Zanu PF rigged election and now rigging covid-19 figures- consequences are more disastrous N Garikai

This Zanu PF regime blatantly rigging the corona virus statistics with disastrous consequences to us all!

“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU Zimbabwe 2018 Election Observer Mission final report.

“(In the period 9 June to 25 July 2020) We have recorded 8 deaths out of 60 patents who were admitted in the red zone,” a source at Parirenyatwa Hospital told New Zimbabwe.

“Of the bodies that were brought in dead, 13 tested positive for Covid-19.”

So, Parirenyatwa Hospital alone (not counting the covid-19 deaths from any of the other hospitals in Harare such as Harare Hospital, Avenues Clinic, Chitungwiza Hospital, Wilkins Hospital, etc.) had 21 deaths.

And yet as of today Tuesday 28^th July 2020 Zimbabwe had a total of 40 corona virus related deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Child Care. The breakdown by Province was as follows:
Harare Province                              10
Bulawayo Province                          17
Manicaland Province                         4
Midlands Province                             3
Matabeleland North Province           2
Mashonaland Central Province        1
Mashonaland East Province             1
Mashonaland West Province            1
Matabeleland South Province           1
Masvingo Province                            0
Total                                                40

So, the official death toll of Harare Province is less than half the death toll of Parerinyatwa Hospital alone!

We know that most hospitals and clinics up and down the country have not been testing aggressively all those with covid-19 like symptoms and, as we can see with the Parerinyatwa Hospital, not all their reported covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths have been included in the national total. In short, Zimbabwe’s covid-19 reports, just like the July 2018 election results, are full of errors.

The Ministry of Health and Child Care has been under reporting the covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths.

Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections for the sole purpose of securing election victory. Zanu PF won the commanding 2/3 majority in parliament and Senate plus the party’s candidate, Emmerson Mnangagwa, won the presidency.

The consequence of rigging the elections was to confirm the country as a pariah state ruled by corrupt and lawless thugs and to drive away investors and lenders away. No one wants to do business with thugs, period. And so the economic meltdown, which had started in earnest following the violence seizure of the white-owned farms and the money printing crazy that fuelled inflation to soar to 500 billion per cent, has continued.

Zanu PF is under reporting the corona virus cases in the country for the sole purpose of hiding the regime’s blundering incompetence in the handling of the virus and how hopeless ill-prepared the country is to deal with the pandemic.

South Africa whose population is 4 times that of Zimbabwe has raced ahead with 471 128 confirmed corona virus cases and 7 497 deaths compared to Zimbabwe’s 2 817 confirmed cases and 40 deaths.

If the Zimbabwe government had been testing, tracing and tracking as aggressively as it should then the country’s covid-19 figures would be ¼ of those of SA, at the very best. SA is certainly better equipped to deal with the corona virus pandemic than Zimbabwe. SA’s economy and its health care service are strong compared to those of Zimbabwe which have all but collapse before the covid-19 outbreak.

By under reporting the corona virus cases by a factor of over 40 times makes good reading but it also engenders a false sense of security amongst the populous, who would carry on with their lives without taking even the most basic precaution on the mistaken believe there is no virus. Meanwhile the virus would be spreading far and wide.

Zimbabwe is a very secretive society, most health institutions, media houses, etc. are aware government is under reporting of covid-19 cases and, fearful of Zanu PF reprisal, are saying nothing. And so Zanu PF will get away with the lie the country had a few thousand covid-19 deaths when true figure is hundreds of times that!

Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections and now the party is blatantly under stating the seriousness of the corona virus in Zimbabwe. Under stating the seriousness of the virus is going to cost many, many lives; the party must be held to account for this!  

Zanu PF agree to pay white farmers US$3.5 b compensation - only objection, looters must pay not povo W Mukori

Zimbabwe has signed an agreement with the Commercial Farmers Union of Zimbabwe and the Southern African Commercial Farmers Alliance which mandates Zimbabwe to pay white commercial farmers US$3.5 billion.

The money will be raised from Zimbabwe taxpayers.

The compensation agreement is “for improvements and assets on the more than 4,000 farms that were seized and doesn't pertain to the land itself,” Ben Gilpin, a director of the CFU, explained.

No one objects to the white farmers being compensated. What anyone with half a brain would object to is that the Zimbabwean taxpayer should be the one paying the compensation. The ordinary taxpayer is not the one who benefited from the looted assets; it is the ruling elite and their families and cronies who benefited.

Indeed, the beneficiaries of the seized white-owned farms have also benefited from freebees from the 2007 Farm Mechanisation Programme and many other similar looting schemes all at taxpayer’s expense.

Those who benefited from the looted assets from the white-owned farms must pay the US$3.5 billion just as those who benefit from the multitude of looting schemes must repay the money.

40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption by this Zanu PF dictatorship have left the Zimbabwe economy in total ruins and 34% of our people already live in extreme poverty – i.e. they cannot afford one decent meal a day much less other basic essentials such as education for the children, health care, etc. Digging these millions of ordinary Zimbabweans out of the abject poverty is not going to be a walk in the park without piling on them the burden of debts from which they benefited nothing.

