In June 2013, nine years ago this month, SADC leaders made a
last minute desperate bid to stop Zimbabwe going into the July 2013 elections
without first implementing the reforms. They wanted the elections postponed
because with no reforms they knew that Zanu PF would rig and thus make the whole
process futile.
“The Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed
– the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza, Director of SAPES, told
Journalist Violet Gonda.
“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of
the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform
at least electoral laws.
“And after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of
them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the
absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there
outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections
next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”
Lest we forget, it was SADC leaders who forced Zanu PF to
agree to the need to implement democratic reforms and the formation of the 2008
to 2013 GNU following the blatant cheating and wanton violence by Zanu PF in
the 2008 elections. SADC leaders were the guarantor of the agreement, and they
did they best to remind Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to implement the
reforms.
MDC leaders ignored the SADC leaders’ advice to implement
reforms. Not even one meaningful reform was implemented and hence SADC leaders’
last-minute bid to have the elections postponed until some reforms are
implemented. As we know MDC leaders ignored SADC leaders’ plea and participated
in the 2013 elections.
In his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny
in Zimbabwe, David Coltart, an MDC Ncube minister in the GNU, confirmed
four key points:
1)
That with no reforms, Zanu PF blatantly rigged
the elections
2)
That postponing/boycotting the elections until
reforms was the “obvious” thing to do
3)
That by participating in the flawed elections,
the MDC gave “credibility” to the elections process and undermine SADC’s
ability to hold Zanu PF to account
4)
That MDC leaders participated in the flawed
elections out of selfish greed, they knew that Zanu PF was giving away a few gravy
train seats to entice the opposition to participate. (Indeed, it was the same
greed and incompetence that had stopped MDC implementing even one reform during
the GNU.)
“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 Coltart in the Book.
“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.”
As we know MDC leaders participated in the 2013 elections out
of greed and the nation forfeited the chance to have the reforms implemented
and chance to hold free, fair and credible elections and thus end the curse of
rigged elections and bad governance.
In their 2014 party congress, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T
vowed the party will not participate in future elections until the reforms are
implemented. “No reform, no elections!” Many of the country’s opposition
leaders followed MDC-T’s lead.
In December 2015 Douglas Mwonzora, then MDC-T Secretary
General, announced that the party would push for reforms but will participate
in the 2018 elections regardless. Greed had once again got the better of reason
and common sense.
We know the sheer futility of participating in these flawed
elections just to give vote giving Zanu PF legitimacy. We also know that Zanu
PF will continue to resist all pressure to implement reforms as long as the
opposition participate in the flawed elections to give the party legitimacy.
Nine years after SADC leaders advised on the futility of
participating in flawed Zimbabwe elections, we know MDC/CCC are hell bent on
participating in the 2023 elections against SADC advice. How many more years
are we going to allow CCC leaders to sell out on reforms, free elections and
the very survival of Zimbabwe?
@ Dudzai Mukorondogwe
ReplyDelete“It has been reported the ZEC will not allow an independent audit of the voters roll. That in itself shows that they are not motivated to fight against electoral fraud, in fact not allowing an independence audit is an indication that there are shenanigans happening with the voters roll. If ZEC were doing their job, they would be vocal about the violence against CCC people by Zanu supporters. If ZEC cared about democracy, they would protect people in the rural areas who are being threatened with violence and poverty if they don’t vote Zanu. There is more. A free and fair election is not just about the voting and vote counting. It’s also about ensuring that the state media is giving space to other political parties to put their case to the public who after all pay for the national broadcaster. One of the obvious signs that the ZEC does not care about democracy is that they have never forced ZBC to give the main opposition party fair representation on the radio and on TV. Fair representation in the media is an indicator of the fairness of a general election.
If ZEC are incompetent or unbothered by bias before vote casting, what stops them from having the same corrupted approach during the counting of the votes. If ZEC don’t want an independent audit of the voters roll, what are they hiding? Between now and the 2023 election, more scrutiny needs to be cast on the ZEC. The Zimbabwean people deserve to know who these people are, what they are doing to prepare for the election, and continue to expose all the corruption.”
ZEC is not going to produce a verified voters’ roll, ZEC has never ever produced a verified voters’ roll. Never ever in the country’s 42 years since independence. What is shocking is that the opposition has known that ZEC has never produced the voters’ roll and yet have elected to participate in the elections regardless.
MDC/CCC leaders have known that by participating in these flawed elections, they are giving Zanu PF legitimacy!
Indeed, MDC/CCC had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU but failed to implement even one token reform. Not even one!
There is no denying MDC/CCC have given up the fight for reforms and free elections, and worse still, they are now knowingly or otherwise giving Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the Zanu PF dictatorship. To end the Zanu PF dictatorship it is now important that we confront Zanu PF but the sell-out opposition too!
"Can they (CCC) win? Yes, they can… The ground for that to happen is as fertile as it was in 2008, but they probably lack the courage of Tsvangirai. He was not a lawyer and, therefore, his calculation of risk was different," Walter Mzembi said.
ReplyDelete"If you want to win a battle emphatically, you change battleground like the eagle when it is preying on a snake, it picks it up, spins it in the air where it has no balance. The current team love the courts, but then again they are lawyers, yet they forget who is in charge of the courts.”
This is nonsense! Zanu PF has won elections in the past because the party was able to rig the elections and in like manner is rigging the 2023 elections.
The March 2008 elections were different in that Zanu PF was forced to carry out a number of key electoral reforms making the process the most free and fair process in the country’s history. Morgan Tsvangirai garnered 73% of the vote, by Robert Mugabe’s own Freudian slip, Zanu PF stopped the results being announced. The party went on to cook the results and after six weeks the 73% was whittled down to 47%, enough to force a runoff.
Zanu PF used wanton violence, the worst in the country’s electoral history, to make sure the party had a landslide victory.
It was Professor Jonathan Moyo who said if there was Mugabe and a donkey on the ballot people would vote for the donkey; that was who desperate the people were for change. Tsvangirai garnered 73% not because he was courageous or smart and in like fashion Chamisa will win the 2023 elections. However, he will not win because Zanu PF still enjoys the carte blanche powers to blatantly cheat and wanton violence to coerce the voters.
With no reforms in place, Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections and all talk of CCC winning is just hot air
The Zimbabwe dollar was selling for $520 per US1 on the parallel market on Friday.
ReplyDeleteTwo weeks ago, the Zimbabwe dollar was trading at $400 to the US dollar.
According to the United States Agency for International Development food security arm's May report, the currency crisis has seen businesses hoarding basic commodities such as maize, cooking oil, and sugar, to name a few.
Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs who have rigged elections to stay in power. And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state nothing of substance will ever change. The country is going through the motions of an election process everyone can see is just a farce; so, flawed there is no verified voters’ roll, 3 million voters in the diaspora or 30% of the potential voters have been denied the vote, etc.
How anyone expect any meaningful change from this beggars belief, especially after 42 years of rigged elections! Nelson Chamisa and his CCC cronies claim they have “winning in rigged elections” strategies and the masses clearly believe this oxymoronic nonsense, even after 42 years of rigged elections! Zimbabwe has more than her fair share of brain dead voters and hence the reason the nation is in this mess.