Mnangagwa is illegitimate and therefore cannot preside over national dialogue W Mukori

Mnangagwa’s tweet calling for national dialogue was disappointing in that he came across as arrogant, dictating to everyone and yet still with no clue what is at issue here.  

The people of Zimbabwe have suffered a great deal in the last 38 years and the last thing the nation want is to be sold yet another fudge. It must be said here and now that any talks leading to a GNU in which either Zanu PF and/or MDC will play a role will be a betrayal of the nation and a waste of the nation’s time and resources. The two parties were involved in the 2008 GNU and they failed to get even one democratic reform implemented, it is foolish to expect them to do any better this time. 

"I invite leaders of all political parties as well as religious and civil leaders to set aside our differences and come together," twittered  Mnangagwa.

"What unites us is stronger than what could ever divide us. Let's begin a national dialogue. Let's put the economy first. Let's put the people.”

Let us just focus on two issue in the statement:

1. Who is this Mnangagwa “inviting” others to a national dialogue! The man rigged the last elections, has no mandate to govern and for the last six months has been masquerading as the legitimate government only because he controls the compromised security services and all the other equally compromised state institutions. He is holding the nation to ransom and the more reason he will never be entrusted with any power and authority. He cannot be trusted to do anything right! 
2. “Let’s put the economy first!” Even now, with his hands bright red with the blood of more innocent Zimbabwean lives he and his regime have killed, he still has the arrogance to dictate the agenda to the nation. The only issue on the national agenda now is how to deal with the curse of rigged elections and pariah state; decisively once and once for all. 

“Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things shall be added unto you,” said Ghana’s first President Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He was right; for the last 38 years we have pretended not to notice that Zanu PF eroded the individual freedoms and rights, denying people their right to a meaningful say in who governed the country and even the right to life. The nation has paid dearly for this folly. We must now end the Zanu PF dictatorship and restore all the individual freedoms and rights. 

Zanu PF rigged the last elections and the party has no democratic mandate to govern. It is illegitimate and therefore must step down.

It is nonsense that an illegitimate regime should be granted an role in the nation’s affairs much less preside over us. “Mubva ndiripo haagove nhaka!” (The illegitimate usurper has no say in the sharing of family inheritance!) as one would say in Shona.

 Just to underline why the nation would be foolish to take this Zanu PF dictatorship seriously; it now emerges Mnangagwa has changed his mind about holding a national dialogue.

"Just when we were in there the President was drawing me to an attempt as it were putting words in his mouth using his twitter account. So do not always believe that which is coming through that account,” said George Charamba, Mnangagwa’s spokesperson.  

So Mnangagwa is now saying he never called for a national dialogue. Even if he had done so only the green-horns of political had placed much value to the foolish statement anywhere for the reasons given above. Perhaps it is dawning on him that, other than the corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders desperate for a seat on the gravy train and a few naive and gullible civic society groups, no one of substance was going to accept his “economy first” agenda. His legitimacy is now top of the agenda and the fresh blood on his hands has only served to highlight why this is so. 

Even if he is to come out now and call for dialogue only fools would trust him to behave honourably because he is a season thug who has never kept his promise on anything! He promised to hold free, fair and credible elections only to blatant rig the elections.

What Mnangagwa must understand here and now is that the game is up, after 38 years of rigging elections and being rewarded with absolute power, this is a political folly the nation should have never allowed and must now stamp out. Zanu PF has used brute force to hold the nation to ransom this is a situation that cannot be tolerated for one day longer, no nation worth its salt can allow itself to be blackmailed!

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta rigged the last elections, they have no mandate to govern and therefore they must step down. That is not negotiable!