Of course, Zanu PF rigged the recent elections; if the truth be
told the EU, USA and everyone with any understanding of Zimbabwe politics did
not expect anything else.
“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission
contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and
verifiability,” stated EU Election Observer Mission final report.
“Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive
use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election
period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election
campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to
meet international standards.”
Think of the country Zimbabwe as a bus; President Mnangagwa and
his Zanu PF junta are the owners and operators and the rest of us are
passengers. The bus owners and operators are the stockholders, they decide
everything; they have the bus keys, own the petrol stations, own the roads,
etc.; have the veto.
We, the passengers are stakeholders, we have an interest in
where the bus is going, can complain of delays, etc. but can do very little
else for fear of being thrown off the bus.
Democratic elections are about giving everyone an equal share
and equal say in everything and, when necessary, allow the majority view carry
the day. All these thing are anathema to President Mnangagwa and his junta;
they have bus keys and control everything the idea of giving these up because
the majority voted for someone else to be the driver, etc. is out of the
questions.
What is worrying for Zimbabwe is Mnangagwa rigged the elections
to impose himself as the bus driver the tragedy is he has no clue what he is doing.
The Zimbabwe bus is in a sorry state because of the decades on the road with no
proper service. The battery has no power, fuel filter and air filter are
completely clogged up, the foot brakes have to be pumped to get them to work, have
to fight to change gears, etc. For the last 38 years Zimbabwe Bus Service has
needed a push to start it and topped up with engine oil and water a few hours.
Here are the six reasons why President Mnangagwa must not be
allowed to remain as the Zimbabwe Bus Service driver:
1) He agrees
that the 37 years of Mugabe rule have been a complete disaster and his counter
claim that he had nothing to do with the failures must be dismissed with the
contempt it rightly deserve. He was a senior member of the Zanu PF regime and
should have resigned, at the very least, and not waited 37 years until 5 th November
2017 when he was fired.
2) Mnangagwa
cannot disown what happened during the Mugabe days because he not only
benefited from the misrule but was one of its principle designer and enforcer.
3) President
Mnangagwa has gone to town about post November 2017 coup as a fresh start for
Zimbabwe, “a new era, new dispensation,” he called it. And yet the corrupt, the
political tyranny, vote rigging and all the other Zanu PF dictatorial hallmarks
have remained unchanged. By rigging the recent elections Mnangagwa has shown
that Zimbabwe is still a pariah state.
4) Zimbabwe
needs a big injection of foreign investment to kick start the comatose economy
and those are the very people Mnangagwa has just chased away. As everyone knows,
investors do not do business in pariah states. This is an ominous start for the
new driver of Zimbabwe Bus Service, he is asking us the passengers to
push-start the bus uphill with the fuel tank empty – the bus is going nowhere!
5) After
38 years of the Zanu PF dictatorship in which we, the people of Zimbabwe, the
rightful owners, have been reduced to helpless passengers; it is time for us to
demand what is rightfully ours, more so now when we know the country is sinking
deeper and deeper into despair.
6) Zimbabwe
is not the first nation to be ruled by tyrants, many nations have suffered the
same fate. In the end the people have always risen and demanded their freedoms
and basic human rights and a life in dignity. The days of Zanu PF corrupt and tyrannical
rule, of rigging elections with impunity, etc. are numbered. Meaningful change
is long overdue!
Chimhini bemoaned lack of political will to implement reforms by authorities.
ReplyDelete“Sadly attempts to compel election authorities to adopt the necessary changes to improve elections in the past have fallen on deaf ears and have largely been ignored,” the ERC boss said.
These are crocodile tears ERC shedding, “bemoaning lack of political will to implement reforms”. What has ERC ever done to compel MDC Alliance and Zanu PF to implement the democratic reforms?
Where is ERC’s report condemning the recent elections as flawed and illegal?
If anything ERC and most of Zimbabwe’s utterly useless civic society have all cheered and applauded the flawed and illegal electoral processes which have become the norm in Zimbabwe!
Mucheke dzafa!
Giving up power is simple unthinkable for tyrants especially those who have become totally adducted to it like these Zanu PF thugs. Mugabe was forced at gun-point to give up power and Mnangagwa, after waiting in the wings for 37 years was not going to risk losing power after only 8 eights in power. He was going to rig the elections and worry about whatever consequences later!
ReplyDeleteI agree, the man is utterly clueless as to what to do now that the much hoped for investors have shied away. Without the injection of foreign currency there is no way the country's comatose economy can revive! Mnangagwa is push-starting the Zimbabwe economic bus uphill, with the handbrake on, fuel tank empty, etc. This is back-breaking working with nothing to show for it!
The Zanu PF dictatorship has run its course and now it dragging the nation deeper and deeper into economic trouble and political instability. The real tragedy here is that there is going to be a lot more human misery and many lives lost before thugs like Mnangagwa finally forced out of power!
@ Isaac Nkomah
ReplyDelete"I'm not an economist or a financial guru but i think my 2c advise will wipe out the prevailing black market aka siphatheleni. First there is need to identify the root or source of the hard currency and make sure that whoever gets it irrespective of source must have a bank account into which the hard currency must be religiously deposited and withdrawn as and when it is needed for purposes of doing business not hording or speculation. The banks, RBZ included must stop trading in foreign currency."
Nonsense the root cause of the economic meltdown is that Zanu PF rigged the elections and frightened away the would be investors and lenders the country needs. We are heading for the rocks and no amount of witch hunting is going to change that!
Mujuru said the party would soldier on despite the mass desertions and "everything is by God's plan".