"Today we signed a historic compensation agreement with the Commercial Farmers Union, bringing closure and a new beginning to land discourse in Zimbabwe. The agreement re-affirms the irreversibility of land and is as a symbol of our commitment to the rule of law and property rights,” said Mnangagwa.

"It is a testimony to the fact that as fellow Zimbabweans, we can peacefully resolve our differences. We cannot change the past, we can only learn from it. Let us build on the trust demonstrated today, let us choose dialogue over confrontation and let us move forward together."

How can this agreement bring closure to this messy land seizure problem when:

1)    The burden of compensating the white farms is being imposed of the impoverished ordinary Zimbabweans whilst those who benefited from all the looting, keep their loot.

2)     Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is totally dependent of the nation reviving the country’s once productive agricultural sector a.s.a.p. Whilst the new farm owners have failed to put the land to productive use, they have nonetheless profited from the many corrupt scheme designed to help farmers. The new farm owners are now holding the nation to ransom!

It is not only the white farmers who have been the victim of Zanu PF’s corrupt and tyrannical rule; the ordinary Zimbabweans too have suffered untold injustices under the regime. The white farmers have voiced their suffering and povo have no such voice.

You, Mnangagwa, and your fellow ruling elite benefited from looting white-owned farms; you must pay the US$3.5 billion compensation and not the taxpayer.

“Let us move forward together!” How can we move forward when all you have done is taken your foot off the white farmer’s neck but only to plant both feet on the long-suffering povo’s neck!

"Zanu PF will never allow any malcontent to rule" - all power must be derived from the people and not a party P Guramatunhu

“I have respect for him (Biti) for his intellectual prowess. Let me say that he is very clever,” Chinamasa told journalists at Zanu PF headquarters in Harare Monday.

“But there you have him doing the bidding for his masters very well where he wrote to the World Bank not to give us Covid-19 related finances and resources and we have not received such resources.

“Zanu PF, therefore, appeals to our people not to be misled by the MDC Alliance malcontents whose preoccupation is to see our people and the economy suffer.”

Chinamasa should know that Zanu PF cannot have its cake and eat it too! He only showered Tendai Biti with praise for the purpose of building Biti as a credible opposition whose words would have influence IMF. The truth is Tendai Biti is a corrupt, incompetent and overrated opposition politician with a well-documented track record of failures. He has no intellectual or political credibility and no political influence. Of all the people, Patrick Chinamasa should know this since he played the leading role in celebrating Biti and his MDC’s friends’ breath-taking incompetence at the end of the 2008 GNU! record better than anyone else.

The IMF, WB and many other international financial institutions stopped giving Zimbabwe financial assistance back in the late 1999 when it was clear the country was failing to service’s mounting debt. Zimbabwe’s reputation as a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs have forced investors and lenders alike to shy away from doing business with the country. It is therefore rich to blame the WB’s recent decision to deny Zimbabwe financial assistance on Tendai Biti.

Chinamasa knows that Tendai Biti is not clever at all! If Biti or anyone of his follow MDC leaders had even the common sense of a village idiot then they would have implemented at least one democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Not even the repeated nagging by SADC leaders to implement the reforms could get the MDC leaders to anything.

Of course, Patrick Chinamasa joined his leader, Robert Mugabe, and all the other Zanu PF leaders in celebrating their party’s greatest political revivals. Having signed the 2008 Global Political Agreement, agreeing to the implementation of the raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship; no one would have believed Zanu PF would emerge at the end of the GNU with all its dictatorial powers untouched! No one!

When SADC leaders tried a last minute attempt to have the 2013 elections postponed to allow for the reforms to be implemented; it was Chinamasa himself, as then Minister of Justice, who reminded the diplomats that elections could not be postponed to allow reforms when no reforms proposals had ever been submitted in the five years of the GNU. It was MDC’s, not Zanu PF’s, fault that not even one reform proposal had been submitted.

Chinamasa and his Zanu PF cronies celebrated Tendai Biti and his MDC friends’ breath-taking incompetence in failing to submit even one token reform proposal in five years of the GNU. Chinamasa said nothing about respecting Biti’s “intellectual prowess” then!

Zanu PF’s contempt for the opposition is malicious, so malicious the party has stripped all its political opponents of their freedoms, rights and humanity. And all the ordinary Zimbabweans who have dared support the oppositions have been cloaked in the opposition’s colours and in turn stripped of their freedoms, etc.  

“Zanu PF’s relationship with the people is watered with blood, it is unshakable. The party and its leadership will never allow this to happen. We will never allow any malcontents to take over this country,” Chinamasa fumed.

Since granting the ordinary people their right to free, fair and credible elections could resulted in election “malcontent opposition” it is therefore clear why Zanu PF has never ever allowed the people to exercise a free and democratic vote.

Zimbabwe has gone from a middle-income nation in 1980 with a robust and promising economy to one of the poorest nations today. Four decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has left the country in economic ruins with unemployment a nauseating 90% and 34% of the people now living in abject poverty.

The nation has been stuck with the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime for all these 40 years because the party rigged the elections to stop the people removing its leaders from office.

