"Boycotting 2023 is a big NO" insist Chin'ono. Not even with VR "not fit for burial society election"? W Mukori

 "The current voters' roll is not fit for a burial society election. It is a crime scene. There must be an urgent national audit of this roll signed off by all political parties,” said Tendai Biti.

"Zimbabwe cannot be led into an occult travesty masquerading as an election. 23 August must be a real election.” 

This is not the first time that Tendai Biti has highlighted the sheer futility of participating in Zimbabwe’s flawed and illegal elections. He first said this in 2015.

“Look, you can't keep on participating in flawed electoral processes that serve to give big benefits to dictators such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has perfected the art of winning elections. So it will be very foolish for the opposition to continue legitimizing these sham elections which don't deliver. This country will go through a serious economic crisis in 2020 caused by Zanu PF. And yet, this is the only country where a government doesn't perform, it is encouraged by a super majority in parliament,” said Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.

“So you can't continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed.”

His words fell on deaf ears then as all the opposition parties ignored his advice and participated in flawed 2018 elections out of greed. It must be said, that he it is either he did not hear his own voice nor thought process because he too participated in the 2018 election. Or, which the most likely scenario, greed do the better of him too. 

Still, one only hopes that his colleagues in the opposition camp will finally sit up and pay attention; it really is insane to keep participating in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy and perpetuate the failed state and the human suffering it has brought. 

Let us hope Tendai Biti himself will have the common sense and moral conviction to stand up and be counted and withdraw from this rat race even if everyone else does not.  

One can only imagine the nauseating disgust and trepidation I felt when I came across Hopewell Chin’ono’s twitter. Here is the man who not just a journalist but an “Award winning International Journalist | Film Maker | 2 Time African Journalist of The Year | Africa Leadership Fellow I Nieman Fellow | hopewell2@post.harvard.edu". A mouthful! And yet cannot not trust to perform the simple task of informing, entertaining and educate the public.

“Some have suggested boycotting the (2023) election, that is a big NO, and I will explain why,” posted Chin’ono on his twitter paper.

“1. When you are in an authoritarian State like Zimbabwe, you have to fight for every space available for contest.

If you don’t, the regime will use political opportunists like Mwonzora, and Zanu PF and Mnangagwa won’t be bothered about the world view or reaction.

2. If Nelson Chamisa decided to boycott elections today, many of his parliamentary candidates will rebel against such a decision because for many of them being an MP is a job.

Many will argue that they have already spent money campaigning.

And for some, they have dreamt of being an MP for years such that they have even sacrificed their values and moral compass simply to get into parliament.

So it won’t work. A rebel from your candidates terribly weakens you.

Lastly, having MPs in parliament is a meal ticket for the political parties and their leaders.

So there won’t even be any talk of a boycott from any opposition party which has the prospect of winning seats.”

Of course, this is just nonsense!

Elections must be free, fair and credible and if they are not then one has to grade the process carefully and act accordingly. There are rules to guide the grading just as there are road rules, for example. You should not stop the car where there is a continuous yellow line, the danger and seriousness of the offence goes up a notch if there are two continuous yellow lines, a continuous red line and peaks at double continuous red lines.

The penalty for ignoring the a continuous double red line warning in UK can be as much as £130 even if stopping so did not result in any accident. If it did, then the sky is the limit! 

The idea that one must participating in election no matter how unfree, unfair and discreditable the process happened to be is absurd and irrational. If Zanu PF knows that the opposition will participate in an election no matter how flawed the process got and its political legitimacy is guaranteed. Why would the party risk its iron grip on power by holding free, fair and credible elections!

In 2008 elections Zanu PF crossed the double red lines. Mugabe and his cronies were shocked when SADC and AU refused to endorse the party’s victory and grant it political legitimacy, as they had always done in the past. The party was forced to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement and to go into 2008 to 2013 GNU. 

The GNU was both punitive measure (punishment for cheating and use of wanton violence) and a corrective one. The primary task of the GNU was to implement the democratic reforms to ensure the rigging and violence of 2008  will never be repeated ever again.

Alas! Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends who should have implemented the reforms turned out to be corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office, the ministerial limos, generous allowances and salaries, a US$ 4 million mansion for Tsvangirai himself, etc., etc. And to show their gratitude to the dictator, the MDC leaders throw the reform out of the window. 

Not even one token reform was implemented in five years of the GNU. Zanu PF emerged out of the GNU with all its dictatorial powers, including the carte blanche powers to rig elections and to use violence, untouched. 

However, Zanu PF knew from the GNU that the days of the de facto one-party state were over; post 2013 Zimbabwe had to be a multi-party state. Whilst the party continued to rig elections to retain its iron grip on power it, nonetheless, had to allow the opposition to win some seats to maintain the multi-party facade. In 2018 Mnangagwa created POLAD to reward losing presidential candidates who publicly swore the elections were free, fair and credible. A small price to pay for political credibility and legitimacy.

It is therefore nonsensical to suggest “Zanu PF and Mnangagwa won’t be bothered about the world view or reaction.”  

The overriding reason why the opposition has continued to participate in these flawed elections is greed as David Coltart confirmed in his book.

“The (2013) 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,” confessed David Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

Indeed what Hopewell Chin’ono is giving as his second reason why the opposition cannot boycott elections is merely an acknowledgement that greed rules the roost in the opposition camp. 

The ordinary Zimbabwean has risked life and limb to elect the MDC/CCC leaders on the understanding the party would implement the democratic reforms to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. After 23 years, 5 of which in the GNU, Chamisa and company have failed to implement even one token reform. Worse still, since the GNU debacle they have been participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the dictatorship and the masses’ suffering. 

Whilst it is as clear as day that the elections are “so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw,” and that participating will only perpetuate the ordinary Zimbabwean’s suffering. 

Along comes the “Award winning International Journalist, Film Maker, etc., etc.” to warn us against boycotting the elections even when it is “the only logical step”. “If Nelson Chamisa decided to boycott elections today, many of his parliamentary candidates will rebel” and participate regardless out of greed, as we already know.   

Let us all be clear, Zimbabwe would have ended the curse of rigged elections and bad governance by 2013, at the latest if MDC/CCC lasted had not sold out by failing to implement reforms and by participating in flawed elections out of greed. And Hopewell Chin’ono in his infantile wisdom is arguing that we must perpetuate our own suffering by participating in these flawed elections because boycott will risk CCC breaking up.

MDC/CCC has failed to deliver even one reform in 23 years and has all but given up on reforms and free and fair elections and is participating in these flawed elections out of greed. It really beggars belief how anyone would argue ordinary Zimbabweans to participate in flawed election to perpetuate their own suffering for no other purpose than to feed the insatiable greed of the opposition leaders! 

Chin’ono the number one priority of every thinking Zimbabwean out there must be how to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and with it the fail state. It is really insane to keep participate in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy especially after 43 years of Zanu PF mafiosi rigging elections. It is stupid enough to participate hoping against hope that the opposition will win. But to justify the insanity and the continued heartbreaking suffering of povo on grounds of pandering to the greed of the incompetent and utterly useless opposition takes the biscuit! 

No wonder the country is in a mess. With journalists/advisers like Chin’ono the country will continue to hold elections even with voters’ roll “not fit for a burial society election”! We will never ever get out of this mess. Never!