given Zanu PF hard copies,” concluded Professor Moyo.

“ZEC has always done this & I can confirm it under oath.”

“Mnangagwa has already rigged the elections” read the headlines of Professor Jonathan Moyo’s article. The only logical reason why MDC politicians and the rest in the opposition camp are participating in these flawed and illegal elections is greed.

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” confessed David Coltart, a former MDC Minister during the GNU. 

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

Coltart was commending on why he and his MDC friends contested the 2013 elections. Three of the leading MDC factions have since merged to form the MDC Alliance; there was never any talk of boycotting the elections even then – proof greed trumps reason with this lot.

MDC leaders lost all political credibility in 2013 when the failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU and then went on to participate in the 2013 elections, ignoring SADC leaders’ express warning not to. Still, if they had any trace of credibility left then it has all been completely wiped away by participating in this year’s elections regardless of all the warnings and evidence Zanu PF is rigging the elections.

None of the international community observers, in Zimbabwe right now for this express purpose, can in all honest, ignored the mountain of evidence of blatant vote rigging and judge these flawed and illegal elections free, fair and credible.

The only logical outcome of these elections is declaring the whole process null and void and get the country to revisit and implement all the democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 GNU. The sooner the nation can finally deal implement the reforms and end the scourge of rigged elections, the sooner we can focus on the difficult task of rebuilding after decades of death and destruction!