The right to a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country is a birth right, a universal right acknowledged in the UN Universal Human Rights. In Zimbabwe the right to free elections is now more that just a right, it is the only way the nation has to end the criminal worse of the country’s material resources that has left millions in abject poverty and hopelessness and despair.  

After four decades of being denying one’s freedoms and rights, of being treated like a malcontent with no meaningful say in the governance of the country, of being forced into a life of hopelessness and despair; it is high time the people of Zimbabwe stood up to Zanu PF and reclaimed their rights and humanity!

The people of Zimbabwe must stand-up to this Zanu PF dictatorship and demand their right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. The people must reject continued denial of their freedoms and rights under the nonsensical guise an unshakable “Zanu PF’s relationship with the people is watered with blood!”

Zanu PF does not have a divine or otherwise right to govern the country. The right to govern the country must be derive from the people of Zimbabwe in a free, fair and credible elections and not other source.

Zanu PF failed to hold free, fair and credible elections in July 2018, the party has no mandate to govern, the regime is illegitimate and must step down. After 40 years of holding this nation to ransom, enough is enough. Zanu PF must step down and no amount of Zanu PF threats will deter the nation from demanding change.    

"Join street protest and find our collective voice" argue MDC A - rich, since sold-out on democratic vote N Garikai

"What do we do? We take to the streets, we have to find our collective voice, and it's not just about the 31st of July. I think that's what I need to emphasise that's just about one day, so it's not as if once the 31st of July comes and goes, we sort of forget about the need to stand up and speak out against the government. There is no magic around that day. There is need to unite. Speaking out against the government has to be a continuous obligation on each citizen," MDC Alliance spokesperson, Fadzai Mahere said.


"We have to form a broad church, nobody is safe whether it's MDC Alliance MPs, church leaders, teachers, nurses, civic society, business, they are coming for everybody. So it's time for us to all come together and say Zanu-PF must go because the system has declared war on everybody, on all of us, so we have to find our collective voice.

"Regardless of the fact that we are hungry and the cost of living is escalating and we cannot afford public health, people should be allowed to come out on the 31st of July regardless of who is organising it and they should be able to do that on any other day. People have the right to do that peacefully, socially distanced you know, even if it's during the time of COVID-19 people should be allowed to express themselves. There is no law on earth which says during a pandemic people cannot protest."

I will NOT be attending the street protests and am arguing every thinking person out there to do the same. Here are my three reasons for staying away:

1)    Mahere and all the other protest organisers keep talking of the protest being “peaceful and everyone adhering to the socially distancing”. They all know this is all wishful thinking.

We all know that there is a lot of bottled up anger and frustration against the Zanu PF regime and a many of the people who will be joining the protest are itching to vent their anger and frustration. So, if the protests are ever going to be peaceful then there will have to be lots and lots of marshals to keep the peace. I have not heard anything from the organisers to convince me they have done anything to ensure the protests are peaceful.

Zanu PF has its security agents armed to the teeth to stop the street protests under the pretext of keeping law and order and the covid-19 lockdown regulation. No doubt, the regime will have its double agents, agent provocateurs, to initiate the violence.

2)   It is rich for MDC Alliance and the rest of Zimbabwe’s corrupt and incompetent opposition to argue Zimbabweans to “find our collective voice” by joining the street protest when they are the ones who sold our democratic vote and voice by participating in flawed and illegal elections. These opposition politicians know that by participating in the elections they will give the process credibility and, by extension, the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy.

Whatever happens, we can be 100% certain that Mahere, Chamisa and the rest of opposition politicians will participate in the 2023 elections even if not even one reform is implemented for the same reason they participated in the past elections – greed, to win the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is offering as bait. We, the people, must now be smart to Zimbabwe’s corrupt opposition are running with the hare and hunting with the Zanu PF hounds.

3)   The only one thing that will induce me to join the violent street protest is if that if the only way to get the democratic reforms, the prerequisite for free, fair and credible elections, finally implemented. Of course, it is nonsense to argue that violent street protests is the only way left to end the Zanu PF dictatorship it is the opposition who failed to implement the reforms and are the ones participating in flawed elections.

Hospital still "urging for mandatory covid-19 testing" - we must hold Zanu PF to account for this N Garikai

Detail matter! Zanu PF has committed murder, literally and metaphorically, again and again but has got away with it time and time again because the Zimbabwean people have either failed to notice, which has happened all too often, or did not have the courage and foresight to hold the regime to account.

“For the period 9 June 2020 when the centre opened up to 25 July 2020, 60 Covid-19 positive patients have been admitted,” authorities at Parirenyatwa Hospital have said, according to a New Zimbabwe report.

“For the period under review, 70 staff members have tested positive for Covid-19, of which 64 are from non-Covid-19 areas while 6 work directly in the Covid Centre.”

Authorities have been “urging for the mandatory testing of all patients for the dreaded disease before admission into the government health facility.”

