We have paid dearly for having the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF since 1980. What do we do now? N Garikai

 “It pays in the end to get the best in the beginning!” was Erick Davis’, a man’s wear shop in First Street, Harare, catchy advert. And true enough, their stuff was high quality and it lasted. 

When Zimbabwe gained her independence in 1980, the country had the potential to become the South Korea of Africa, according to the Japanese academic Ken Yamamoto. 43 years later, there is no deny the country has become just another failed African state. 

To realise the country’s full South Korea of Africa potential we needed a competent and visionary post independent government, the best in the beginning. What we got instead was a Zanu PF regime that had no clue what good governance was about nor cared about any of the niceties of justice and freedom. All Mugabe et al cared about is absolute power and the influence and wealth it brought to them and their cronies. 

“A year on from the coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe remains perched between piecemeal reform and old ways that are as intractable as they are destructive. That’s because the country is ruled by a clique with a partial and conditional commitment to change—and a total, obdurate determination to retain and enjoy power,” wrote Stuart Duran in ASPI Strategist.

“The ‘new’ regime can be viewed from different angles, but the nub of it is this: there’s a recognition that the economic fiasco of the last 20 years was suboptimal, but Emmerson Mnangagwa and his fellow travellers will burn the house down if they feel it necessary. Make no mistake, their will to power is every bit as intense as Mugabe’s—as is their belief that they own the country’s choicest fruits by right of conquest.”

Mnangagwa and company have not burnt the country down but only because a nation, unlike a company, can never be declared bankrupt. The four decades of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and Mafia style lawless, have left the country in economic ruins and a pariah and failed state failing to provide basic needs such as education and health care to its people. The contrast between Zimbabwe today and what it would have been if it’s South Korea of Africa potential have been achieved is breathtaking.

Could Zimbabwe’s rot and decay under the Zanu PF dictatorship have been avoided? 

Yes, of course! The nation had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, the best of which being the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Sadly, MDC leaders who were entrusted the task of implemented the democratic reforms to end the dictatorship sold out and failed to implement even one reform. 

Worse still, since the GNU debacle MDC/CCC leaders have insisted in participating in flawed elections, so flawed getting 73% of the votes was not good enough to win power as the March 2008 election showed, only to give vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. The opposition have claim to have winning in rigged election strategies, feeble excuses to justify participating and hide the real reason they are participating - greed. 

Zimbabwe is set for fresh election in August, in less than six months. Can anything be done to salvage the situation?

We cannot get any meaningful democratic reforms to be implemented now, it is too late for that. We cannot stop the Zanu PF regime going ahead and hold the flawed elections. What we can and must do is:

1. pointedly refuse to participate in the election process. It is nonsensical to ignore all the evidence the election process is flawed, participate and then denounce the process when the results are out. Don’t participate and denounce the process now. 

2. point out the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll, failure to implement not even one EU reform recommendation since 2018, denial of 3m Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote or 37% of the potential electorate, the wanton election related violence by mainly Zanu PF operatives, etc. It is inconceivable that an election process with such serious flaws and illegalities can ever be judged free, fair and credible

3. no one should be in any doubt that the opposition are participating in these flawed and illegal elections out of greed. How can a discredited opposition give credibility to a flawed election process?

4. Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections but it cannot rig political legitimacy; the election process is flawed and illegal and the opposition participating in the elections have lost political credibility.

 As much as President Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF friends would want to portray themselves as invincible in their tortoise political armour, they are not. They have their Achilles heel weakness. In 2008 the party blatantly rigged the elections are was shocked when both AU and SADC leaders refused to grant Zanu PF legitimacy. 

Ever since the 2008 GNU, Zanu PF has rigged elections but has always bend over backwards to ensure the opposition participated by letting them win a few gravy train seats. In the 2018 elections President Mnangagwa even created POLAD, a body to reward the losing presidential candidates who endorsed the process as having been free and fair and his political legitimacy.

Late last year President Mnangagwa announced very generous housing loans, US$ 500k, 350k and 40k for ministers, deputy minister and MP/senators. He knew the bribe, even Chamisa could not deny it is a bribe, will whet the appetites of politicians on both sides of the political divide. Chamisa and his CCC friends are hell bent on participating in these elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process get, Mnangagwa knows that and banking on it. 

What Mnangagwa does not know for certain is whether AU and SADC leaders will accept the participation of the opposition alone, regardless the flawed process and discredited CCC, as proof the 2023 Zimbabwe election is free and fair and grant Zanu PF legitimacy. The regime’s failure to arm-twist continental and regional leaders to get sanctions lifted and Zimbabwe readmitted into the Commonwealth has left the regime doubtful of its own powers of influence, especially when most people can see Zimbabwe’s present political system is unsustainable and therefore doomed.

We failed to get the best government in 1980, the challenge right now is putting an end to the Zanu PF dictatorship, clear the deck, so we can have a fresh start.  

We cannot stop Zanu PF rigging 2023 elections nor stop CCC participating in the flawed elections. What we can do and must do is stop Zanu PF getting political legitimacy!