“I don't believe in black majority rule ever in Rhodesia—not in a
thousand years!” This is the now infamous quote of the rebel Ian Douglas Smith
after declaring the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in 1965.
Smith’s white supremacist regime only lasted 15 years!
The tragedy for Zimbabwe is the black Zanu PF government that emerged
from the war of independence has turned out to be corrupt, incompetent and
ruthlessly oppressive. The party led by Robert Mugabe for 37 years and now by
Emmerson Mnangagwa for the last year, has ridden roughshod over the ordinary
Zimbabweans; denying them their freedoms and basic human rights including the
right to free and fair elections and even the right to life.
Ever since coming into office in 1980, Zanu PF has undermined the
country’s democratic institutions and the 1979 Lancaster House multi-party
constitution to establish and retain a de facto one-party state. All Zanu PF
leaders have ever cared about is absolute power and the political influence and
wealth it brought. They have cheated and rigged elections to make sure Zanu PF
retains its iron grip on power at all cost.
The 38 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and lawlessness
as exemplified by Zanu PF’s blatant disregard for property rights have
completely destroyed the Zimbabwe economy. Under white colonial rule Zimbabwe,
then Rhodesia, was the breadbasket of the whole Southern African region; the
country produced enough maize, wheat, meat, etc. to feed its own people with
surplus for export. The country also earned billions of dollars from the export
of top quality tobacco, cut flowers and other cash crops. Zanu PF has since
completely destroyed the country’s agricultural sector together with the rest
of the once booming economy.
Today Zimbabwe is rely on imported food aid - the country is so
impoverish it cannot even pay for the imported food!
We live in the day and age when mankind has used his ingenuity to turn
deserts into green orchards. And yet Zimbabweans are starving in a country that
is, for all intent and practical purposes, the Garden of Eden. This is a
damning indictment on Zanu PF’s failed leadership!
The Zanu PF dictatorship must go because it is an affront to the nation
and people of Zimbabwe and a serious threat political stability and peace in
the country and the region.
“We had our peaceful and non-violent elections and we won more than two
thirds majority in parliament,” President Mnangagwa told his party supporters
at the on-going Zanu PF conference.
Mnangagwa is only putting a brave face just as Ian Smith did in 1965.
This Zanu PF dictatorship is just as illegitimate as Smith’s regime.
Mnangagwa knows that the people’s mandate to govern comes from winning
the majority votes in a free, fair and credible elections. Zimbabwe’s recent
elections were not free, fair and credible.
It is worth noting that Mnangagwa confined himself to talking of the
recent elections as “peaceful and non-violent”. He did not dare to claim the
elections were free, fair and credible because he knows that they were not and
has been told so repeatedly.
All the international election observer teams have either confined their
comments on the peaceful process or have condemned the process as “biased,
unfair and not to acceptable international standards”. This is just diplomatic
language for the elections were rigged and therefore President Mnangagwa and
his Zanu PF junta are illegitimate.
In a healthy and functioning democracy those who rig elections are
punished and not rewarded with high office. As stated above, post-independent
Zimbabwe is a de facto one-party dictatorship; the Zanu PF thugs control of all
the state institutions and have their heavy boot on the nation’s throat and so
they rig elections and reward themselves with absolute power!
“Musabatikane nemhere mhere irikubva kumaloser, tichatonga five years
sezvinotaurwa neConstitution and tavakuisa kumberi kuvaka nekugadzira upfumi
hwenyika. (Ignore the noise from the losers, we are going to govern for the
next five years as stipulated by the constitution. We are pushing ahead with
our policies and programmes designed revive the country’s economy.)”
It was the pincer action of the intensifying civil war at home and the
increasing international isolation (after the Americans pressured white-ruled
SA to end its support of Rhodesia) that forced Smith to accept black rule.
The sledge hammer blows on Mnangagwa to step down are coming from the
country’s worsening economic meltdown. Decades of gross mismanagement, rampant
corruption and lawlessness have left the country’s economy in ruins with no
hope of any meaning economic recovery have taken a heavy toll on the nation.
Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90%, Zimbabweans are now the
poorest nation in Africa with 75% of them now living on US$1.00 or less a day.
Zimbabwe’s economic situation is socially, morally and politically
unsustainable.
Even if Mnangagwa and his junta were to use brute force to stop all
dissent, which the regime has already send a clear signal it will do with the
“shoot to kill” command against protesting the rigged elections on 1 st August.
Zanu PF remaining in office until 2023 will only mean one thing - the party
will rig the 2023 elections and extend its rule another five years. Another
five more years of the 90% unemployment rate and life threatening grinding
poverty!
When the chips were down, Ian Smith had the common sense to accept that
his white supremacists regime was doomed. Sadly the same cannot be said of
tyrants like Mugabe and Mnangagwa, short of putting a gun to his head, they
would rather drag the whole nation into the abyss than give up power. Mugabe
was lucky that the one pointing the gun at his head a year ago did not have a
titchy finger; Mnangagwa may not be so lucky!
“Zanu PF ichatonga! Igotonga! Imi muchongohukura! Nokuhukura! (Zanu PF
will rule! And rule! Whilst you (calling for legitimacy) bark! And bark!)” is
Mnangagwa’s clarion call to his Zanu PF supporters! He made the call during
Mugabe’s days and has repeated it since taking over with renewed vigour and
urgency.
Allowing Zanu PF to rig the elections and stay in power is the most
foolish thing the people Zimbabwe has ever done since independence and the
nation has paid dearly for it. Today, with the nation standing on the edge of
the precipice, the pressure on the nation to atone for its folly could not be
greater and more urgent!
Zanu PF rigged the 30 July 2018 elections, the party has no legal
mandate to govern and it must step down now - that is not negotiable! After 38
years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule it is insane to let this charade
continue another day!
If this Zanu PF is still in office in 2023, then we, the people of
Zimbabwe, would have failed ourselves.
"There is a difference between dialogue and GNU. The unfortunate thing is that Mnangagwa thinks everything is about power. Building a nation is much more than just love of power but the power of love,” twittered Chamisa.
ReplyDelete"The secret to a great nation is vision, love and humility by its leadership. Arrogance is always ignorance disguised as invincibility. Weak leaders boast and divide. Strong leaders reach out to unify. Zimbabwe needs dialogue on reforms, economy, legitimacy and nation building not GNU." Chamisa further said.
There is no denying Mnangagwa rigged the recent elections, all the international election observers who have dare release their report have said the elections were “biased, unfair and not to accepted international standards”.
These elections should have never taken place without first implementing the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging. Chamisa et al were warned not to take part but they would not listen because of greedy, “love of power” as Chamisa would put it.
There is no need for any GNU or dialogue between the illegitimate Zanu PF regime and the discredited MDC Alliance. The latter should just step aside, there are no more scraps to be had. As for Zanu PF, the regime is illegitimate and it must step down. The nation needs the political space to appoint an interim administration that will be tasked to implement the reforms and to hold the country’s first ever free, fair and credible elections.
Zanu PF has had this nation hostage for the last 38 years, that must stop.
@ Faith Hope
ReplyDeleteSoon after the Constitutional Court ruled that Emmerson Mnangagwa had legitimately won the presidential election, throwing out the MDC's case, the president put out a Facebook post calling for unity. The post included one particularly important line – "Nelson Chamisa, my door is open and my arms are outstretched, we are one nation, and we must put our nation first.”
We must never forget that we are talking of the same Court whose Judges had ruled that the November 2017 military coup was “legal, constitutional and justified!”
As regards the elections all the international election observer teams had dismissed the whole election process as flawed and illegal.
“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,” said the EU Mission’s 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.”
There was overwhelming evidence from the affidavit documents from ZEC to confirm the EU reports’ finding. ZEC did not deny that the commission failed to release verified voters’ roll and the commission gave three different vote tallies of the elections result, for example. The Con-Court judges ignored all these glaring irregularities and illegalities and accepted ZEC’s vote count - even they did not dare say which of the three - on the shaky grounds that none of irregularities and illegalities were supported by the primary source evidence in the sealed ballot boxes.
