"West is one demanding regime change" - actually it is povo P Guramatunhu

"Over the years, the US-backed and Western-sponsored opposition politics in our country has been in many ways a replay of Washington's mindless games that started soon after the declaration of the American Century at the end of the Second World War," wrote Reason Wafawarova, in Bulawayo 24. 

"There is nothing new in the sponsorship of client political parties, and the regime change doctrine was actually overplayed in Latin America during the peak of the Cold War."

Tell me:

1.           Why are you condemning everything the west have done but either praise or say nothing about what the east has done? China, for example, has prop up the Zanu PF dictatorship and has never raised a finger to condemn Zanu PF for rigging elections, beating and murdering people. Have you ever heard China condemn Zanu PF for the 1st August 2018 or January 2019 shoot to kill order not even the Gukurahundi mass massacre! 

2.           Has it ever occurred to you that the ordinary Zimbabweans are the ones behind the fight for free, fair and credible elections? Has it ever occurred to you that Zanu PF is denying the people this fundamental right under the pretext that it is the west and not povo who want this right. 

3.           Do you really believe all Zimbabwe are so stupid and naïve that they failed to see that Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and if the EU, the Commonwealth and other outsiders had not pointed out the glaring flaws and illegalities in the process not even one Zimbabwean would have noticed. How insulting!

The fight for free, fair and credible elections is the one fight that will be fought until it is won; there is no retreat and no surrender. Regime change is as certain as a ripe mango falling; the only thing to be established now is when and how. 

By rigging the elections Zanu PF has rejected peaceful democratic regime change and, necessarily, opting for violent revolutionary change. The country’s worsening economic situation is going to force people to out coming and demand regime change regardless of the certainty the regime will beat, rape and shoot to kill all those who dare voice their dissent. 

US praise ED "for working towards reform" - next thing, demand lifting of sanctions N Garikai

"This Government has been working towards reform. I have been impressed and I have always said so . . . I know that the Cabinet has approved the principles for the repeal of Posa (Public Order and Security Act) and has been discussing repeal of AIPPA (Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act) and those are all very positive things," said USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Brian Nichols.

There has been no meaningful progress to talk about here. “Working towards reform” is about as vague as one can put it! If Ambassador Nichols is hoping that by praising the regime for doing nothing he will encourage it to do something, he is in for a big disappointment. The regime will no doubt be asking the Americans for sanctions to be lifted and generous lines of credit, its reward for “working towards reforms”!

Zanu PF will drag its feet on implementing the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible election. Its aim is to run down the clock to 2023 elections so the party can rig those elections and extend its stay in power.

The only sure way to get all the democratic reforms implemented to guarantee free, fair and credible elections in 2023 is to force Zanu PF to step down. The party has no democratic mandate to govern because it rigged last July’s elections.

 We are after a solution to end Zimbabwe's nightmare and not a gimmick. Praising Zanu PF  for doing nothing is a gimmick!

"ED and Chamisa have stake in 2018 election" - povo are THE stakeholders N Garikai

At the heart of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown; which has send unemployment rate soaring to dizzying height of 90%, left 3/4 of the population living in abject poverty, etc.; is the decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions. At the heart of the decades of corrupt and tyrannical misrule is the Zanu PF dictatorship. 

The nation has had many golden opportunities, notably during the 2008 to 2013 GNU, to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but they have all been wasted. The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into power on the promise they will deliver the democratic changes necessary to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. After nearly two decades on the political centre stage, MDC leaders have failed to bring about even one democratic change. They are a corrupt, incompetent and confused lot! 

“For (inter-party) dialogue to take place, the convenor must be neutral and must be seen to be neutral. What is at stake is a conflict mainly between Mnangagwa and President Adv Nelson Chamisa. As a consequence, conflict transcends to the supporters of the MDC and Zanu PF,” wrote Jacob Mafume, MDC Alliance spokesman.

“It was clear from the ZEC processes that the numbers kept changing. Observer missions made the point that results were unverifiable and untraceable.

“What concerns the MDC is that illegitimacy issues around Mnangagwa are holding the country back.

“The people of Zimbabwe are suffering, the wheels are coming off on the economy, social service delivery is abandoned and lives of citizens are being unnecessarily lost in hospitals that have been turned into death traps.”