The need to test all patients, diseased and frontline workers of corona virus infection is central in the fight to contain the virus. “Test, trace and track!” the World Health Organisation has advised again and again and again ever since the declaration of covid-19 as a pandemic. It therefore beggars belief that even this late in the covid-19 storm even Zimbabwe’s principal referral hospitals are not carrying out even the most basic screening tests.

Health professionals are having to urge the powers that be to make testing mandatory! Meanwhile 64 health care workers  assigned to non-covid-19 areas have test positive of the dread virus (God only knows how many patients in the non-covid-19 area have the virus too); making a mockery of segregation.  

“We have recorded 8 deaths out of 60 patents who were admitted in the red zone,” continues the Hospital statement.

“Of the bodies that were brought in dead, 13 tested positive for Covid-19.”

According to the Ministry of Health and Child Care Zimbabwe has had a total of 34 corona virus deaths and yet Parirenyatwa Hospital alone has had 21 covid-19 deaths. There is no doubt that the officials are under reporting the corona virus cases and deaths!

There is heavy human traffic between Zimbabwe and South Africa and hence it is no surprise that most of the reported covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe are returnees from SA. And so the real, as contrast to the contrived official, number of covid-19 cases in Zimbabwe will ¼ of that of SA (given Zimbabwe’s population is ¼ that of SA).

According to the John Hopkins report SA has 445 433 confirmed cases and 6 769 death. Zimbabwe real figure should be 111 000 cases and 1 600 deaths compared to the contrived official figure of 2 512 cases and 34 deaths.

There is no doubt that by under reporting the corona virus cases many, many people will get the virus and many will die because they did not know the prevalence of the virus and so never took any precaution. And, worst of all, they were deliberately kept in the dark because the powers that be did not test, trace and track as aggressively as they should have done and has under reported the cases.

Of course, this Zanu PF government has deliberately under reported the seriousness of the covid-19 virus in Zimbabwe to earn itself brownie points as having contained the virus. The real covid-19 figures which are emerging, there must be a full judiciary inquiry to establish the full story, shows that blundering attempt to hide the truth has only helped the corona virus spread.

The number of corona virus cases and deaths have been steadily rising these last three weeks, the virus storm has just broken and the worst is yet to come. Parirenyatwa Hospital management’s demand for mandatory testing still makes a lot of sense, careful screening is required now more than ever before.

We must Zanu PF to account for having failed to institute mandatory testing, tracing and tracking to date and making sure this is done from now on. How well or badly Zimbabwe performs throughout these difficult covid-19 times will depend on how well we, the people, respond to the challenge of good governance, to detail.   

"USA riles confrontational politics in Zimbabwe" says Charamba - how so, by insisting on free elections P Guramatunhu

Zimbabweans have a knack for blaming everyone else but themselves for their problems, trials and tribulations.

“The US Embassy in Harare whose govt has always rooted for Tendai Biti as safe bet for American interests here, had hoped to use Ngarivhume and his pseudo-leadership of July 31 disturbances to re-launch Tendai Biti as the new leader of MDC-Alliance, with the impulsive Jobho Sikhala as the TONG for handling hot pieces. Both men are America's centurions, Biti designated to play the Philosopher-King, while Sikhala is the Hotspur of the equation,” reported Bulawayo 24, quoting George Charamba.

“The choice of Ngarivhume - another of America's men whose roots are in Chipinge - was the right face for that operation which would have consigned Nelson Chamisa to the dustbin. Previous to Ngarivhume, Americans had hoped for the Malawian cleric, Shingi Munyeza, who was later dropped for being inorganic and tainted after hopes of washing him clean by goading ED to fire him from PAC failed.”

This is just nonsense and the suggestion that the Americans are behind all this makes it all idiotic nonsense. The Americans, the EU and the west in general have rooted for the implementation of the democratic reforms to ensure the July 2018 elections were free, fair and credible. Of course, they were disappointed that Zanu PF failed to implement any reforms and dismissed the whole election as a farce.

The west was disgusted by the sheer naivety of Zimbabwe’s opposition camp, not even one of them had the common sense to demand even something as basic for democratic elections as a verified voters’ roll.

Everyone knows the principle reason the MDC leaders and the rest of the crowded opposition camp have continued to participate in elections even when it was clear Zanu PF was rigging the elections, was greed. Ever since the 2008 GNU Zanu PF has seen to it that it allowed the opposition to win a few gravy-train seats, bait which that latter has found totally irresistible. Still, there are some things a human being is expected to resist and not follow one’s primeval instinct like a mouse enticed into a trap by the smell of peanut butter!

By failing to implement the reforms even when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the 2008 GNU and then participating in flawed elections again and again thereafter MDC leaders have shown they have no common sense.

Having participated in the flawed and illegal July 2018 elections all the opposition parties and candidates have since endorsed the rigged July 2018 elections as free and fair, contrary to the damning reports from the west. All except Nelson Chamisa who has elected to challenge Mnangagwa’s electoral victory not on the basis of something as substantive as the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll. How could he; since he knew the was no verified voters’ roll and decided to participate regardless.

Chamisa challenge Mnangagwa’s victory on the grounds ZEC failed to produce all the V11 forms, summary of all the votes tally at each Polling Station. ZEC only produced 10 987 V11 forms, 10% were missing. Some western observers reported of ZEC officials, with no other witnesses, completing V11 forms 24 hours after this was supposed to be done and dusted.

