Ngwenya, those contesting elections with no reforms are "myopic and naive" By Nomusa Garikai

"The proposal of an NTA (National Transition Authority) is myopic and naïve, because it assumes Mugabe can ‘volunteer' to step down. Mugabe will only give up power by being forced to resign, dying, falling ill, through assassination or being voted out. NTA is child's play and we have no time for games, please,” said Rejoice Ngwenya.

Let me say from the word go that anyone, anyone at all, who assumes that Mugabe will volunteer to step down or to implement meaningful democratic reforms is indeed “myopic and naïve”.

Rejoice tells us, he and his select team of coalition opposition parties will vote President Mugabe out of office. This beggars the question; why has the opposition not done so all these last 37 years, given he is not myopic and naïve and not one to waste time on child’s play?

"Mugabe uses ZEC to turn a blind eye to vote buying. He uses ZBC/ZTV for propaganda, as well as The Herald, Manica Post and Chronicle. Mugabe prints as many ballot papers as he wants and ‘deploys' them to as many polling stations as he wants,” admitted Ngwenya.

Top marks Rejoice, you clearly KNOW how Zanu PF has been rigging elections but you have only partially answered the question above. The follow up question, is what fool prove measures have been put into place to stop Zanu PF rigging the next elections as the regime has done so many, many times in the past?

In the Bulawayo 24 article, Ngwenya went into great detail on how he would select the opposition coalition partners but was as silent as a grave on the all important point of ensuring the elections are free, fair and credible.

After the rigged July 2013 elections, Morgan Tsvangirai said MDC would force the Zanu PF regime to implement the democratic reforms – it is interesting to note the Rejoice, as far as I know, never dismissed this as myopic and naïve – and that his party would boycott all future elections until the reforms are implemented. The people of Zimbabwe are used to MDC grandstanding and posturing and this time was no different. MDC are going to contest the next elections even though not even one reform was implemented!

We are caught in a catch-22 situation here; we need free and fair elections to remove Mugabe from office but as long as he is in office we will never have free and fair elections because he will never ever implement democratic reforms to stop him rigging elections.

People like Rejoice Ngwenya who dismiss the NTA as rubbish do so because they have never appreciated the difficult of transiting from an autocratic dictatorship to a functional democracy. The primary function of 2008 GPA and the GNU were to implement the democratic reforms designed to dismantle the dictatorship and ensure the 2013 elections were free, fair and credible. The very fact that the July 2013 elections were rigged means the GNU was a failure.

People who say Zimbabwe does not need another GNU do not understand what its primary task was and/or why it failed to deliver.

If we want free, fair and credible elections then we need to implement the reforms to stop vote rigging.

Yes, it would be myopic and naïve to assume the Zanu PF regime will willingly step down because it is not in the DNA of a dictatorship to do so. Mugabe and Zanu PF must be pressured to accept that the present political system is politically and economically unsustainable and must be changed. Mugabe was pressured to sign the 2008 GPA; he can be pressured to do so again.

We have to force the dictatorial regime to step aside to allow some other body, the GNU in 2008, the NTA or some such other body, to implement the democratic reforms because we cannot trust Zanu PF to reform itself out of power.

Since the 2013 elections the Zimbabwe economy is in worse state now that then. Unemployment, for example, has soared to 90% plus; the regime has failed to get anyone to bankroll its US$ 27 billion ZimAsset economic recovery plan and so the economy has failed to create even one new job out of the 2.2 million new jobs the regime had promised.

On the political front the dog-eat-dog fighting for power – fuelled by the economic meltdown, the cake is shrinking whilst the appetites are soaring - in Zanu PF resulted in the party splitting down the middle in 2014 as then VP Joice Mujuru and 150 other senior party members were booted out of the party. But before the dust had settled two new factions emerged and the in-fighting has been vicious.

And yet despite all the economic hardships and political turmoil the one bright star in President Mugabe’s sky is his vote rigging machinery, it is solid as ever. Thanks to the chaos and confusion in the opposition camp and to the billions of dollars he is looting from Marange and Chiadzwa.

Rejoice Ngwenya complained of President Mugabe buying votes, well the country’s economic meltdown will work to the tyrant’s advantage because whilst the electorate and his political opponents are destitute he is loaded with diamond cash!

Last month, at the Zanu PF conference, President Mugabe dismissed the opposition’s electoral challenge in contempt. And why not, he knows that as long as no democratic reforms are implemented, he will rig the elections!