MDC Alliance leaders are a confused lot alright and their confusion is mudding the political waters making it hard for the nation to see the way forward out of the mess. There a number of points Nelson Chamisa and his MDC Alliance are failing to grasp:

1.           first and foremost, national elections are, as the name implies, national matters going beyond the individual contestants and their respective political parties and supporters. Last year’s election process had so many flaws and illegalities it is clear that many ordinary Zimbabwean voters were denied a meaningful free, fair and credible vote. A flawed and illegal election process cannot produce a legitimate result and so neither Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF nor Chamisa and his MDC Alliance can ever claim to have the people’s mandate to govern. 

2.           It is not a matter of last year’s elections failed to produce a clear winner but, worse than that, it failed to produce a legitimate winner and loser. Whilst the former is easily resolved by formation of a coalition or a minority government. In the latter case none of the contestant have any legal basis to claim power. 

3.           Whilst everyone would agree to the need for dialogue to chart the way out of the constitutional dead-end the country finds itself in as a result of the rigged July 2018 elections. Still, only some one who is politically naive would accept those responsible for the rigged elections and thus landing the nation into the mess playing a role, much less a leading role, in the proposed dialogue. Both Zanu PF and MDC landed us in this mess and they must play no part, especially since they failed to deliver any meaningful reforms last time the nation had a similar political impasse in 2008.

4.           Sure enough, Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown causing untold human suffering and deaths in Zimbabwe. However there will be no meaningful economic recovery as long as the country remains a pariah state ruled by vote rigging thugs. It is very presumptuous of MDC to think they can wave away Mnangagwa’s illegitimacy problems and fool the world into believing Chamisa’s inclusion in the Zanu PF regime transformed the pariah state into a democratic one. Everyone remembers how utterly useless MDC was in the last GNU and know this is one leopard that will never lose its spots. The economic situation in Zimbabwe demands a solution to the country’s political and economic mess and not a gimmick!

      

“Mnangagwa stands to benefit from genuine dialogue. Sadly, he has chosen to be the sole impediment to its convening. He has no right or authority to declare how dialogue should happen, pretending to be conducting dialogue to save face,” concluded Mafume. 

I give you 5% for that! For 100%, the conclusion should simply state “Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies and Chamisa and his MDC Alliance sell-outs have no right or authority to declare how dialogue should happen, pretending they have anything of value to offer when it is them who dragged us into this hell-hole in the first place!”

9 Zimbabweans burnt alive in Ramaphosa incited xenophobia W Mukori

"Everybody just arrives in our townships and rural areas and set up business without licences and permits. We are going to bring this to an end! And those who are operating illegally must now know," warned SA President Cyril Ramaphosa.

Within hours of him saying this there was widespread xenophobia violence on black foreigners in SA. In Cape Town a family of 9 Zimbabweans were burnt alive in one such attack. 7 dead and two children were admitted to hospital with life-threatening burns. 

At the heart of Zimbabwe's economic meltdown and political paralysis is decades of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. Millions of Zimbabweans are in South Africa as economic or political refugees or both. The solution to Zimbabwe's economic and political mess is for the country to hold free, fair and credible elections. 

President Emmerson Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections in 2018 but failed to keep his promised. Most election observers include the EU, the Commonwealth and many others condemned the elections. 

“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,” said the EU Election Observer Mission final report.

SADC and AU observers confined themselves to praising how "peaceful the elections had been compared to past elections". They did not dare to say anything about anything else. 

Of all the SADC leaders President Ramaphosa is the only one who said the elections were fine! 

Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is worse now than it was before the elections. By rigging the elections Mnangagwa confirmed Zimbabwe was still the same pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. Why President Ramaphosa gave his stamp of approval of Zimbabwe's rigged elections beggars belief. 

By approving Zimbabwe's rigged elections President Ramaphosa has only helped postpone Zimbabwe's economic recovery and thus generate more economic and political refugees, the same refugees he will be pleased to hear are being burnt alive! 

At a time when Zimbabwe desperately needed SADC to help it got out of the hell-on-earth Mugabe and Mnangagwa landed the nation into the last time we wanted is a mediocre leader like Ramaphosa in SA. 

I pity my South African brothers and sisters, Cyril Ramaphosa will not a blessing but a curse to your beautiful nation!

