Mudenda calls for educated MPs - what, Willowvale Motors looters were educated, thank you! N Garikai

 “Zimbabwe has one of the highest literacy rates in Africa. It is a country of learned people - the former President Robert Mugabe had no less than seven degrees,” wrote barrister and former journalist Brian Hungwe in BBC/Bulawayo 24.

“But the education appears not to have filtered down to the one place where it is badly needed, the National Assembly - and the speaker of parliament, Jacob Mudenda, is worried.

“The South African, Ugandan, Nigerian and Somali parliaments are just some of those that have witnessed brawls.

“So it's not clear why Mr Mudenda wants more degrees in the house, when boxing gloves might be more useful.”

A very witty article Brian. 

If you should ever stand for public office yourself; you will have my vote. But come to think of it, what good will that vote be to you in a country where elections are routinely rigged! 

Whilst I would readily agree the quality of public policies, programmes and governance have all suffered because those entrusted to formulate such policies, etc. had no clue what they were doing. The public debates and discourse have been “sterile, bereft of research or reason”, as you rightly quoted the late Edson Zvobgo. 

Still, Speaker Mudenda is wrong to blame Zimbabwe’s bad policies and failed governance on the country’s poor educated councillors and MPs. If the truth must be said, Zimbabwe has always had a generous number of very well educated MPs, Ministers, VPs right up to the President. Why have the well educated leaders to stop the rot?  

Indeed, if anything, the well educated were the source of the rot! It was Professor Jonathan Moyo with his PhD and professorship and Robert Mugabe with his seven University degrees, etc. who formulated the plans and strategies to establish and retain the de facto Zanu PF one-party dictatorship. They then roped in the brain-dead Mnangagwa (he is not the only who is brain dead to hold a University Degree), Chiwenga, etc. to do the dirty work of implementing the plans. 

Mugabe went the extra mile to surround himself with the mentally challenged whilst frustrating those with a working brain and hence the reason he appointed the like of Simon Muzenda, Joice Mujuru and Mnangagwa as VP whilst people like Zvobgo were appointed minister without portfolio. 

Whilst the uneducated leaders joined in the looting of the nation’s wealth they often lack the sophistication to steal much compared to the educated leaders. Jacob Mudande knows exactly what I am talking about. Of the people convicted of wrong doing in the Willowvale Motor Scandal, for example, most of those who went to town on the looting, like Speaker Mudenda himself, were very well educated! 

What we need above all else to guarantee sound policies and good governance is to make sure there is freedom of expression, free media, free debate, democratic competition  and free, fair and credible elections. It is nonsensical to blame the electorate for the current mediocre leaders when it is Zanu PF that has imposed these leaders on the nation by routinely rigging elections! 

Other than the few seats Zanu PF gives away to the opposition to entice them to participate in the elections regardless how flawed and illegal, one has to be a Zanu PF thugs to hold public office in Zimbabwe. You, Mr Hungwe, you are not a Zanu PF thug so you will never hold public office as long as Zimbabwe remains a de facto one party dictatorship. 

Besides, you are not Zanu PF material. You earned your educational qualification through honest hard work, none of the three months for PhD, and, worst of all, you have reputation as a professional journalist - those are qualities everyone in Zanu PF (and the opposition) despise. With that, you will be lucky to be elected a Zanu PF committee member at cell level; forget the much coveted position of rural councillor much less MP! No chance!

"Sanctions do not target povo" USA explained, again - link to free election is NOT obvious to brainwashed N Garikai

“The U.S. does not maintain comprehensive sanctions against Zimbabwe. Suggestions that the U.S. intends to harm the Zimbabwean people with sanctions are false and misleading,” explained the US Embassy in twitter.

“2/3 #Truth: U.S. targeted sanctions list: 84 individuals and 56 entities.  People of Zimbabwe: 16 million +.  Sanctions do not target the people of Zimbabwe. #FACTS"

The Americans have given detailed explanation, the truth and the facts on countless occasions and yet there is still the need them to do so again now, tomorrow, next month, etc. Why?

Well, because Zimbabwe is one of those countries where there is no freedom of expression and no free media. The Zanu PF dictatorship has stifled all meaningful public discourse and the regime’s controlled public media has overwhelmed the nation with half-truths, lies and damned lies. The majority of our people have been thoroughly brainwashed, most are now incapable of soaking up any ideas much less think for themselves. 