ReplyDelete"We are moving. Everything is by God's plan. It is their democratic right, I am happy for them and wish them very well in their future political life," she said.
Madam, you are corrupt and incompetent, those are vices and not virtues. What has God to do with that. When you were looting all the nation wealth, rigging elections, etc. making millions of ordinary people suffer and die it was not God's wish.
Madam, you can dream of your looting years but Zimbabwe is not going back to the dictatorship. You and your former Zanu PF thugs are finished.
Zimbabweans were optimistic about an economic revival when the military ousted Mugabe in November last year after almost four decades in power.
ReplyDeleteThat's going to take time and will "entail pain and the need for sacrificing short-term gains for longer-term prosperity", according to Finance minister Mthuli Ncube, who Mnangagwa appointed last month to attract foreign investment, reduce mass unemployment and narrow a gaping fiscal deficit.
Taxing the poorest of the poor of the little they have will cause untold hardship on the poor but there will be no economic revival because the economic environment is all wrong. Investors are not going to invest in a pariah state!
MDC spokesperson Jacob Mafume told the Daily News yesterday that following the ZCTU action on Thursday that saw the State arresting the labour leaders to stop protests against the new two percent tax, the opposition party felt the need to "stand in solidarity with the people".
ReplyDelete"It was resolved by the national executive that we should show that we are with the people during this tough time, so we must join them in demonstrating against a government that is clearly clueless on how they can extricate the country out of the economic quagmire," Mafume said.
The nation is to assume that MDC Alliance leaders know what they are doing! Give me a break! If they did then why did they agree to take part in these flawed and illegal elections and thus giving this Zanu PF to opportunity to rig the elections. Zimbabwe would not be in this mess if MDC leaders had not sold-out all these last 20 years. MDC leaders are marching with the workers and in parliament they are enjoying the spoils of power with Zanu PF thugs; the sooner the people of Zimbabwe wake up to this reality the better for the country!
@ Zimpaper
ReplyDeleteOn the opposition's poll petition, the EU said: "Despite the important number of pre-election court cases that challenged certain issues that the application alleged amounted to constitutional and electoral law breaches, the founding affidavit made limited reference to these.
"Moreover, the application did not include evidence for some of the averments made, while among the supporting evidence only 47 V11 forms (out of a total of some 11 000) were adduced."
There is desperation on the part of Zimpapers to find something they can consider "positive" from the EU report. The report is very clear the elections were a sham!
"Further, the electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability.
"Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards."
Zimpaper's praise is comparable to Nero burning Rome and claiming he credit of getting rid of rats!
@ Max Maphosa
ReplyDelete"Wilbert Mukori and Ziso remateares what have you to say on your legitimacy or illegitimacy claims. Considering that your favourite EU group of gangsters has given 51. % to ED. Next time you will be more careful not to write a book on hearsay. A lie said several times may just sound like the truth. You were conned by the little fellow. Continue believing in lies you will suffer one day for nothing."
You are a pathetic individual who reads between the lines because they cannot accept what is there in black and white. The EU report has clearly stated that "the final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability." The report did look at the result and commented of the figures but that does not mean the EU accepted the figures as anything other than fictitious because they could not be traced or verified.
Zanu PF rigged the elections; EU observers are clear on that, millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are clear on that and would-be investors and lenders are very clear on that hence the reason the flood of investment you expected has not materialized and never will! You can bury your head in the sand and pretend ED won the elections and Zimbabwe is enjoying economic recovery. The reality is that ED rigged the elections and as a consequence the country's economic meltdown is now in its final death throes!
"Government continues to work flat out to protect consumers, defend wage values and secure savings. This includes the $9 billion in RTGS deposits in our banks. We are already putting in place legally enforceable measures to protect such earnings and savings, whether in local or foreign currency. No one will lose their money," said President Mnangagwa.
ReplyDeleteMr President tell that to the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have lost half the money or worse because the price of commodities doubled or worse, exchange rate of RTGS and Bond Notes to the US$ in the real world double or worse the fixed official exchange rate Banks them for their US$, etc.
The one thing Zimbabwe needs desperately right now to kick start the comatose economy is an injection of foreign currency in direct investment and bridging loans. By rigging the recent elections Zanu PF has scared away would-be investors and lenders; no one wants to invest in a country whose next regime change is going to be yet another military coup or the violent chaos as happened in Libya to remove Gaddafi!
I do not know about Mugabe causing economic ruin. We [new dispensation] have been running government for over a year. I do not want to be talking a lot about the past because currently, we are correcting everything that was
ReplyDeletedone wrong before to make things normal," Mpofu told The Standard.
It is not only pathetic that these Zanu PF leaders should want to dissociate themselves completely with what happened in the 37 years of the Zanu PF government led by Robert Mugabe as if they were not senior member in these regimes. Worse still, in their haste to put distance between Mugabe years and the present they have failed to carry out a proper and in-depth analysis of why the Mugabe days were a total disaster for the nation with the view of making sure they do not repeat the same foolish mistakes.
Mugabe's Zimbabwe was a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs. The same corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs are the ones still ruling the roost in the new dispensation. Investors and lenders have notice that and have shied away from investing in the country. Mnangagwa and his colourful scarf draped cronies can sing "Zimbabwe is open for business!" everywhere they go at every opportunity they get, that will change nothing. There is not going to be a flood of investors!
What Zanu PF has done wrong was rig the recent elections, whether these Zanu PF thugs admit it or not, is now irrelevant; the consequences of this was to send the country's comatose economy into its final death throes!