Ramaphosa hell bent on granting vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy - to him, povo must be sacrificed to gratify Zanu PF N Garikai

 "The ANC supports the calls for the lifting of punitive sanctions against Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Zimbabwe and elsewhere where such sanctions have been imposed unilaterally and unjustifiably, causing immense suffering and hardship to ordinary citizens of these countries," said South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa.

"We must strengthen party-to-party and multi-party relations on our continent to turn consensus into concrete action. The ANC should intensify engagement with Southern African liberation movements to ensure that common programmes are realised."

He was restating ANC's 55th National Conference resolution that the party will not support regime change in Zimbabwe. 

So, ANC is determined to keep Zanu PF in power regardless of the party’s well documented track record of corruption and tyranny and in direct violation of the universally accept notion that only the people, in a free, fair and credible election, give the mandate to rule. This is an outrage!

Three years after Zimbabwe’s independence, Zanu PF launched the 1983 to 1987 Gukurahundi Massacre in which millions were internally displaced, hundreds of thousands had their property destroyed, were harassed and beaten and over 20 000 defenceless civilians were murdered in cold blood. The primary purpose of the onslaught was to force PF Zapu, Zanu PF’s main political rival, to dissolve itself and sign the unity accord. This paved the way for Zanu PF to impose the de facto one-party dictatorship that has ruled the country with an iron fist to this day. 

Each time Zanu PF has felt its hold on power threatened, the party has orchestrated lawlessness and violence. In the 2008 elections the party cheated in the March vote count to force a run-off and then used wanton violence. For once, both SADC and AU refused to endorse the Zanu PF election victory and grant the political legitimacy.

SADC forced Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA), agreeing to the implementation of a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the de facto one-party dictatorship and replace it with a democratic system of government. 

Many African leaders had no qualms condemning white colonial oppression and exploitation of the blacks before independence. The same leaders have stubbornly refused to criticise the same or worse oppression of the masses by fellow black leaders.

There are good and bad qualities in all us regardless of race, gender, etc. To therefore see the oppression of the white colonialists but turn a blind eye to the same excesses a fellow black nationalists is hypocrisy and foolish. 

The misplaced conspiratorial indifference of African leaders have turned many yesteryear liberation war heroes into today’s oppressors - a vicious cycle from which are still trapped in decades after independence. A vicious cycle Zimbabwe is trapped in and the last thing we want is for ANC to interfere and keeps us there.

When SADC and AU leaders refused to endorse Mugabe as the legitimate president of Zimbabwe in 2008, that was a highly commendable and progressive step. It was a great pity that not even one meaningful democratic reform was implemented during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Yes, SADC, as the guarantor of the 2008 GPA, could have done more to get the reforms implemented. 

The blame why not even one reform was implemented lays with Zanu PF and MDC, the partners in the GNU, especially the later. Mugabe bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with the trappings of high office and the rest is history. 

SADC leaders made a last minute bid to get the 2013 elections postponed until the reforms were implemented. “If you go into the elections next month, you will lose. The elections are done!” the leaders told Tsvangirai and co., to their faces. 

Sadly, their warning fell on deaf ears; MDC participated in the 2013 elections. Zanu PF blatantly rigged those elections, as SADC leaders had rightly predicted. And the regional leaders reverted to their default position of endorse Zanu PF rigged elections and granting the party legitimacy. They were doing this, one assumed, in the post GNU era to punish MDC leaders for failing to implement reforms and ignoring the warning not to participating in the flawed elections. 

MDC leaders once again ignored the still valid warning not to participate in the 2018 elections without first implemented the reforms. SADC leaders turned a blind eye to Zanu PF’s vote rigging and violence and again granted the party political legitimacy. 

In granting vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy SADC leaders have not only punished MDC leaders, if at all, but, most notably, they have punished the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who have gained nothing and instead suffered the consequences of the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. 

This is collective punishment of the people of Zimbabwe for the greed and betrayal of MDC leaders by SADC leaders is diabolical. And after 10 years of this collective punishment, one had hope, SADC leaders would finally come to the senses and stop giving vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy in these 2023 elections. 

It is infuriating therefore to hear that President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC are hell bent on turning a blind eye to Zanu PF rigging the 2023 election and granting the party political legitimacy under the pretext Zanu PF is a liberation movement worthy of ANC support regardless of the party’s track record and the people’s democratic right to regime change!

 

People should not be surprised at President Cyril Ramaphosa and his ANC cronies’ resolution to keep liberation movements in power regardless of the clear violation of the democratic tenet that it is the people and they alone who grant the political legitimacy in a free, fair and credible election. South Africans will be going to be polls next year 2024, and ANC’s hold on power is more tenuous than ever. After 30 years in power, this ANC regime has precious little to show for it. South Africa’s economy is in ruins and corruption has been rampant. 

The regime has no clue what to do to revive the economy and so, to hang on to power, the party is promoting the idea liberation movements, like Zanu PF is Zimbabwe and ANC in SA, have the divine right to defy the normal democratic convention and remain in power. 

SA has held free, fair and credible elections since the end of apartheid in 1994. The pressure on ANC leaders to silence political critics and opponents and to rig the elections has been growing with the mounting evidence of the regime’s cases of corruption and economic meltdown. 

It is for the people of South Africa to stop ANC stripping them of their democratic right to have regime change if they so decide in a free and fair elections. 

We in Zimbabwe have lost our right to free and fair elections. We must redouble our efforts to get reforms implemented as the prerequisite to free elections. And meanwhile we must also fight ANC’s blatant attempt to frustrate our efforts to end the Zanu PF dictatorship by granting vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. 

The sabbath was made for man and not man for the sabbath! By the same token liberation movement are formed to serve the people and it absurd that the people must now suffer and die, the sacrificial lambs, to gratify the insatiable greed for power and wealth of leaders of liberation movements.