38 years of Zanu PF brainwashing has deprived most of our people of any intellectual depth it is hard to have any meaningful discussion with them. You can give them all the detailed explanations, the facts and the figures but most of it does not sink in because there is depth. Where there is a thin crust of soil, even a light shower is enough to soak the soil and have a run-off. And yet a few hour latter the plants on the same patch will be wilting. 

The need to understand the linkage between the western imposed sanctions and holding of free, fair and credible elections is vital; especially after the Americans’ detailed explanation of what Mnangagwa needed to do for the sanctions to be lifted. Anyone who understand the linkage will have no problem understanding that the sanctions are for the greater good in the push for free, fair and credible elections and good governance. Those who do not understand the linkage are like one trying to understand the genius of William Shakespeare by listening to a audio of his works in a language they do not understand. 

The root cause of Zimbabwe's economic mess and political paralysis is the country's failure to remove Zanu PF from office even when it was clear as day the party was corrupt and incompetent. Ever since the day Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party got into power in 1980 the regime has worked tirelessly to undermine the country’s multi-party democratic constitution and institutions to create the de facto one-party dictatorship we have to this day. With its dictatorial power the regime has become arrogant, confident the people were powerless to remove the party from office regardless how incompetent, corrupt and oppressive the party happened to be. 

38 years of absolute power has allowed Zanu PF mismanagement and corruption to grow and spread to become the cancerous killer they are today. Zimbabwe’s once promising economy has long been destroyed a country once upon a time the breadbasket of the region now is totally dependent on food aid, it commerce and industries have closed sending unemployment soaring into 90%, country’s basic services such as supply of clean running water and health care have all but collapse, etc.

As long as Zanu PF continues to enjoy its dictatorial powers including carte blanche powers to rig elections the country will remain a pariah state ruled by corrupt thugs with no hope of ending the misrule and thus no hope of any meaningful economic recovery. By the late 1990s it was clear to many Zimbabweans that the only way to stop the country’s economic decline was by stopping Zanu PF rigging elections hence the call for democratic change.    

The Americans went to a great deal of trouble to explain to Mnangagwa that if he kept his promise to hold free, fair and credible elections in 2018 they would lift the sanctions. They even explained to him what they would want him to do; make sure every Zimbabwean entitled to a vote was given a chance to register and to vote, make sure there was a free public media, the election process was transparent, etc. 

The link between sanctions and free, fair and credible elections and good governance is as clear as the tree trunk is the link between the roots and the leaves! Those who have struggle to see the linkage, there are many who have, is because they have been throughly brainwashed by Zanu PF propaganda, they do not know their left hand from right and hence are given to promoting Zanu PF’s selfish interest at the expense of their own! 

Mnangagwa and his cronies calling for the lifting of the sanctions will go to great lengths not to acknowledge the link between sanctions and the holding of free and fair elections. When put on the spot, they have maintained last year’s elections were indeed free, fair and credible. Of course, they are lying and our task is to remind then that last year’s elections were NOT free, fair and credible and hence the reason the sanctions must remain - to force the regime to hold free, fair and credible elections. 

Zimbabwe’s worsen economic meltdown is a product of the two cancers of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions on the one hand and the country’s failure to attract the much need investment on the other hand. Investors have shied away from investing in Zimbabwe for the last two decades, ever since it was clear Zimbabwe was a pariah state ruled by corrupt and lawless thugs. By blatantly rigging last year’s elections Mnangagwa has confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state contrary to his claim otherwise. 

The targeted sanctions and the worsening economic situation are the two forces acting in a pincer movement that will force Mnangagwa and his regime to accept meaningful democratic change and the holding of free, fair and credible elections. 

No freedom loving Zimbabwean would ever want the targeted sanction against Zanu PF leaders lifted until there is democratic change. It is a great pity that some many Zimbabweans have been brainwashed by Zanu PF, one has to explain to them the true purpose of the sanctions a thousand times!

Way forward is for Zanu PF and MDC to step down - both are illegitimate W Mukori

If MDC had listened, first, to the repeated appeals for the party to implement the democratic reforms during the GNU and then to the warnings not to take party in the elections without first implementing the reforms; then the country would not be in this mess.