No, my brother Rejoice Ngwenya, it is you who, by contesting the elections without implementing the reforms, is being myopic and naïve. What could be more naïve than taking part in an election knowing the opponent will cheat and long beyond you are cheated!

Desperate for a job, then first secure free elections - seek ye first political kingdom. By Wilbert Mukori

If you are one of the 90% plus who are unemployed, one of the millions angry that $15 billion in diamond revenue was swindled and no one was ever arrested or one dollar recovered, one of the millions fed up with the all too frequent water and power cuts, the collapsing health and education services, etc., etc.; then this is for you.

The only peaceful way to end Zimbabwe’s current economic meltdown, to end the rampant corruption, to revive the economy, to create the much need employment opportunities, etc., etc.; is by making sure the next elections are free, fair and credible. If you want economic transformation, then you must first secure political transformation.

There is no catch or riddle here; there is a linkage between economic prosperity and good governance, you cannot have the former without the latter. If you started with economic prosperity, it will not last long if you have bad governance as we, in Zimbabwe, can now testify.  

Before independence in 1980 and for a while thereafter Zimbabweans were rightly proud that the nation produced enough food to feed all its people with enough left over for export. We were the bread basket of the region. In 2000, Mugabe seized the farms and gave them to his cronies. The agricultural production collapse and the nation economy soon followed. Ever since, millions of our people have relied on imported food aid – the government was too poor to pay for the imported food, medicine, etc.

We live in the age where some nations have harnessed technology and innovation to turn deserts into the Garden of Eden. Zimbabwe has everything it needs to reclaim its cherish bread basket of the region accolade; we lost the accolade because we had bad governance. We are starving in a country which is for all intent and purpose the biblical Garden of Eden – a graphic testimonial to the sheer incompetence of Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime!

When Zimbabwe attained her independence in 1980, life expectancy was 68 years by 2004 it had dropped to 34 years. The only reason why this has happened is, again, bad governance.

Mugabe and his corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF regime have ruled Zimbabwe ever since the country attained her independence in 1980 not because the people failed to see the regime was incompetent and corrupt; they did. The people could not remove the regime from office because Mugabe rigged the vote. Unless the people demand the implementation of the democratic reforms designed to stop Mugabe rigging elections; then be rest assured, he will rig the 2018 elections as he has rigged all the other past elections.

Most Zimbabweans out there have no clue what these democratic reforms are; if they did then they would have forced MDC leaders to implemented all the reforms during the GNU when the country had it golden opportunity to do so. The reforms themselves are simple and logical, anyone with some common sense will have no trouble understanding them if the individual applied him/herself to the task.

As stated above, Zimbabwe’s serious economic meltdown – high unemployment, corruption, etc., etc. – is a consequence of decades of bad governance the only way to break this vicious cycle is by ending the vote rigging and electing good, competent and democratically accountable government.

If Zanu PF rigs the next elections then you, one of the 90% out of work, etc., etc. will only have yourself to blame for your economic misery and frustration and human suffering and unnecessary loss of human lives because we have all played our part, wittingly or otherwise, in allowing Mugabe to establish and retain this de facto one-party cum one-man dictatorship.

“Seek ye first the political kingdom and all things will be added to it,” said Kwame Nkrumah, the first President of independent Ghana. He was right!

In Zimbabwe, we are stuck in this economic mess caused by decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption precisely because in 1980 and ever since we fail to secure our political freedoms and rights including the right to a meaning vote and the right to life itself. Until we secure our right to free, fair and credible elections we are not going to get out of the economic mess.

If you want economic transformation then first secure political transformation; it is that simple!

Ultimately, people get the government they deserve; after 36 years, we cannot deny that we deserve this corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition parties.

Coalition by end 2017, promise Mujuru - mediocrity offering inconsequential solution. By Wilbert Mukori

The root cause of Zimbabwe’s political paralysis – the ruling party is imploding and confusion reigns supreme in the opposition camp – and economic meltdown – soaring unemployment, grinding poverty and corruption reaching the dazing height of the equivalent of the country’s GDP being looted annually – is our failure to hold those in power to democratic account through free, fair and credible elections. The solution to ending the political paralysis and economic meltdown is crystal clear; implement the democratic reforms designed to remove the Zanu PF vote-rigging impediments to ensure free, fair and credible elections.

After 36 years of Zanu PF rigged elections one had hoped that Zimbabwe’s opposition parties, composed as they are of some of the most corrupt and incompetent individuals, would, nonetheless, be of one accord on the urgent need to implement the reforms and thus clear the way for free, fair and credible elections. But to listen to the hot-air coming from opposition camp; it is clear confusion runs deep in the opposition camp.

