It is heart breaking that after two decades of fighting for democratic changes, those elected to champion the cause have not only sold-out, failed to deliver even one change, but worst of all, they have now completely flipped.
“According to my humble prognosis, 2023 is already done and dusted. There’s NO contest, actually. Ask me later,” said Obert Gutu a former MDC-T VP and key POLAD supporter, predicting a crushing Zanu-PF victory in 2023.
What matters here is that Obert Gutu and all the other opposition politicians who participated in the July 2018, including Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A party, ignored the known fact that Zanu PF was going to rig those elections. By participating, they gave the flawed and illegal process some credibility.
To make matters worse, all Zimbabwe’s opposition parties, except Chamisa’s MDC A, went on to endorse the July 2018 elections as having been free, fair and credible regardless of all the evidence the election process was flawed and illegal. Chamisa and his party have accepted the electoral process and results of the local and parliamentary races. They have rejected the presidential result on grounds that the vote count was rigged in favour of Mnangagwa.
MDC A have made it clear the party will endorse Mnangagwa’s legitimacy as president if Chamisa and a few other MDC leaders are allocated cabinet positions in the Mnangagwa administration.
In other words by the simple act of participating in the July 2018 elections and then endorsing the elections result what Zimbabwe’s opposition parties, including Chamisa’s MDC, have done is contradict what the EU, the Americans, the Commonwealth and everyone else who had dismiss the elections as a farce. So as far as the opposition parties are concerned we do not need to implement any democratic reforms to ensure 2023 elections are free, fair and credible.
According to Obert Gutu, Zanu PF is set to win the 2023 elections because the party is very popular with the voters. This foolish “prognosis” cannot be allowed to go unchallenged!
Zanu PF lost the popular support of the people in late 1990s when it was clear the party leaders were corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who were dragging the nation into mass poverty instead of the mass prosperity, “Gutsa ruzhinji!”, Mugabe never tired of talking about. The party has managed to stay in office regardless of its unpopularity only because it rigged the elections.
In Zimbabwe unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90% and 34% of our people now live in extreme poverty compared to world average of less than 10%, according to a recent WB report. Country like Syria, Yemen and Haiti have high rates of people living in extreme poverty because the country have suffered from years a scotch-the-earth civil war or are yet to recover from a devastating earthquake.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s extreme poverty is a man-made problem - a criminal waste of human and material resources after 40 years of corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical rule.
The stories of Zanu PF being popular in the rural areas are all lies. The rural populous are at the very bottom of the economic pyramid and they are hit the hardest by the country’s worsening economic meltdown.
For example, Brigadier-General Kalisto Gwanetsa (Retired), the Zanu PF MP for Chiredzi South, revealed that the best performing schools in grade 7, “O” and “A” level in the constituency had 3% pass rate! Education, health, etc. have all but completely collapsed after decades of being starved of funds by the Zanu PF regimes.
It is an insult, to say the least, to insinuate that the people in Chiredzi South voted for a candidate and ruling party knowing it was denying their children basic education and a future!
Zanu PF has politicised state aid, used its party thugs, rogue war veterans and traditional leaders cow the electorate into submission. Rural voters are nothing more than medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing landlord, Zanu PF.
By the mid 1980s the people of Zimbabwe realised that Zanu PF was dragging the nation into mass poverty as contrast to the mass prosperity, “Gutsa ruzhinji!” Mugabe was always wittering about. By the late 1990s the people also realised that Zanu PF was rigging the elections to stay in power against their democratic wishes. If the people were ever going to replace the corrupt and incompetent Zanu PF government, they will have to implement democratic changes to stop Zanu PF rigging elections.
The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders including Obert Gutu into position of power on the understanding the party will deliver the democratic changes, as the party name implied, to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. It is sad that MDC has never deliver any democratic changes in all its 20 years on the political centre stage. Not even one change!
MDC leaders have metamorphosed from committed democratic reformists before tasting power in 2008 GNU; into sell-outs during the GNU who took their eyes off the reforms-ball and, since the end of GNU, have become Zanu PF acolytes participating in flawed and illegal elections to give the process credibility in return for scraps of the spoils of power.
Obert Gutu and the few opposition politicians who have joined Mnangagwa’s Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) have gone the whole hog they now believe Zanu PF does not rig elections! We do not need to implement any reforms since elections are free, fair and credible!
@ Ignatius Mabveni
ReplyDelete“Village idiots' indeed. The only difference is that in the village the village idiot has no place at the village Court. Thats the crux of our tragedy. We elevate village idiots…”
I agree with you my brother, it is a real tragedy that we have allowed these village idiots, high on zimbani, for all I know, to rule and ruin the nation these last 40 years. Nations get the government they deserve, we in Zimbabwe certain deserve this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the equally corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless entourage of opposition parties, all 130 of them!