Zimbabwe’s worsening economic situation has had the undesirable effect of causing some people to panic and, as we all know desperate people do desperate things. The same irrational arguments are finding their way back and are gaining traction!
“AS the year draws to an end, it has become obvious to millions of Zimbabweans that the prospect of a broad-based, credible dialogue process are fading, further threatening the country’s desperately needed socio-economic recovery,” wrote Faith Zaba in The Independent.
“Over the past year, efforts at dialogue backed by the churches, civic society and other interest groups, aimed at bringing Zimbabwe’s key political players together have yielded minimum results.
“The Political Actors Dialogue (Polad) process launched in May 2019 by President Emmerson Mnangagwa to which political parties were invited to participate, has one fundamental weakness, it does not include the main opposition political party, the MDC Alliance.”
Faith, like so many others before you and to come after you (we have not heard the last on this), you are proposing “broad-based, credible dialogue” which will include Chamisa and his MDC party. We already know that Chamisa wants the dialogue to conclude with the formation of the National Transition Authority (NTA). , watered down version of the 2008 to 2013 GNU to you and me.
Chamisa insists the NTA will implement “the comprehensive democratic reforms necessary to guarantee free, fair and credible elections”. Whilst everyone agrees the reforms are vital to getting the nation out of this death-trap of rigged elections and bad governance. It is not obvious to main people is that the NTA will never get the reforms implemented because it is a watered down version of the 2008 to 2013 GNU which failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
In her article, Faith did not acknowledge the failures of the last GNU or the shortcomings of the NTA.
What Zimbabwe needs is an arrangement that will get the reforms implemented and that is only possible if Zanu PF is forced to step down. The political dialogue we want must be acknowledge that Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections, the regime is illegitimate; that is the only way the party can be forced to step down.
Besides, the problem of Zanu PF rigging elections is at the very heart of this economic and political nightmare and anyone who thinks we can ever end this nightmare without tackling this problem of rigged elections is naive, to say the least. Zimbabwe is in this mess because the country was stuck for the last 39 years with this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship.
The party rigged elections to stay in power and, for our sins, pretended not to notice the vote rigging we did not want to face to the Zanu PF thugs and tell them they had no mandate and must step down. It was a foolish thing to do because the consequences of 39 years of Zanu PF misrule are the economic meltdown and the tragic human suffering and deaths we see in Zimbabwe today.
The political dialogue that you, Faith and many others out there, have been clamouring will involve Zanu PF as the key political player and will only seek to grant legitimacy to the party. This is just another way of appeasing the Zanu PF thugs. And this is exactly what we have done for the last 39 years, it has not worked all these years and it is insane to continue down this path. Insane.
A recent World Bank 2019 Report said 34% or 5.7 million of our people now live in “extreme poverty” up from 29% or 4.7 million in 2018. Many of our hospitals have all but closed for lack of doctors, nurses, medicine, electricity you name it. All this because for the last 39 years we would not confront the Zanu PF thugs with the truth of rigging the elections. We must deal with this curse of rigged elections now and not bury our heads in the sand; not when the price of such foolishness is heart breaking human misery and death and the stability of the nation.
Zanu PF rigged last year’s elections, the regime is illegitimate and not just Mnangagwa, and must step down. This will allow the nation the political space to appoint an interim administration that can be entrusted the task of implemented the reforms and holding free, fair and credible elections. Neither Zanu PF nor MDC leaders can appointed into the interim administration because they failed to get even one reform implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Zimbabwe cannot afford to waste this chance.
If Zanu PF is allow to stay in office till 2023 then this will be judge yet another national failure. For we can be 100% certain that Zanu PF will see to it that no meaningful reforms are implemented and the party will go on to rig that year’s elections and drag the nation even deeper into this hell-on-earth the party has landed us in. And we, the people, would have allowed this to happen, in our desperate effort to end the economic meltdown we have become insane and made things worse not better.
This is a nauseatingly foolish argument! The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic and political nightmare is the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. The people have turned a blind eye to Mugabe and now Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF thugs blatantly rigging elections ever since the nation gained her independence in 1980.
ReplyDeleteIn 1980 Zanu PF made it crystal clear the civil war will continue if Zanu PF lost those elections. The nation voted to end the civil war. Some people have argued that the threat was no more than a baby, with not a single tooth, threatening to bite off your ear! Zanu PF had the teeth, AK47 rifles to be exact, and one has only to look at the sheer barbarism behind Gukurahundi massacre to know what kind of savages we are talking about here.
Once in power, Zanu PF has worked tireless to consolidate its strangle hold on power. The Gukurahundi massacre cleared the way for the imposition of the de facto one-party dictatorship.
Still, an informed and diligent electorate would have been on the look out to restore the people’s freedoms and rights usurped by the dictatorship. With the economy now in ruins and hundreds of our people dying of hunger, disease and hopelessness; the drive to end the dictatorship should be fever pitch. It is therefore disconcerting that anyone would still want Zanu PF to remain in office!