Chamisa not only wanted the Constitutional Court to dismiss Mnangagwa as the dully elected but declare him as the winner. He claimed to have polled 2.6 million vote which is more that ZEC’s 2.4 million votes for Mnangagwa. Needless to say; Chamisa too failed to produce the V11 forms to support his claim.

The very fact that Chamisa and his fellow MDC Alliance leaders like Tendai Biti, David Coltart, Welshman Ncube, etc. expect anyone including the west to endorse Chamisa’s claim as the winner goes to show just how naïve and stupid the MDC leaders are. Who in their right mind would ever want to be involves with such naïve and stupid with a knack to shoot from the hip, hence the reason they have failed to achieve anything of substance in all MDC’s 20 years in politics.

The way out of Zimbabwe’s economic and political crisis, which has dogged this nation for the last 40 years, is for the country to the hold of free, fair and credible election. This is obvious to everyone with common sense and it is therefore no surprise that the Americans have been arguing the implementation of the reforms to ensure free and fair elections. To therefore suggest that the Americans are behind the chaos and stupidity of MDC politics is laughable!

“The young man (Chamisa) doesn't want risks, which is what riles Americans whose wish is confrontational politics in Zimbabwe,” maintains Charamba. Why then did the Americans want the reforms implemented before the elections, if they wanted confrontation politics?

After 40 years of blundering from pillar to post, Zimbabwe has reach the point of careful reflection because the longer we have stayed on this disastrous path of thoughtless folly and greed the harder it has become to turn back. We will soon reach the point of no return, if we have not done so already.  

Mnangagwa impose curfew to contain covid-19 - madness, need nurses and PPE not soldiers and guns N Garikai

I have listened to President Mnangagwa’s address to the nation three times and still failed to understand what understand the purpose. Yes, the number of corona virus cases have increased significantly these last two weeks but is he saying the lockdown conditions are gone shot back up to level 4 or are we still at level 2?

What is the purpose of the 6 pm to 6 am nationwide curfew?

“At least 21 Cimas Medical Aid Society staffers tested Covid-19 positive at the High Glen Clinic in Harare forcing the temporary closure of the health centre Sunday,” reported New Zimbabwe.

“In its Covid-19 update bulletin, Cimas chief executive (CEO) Vulindela Ndlovu confirmed the development and said a receptionist had tested positive for Covid-19 last Thursday following a routine and random testing of staff.

“The CEO said contact tracing and testing subsequently revealed that other staff members had been exposed to the virus as they were in the same work area with the receptionist.”

The report underlines one of the greatest weaknesses in Zimbabwe’s handling of the corona virus – the failure to test, trace and track aggressively, especially at local community level. The very fact that so many individuals tested positive, especially from a health service institution shows the folly of not testing aggressively.

All the country’s major clinics and hospitals should be testing all covid-19 suspects as a matter of course. One had hoped the President was going to announce measures designed to ramp up the testing regime.

Zimbabwe’s health care service is poorly equipped, poorly staffed and poorly resourced; it provided a zero-star services, at best, before the corona virus outbreak. The service will be stretched beyond its limits with the admission of just a few covid-19 patients. It is therefore shocking that government has failed to resolve the dispute with the health care workers, including paying them a living wage and the provision of PPE, and thus depriving the nation of even the skeleton health care cover at the very time the virus cases are soaring!

How ironic that the country is ramping up its response to the soaring corona virus cases by deploying Police, Army and CIO to every corner of the country, armed to the teeth, to impose dusk to dawn curfew but has no health care worker or equipment to do something even as basic as check the covid-19 patient’s temperature!

For Pete’s sake, what we need is nurses and medicine, not soldiers and guns. Even now, at this the 59^th minute of 11^th hour, before the corona virus storm overwhelms us all; our leaders still to do have the common sense to do the obvious thing, the common sense thing!   

Corruption is Zanu PF's life blood; Chinono was arrested for threatening corruption P Guramatunhu

Heal Zimbabwe condemns the arrest of journalist, Hopewell Chin'ono on 20 July 2020.According to Beatrice Mtetwa,the lawyer representing Chin'ono, the journalist was abducted from his home after eight state security agents broke the glass front door to gain access into his house. The state agents did not produce any warrant of arrest and refused to produce any identification documents. Before his arrest, Chin'ono recorded a moment of his arrest and from the video, some men could be heard harassing the journalist and directing him to put down his phone.

Zimbabwe is a Banana Republic, a pariah state, governed by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs. Zanu PF blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections; the regime did not even have the decency to produce something as basic a verified voters’ roll, for Pete’s sake.

The EU, the Americans and anyone with even half a brain dismissed the elections as a farce.

Zimbabwe’s opposition candidates participated in the elections with zeal. Of course, they knew that Zanu PF was rigging the elections but they also knew that the party was giving away a few gravy train seats as bait and these they could not resist.

