Wednesday 6 February 2019

"Conditions for dialogue are NOT right" admitted Manyika , yet met ED - impose sanctions on sell-out P Guramatunhu


“Earlier today I received a letter signed by the Chief Secretary to the President and Cabinet, Dr Misheck Sibanda inviting me and the other candidates who participated in the 2018 election to a meeting with the President at Munhumutapa Offices on Thursday the 7th of February at 10:00 am to discuss “The Framework for Post Election Dialogue by Political Parties.” said Dr Noah Manyika.

“Let me state clearly and unequivocally that I don’t believe the president has created the right conditions for dialogue, something that is in his power to do. I will attend this meeting to hear if he is now prepared to do so and will only be prepared to join any continuing dialogue if this is clearly the case.”

Dr Manyika, please do not waste the our time with the usual foolish political apologies and posturing. You and your fellow opposition candidates who participated in last year’s elections are tripping over each other for a seat on the gravy train and that is all you have ever care about. 

In his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, former MDC Alliance Senator and Minister of Education in the GNU, David Coltart, admitted no one in the opposition should have participated in the 2013 elections because it was clear as day that Zanu PF was going to rig those elections. However he and his fellow travellers in the opposition did participated regardless 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, in the book.

“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.”

With not even one reform implemented since the last elections it was clear Zanu PF was going to rig the 2018 elections. This time, a number of the opposition parties had come together to form the MDC Alliance still there was no talk of boycotting the elections. 

Dr Manyika, Dr Nkosana Moyo and many others joined in the what one can only describe as the scrum for the scraps they knew Zanu PF would throw to entice them to participate. The opposition candidate did not even have the common sense to demand that ZEC release a verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement.

All the election observers from organisation and nations with any democratic election credentials have all dismissed last year’s elections as unfair and not to acceptable international standards. In short, Mnangagwa rigged the last elections, he has no mandate to rule. This Zanu PF regime is illegitimate!

Still, it is true that by participating, there were 23 presidential candidates alone, Zimbabwe opposition are “giving the process credibility!” In other words it is these foolish and greedy opposition candidates and parties who are giving some modicum of legitimacy to any otherwise illegitimate Mnangagwa regime.

The over the top crackdown by Zimbabwe’s security forces last month in which hundreds of thousands of ordinary people were beaten or raped, thousands arrested and 12 shot dead has the illegitimate Mnangagwa regime under the spotlight. There is an AU summit coming up and the regime is desperate to show the world it is engaging all Zimbabweans stakeholders in a national dialogue. 

This is just nonsense! Zanu PF has repeatedly rigged elections and used brute violence to impose themselves on the nation. In November 2017 Mnangagwa and his junta friends forced Mugabe to resign at gun point. 

This is Zanu PF modus operandi, the party will negotiate on its terms, Mnangagwa wants to be recognised as the legitimately elected head of state, for example. And, just to be absolutely certain regime’s claim to power is never ever threatened, the party is holding the gun to the nation’s head. The 1st August 2018 and last month’s barbarism were all a timely reminder of what the regime will do to retain its iron grip on power. 

No nation worth its salt would ever allow itself to be held to ransom especially after 38 years of appeasing the same thugs with disastrous consequences we can see all round us. However, Mnangagwa knows that there will be no shortage of participants to his proposed gun-point national dialogue as long as he offers a few gravy train seats. 

What Zimbabwe needs, and has been dying for decades, is for the country to implement the democratic reforms as agreed at the on set of the 2008 GNU and lay a solid foundation for a democratic Zimbabwe in which the freedoms and rights of all including the right to free elections and right to life itself are guaranteed. 

Sadly, it is not just Mnangagwa and his junta who are holding the nation to ransom; the junta is being helped private individuals like Professor Mthuli Ncube and the opposition are ignoring the political reality that Mnangagwa rigged the elections for their own selfish gains. 

The British Parliamentary Committee of Zimbabwe met to review the UK’s policies on Zimbabwe in light of the rigged July 2018 elections, the brutal violence by the Zimbabwe security services of 1st August and last month. One of the many positive recommendations to the Committee was that the British government should review the targeted sanctions on Zanu PF leaders with the view making them tougher. Great idea!