MDC cry foul over Zanu PF vote-buying - yet participating regardless P Guramatunhu

“MDC has cried foul over ZANU PF’s alleged vote-buying ahead of the Cowdray Park local government by-election slated for this Saturday,” reported Daily News.

“This comes when Vice President Kembo Mohadi donated 60 tonnes of maize and 30 tonnes of rice to Cowdray Park residents at a rally last week.

“How can a party just want to give the people of Cowdray Park all that food because there is an election?… We strongly condemn this kind of behaviour by Zanu PF; its clear President (Emmerson) Mnangagwa has not broken with Mugabe’s past,” said Felix Mafa, MDC leader.”

There is no denying that this is blatant vote-buying and MDC are right in condemning it. But, it is a big BUT, it must be said here and now that there is condemning something and meaning it and then there is paying lip-service. One gets the feeling that MDC’s condemnation is just lip-service which is why Zanu PF ignores it!

Zanu PF has long since realised that as long as it offers MDC leaders a few gravy train seats they will forget the call for free, fair and credible elections and participate in the elections no matter how flawed and illegal the process happen to be.

“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 (2013) elections,” confessed Senator David Coltart, MDC leader and Minister in 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.”

The failure to unify the MDC factions was just a feeble excuse to justify MDC’s greed in participating in the 2013 elections. A number of the factions did come together before the 2018 elections and yet they all still participated regardless of all the evidence the elections were just as flawed and illegal as the past elections. ZEC failed to release something as basic as a verified voters’ roll for Pete’s sake and still MDC and the rest of the opposition camp participated regardless.  

It was former USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, who described Morgan Tsvangirai as a “flawed figure” who was “not readily open to advice, indecisive and questionable judgement in selecting those around him,” according to Wikileak report.

“He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power.”

The nearest that the opposition has ever got to power was when they were partners in the 2008 GNU, they sold-out and failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. The opposition’s willingness to participate in flawed and illegal elections has allowed Zanu PF to resist pressure to hold free, fair and credible elections and thus the opposition has become the albatross round the nation’s neck as Ambassador Dell had rightly predicted.

The one reform inter-party dialogue Mnangagwa is hosting will implement is one creating the post of “leader of the opposition” and a number of “shadow cabinet” positions. The positions will be entitled to the generous cabinet salary, limos, etc. Mnangagwa has already set up an inter-ministerial body to do this, just in case the proposed inter-party dialogue does not take place. He is making the gravy train bait even more irresistible!

“Mnangagwa has not broken with Mugabe’s past!” as if he did not know it MDC was giving the flawed and illegal elections the modicum of credibility by participating in the flawed and illegal election process. What a hypocrite!

Zimbabwe is in a real serious economic and political mess because the nation has been stuck with this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for the last 38 years and counting.

The dictatorship should have been dismantled a long time ago was it not for the mistake of the nation entrusting this important task to corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders. Mugabe and Zanu PF bribed them and they failed to get even one reform implemented. And, worse still, they are now so obsessed about gravy train goodies they will never ever get even one reform implemented even if there was to be another GNU.

“NeMDC, takatuma bête kumukaka!” (In entrusting MDC to implement the reforms, we had sent the cockroach to fetch milk!) as one would say in Shona.

To get out of the economic and political mess, need to appoint an interim administration that can be trusted implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections and guarantee free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF must be pressured to step down to create the space for the interim administration. 

UN to feed 1.5 destitute urbanites - victims of Ncube's crooked tax N Garikai

“THE World Food Programme (WFP) says over 1,5 million Zimbabweans in the urban areas will be food insecure this year as the country continues to suffer the effects of the economic downturn and a crippling El Niño-induced drought,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“Worsened by high levels of unemployment that have over the years breached 98%, Zimbabwe's urbanites will require urgent food aid after the end of the traditional lean season, WFP country representative Eddie Rowe said.

"Quite rightly what we are seeing is urban poverty. This is because of high unemployment and lack of social services. All this has a direct impact on the ability of a household to get food," Rowe said in an interview this week.

The UN agency has already piloted a food assistance programme in Epworth, one of the country's poorest high-density settlements, feeding over 20 000 residents.

"While we are moving into assistance, it is part of a comprehensive intervention to address urban poverty. So what we have decided is to do a pilot in Epworth where we are now providing a livelihood accretion of about US$9 per person to almost 20 000 residents," Rowe said.