It is the cold indifference of the ordinary Zimbabweans out there to Zanu PF’s blatant rigging and the opposition’s selling-out that has forced many people to despair on hopes of the country ever digging itself out of this hell. Of course, these Zimbabweans should know what constitutes free and fair elections; they just do not want to know because they do not want to have to deal with the consequences of an illegitimate Zanu PF. Of course, they know MDC leaders have sold-out on implementing the reforms but once again they can’t be bothered to hold the sell-outs to account.

The arrest of Hopewell Chinono is just another reminder to the people of Zimbabwe that the country is a Banana Republic, a pariah state, ruled by the whims of ruthless dictators.

Chinono is the one who exposed the US$ 60 million Drax scandal which led to the arrest and firing of the then Minister of Health, Obadiah Moyo. There were a lot many others who were involved in the scandal including Mnangagwa’s own son. Of course, the regime was displeased with Chinono and his arrest is the start of payback.

The Drax scandal has echoes of the Willowvale Motor scandal. Godfrey Nyarota, then Chronicle Editor, documented how the ruling elite had used their political clout to buy new vehicles at low controlled prices only to resale at the very high black-market rate. The regime was forced to cancel the looting scheme. Nyarota was promoted upstairs to supervise the messengers and cleaners.

Of course, there is corruption, mismanagement, vote rigging and brutal oppression; Zimbabwe is a pariah state and corruption, etc. are the fuel and lubricant without which the dictatorship will grind to a halt. Zanu PF cannot afford the luxury of anything threatening to the regime’s struggle hold on power especially now when its iron grip is shaken by the economic meltdown. Being forced to make a hasty retreat on corruption and lose one of its key patronage levers of power could well make the beginning of the end of the dictatorship.

Zanu PF cannot afford to let nosy journalist like Hopewell Chinono go unpunished. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state the country’s prisons will fill with nosy journalist and other human rights activists whilst those guilty of corruption and thuggery are allowed to go free and continue with the corruption and thuggery.

The worst thing that can ever happen to Zimbabwe right now is for this vote rigging Zanu PF regime to remain in office until 2023 elections. If that was to happen, and there is nothing to suggest change, then Zanu PF will see to it that no meaningful reforms are implemented clearing the way for the party to rig the elections. The corrupt, incompetent and sell-out opposition candidates will trip over each other fighting for the bait gravy train seats on offer.

Nations get the government they deserve; we in Zimbabwe certain deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with the entourage of equally corrupt and useless opposition parties, all 130 of them at the last count. We have yet to define what constitute free and fair elections, in this day and age. Well, until we do, we certainly deserve Zanu PF, the economic meltdown and worse!

"State did not demand repay US$b RBZ loans, all above board" said Gono - essence of institutionalized corruption W Mukori

After decades of denying that corruption was rampant is Zimbabwe, Mugabe shocked the nation in his 2016 birthday interview with ZBC TV when he admitted the country was “been swindled out of US$15 billion in diamond revenue alone!” He never arrested one swindler or recover one swindled dollar.

When Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe following the November 2017 military coup that topple the dictator, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”. It is now nearly three years since the takeover and he too has yet to arrest one swindler and recover one swindled dollar.

Most of people Mnangagwa has arrested for corruption are either the small fish accused of looting the small change or likewise the big fish accused of looting small charge. Occasionally the regime has had to arrest the big fish accused of looting large sums of money, former Minister of Health Obadiah Moyo being one such example. The standard procedure is to arrest the big fish, to placate the restless public, and then realise then as soon as it is convenient to do so.

There only big fish accused of looting whom the regime has pursued with keen interest are former Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri, former Zanu PF propagandist and strategist Professor Jonathan Moyo and a few other G40 leaders. The pursuit is to settle Zanu PF factional scores than to root out corruption.

“Corruption is deep rooted!” Mnangagwa has since admitted.

What Mnangagwa meant is corruption is institutionalised. Whereas Alphonse Gabriel Capone, one of history’s most notorious Mafia gangster, contended with bribing the Police, Judges, ordinary citizens and killed many along the way; Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs went one step further, they were the state and so legalised thuggery!

Corruption was institutionalised.

In a damning article Dr Alex Magaisa has revealed how senior Zanu PF officials looted millions of US dollars in 2007 to 2008 from the RBZ through murky Farm Mechanisation Programme. President Emmerson Mnangagwa pocketed US$411 728 for his farm, Pricabe Enterprises. None of the beneficiaries paid back the loans and the bank itself was allowed to write off the debt as a national debt.

"Both rural and non-rural farmers benefited from the takeover of the loans by the State but I shall elaborate. There was no scandal here, no corruption and no beneficiary refused to pay. The State did not demand payment and that was above board," the governor of RBZ, Gideon Gono explain.

"The RBZ undertook this quasi-fiscal activity at the behest of Government and in the national interest.

"This was done in accordance with the then Section 8 of the RBZ Act Chapter (22:15) which authorised State to direct the Central Bank to carry out transactions in such a manner as the State may require and if so requested by the State, the Bank was to make the necessary arrangements to this end."