It is disappointing that MDC leaders are still not listening to anyone.

“To resolve the challenges arresting Zimbabwe, the MDC continues to propose dialogue anchored on the following five key areas,” said Nelson Chamisa is a recent press statement.

a. The return to legitimacy, demilitarization and agreement on a roadmap to such a change

b. Agreement on a comprehensive reform platform and agenda.”

Let us just focus on above items. The issue of political legitimacy is at the very heart and soul of Zimbabwe economic mess and political paralysis and it is therefore important that are all clear what it means. The other two key issues of dialogue and reform will only make sense when we have defined political legitimacy.

The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 21 states.
 

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

In other words the people’s democratic will expressed through free, fair and credible elections is the only basis of political legitimacy or the authority of government.

Last July’s Zimbabwe elections cannot be judged to have been free, fair and credible for many reasons including:

1)     3 million or so Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the opportunity to register and then to vote. During his visit to attend the UN GA last September, President Mnangagwa assured everyone Zimbabweans in the diaspora will be allowed to vote next time, proof this could have been done if the government had so wished.

2)     Zanu PF operatives and traditional leaders used state resources such as food aid and agricultural inputs and abused their power to coerce voters, especially rural voters who constitute 60% plus of the potential voters, to attend and then to vote for Zanu PF.

3)     ZEC failed to release a verified voters’ roll and to release the summary of vote cast, V11 forms, although these are legal requirement. It was impossible to verify and trace both ZEC’s official results and MDC’s own results.

4)      Zanu PF had the monopoly use of the country public print and electronic media with the opposition getting very little coverage, if any at all.

 For these reason and many others, all election observer teams from nations with any democratic credentials condemned the elections. “The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU Zimbabwe Observer Mission final report.

“Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

 MDC has official accepted the results of the parliamentary and senatorial elections as valid and has rejected the presidential results on the basis that the ZEC result was wrong. This is wrong! Both the parliamentary and presidential races were equally affected by the flaws and illegalities noted above and therefore the results of both races are equally meaningless and void.

Both Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta friends do not have the people’s mandate in the form of majority votes in a free, fair and credible elections and the regime, not just Mnangagwa, is illegitimate.

Since it was Zanu PF, as the government of the day tasked to organise the July 2018 elections, that failed to carry out this sacred task and not for the first time – has done this these last 38 years -; it naïve, to say the least, to ask the party to discuss what to do next. Zanu PF is illegitimate and one does not ask the thief to seat in judgement of his own case.

Just as last year’s electoral process was so flawed and illegal it failed to produce al legal winner it also failed to produce a legal opposition. The suggestion that MDC leaders can be involved in deciding the comprehensive reforms the country need to implement to ensure next elections are free, fair and credible is laughable because the same leaders failed to get even one meaningful reform implemented during the last GNU.

For Zimbabwe to move on, both Zanu PF and MDC must step down, neither of the two have any mandate to govern, to create the political space required for the appointment of an interim administration. It is this administration that will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms and entrusted to hold the country’s first ever free, fair and credible.

The refusal by Zanu PF and MDC to step down should be seen for what it is – they holding the nation hostage. There will not be any meaningful economic recovery until there is meaningful political change and so, in the end, both these two parties will be forced to go!

President Trump trumps President Ramaphosa's folly to perpetuate Zimbabwe's pariah state N Garikai

“Efforts by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Southern African Development Community executive secretary Dr Stergomena Tax to have sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe lifted have failed to bear fruit, after US President Donald Trump extended sanctions imposed on the southern African country by another year,” reported Fin24. 

“Earlier this year, Ramaphosa spoke on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, saying Zimbabwe faces "serious, serious, economic challenges, and they can be assisted by the world if those sanctions are lifted”.

There is a mountain of evidence on the public domain proving that the two most important causes of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown in the past and present are:

1.                Corruption: in 2016 the then Zimbabwe President, Robert Mugabe, admitted Zimbabwe was “swindled out of $15 billion of diamond revenue”, after decades of denying corruption was a problem. No nation could sustain this level of economic haemorrhage much less prosper; especially a nation like Zimbabwe with a mere $10 billion GPD. 