WFP should know that the 98% unemployed were specifically targeted by Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube with his 2% electronic transaction charge because they were not paying income tax. Most of the unemployed urbanites are vendors living on US$ 30 per month or less and the Minister wanted a cut of their meagre earnings. 

Minister Ncube has, so far at least, not touch the filthy rich ruling elite who are looting the nation blind to build their palatial mansions, to buy their fleet of posh cars and to finance their extravagant lifestyles. The 2% tax has provided the additional income only to pay for hired private jets and more luxuries for the ruling elite. 

If any of the growing army of Zimbabweans living in abject poverty should ever think of going on the street to voice their poverty induced suffering and deaths; Zanu PF will descend on them like a tonne of bricks. The message Zanu PF has send out, with the state security services’ wanton violence including the order of shoot to kill following the 1st August 2018 election protest and the two weeks of fuel increase protest in January 2019, is that the regime will not tolerate dissent. 

Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and the party is doing as it pleases. 

If the people of Zimbabwe are serious about ending their economic suffering and about living a free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe; they must break the vicious cycle that has alone Zanu PF to rig elections to extend its rule for the last 38 years and counting. Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections, the party has no mandate to govern, and must be forced to step down as the only sure way of finally ending the party’s tyrannical rule. 

Zanu PF must step down to create the political space to allow the appointment of an interim administration tasked to implement the democratic reforms designed to stop the vote rigging.

If Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are allowed to remain in power till 2023, then the party will rig those elections too and thus extend its rule by yet another five years. That must not be allowed to happen!

MDC condemns ED's "infantile love for flying" - but only out of envy P Guramatunhu

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) accused Mnangagwa of having an "infantile and embarrassing love of flying.”

Well if the truth is to be told Zimbabwe’s leaders’ love of the gravy train extravagant lifestyle is insatiable and is so infections anyone in any position of power and authority has the bug! It is all very well for Jacob Mafume to be blubbering about about Mnangagwa’s “infantile and embarrassing love of flying” and yet during the 2008 to 2013 GNU his party said nothing because all the MDC leaders had their snouts in the feeding trough. Indeed, they were so engrossed in the gravy train spoils of power they failed to implement even one democratic reform!

Last year’s elections should have never taken place, not without first implementing the democratic reform necessary to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Zanu PF was cunning enough to offer a few gravy train seats and all the goodies that go with it as bait. The opposition candidates were tripping over each other to join the rat race. 

Even when it was evident that Zanu PF had failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, it was not going to force the glassy-eyed opposition from contesting.  Greed had everyone in the opposition camp like fleas in a chicken coop.

“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 in his book The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe.

“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.”

David Coltart was a senior MDC-N leader and Minister in the 2008 to 2013 GNU. The flawed and illegal election process he was talking about was for the 2013 elections. It was greed that stopped him and his fellow opposition members from doing “the obvious”. 

Instead of admitting that it was greed that drove the opposition to go for the gravy train scraps Zanu PF was offering at the expense of the all important national goal of free, fair and credible elections; he offered a feeble excuse. Blaming lack of unity and mistrust for their insatiable greed!

Indeed, the MDC factions did unite just before the 2018 elections and there was no talk of boycotting the elections then. It was as clear as day that Zanu PF was going to blatantly rig the 2018 elections as the party had rigged the 2013 elections. 

Many MDC members had lost their gravy train seats in the 2013 elections and the intervening five years had turned their glassy-eyes into flaring match-sticks. Nothing, absolutely nothing, was ever going to stop them participating in the 2018 elections regardless how flawed and illegal! And lo-behold, nothing did!

The MDC's Harare East MP Tendai Biti said on Twitter: "The usurper declares two days of mourning. Our people did not require mourning, they required effective disaster management. They required schools to be closed and communities evacuated. This did not happen. Then the usurper has the indecency of running away during mourning.”

Yes oh wise one but why are you so keen in bolting the stable when the horse has already bolted. Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs would not be in power today if you and your MDC friends had implemented the reforms designed to stop the regime rigging the elections. 

Indeed the country would have made significant progress in forcing Mnangagwa and his junta to step down since last year’s rigged elections was it not for MDC confusing the issue with this stupid claim that Chamisa won the presidential race. Of course, it is a stupid claim because everyone with half a brain agrees the election process was flawed and illegal and therefore it is nonsense for such a process to produce a legal result.