The list of receptions included senior Zanu PF officials, judges and their families and friends. Gideon Gono himself was the proud owner of a chicken farm so well-funded, everything was computerized; a totally an unnecessary investment in a country where human labour is so cheap and abandon. He splashed the fortune into the high-tech because he had the money to spend.

Indeed, most, if not all, the beneficiaries of the murky Farm Mechanisation Programme and many, many other similar looting schemes would have refused to take the money if they had known they would be expected to pay it back because they knew their hare-brain projects would fail.

Institutionalised corruption is the root cause of Zimbabwe’s total economic meltdown, how anyone can claim that to be in the “national interest” beggars belief!

Why the MDC failed to implement the democratic reforms which would have stopped Zanu PF rigging elections when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and, to make matters worse, keep participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy; is a measure of just how hopelessly lost we are!

It is foolish that those who participated in flawed elections and thus gave the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy are the ones leading the street protests; supposedly to end corruption! Of course, this is just a political gimmick; you do not fight to legitimise a mafia regime today and then hope to end corruption the next day.

Chamisa and the rest of the opposition candidates will be participating in the 2023 elections with no reforms in place just as they have done in the past. Mark my words!

As long as Zanu PF is able to rig elections and remain the state and controlling all of the state institutions then corruption will remain rampant because with Zanu PF in power corruption will always remain institutionalised. So, if we are serious about ending corruption, we must first stop Zanu PF rigging the elections and thus deprive the party the state power and authority!

MDC A U-turn on boycotting "illegitimate Mnangagwa" - next big U-turn, to participate in flawed 2023 elections W Mukori

MDC Alliance in yet another political U-turn! A few weeks ago the party resolved that its MPs and Senators would boycott parliamentary activities to protest the recall of some of their members by Dr Thokozani Khupe faction. Fearful of being recalled too, the seating members ignore the party’s instruction and the resolution was quickly reversed. Now the party is making yet another U-turn and, as usual, offering a feeble excuse for it.

The MDC A party spokesperson, Fadzayi Mahere has just announce the party’s MPs and Senators, who until now have disrupted parliamentary proceeding attended by Mnangagwa, will not disrupt this Thursday’s Minister of Finance supplementary budget presentation even if Mnangagwa attended.

“The MDC Alliance notes that Mr Emmerson Mnangagwa may be present at this event. We maintain that Mr Mnangagwa is illegitimate and the total collapse of the economy under his imposed tenure is evidence of this. However, given the grave humanitarian stalemate Zimbabwe finds itself in, it would be imprudent for us to let his presence quash the voice of the people at this critical time. The centre is failing to hold,” said Mahere.

Yes, Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF regime are illegitimate and the thin veneer of legitimacy the regime is hiding under is derived from none other than Nelson Chamisa and his MDC A colleagues. By participating in the flawed and illegal July 2018 elections MDC A gave the process some modicum of credibility and, by extension, modicum of legitimacy. What is so annoying here is that MDC leaders knew this was a Zanu PF trap, as David Coltart admitted in his book.

In his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe, David Coltart, former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the 2008 GNU, gave details of how Zanu PF was flouting the electoral rules in the upcoming 2013 elections. It was clear the elections would not be free, fair and credible.

“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,” wrote Senator Coltart.

“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.”

A number of MDC factions and other opposition parties did unite to form the MDC Alliance before the 2018 elections but boycotting those elections was never ever raised even though it was evident Zanu PF was going to rig the elections. They were all as determined to take part in the elections as in 2013 for the exact same reason – greed.

Indeed, MDC leaders were so determined to contest the July 2018 regardless of the glaring irregularities and illegalities, they even claimed to have ways to stop the rigging. “MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” claimed Chamisa.

Having agreed to take part in the July 2018 elections knowing that ZEC had failed to produce something a basic as a verified voters’ roll, Chamisa could not challenge Mnangagwa’s victory of the same election flaws and illegalities. The Constitutional Court would have asked him why he had ignored these things and participated?

Chamisa’s Constitutional Court challenge of the July 2018 presidential result was subtle but foolish. He challenged ZEC to produce the V11 forms, the summary of the vote count at each Polling Station, to prove were they had obtained the Mnangagwa votes. ZEC had 10 987 V11 forms and 10% or so were missing hence the reason ZEC had three different figures of Mnangagwa’s votes. Chamisa’s challenge was foolish in that he asked the Court to declare him the winner although he too did not have all the V11 forms to prove where his 2.6 million votes came from.

Chamisa and Mnangagwa are two peas out of the same pod; they do not care that the election process in not free, fair and credible as long as they are declared the winner! This is why both Zanu PF and MDC are now not only irrelevant in the nation’s quest to implement the reforms and end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance; they want to retain the status quo and thus a serious hindrance to progress.  

   

Yes, the Zanu PF regime’s, and not just Mnangagwa’s, illegitimacy is the root cause of Zimbabwe’s total economic collapse. Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous tyrants. 40 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and rank lawlessness have left Zimbabwe in economic ruins and it is near impossible to conduct any lawful business activity in such a country.