2.                Pariah state: Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by corrupt, incompetent and vote rigging thugs. When Mnangagwa and his fellow November 2017 coup plotters seized power from Mugabe they went the extra mile to underline the regime was different from Mugabe’s regime using such terms as “new dispensation” and “second republic”. They even promised to hold free, fair and credible elections. Sadly, it was all empty rhetoric. Last July’s elections were flawed and illegal; 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote, ZEC failed to produce a verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement, Mnangagwa claims to have won 2.4 million votes which no one could trace and verify, etc. The result was therefore meaningless and void. Mnangagwa did not get the mandate to govern and the regime is per se illegitimate. By blatantly rigging last year’s elections, Zanu PF confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state. Mnangagwa undermined his own “Zimbabwe is open for business!” drive to attract investors because no investor or lender wants to do business in a pariah state.

Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has reached crisis point; unemployment has reached a nauseating 90% compared to SA’s 27% and 3/4 of the Zimbabwe population now live on US$30 per month which is less than 5% of the US$650 per month poverty datum line, basic service such as supply of clean water and health care, etc. The people of Zimbabwe need to find a solution to end the country’s economic crisis and political paralysis, they cannot afford to waste time on gimmicks and tomfoolery! 

The key to ending Zimbabwe’s political paralysis and economic meltdown is holding free, fair and credible elections and thus end the country’s curse of rigged elections and pariah state. The sanctions imposed by the western is putting the pressure on Zanu PF thugs to accept the need for meaningful democratic reforms, the pre-requisite for free and fair elections, and hence the reason the sanctions must remain.

Those who continue to argue that Zimbabwe can remain a pariah state ruled by incompetent, corrupt and vote riggings thugs and still enjoy economic recovery if the sanctions are lifted live in cloud-cuckoo-land. What every thinking Zimbabwean find insulting is those pretending the Zimbabwe elections were free, fair and credible when the country failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll. They want the western sanctions lifted so they can confirm Zimbabwe’s position as a pariah state, a banana republic!

MDC planned to win 4.5m votes in 2018 - it failed, plan lacked even common sense P Guramatunhu

MDC Alliance leaders want to cast themselves as democrats who have embraced the democratic ethos of open and meaningful debate and democratic competition. They are not democrats and there is nothing like the threat of holding free, fair and credible elections to show them for the hypocrites they are. 

“MDC bigwigs, Tendai Biti, Amos Chibaya and Morgen Komichi on Saturday said that it was unwise to change leadership before the 2023 elections,” reported Zimeye.

This is laughable! When is comes to electing leaders MDC’s record is no different from that of Zanu PF.

MDC’s first elective congress, where Tsvangirai emerged as president, was the nearest the party has ever got to holding free, fair and credible elections. All the other elections that followed have been a sham, Tsvangirai’s name was the only one in the hat and instead of an election there was a coronation - just as Mugabe was doing in Zanu PF. 

When Tsvangirai had served his maximum two five-year terms, he had the offending clause in the party constitution rubbed out. “It was not wise to change a winning team,” he argued. On the contrary, MDC had in fact blundered from pillar to post and accomplished nothing of note under his leadership.

When Tsvangirai died, Chamisa seized power in a process that never allowed any of the other two party VPs to have a look-in. Chamisa and his supporters resisted all demands for the party to hold an extra-ordinary congress to elect a new president. “The party has a president and should focus on the coming elections and not to be distracted,” he argued. 

As it turned out, the failure to uphold the democratic ethos of holding free, fair and credible elections was not just a distraction, the party suffered yet another fractious break up. 

Ordinary MDC party members have never had any meaningful say in the elections of Nelson Chamisa as VP, it was Tsvangirai who appointed Chamisa and Mudzuri VPs used his usual dictatorial tendencies. But of all the feeble excuses to deny party members a meaningful say in the election of the leaders Tendai Biti et al takes the biscuit. 

Last year it was too late to elect a new leader, Tsvangirai died 14 February 2018 and the elections were due in July 2018, hardly six months away. Now Biti and company still do not want an elective congress because Chamisa is a winning ticket, no one else will better his last year’s electoral success! Douglas Mwonzora, the party’s secretary general, does not agree. 