The only reason Chamisa has refused to give up this totally irrational claim is greed. He does not care that 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote (37%, give there were 5 million registered voters), there was no verified voters' roll, etc. as long as he secured a gravy train seat. 

Every time MDC leaders read of Zanu PF leaders' extravagant lifestyle their blood boils with envy. They only condemn the extravagance to please the naive and gullible electorate who have failed to notice MDC leaders' greed even after the events of the GNU years!  

So instead of advising Mnangagwa and his corrupt and incompetent ministers at every turn, especially when we all know they never listen to anyone anyway; Tendai Biti should do something useful for a change - shut up. 

The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders like David Coltart, Tendai Biti, Nelson Chamisa, etc. into power on the understanding they will bring about the democratic changes the nation has been dying for. After 19 years on the political stage MDC leaders have failed to bring about even one meaningful democratic change. Not one! 

Whilst MDC leaders were once seen as part of the solution they are now part of the problem; they are corrupt and incompetent just as Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical.

The solution to Zimbabwe’s problem of 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF is that the party must step down. It rigged last year’s elections and therefore has no mandate to govern. As for Chamisa and his MDC Alliance; they should shut up; they are corrupt and incompetent and make a lot of noise!

"ED presidency expires 2020" says coup plotter - this time, earn hangman's rope W Mukori

A Spotlight Zimbabwe’s report suggesting that Zimbabwe’s military are plotting to remove Mnangagwa should be taken very seriously. There is no doubt the junta can see that Mnangagwa’s grip on power is slipping and they are under pressure themselves to get someone else with a firmer grip. They staged the November 2017 coup and got away with it; they believe they can do it again. They feel lucky!  

”Mnangagwa’s days in office are now numbered," wrote Spotlight Zimbabwe, quoting a military attache. "Most Zimbabweans are not aware that Mnangagwa's tenure as president was discussed before the November coup that toppled Mugabe. 

“An elite delegation of military officers travelling with Chiwenga met with Chinese generals, who were told that the current leader will be in power for no more than three years. Our military sees him (Mnangagwa) as a stopgap measure for stability, and he is just but a figurehead with no real power. His presidency expires in 2020, and we are going to see a retired general taking over soon to finish his term, like what Mnangagwa did to Mugabe. 

“The military general coming in will then lay the ground for a civilian leader agreed upon by the Joint Operations Command (JOC). They already have four former ministers’ names who served under Mugabe in mind. This is the shock you people can't see coming.”

According to Spotlight Zimbabwe, “intelligence information at hand also suggests that the army is reportedly not happy with Mnangagwa's failure to fix the economy and that he has allegedly been signing off the country's mineral resources and land assets for a song without their approval.”

The very fact that these military thugs expected Mnangagwa to revive the Zimbabwe economy after the November 2017 military coup proves just how naive these thugs are! 

The confidence with which Mnangagwa launched his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra soon after the November 2017 coup left no one in any doubt that Mnangagwa and all those around him were 100% cocksure he would revive Zimbabwe’s economy. The team expected a flood of investors to answer his call. 

Investors had shied away from doing business in Zimbabwe for decades because the country had earned a reputation as a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. Therefore to attract investors back into the country it was clearly it was not enough to remove the old dictator Mugabe; Mnangagwa and his supporters were warned of this but would not listen. 

The coup in November 2017 was above all about wrestling power from Mugabe who was threatening to hand it over to his wife and making sure power remained in the hands of the JOC junta. There was no way the JOC was going to risk life and limb in staging the coup and then lose power in free, fair and credible elections 8 months latter. The junta had no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections in 2018. None!

But by blatantly rigging last year’s elections, Mnangagwa et al confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state and all hope of any meaningful economic recovery evaporated.

Mnangagwa is a ruthless thug and there is absolutely nothing in his whole life to suggest the man had any common sense. The very fact that his November 2017 coup partners are disappointed he has failed to fix the economy only goes to show just how naive they are to have expected him to accomplish such a feat!

So now the same naive army personal are planning to replace Mnangagwa with a retired general in 2020 who will in turn be replaced by civilian in 2023. No doubt these army thugs are confident their political appointees will each make sure Zanu PF’s grip on power will remain unshaken and still deliver the elusive economic revival, Mnangagwa had failed. How naive! 