The likes of Professor Mthuli Ncube, Kirsty Coventry, the 24 President Advisory Council members, opposition leaders like Chamisa and Manyika, etc. who all continued to frustrate efforts to pressure Zanu PF to step down must all be added to the revised  sanctions list. These individuals know Mnangagwa is illegitimate but as long as it helps them gratify their own insatiable greed for power and influence, they continue to prop it up. Imposing sanctions on them will send a clear message that they cannot a continue to hunt with the hounds and run with the hare.

If Zanu PF remains in office till 2023, we can be certain of one thing - the regime will rig those elections too. This is why Zanu PF must be forced to step down a.s.a.p. After 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule, the nation needs the time and space to implement the democratic reforms.

Nothing of any substance can ever be accomplished until Zimbabwe is cured of the curse of rigged elections and pariah state. We need to step up the pressure on Mnangagwa,  his apologists and those profiting from the regime’s continued rule that the regime is illegitimate and must step down.

6 comments:

  1. The most important thing Mnangagwa said here is that the elections were free, fair and credible and he is the legitimate winner. This is just nonsense because we all know the elections were flawed and illegal. ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters' roll for Pete's sake.

    Zanu PF has blatantly rigged elections in the past hence the reason why the nation is in this mess. To get out of the mess, we must deal with this curse of rigged elections and pariah state.

    Mnangagwa rigged last year's elections, he is illegitimate and must step down, period!

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  2. President Emmerson Mnangagwa is not at ease with the coming SADC and AU Head of States Summit that might discuss the recent developments in Zimbabwe after South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa dispatched a high level delegation to meet ZANU PF leadership recently.

    A source from the Office of the President and Cabinet said while the delegation from the African National Congress issued public statement in support of ZANU PF they had a no holds barred behind the scenes confrontation with the leadership regarding the police and army crackdown.

    The economic situation in Zimbabwe has reached such a sorry state that no amount of Police and Army brutality is ever going to force the people to suffer and die in silence like sheep in a slaughter house. Zimbabweans are going to confront this Zanu PF regime and demand meaningful political change and, no doubt, the regime will respond with the usual brutality. There will be more blood shed before there is any meaningful change.

    The real tragedy here is the situation could have been easily avoided if SADC and AU leaders had taken a firm stand against Zanu PF and stopped the blatant vote rigging!

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  3. The late Bernard Chidzero, Zimbabwe's second Minister of Finance after independence, had a grasp of basic economic principles, had common sense, had humility and most important of all had empathy for the ordinary men.

    Our present Minister projects the imagine of one who would have taught Chidzero a thing or two in economic but that is about all that one can say about our Professor Ncube. If he had common sense he would have never hired the 787-8 Dreamliner Jet cost $74 000 an hour to go on a 10 day begging jaunt!

    He has no empathy for the long suffering Zimbabweans living of US$1.00 a day; way, way below the US$650 per month poverty datum line. His 2% tax on all electronic financial transactions if to squeeze money from the vendors living on US$1.00 or less a day. Meanwhile he has not lifted a finger to stop those looting diamonds and other resources and costing the nation as much as $2 billion a month!

    As for common sense, our Professor Minister has none. He has completely failed to grasp the obvious reality that Zimbabwe's pathetic economic performance of the last 38 years was not due to his successors' failure to have sound economic policies alone but rather to the dysfunctional political system, the de facto one-party dictatorship, which imposed voodoo - economic policies on the nation. To therefore blubber on and on about his so called Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) as the vehicle to deliver Vision 2030 economic prosperity whilst ignoring the reality of the dysfunctional political system it is supposed to operate in is nonsense.

    Professor Ncube’s common sense, like that of Kirsty Coventry, the 24 President Advisory Council members, etc., has been stifled by his Zeppelin Airship size ego and insatiable greed for power and influence. When Mnangagwa dangled the ministerial appointment before Ncube he was completely hypnotised and could not resist.

    I totally agree with those arguing the people like Professor Ncube should be added to those on the targeted sanctions, they are no different from the hardline Zanu PF members who are on the list in that they are all propping the corrupt and tyrannical regime for their own selfish gratification regardless of the suffering and deaths the regime is bringing to the common people.