Most of the opposition camp players appreciate that the reality that past elections have not been free and fair but have no clue why this was so much less what should be done about it.

“Our message for 2018 is that people must be free to choose anyone they want, who they think is a good leader. That’s, after all, what we fought for,” said war veteran leader Douglas Mahiya.

“As long as the coalition is going to represent the suffering masses of Zimbabwe, we are going to support it. But what we don’t need are people who create a special class so that they will enjoy life while people are suffering.”

“And yet, war veterans had served as Mugabe’s and Zanu PF’s political power dynamos for decades,” wrote Blessing Mashaya “playing particularly significant roles to keep the nonagenarian on the throne in the hotly-disputed 2000 and 2008 national elections which were both marred by serious violence and the murder of hundreds of opposition supporters.”

If Mahiya and his rogue war veteran friends do not appreciate the pivotal role they have played in the imposition of this corrupt and tyrannical Mugabe dictatorship what is there to stop them doing the same again in future. In the past they swore their blind allegiance to VP Mnangagwa and in recently they have shown their willingness to support former VP Mujuru and her ZPF.

“We agree with the sentiments which we gathered from the interactive discussions we had with the people during our nation-wide tour. Your message was loud and clear, that it’s time for Mugabe to leave office,” said Mujuru in her end of the year statement.

“We also take heed of your strong conviction for the need that opposition parties should form a grand coalition to effect change in the regime and bring about a new way that puts people first,” she continued. She also assured the nation the coalition will be formed by the end of 2017.

Mai Mujuru was booted out of Zanu PF kicking and screaming because she did not want to leave. Her hen’s teeth story of playing a full role in the creation of the corrupt and tyrannical regime and taking her share of the spoils for 34 years and only criticizing the party after she was booted out because it took as many years for her to open her “puppy eyes” is an insult to all thinking people. She is, in all but name, a Zanu PF child through and through; if she gets back into power it will be to reconstitute the dictatorship in her own image.

Mai Mujuru is simpleton with a 34 year proven record as one of the most corrupt and incompetent leaders of our time, it beggars belief that anyone would consider her a serious candidate to lead Zimbabwe!

In the March 2008 elections Morgan Tsvangirai garnered 73% of the votes, by Mugabe’s own admission; but after five weeks of “recounting”, ZEC whittled this to a 47%. There are many, many other examples one can give to show that it is not the lack of opposition unity that has kept Mugabe in power but rather the carte blanche powers to the tyranny has granted himself and his thugs to stop regime change at all cost.

As long as Zanu PF continues to enjoy total control of all state institutions including the Police, Army, CIO, Judiciary, ZEC, etc.; to enjoy unfettered access to the nation’s resources and to loot billions of dollars to bankroll its vote-rigging schemes; etc. the country will never escape from the political and economic mess it is stuck in. We have landed in this mess because Mugabe rigged elections and as long as he is allowed to rig elections we will remain in the mess.

Mai Mujuru, Morgan Tsvangirai and all the other oppositions leaders has failed to come up with meaningful ways of forcing Mugabe and Zanu PF to implement the democratic reforms and they are proposing the coalition of the opposition, voter registration and other token activities instead. Ask anyone of them if the solutions they are offering will guarantee free, fair and credible elections and not even one of them will answer, yes.

Given a problem, it is in the nature of mediocrity to offer inconsequential solutions!

Zanu PF is smart enough to know that a clean sweep of all the contested parliamentary seats and the presidency is not in its political interest as this will discourage opposition parties from contesting future elections. So Zanu PF is contend winning the presidency plus two thirds majority. It is the one third the opposition parties and fighting over.

A rigged 2018 elections will deliver a mediocre opposition regime with a powerful Zanu PF opposition, at best. The most likely result however is another Zanu PF regime! The failure to hold free and fair elections will confirm to the world that Zimbabwe is still a lawless nation that cannot be trusted to deal with it cancerous problems of mismanagement, greed and corruption – the root causes of the economic meltdown.   

What the nation needs is free, fair and credible elections in which the electorate alone and not Zanu PF decide who rules the land. The demand to implement all democratic reforms is therefore more than a fight to end the Zanu PF hegemony but to end the unholy power sharing pack between Zanu PF and the corrupt and incompetent opposition.

If the people are serious about ending the political paralysis and economic meltdown and all the suffering and misery these two have brought to the nation they must demand that the next elections must free, fair and credible. And refuse to accept nothing less!