For the umpteenth time, as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs the country’s economic meltdown will only get worse!

There is growing national and international pressure to force this Mnangagwa Zanu PF regime to step down because everyone knows the party rigged last July’s elections. 

“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,” stated the EU Election Observer Mission final report. 

The country’s worsen economic situation is helping to pile on the pressure for Zanu PF to step down. 

Indeed, those in the army thugs are talking of another coup precisely because they can see that Mnangagwa’s hold on power is slipping the worse economic situation gets. The army thugs are naive to believe their political appointee will do any better nor would he/she have time to prove otherwise. 

Zimbabwe’s military thugs got away with the November 2017 military coup because the world was desperate to see the back of Mugabe; the world will not look so kindly to yet another coup particularly since the last coup failed to end the country’s curse of rigged elections and pariah state. Even leaders like President Cyril Ramaphosa of SA who have been bending over backward to give this Zanu PF regime some modicum of credibility by pretending last elections were free, fair and credible, would find it impossible to keep up the pretence!

The truth is Mnangagwa and his November 2017 putsch have failed to get away with that coup because they failed to stop the economic decline. “It is the economy, stupid!” as former US President Bill Clinton would say, that floored JOC junta. Staging a second coup would earn the coup plotters a hangman’s rope!

It never rains but pours; to 38 years of bad governance add drought, Idai and now savage power cuts N Garikai

ELECTRICITY power generation at Lake Kariba has been cut due to falling water levels in the dam," reported Bulawayo 24. 

"In a statement, the Zambezi River Authority said water allocation for power generation at Kariba North and South would be reduced from the current 1 476mW to 890mW.

"Lake Kariba is currently five metres above the Minimum Operating Level when it should be eight at this time of the year."

It never rains but pours! The country has been hit by the drought, then Cyclone Idai and now reduced power generation because of water shortage. These natural disasters are unpleasant enough no matter who you are but they are felt even more by those with no reserves to fall back on. 

Ever since the seizure of the white owned farms in 2000 Zimbabwe has fallen off its parch as the breadbasket of the region. The country used to produce enough food to feed its own people with plenty left to feed others in the region. The country also earned billions of dollars from selling cash crops like tobacco and cut flowers. The country’s agricultural sector collapsed when Mugabe seized the farms, mostly for himself and his cronies.

Mnangagwa has poured billions of dollars to revive the agricultural sector with his ‘command agriculture’. It has been a failure because of corruption and mismanagement. 

The collapse agricultural sector took down with it the country’s economy leaving the country dependent on important food aid - so impoverish we could not even pay for it. 

We live in the day and age when human ingenuity has turned deserts in crop fields or orchards stretching from horizon to horizon all round. And yet we are starving in a country with idyllic weather and soil for growing crops and farming animals, the Garden of Eden. A damning testimonial to the sheer incompetence of the nation’s post independence leaders! 

Worse still, we, the people of Zimbabwe, have for the last 38 years and counting allowed these Zanu PF thugs to ride roughshod over our basic freedoms and rights and to destroy the nation’s economy. The drought has caught us with empty silos, for decades we have lived from hand to mouths topped up with imported food and aid.

Cyclone Idai has destroyed many schools, hospitals, homes, roads and even killed many people. The damage was much worse that it would have been where it not for the sorry state of our infrastructure. Decades of neglect have left many roads in our cities and towns full of potholes; how much worse the roads in the rural backwaters. 

Hundreds of thousands of people are homeless because their mud-brick homes collapsed. It is now 2 500 since the Romans invented cement and yet millions of our rural people still live in mud hut!

Ian Smith gave Mugabe detailed drawings of the Batoka Gorge Dam, another Kariba Dam, which would have double the hydro power generation capacity and a number of other power projects. 38 years latter, not one of these projects have been carried out. Many companies have closed sending unemployment to nauseating heights of 90%. The prospect of forcing the few companies still operating to shut down because of electrical power cuts due to reduce generation at Kariba Dam is sickening! 

It never rains but pours. For the last 38 years we have done little to end our man-made problems of criminal waste of the nation’s human and material resources through corruption, mismanagement and tyrannical oppression. So when such natural disaster as drought and cyclone Idai occur we are as helpless as a chicken caught in haul storm. 

