In September 2018, just weeks after being sworn in as President of Zimbabwe, Mnangagwa was in New York, USA to attend the annual UN General Assembly heads of state and government jamboree where each leader is allocated a slot to crow. In all 37 years of Zanu PF rule, Robert Mugabe had never allowed a cabinet meeting to go ahead unless he was there to chair it and, as one can well imagine, the dictator had never allowed anyone else to the UN jamboree! Mnangagwa was not going to miss his first chance to occupy centre stage together with other world leaders.
The fly in the ailment for Mnangagwa was his legitimacy. All the election observers with any democratic credentials worth a spit had condemned Zimbabwe’s 31st July 2018 as a farce. And the elections were indeed a farce.
The regime had denied some 3 million or so Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote; a very significant number considering Mnangagwa was declared the winner with 2.4 million votes. The regime had, yet again, failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, etc., etc.
Following the November military coup that had topple Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwa and his fellow coup plotters had promised to hold free, fair and credible elections. How can the elections be lawful, free, fair and credible when more people are denied the vote than the winning candidate?
How can Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa be the legitimate President of Zimbabwe when he clearly does not the mandate of the people of Zimbabwe because the July 2018 elections were not legal, free, fair and credible?
The UN is a ruled based organisation and to be a respected member of the UN one must live by its founding rules.
“Article 21
- Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
- Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
- The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.”
States Article 21 of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR).
By failing to hold legal, free, fair and credible elections, Mnangagwa was flouting the UN rules. As much as he wanted to hobnob with other world leaders and to be treated as their equal, he must have known he was nothing but the naked Emperor in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale, 'The Emperor's New Clothes’.
CNN and many other free world media houses could not resist reminding the naked Mnangagwa of his democratic deficiencies. Before he left New York, Mnangagwa announce that Zimbabweans in the diaspora will have their right to vote restored by the next elections!
At the time, some of us expressed our doubts on Mnangagwa’s sincerity and willingness to deal with this thorny issue of diaspora vote. After all he had promised to hold free, fair and credible elections, stamp out corruption and many, many other things after the November 2017 military coup but had never honoured any of these promises for the simple reason that doing so would risk Zanu PF losing its iron grip on power. The party has since confirmed the doubters right.
“If you want a diaspora vote, first level the playing field by removing sanctions, so that Zanu-PF can go there and campaign freely without being vetted against sanctions,” announced Zanu PF Acting Political Commissar, Patrick Chinamasa.
"We will not allow those in the diaspora the right to vote because we are under sanctions in those countries.
"I cannot go to campaign in the United Kingdom because of sanctions as we all know and as long as that situation persists, we will say no vote to people in the diaspora because we will be allowing only those who have been asking for sanctions to have access to that electorate.”
All nonsense, of course! Zimbabweans in the diaspora did not impose the sanctions and so why are they being punished for something they did not do. In any case, there are millions of Zimbabweans in SADC and other countries that have not imposed any sanctions of Zanu PF leaders, why are they too being denied the vote?
The truth is Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF friends do not recognise the right to a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country, as articulated in Article 21 of the UN’s UDHR, as an inalienable right that cannot and must never ever be denied without due legal process. Sadly Zanu PF thugs are not alone in this!
Nelson Chamisa and his fellow MDC leaders has paid lip service to call for diaspora vote, a verified voters’ roll and all the other democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. Chamisa and company had failed to implement even one reform to ensure diaspora vote, etc. even when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the 2008 to 2013 GNU.
Worse still, Chamisa et al have been participating in elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF has arbitrarily and illegally denied Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote, failed to produce a verified voters’ roll, etc., etc.; proof the opposition too consider the right to free, fair and credible elections a privilege and not an inalienable right!
Indeed, the right to a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country, article 21, is the most important and precious of all the freedoms and rights in the UN UDHR because without it, we have failed to secure and guarantee the other 29.
“Seek ye first the political kingdom, and all else shall be added unto you”, said Ghana's first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. He was right!
The right to a meaningful say in the governance of one’s country; the right to legal, free, fair and credible elections; is worth risking everything for, including one’s very life. While we live here on earth, the right to free, fair and credible elections, is the “one pearl of great price” we must all seek!
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”
Matthew 13:45-46
It is as clear as day that there are many like Robert Mugabe, Emmerson Mnangagwa and many others in Zanu PF who would want us to believe they who risked it all in the fight to end white colonial oppression and exploitation for freedom and human dignity for all Zimbabweans. We now know better; they risked it all so they can take the place of the white colonial oppressors and became the new oppressors.
Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies do not believe in extending the freedoms and rights articulated in the UN UDHR to the majority of Zimbabweans no more than Ian Smith and his Rhodesia Front white racists did.
Still, one is persuaded to believe there, in very generation, there have been, are and will be true blood liberation heroes and heroines, black and white, before and after independence, who have fought to end the oppression regardless its racial source. These are the true blood heroes and heroines to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude for risking all for freedom and human dignity. We will let them down if we allowed these Zanu PF thugs continue to ride roughshod over us and deny us our freedoms and rights.
Besides, we owe it to ourselves and posterity to boldly demand our freedoms and rights.
“Zanu PF will not allow those in the diaspora the right to vote!” The right to a meaningful vote is THE one pearl of great price the nation has risked all to secure no one, especially the vote rigging Zanu PF, has no power or authority to take that right away.
If the 3 millionZimbabweans in the diaspora are denied the vote then the 2023 elections cannot be legal, free, fair and credible. And, this time, Zanu PF will not be allowed to get away with a rigged elections; Zanu PF will be illegitimate and will not be allowed to get away with illegitimacy!
The president of Zimbabwe must be have the mandate of the people of Zimbabwe expressed through legal, free, fair and credible elections and must never have his power, authority and stature tinted by suspicion of rigged elections.
“Caesar Caesaris esse non dubitat!” (Caesar must be Caesar without shadowing it with doubts!) as the Romans so aptly put it!
Most of the Zimbabweans in the diaspora are the socialites, have access to a mobile phone and internet, have a good education and a skilled job; and if you were ask them what is the difference between a right and a privilege; they will answer correctly. So if they believe their vote is indeed an inalienable right then why have they said nothing when Chinamasa boasted that Zanu PF was once again denying them their right?
ReplyDeleteThe answer to that question is deep down inside these Zimbabweans do not really believe the vote is their right much less the "priceless pearl" you described above. The white colonialist treated the blacks as third class citizens not worthy of the freedoms and rights stated in UN UDHR. Black nationalists leaders saw this as a grievance on which to base their demands for independence although deep down they too believed the ordinary blacks are indeed unworthy of the UN UDHR and so they never extended these freedoms and rights to the masses. The later, from the uneducated peasant in the rural back waters to the university educated professors, have all accepted they are not worthy of the freedoms and rights other humans out there take for granted. And hence the deafening silence from Zimbabweans at Chinamasa's matter of fact statement.
Zanu PF is denying 3 million plus Zimbabweans their inalienable right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country for no good reason much less due process; sanctions is but a feeble excuse; but since this is a privilege and not a right, a feeble excuse to the masses will do nicely, thank you!
Until the people of Zimbabwe wake up to the reality that they are humans and are worthy of all freedoms and rights in the UN UDHR as everyone else the world over, the dream of a healthy and functioning democracy will remain just that, a dream.
@ Nomazulu
ReplyDelete“The report of today's Bulawayo24 is about two young men who beat a man of 72 years to death because he refused to share information about soccer results! Our citizen loses his life because of a trivial matter. The question we ask ourselves is how it is possible to confront an elderly man and demand from him soccer results, thereby refusing to answer them means losing his life. These stories about African Ubuntu cannot be true to Africa, about Africa if we take into consideration the number of deaths happening in our societies. The jigsaw puzzle is the nation born out of pain; the pain has manifest itself into various other forms of societal pain developing a generational cycle of pain: This is the dilemma we find ourselves in.”
This is what comes of 41 years of absolute power, we have allowed Zanu PF thugs to ride roughshod over us and we are paying dearly for our folly. How many golden opportunities have we had to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and we have wasted them all!
Zanu PF, with its usual arrogancy and contemptuous disregard for the ordinary people’s rights, announced that the 3 million plus Zimbabweans in the diaspora will not denied the vote, “as long as sanctions remain”! Of course, this is just a feeble excuse, one does not punish his children because he quarrelled with his neighbour. But in typical opposition opportunism, they are participating in the elections although it is as clear as day the elections are being rigged! And the masses, for their part, are participating only to give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF. How foolish is that!
Nations get the government they deserve and we have certainly done nothing to deserve anything else other than the corrupt and murderous Zanu PF complete with its entourage of equally corrupt and incompetent opposition. Until we do something to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance we will continue to suffer.