How pedantic, the Judges refuse to judge the matter on the basis of the evidence presented before them. The judge the matter on the basis of evidence they have not seen and refused to see. The judges discounted everything else ZEC said in their affidavit except one thing - that Mnangagwa was the winner. What a mockery of justice!
Zanu PF rigged the 30 July 2018 elections that is now a established historic fact. The fact that Mnangagwa and his junta have installed themselves as the government is to be expected, they have rigged past elections and seized the instruments of state. They got away with it in the past and they think they will get away with it again this time. Mark my words and mark them very carefully - Zanu PF will not get away with the rigged elections.
Zanu PF is illegitimate and must step down and it will step down!
@ Elijah Chihota
ReplyDeleteAccording to Wikipedia, "Dr Elisabeth Kübler-Ross pioneered methods in counselling of personal trauma, grief and grieving, associated with death and dying" identified five stages of grief as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.
Good work son! Now you must see how your research is going to help your master, Emmerson Mnangagwa.
He rigged the elections and was convinced he would get away with it. He has been told by everyone the elections were “biased, unfair and not to acceptable international standards”. Even the British who have been bending over backwards to help him and his regime to be accepted back into the world community could not gloss over the blatant vote rigging. The man is in denial that he did not rig the elections and worse still that he will get away with it.
By rigging the elections, Mnangagwa confirmed Zimbabwe is a pariah state and, as we all know from the Mugabe days, investors do not do business in pariah states. Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is set to get worse.
Mnangagwa is in denial of the economic meltdown but he is only burying his head in the sand. The economic situation is Zimbabwe is socially, morally and politically unsustainable. Mnangagwa is sitting on a ticking time bomb, ignoring it will not defuse the bomb!
Government bigwigs are also queueing for fuel, Energy and Power Development minister Joram Gumbo has claimed, rejecting accusations that there was lethargy to address the fuel shortages because the top officials were not affected.
ReplyDeleteZimbabwe’s economic meltdown is the one thing President Mnangagwa and ahis junta can neither deny nor gloss over because it is affecting millions of Zimbabweans and the drama of it all is happening out in the open in broad day!
Mnangagwa polled 50.8% of votes against 44.3% by his closest challenger Nelson Chamisa of the MDC Alliance. Zanu PF won 179 parliamentary and senate seats, against the MDC Alliance’s 88 seats.
ReplyDeleteMnangagwa can claim electoral victory from the rooftop of every house like the cock at sun rise and sun set the political reality is everyone else has dismissed the whole election process as flawed and illegal.
“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,” said the EU Mission’s 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.”
Whilst Mnangagwa has decided to ignore the international community's ruling on the elections what he cannot ignore is the economic consequences of the rig elections. By rigging the elections he confirmed that Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by vote rigging thugs. Investors have shied away from the country and hence the country's worsening economic meltdown.
Zimbabwe's shortages of fuel, food, medicine, cash, forex, etc. are not going away; indeed they are set to get worse.
Zimbabwe's economic situation is socially, morally and politically unsustainable. The nation is sitting on a ticking time bomb and the nation can ignore it at its own peril.
The only realistic solution is for Zanu PF to step down, the regime rigged the elections, it is illegitimate. The international community can help us out of this mess but will never do so whilst we remain a pariah state!
“We are not doing this for the love of power, but we are being pushed by the power of love,” said Nelson Chamisa
ReplyDeleteYeah right! Was it the same power of love that drove you and your colleagues to contest the elections with no reforms in place contrary to all the advice and warnings not too? Senator David Coltart has been one of the few MDC leaders who have openly admitted that MDC leaders have repeatedly failed to do the obvious thing - boycott elections because of 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,” explained Senator Coltart.
“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.”
You want dialogue with Mnangagwa to discuss what? You lot had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and you failed to get even one reform implemented. The only way out of this mess is for Zanu PF to step down; the nation and the world at large is sick and tired of having to deal with illegitimate regimes.