The next eight months or so are going to be tough, real tough, and no doubt many more lives will be lost. What we must never ever forget is that the suffering and deaths could have been avoided if we had dealt with the country’s root problem of rigged elections and bad governance. 

Zanu PF has managed to stay in power all these last 38 years regardless of the regime’s clear track record of being corrupt and incompetent because the party rigged elections. Mnangagwa rigged last year’s elections just as the party has rigged past elections. 

Zanu PF does not have the mandate to govern and therefore must be pressured to step down. The prospect of another four more years of this corrupt and mediocre Zanu PF government is unthinkable. 

But worst of all; if Zanu PF is allowed to remain in office till the 2023 elections, we can be 100% certain that the party will rig the elections and extend its ruinous and tyrannical reign another five years. We will only have ourselves to blame if that happened!

"Wages up $570 from $441" government announced - liar, liar P Guramatunhu

“Government and civil servants yesterday sealed a salary accord after the employer improved its offer to the workers from $350 million to $400 million,” reported Zimeye.

“This will translate to a salary increment of $129 across board effective April 1. The lowest paid worker in grade B1 will now be getting $570 up from $441.”

Both government and Apex Council, the body that negotiated and signed the agreement on behave of the civil servants, are not being honest and truthful here. They are quoting the wages in dollars knowing fully well that in the past government has quoted the workers' wages in US$ but paid them in RTGS$, insisting the exchange rate was 1:1.

Ever since the RBZ governor’s February Monetary Policy Statement, government has since adopted the RTGS$ as the official government currency and adjusted the exchange rate to 2.5:1 and so the grade B1 worker who was paid RTGS$ 441 = US$441 before the policy statement will now be paid RTGS$ 570 (441 + 129 increment) in April 2019 or US$ 228.

So the worker has just taken nearly a 50% wage cut!

The rate of inflation has started to soar again and is currently 59%, up from 10% or so three months ago. The RTGS$ is certain to lose its value relative to the US$ and other foreign currency. This is bad news, in a country 70% dependent on imported goods and services.

Apex Council chairperson Mrs Cecelia Alexander said negotiations will continue until the welfare of civil servants improved.

“Though we have our demands which we want met, at least this is a sign of fruitful dialogue which has culminated into this agreement,” she said.

“As Apex Council we will continue negotiating with the employer and this agreement is subject to review in June. We have agreed that developments in the economy, whether positive or negative, will see the parties sitting on the table to dialogue.”

The poverty datum line for a single family worker in Zimbabwe is US$650 per month. Our grade B1 worker has just been dragged from US$441 per month to US$ 228 per month in just one swipe and those negotiating on his/her behave tell the worker it was a “fruitful dialogue”!

In the Africa 2017 Wealth Report by New World Wealth, Zimbabwe was considered the poorest nation in Africa. So we are in a league of our own and yet we are still frantically determined to sink to new depths of economic depravity and despair.

Last week senior doctors at Zimbabwe’s four referral hospitals gave government an ultimatum to address the shortages of bandages, medicine and other essentials or they will stop reporting for work. The situation is so bad that staff in burns-units, for example, have been forced to wash and use the same bandages! (The situation in the smaller provincial and district hospitals will be a lot worse, of course!)

Now the doctors, nurse and the rest of the health workers will be amused to hear that they are not only being asked to work in terrible conditions with no basic necessities but, worse still, their meagre salary will be cut by half with worse will follow!

Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess and this is all a man-made disaster. For the last 38 years Zimbabweans have watched whilst Zanu PF thugs dragged the country deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth. How long are we going to allow this madness to continue, is what I would want to know!

Pastor demand an end to "elitist dialogue" - confused, does not even know elections were rigged P Guramatunhu

Confusion reigns supreme in Zimbabwe.

Confusion is when one says this, the other says that and the third says something else which is neither this nor that in a matter as simple as 1 + 1 = 2.  

”The people that bear the brand of the crisis are chiefs and pastors, who are with the citizens in communities," said Motsi, a theologian and peace-building expert,” reported Bulawayo 24. 

“He added that traditional leaders and the church must come forward " … and say they are tired of politics and political parties; they want people to speak and be heard".