    Our Professor Know-It-All Ncube refuse acknowledge that Zimbabweans have endured as best as the can a lot of pain and many have lost their very lives these last 38 years and yet the nation has not prospered but grown poorer instead. “No prosperity without pain!” As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be a lot of pain poverty and more pain!

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  4. “We as politicians are the trouble makers. We are responsible for the agony of our nation. I am ready any moment to meet Mnangagwa to resolve issues affecting Zimbabwe, any delay is a life lost,” said Chamisa.
    Chamisa you are right in so far as admitting that your politicians are the “trouble makers”. The curse for Zimbabwe is that the nation has been stuck with you lot for decades because we do not have a healthy and functional political system that has allowed the nation to get rid of the corrupt and incompetent politicians even when there is a mountain of evidence to prove just how utterly useless the politicians are!
    Zanu PF thugs have been in power 38 years and counting and have dragged the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth. They have eroded the ordinary people’s freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life itself. Zanu PF thugs have rigged elections to secure their iron grip on power. The nation has been stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical regime for 38 years with the tragic economic and political consequences we see today.
    There have been many golden opportunities to end Zanu PF’s corrupt and tyrannical rule but most of these fell to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who have wasted them all. MDC has been on the Zimbabwe political stage for the last 19 years but have nothing to show for it.
    The best course of action for Zimbabwe is for the illegitimate Zanu PF regime, it rigged last year’s elections, to step down. This will create the political space the nation needs to appoint an interim administration that will implement democratic reforms leading to free, fair and credible elections.
    The corrupt and incompetent MDC Alliance must just step aside. “I am ready any moment to meet Mnangagwa to resolve issues affecting Zimbabwe, any delay is a life lost,” said Chamisa. He and his MDC colleagues failed to implement even one reform in five years during the last GNU; it will be foolish to trust them to do it this time. All Chamisa and his friends are dying for is to be back on the gravy train again!

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  5. A British parliamentarian has dismissed utterances made by the Zimbabwe Defence Forces that the 17 protestors who were killed during the January riots were shot by civilians who stole army and police uniforms.

    United Kingdom Member of Parliament and the chair of Britain’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe, Kate Hoey said those claims are ‘nonsense’.

    MP Hoey is right, it is nonsense coming from a regime that has been lying for so long and getting away with it; the regime no believes it can say anything and people will believe it. The biggest lie at present is that last year’s elections were free and fair and that Zanu PF is the legitimate government.

    Mnangagwa and his junta are illegitimate and they must step down. All this talk of dialogue with an illegitimate regime is a nonsense.

    Zanu PF is using brute force to cow the populous into submission this is holding the nation to ransom pure and simple and we must denounce is and resist it!

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  6. ZEC has failed to produce a verified voters' roll, failed to make public a number of V11 forms, etc. these are all serious issues that have made it impossible to consider the elections free, fair and credible.

    What is surprising here is that MDC Alliance are now using the short comings to justify their own claim that Chamisa won the presidential elections. This is nonsense because ZEC did not run two different elections. The failure to produce a verified voters roll, failure to release V11 forms, etc. affected Zanu PF candidates and opposition candidates alike. Chamisa claims that he got 2.5 million votes and yet failed to attach all the V11 forms to show were the figure came from.

    People have rightly rejected Mnangagwa's claim to be the winner because no one could trace and verify the ZEC tally. By the same token we must reject Chamisa's tally because we cannot verify and trace his tally either.

    Chamisa's position that the elections were rigged because he lost but are free and fair if he is declared the winner is a nonsensical one. Elections must be condemn if the process is flawed and illegal, which is what happened, and not on the basis of who won.

    Chamisa's stance underlines why he and his MDC friends must not be allowed to play an meaningful role going forward. They cannot be trusted to implement the democratic reforms because they not implement any if they think they will win the elections regardless which is certainly one of the reasons why they failed to implement even one reform during the 2008 GNU.

    Reforms must be implemented to stop Zimbabwe slipping back into the same trap of rigged elections not only next elections but for generations to come!

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