What Zimbabwe needs is to bite the bullet implement the democratic reforms, the pre-requisites for free, fair and credible elections, and thus end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state. MDC leaders are the ones who have allowed Zanu PF to rig elections and maintain the pariah state by failing to implement the reforms and by giving the regime legitimacy by participating in flawed elections.

“It would be imprudent for us to let Mnangagwa’s presence quash the voice of the people at this critical time!” By blatantly rigging the elections Zanu PF quashed the people’s voices and it is nonsense to suggest the mouse’s voice of the few opposition sell-outs can ever be the people’s voice.

During his recent e-rally, Nelson Chamisa promised “to stop the 2023 elections until reforms are implemented”. No doubt, MDC will participate in those elections and give “the prudent need to give people a voice” as the excuse for that U-turn! MDC leaders have perpetuated the Zanu PF dictatorship out of greed and only use concern for the people’s suffering as a thin veneer to hide their greed.

UN remind Zanu PF to respect right to peaceful demo - UN bolting door after horse has bolted N Garikai

The release of the UN Special Rapporteur on the Rights to Freedom of Peaceful Assembly and of Association, Clément Nyaletsossi Voule’s report on Zimbabwe, just two weeks before the 31 July 2020 street protests is fortuitous. The root causes behind the public unrest have not gone away, if anything things are worse now than before and the future prospects are grime, and so as long as the fire burns more fiercely than ever the pot will boil.

"The special rapporteur is conscious that political polarisation, poor governance and a fragile economy exacerbated discontentment with the government and prompted demonstrations and strikes,"Voule said.

The special rapporteur made it abandonly clear that the people have a right to peaceful demonstration to express their discontent; a constitutional right, not a privilege, which the Zanu PF government has forcefully and repeatedly denied.  He sited the 1st August 2018 post July 2018 rigged elections protest and the two weeks soaring cost of living protest in January 2019 in which 6 and 18 people were shot dead respectively.

"Regarding the use of force, the commission concluded that 'the use of live ammunition directed at people, especially when they were fleeing was clearly unjustified and disproportionate' and it added that ‘(t)he use of sjamboks, baton sticks and rifle butts to assault members of the public indiscriminately was also disproportionate'," stated the report.

The tragic reality is Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown is getting decidedly worse not better, the corona virus pandemic has accelerated the decline; there are a lot more people living in abject poverty and desperate for change. Sadly, in Zimbabwe the only hope for meaningful change is violent uprising.

The opportunity for peaceful democratic change has been slammed shut in the faces. Ever since Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980, the country has never ever held free, fair and credible elections. Never ever!  

President Emmerson Mnangagwa blatantly rigged the July 2018 elections just as blatantly as Zanu PF had rigged elections in the past.

Yes, Zanu PF would not have got away with rigged elections without the help of the corrupt and incompetent MDC opposition party. It was Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders’ failure to implement even one democratic reform in 20 years of the party’s existence which has allowed Zanu PF to retain its carte blanche powers to rig elections.

By participating in flawed and illegal elections MDC (doing it out of greed) have given the process credibility and by extension the result some modicum of legitimacy. And it is from this phony legitimacy that Zanu PF claims its mandate to govern and justifies its brutal repression.

"We have noted statements from some social media platforms to plan and organise violent (31st July)  protests and overthrow a constitutionally-elected Government,” commented Patrick Chinamasa, following the Zanu PF politburo meeting.

"Those who are plotting anarchy should know that ZANU-PF is not sleeping. This time we are ready and we will not allow a repeat of what happened before.

"Those doing so must stand warned and the law will not hesitate to deal with those. Our democracy and rule of law is very clear on how a Government is constituted. The (politburo) meeting advised those planning to sneak themselves into Government violently through the back-door to desist from such devious agendas because they will have themselves to blame."

The central question here is Zanu PF’s claim that it is the “constitutionally-elected government” when it is not. All the observers of the July 2018 elections have dismissed the whole process as a farce.

“The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU Election Observer Mission final report.

It was impossible to verify anything when the elections went ahead without something as basic as a verified voters’ roll!

The one organisation that has repeatedly said nothing about Zimbabwe’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections is the UN. Whilst UNDP and other arms of the UN have played a key role in Zimbabwe’s elections, UN bankrolled the drafting of the 2013 constitution, for example; the UN said nothing about the blatant rigging of elections.

Whilst the efforts of the UN Special rapporteur on rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and association are welcomed, one has to question the sincerity of the UN in the case of Zimbabwe. Does the UN seriously expect a vote rigging and per se illegitimate regime that has just blatantly denied the people their right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country to grant them the right to protest the denial or anything else?

As we can see Zanu PF is gearing for yet another brutal confrontation to silence dissent and hang on to power at all cost. What good will yet another UN Special rapporteur on rights to peaceful assembly condemning the brutal repression do for the nation?

UN should not be wasting time and energy trying to get an illegitimate government to honour the citizens’ rights and freedoms; for that is tantamount to bolting the stable door after the horse has bolted! The UN should spend it time, energy, sweat and blood in getting a legitimate government!   

What Zimbabwe needs is UN Special rapporteur on rights to free, fair and credible elections and secure a legitimate government! With a legitimate government, there is hope of securing all the universal freedoms and rights.