“Explaining the effects of an elitist dialogue, Motsi said the latest move by Mnangagwa cannot be separated from the Lancaster House talks in 1979. "What we have had in Zimbabwe so far are elites' meetings from the Lancaster House, agreement of Unity Accord to the Government of National Unity (GNU), it was never inclusive.

"It never included the people of Zimbabwe. There were people who went there on behalf of the citizens. That is not what we are talking about when we talk about the national dialogue," Motsi said.

The spirit is willing but the intellectual is weak and hence the confusion. 

Yes the Lancaster House constitution, the Zanu PF-PF Zapu Unity Accord, the 2008 to 2013 GNU, etc. have all failed to deliver the free, just and prosperous Zimbabwe we have all been dying for, literally too. But these initiative have failed not because the process that brought them about were not “inclusive”. 

There was a big song and dance about the 2013 constitution on how it was the people’s constitution because a lot of time, energy and treasure was poured into the outreach programmes. The programmes were supposed to give ordinary Zimbabweans a chance to say what they wanted to see in the new constitution. A foolish notion because how can someone with no clue what the constitution is, what was wrong with the Lancaster House constitution, etc. be expected to draft one. 

In the end the outreach programmes ended up as a theatrical farce with Zanu PF and MDC supporters drowning each other out with demands coming from the leaders. The parliamentary committee that drafted the new constitution completely ignored the wishes of the common people and the leaders themselves. 

“President Mugabe dictated the new 2013 constitution!” boasted Paul Mangwana, the Zanu PM and co-chair of the committee that drafted the document, soon after its approval in the March 2013 referendum. Of Course, Mangwana was right.

The new constitution has too failed to deliver the basic freedoms, human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life. The events of 1st August 2018 and the orgy of violence in January 2019 was a grime reminded that Zanu PF will not hesitate to beat, rape and even shoot to kill to impose its de facto one-party dictatorship. 

It was Thomas Jefferson and a handful of others who drafted America’s constitution and it has served that nation well for nearly three hundred years. Zimbabwe’s 2013 constitution had all the outward appearance of an inclusive people’s constitution, approved by 95% in the ensuing referendum, and yet failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections. 

The moral of the story is: it is the quality of the people involved in the drafting of the constitution or make-up of the GNU that matters. When quality has been seen to be lacking the temptation is to go for quantity, that will is just foolish because quantity is never a substitute for quality.

Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because for the last 38 years the country has been ruled by incompetent, corrupt and murderous Zanu PF thugs. Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections thwarting all hope of meaningful political and economic change. The country’s economic meltdown is set to get worse because it is impossible to conduct meaningful economic activities in a pariah state. 

The way forward is for the nation to appoint an interim administration composed of quality people. The administration will then be tasked to implement the democratic reforms and strengthen the country constitution and state institution to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections. 

Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections and therefore the party have no electoral mandate to govern. The party must be told in no uncertain terms that it must step down and all attempts to resist must be seen for what it is - Zanu PF’s continued resolve to hold the nation to ransom.

Those people who are proposing a national dialogue in which  Zanu PF is included are refusing to accept that the regime rigged last year’s elections or, if they are, are trying to appease the regime. It is 38 years of trying to appeasing Zanu PF that landed the nation in this mess. We will never get out of the mess by doing the same things that landed us there. 

Besides, if Zanu PF and MDC leaders are granted a role in the national dialogue they will curve for themselves a role in the interim administration. That administration will be doomed to fail just as all the other initiatives these political leaders were involved in have failed. Zanu PF and MDC leaders have already proven beyond all reasonable that they are corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless. What else do they have to do to finally convince us that they are NOT the quality leaders to take the nation forward.  

Zanu PF blatantly rigged last year’s elections, the regime failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll for Pete’s sake. Whilst we can agree to differ on many things it is nonsensical that we should differ on something as fundamental and straight forward as what constitutes free, fair and credible elections! 

Confusion has ruled supreme in Zimbabwe for the last 38 years and if we are ever to banish it, we really need to stamp out this culture of always seeking the easy and quick painkiller type-solutions and instead strive for the more elusive cure.

Yes pastor Motsi you can be invited to the inclusive dialogue and even given the platform to shout “we are tired of politics and political parties” to Mnangagwa and Chamisa. That will not dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship nor stop Zanu PF rigging 2023 elections!