"Chamisa is a visionary!" For Pete's sake, how can one blinded by greed be a visionary! W Mukori

 “We have had a troubled past in our nation. We have been through many trials,” admitted David Coltart, at the launch of CCC’s 100 page 2023 Election Manifesto.

“But our nation should not be looking back. It needs to be looking forward. And in Nelson Chamisa, I see some one who is a visionary.”

This is just nonsense, sugar coated and beautifully packaged in bite size pieces to fool the naive, gullible and ignorant especially the CCC wildebeest herd. 

The primary purpose of Zimbabwe’s opposition parties ever since the turn of this last century was to implement the democratic reforms to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and restore all human freedoms and rights. Just as the primary purpose of black nationalism before the country’s independence in 1980 was to end white colonial oppression and restore human freedoms and rights to all. Zanu PF delivered national independence but in 1980 but straight away started riding roughshod over the people, denying them their freedoms and rights. 

The first two decades of our independence were dominated by the ethos the de facto Zanu PF one party dictatorship, the party had rammed down the nation’s throat especially during the Gukurahundi years, was fait accompli and sacrosanct. To question the Zanu PF dictatorship much less challenge its authority were considered a threat to the country’s unity, peace and development and thus ruthlessly crushed. The fight to restore the individual freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life was to be done from within Zanu PF and not from outside the party. This turned out to be mission impossible!

Robert Mugabe turned out to be a megalomania and a control freak. He surrounded himself with deadwood so his star would aways out shine all. All intellectuals who were invited to join his administrations quickly learned to dime down or they never lasted. All those below him replicated his model making themselves lords in their own fiefdoms. 

Only Mugabe and a select few had any real power and authority and by the time one worked his way up the grease pole to this position one would also be one of the beneficiary of the dictatorship. The motive to want to change the system was gone. Hence the widely accepted maxim: Zanu PF will never reform itself out of office. 

It took nearly twenty years for the penny to drop, for the nation to reach the consensus that the country needed an alternative political party outside the de facto Zanu PF one party dictatorship to deliver the necessary democratic changes to dismantle the dictatorship. 

MDC was launched in 1999 to answer the nation hunger for change as the party name implied; MDC (Movement for Democratic Change). The party was rebranded to Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) and still carrying the promise for changed. 

The real tragedy is MDC/CCC has failed to deliver even one token reform in the 23 years since its launch in 1999, including the 5 years in the GNU when the party had the golden opportunity to implement all the democratic reforms the nations has been dying for. Worse still, ever since the GNU debacle, the party has been participating in flawed and illegal elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy out of greed. 

Zimbabwe has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship that has been rigging elections to stay in power because the MDC/CCC leaders voted into power for the express purpose of implementing the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections have sold out. David Coltart summed up the nation’s position in one paragraph.

 “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.

One can well imagine Minister Coltart (he was an MDC-N Minister in the GNU) arguing with his fellow MDC friends on the sheer futility of participating in the 2013 elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy out of greed. Of course, he would have known SADC leaders had failed to get MDC leaders to implement even one reform during the GNU for the same reasons - greed and breath-taking incompetency. 

Still he must have been disappointed his colleagues were not moved to boycott the 2013 and, five years later the 2018. He decided to join them and participated in the flawed elections against his own better judgement. 

David Coltart is once again participating in Zimbabwe’s flawed and illegal elections knowing fully well that doing so will once again give legitimacy to Zanu PF and help perpetuate the dictatorship and the failed state. David Coltart has his eyes on being the mayor of Bulawayo if CCC should win the most council seats on 23 August 2023.

Not even one token democratic reform has been implemented since the 2018 elections and so these elections are just as flawed and illegal as the 2013 elections. It is bad enough for Mr Coltart and his MDC/CCC friends to keep participating in the flawed elections out of incompetency and insatiable greed. It is unforgivable for him to being selling this treasonous betrayal as the “visionary way forward!”

Zimbabwe is a failed state and the nation is in deep, deep trouble and desperately needs to dig itself out of this mess. And implementing the democratic reforms is the cure we want. We cannot have free, fair and credible elections and the blessing of good governance without implementing the reforms no more than one can have an omelette without breaking the eggs!

“Zimbabwe needs to be looking forward. And in Nelson Chamisa, I see some one who is a visionary!”

For Pete’s sake; since when has some one who has already proven to be breathtakingly incompetent and mentally blinded by greed become a visionary!!!