“The MDC targeted 4,5 million votes (Chamisa claims that he garnered 2.6 million votes to Mnangagwa’s 2.4 million), that was what was in our strategic plan. We did not achieve that. We did a very handsome score.

“But maybe those who are going to challenge him (Chamisa), if I get to challenge him, I have to prove that I can score more.”

 MDC leaders have proven over the years that they are corrupt and incompetent, the lack of meaningful debate and democratic competition within the party has, as one would expect, stopped quality leaders emerging and scum to take their place. The party did not even have the common sense to implement even one democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. It is no surprise the party’s strategic plan to win 4.5 million votes was a total failure!

"On the charge that I am weak, I am not weak. I was jailed for fighting one-party state by the ZANU PF government. I was in COPAC (parliamentary committee tasked to draft the new 2013 constitution) and was mandated to bring about a democratic people driven constitution and I delivered," Mwonzora said.

If Zimbabwe’s new constitution was indeed a democratic one, then why has it failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections, it’s primary objective? 

Paul Mangwana, the Zanu PF MP and COPAC co-chairperson, boasted soon after the 2013 referendum that Mugabe dictated the new constitution. One has only to look at the evidence on the ground of corrupt, rigged elections and tyrannical oppression to know Mwonzora is the proverbial frog claiming he is the one who has been putting out the forest fires with his punny fart! 

The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb, millions were beaten and raped and over 500 were murdered in the 2008 elections alone; to elect MDC leaders into power on the understanding they will deliver the much needed democratic changes the nation was dying for. After nearly two decades on the political stage, MDC have failed to deliver even one meaningful democratic change. Not one!

The truth is MDC Alliance will never bring about any meaningful democratic changes and restore the individual freedoms and basic human rights that Zanu PF has done so usurp and deny the people. MDC leaders are paying lip service to the fight for democratic change, what they really care about is securing absolute power for themselves. Chamisa, Biti, Mwonzora, etc., they have all learnt, just as the Zanu PF thugs before them have done, that nothing threatens their own hold on power more than granting the masses a free and meaningful vote. 

Zimbabwe is in a serious economic and political mess right now after 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule. The nation has had many golden opportunities to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but all have been wasted. The sooner the nation realised MDC leaders like Chamisa, Biti and Mwonzora are corrupt and incompetent, they will never bring about the democratic changes the nation has been dying for, the sooner the can get on with the task of searching for quality leaders who can. 

“MDC had the strategic plan to win 4.5 million votes!” That is laughable; the party did not even have the common sense to demand something as basic as a verified voters’ roll! So MDC had no strategic plan to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections but had one to win the rigged elections with a landslide!

"Serious dialogue must include MDC A" - only dialogue, transition from illegitimate to legitimate P Guramatunhu

"Mnangagwa must not waste time meeting losing presidential candidates who only voted for themselves," said Arthur Mutambara.

"…The nature of the dialogue is important. You can't invite 20 elements and bring them to State house and say 'we are going to dialogue'. Dialogue of who, with who, without MDC Alliance.

Mutambara has no clue what he is talking about because if he did then he would know that the country’s worsening economic crisis is because Mnangagwa’s ow “Zimbabwe is open for business!” call has failed to attract any investors and lenders. Who would want to do business in pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs! 

By blatantly rigging last July’s elections Mnangagwa slammed the door shut to all hopes of economic recovery.

If last year’s elections were free, fair and credible and restored confidence in Zimbabwe as a stable country with rule of law the country will be a hire of economic activity. Zanu PF would not need to hold these inter-party talks. There would be no need “to brainstorm on how they could remedy a deepening political and economic crisis threatening to plunge the country back to its bitter past.” 

We have a political and economic crisis because Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta rigged last July’s elections. The regime is illegitimate. 

Chamisa’s claim that he “holds the key to Mnangagwa’s legitimacy and economic recovery” is just the usual political posturing and grandstanding. It is only the people of Zimbabwe, in a free, fair and credible elections, who can grant someone the political mandate to govern the country. 

On the economic front, investors will never be fooled into believing the inclusion of Chamisa in a Zanu PF led government will ever transform the regime from the pariah  into a democratic one. They will remember the utterly useless 2008 to 2013 GNU which was just a Zanu PF government in all but name.

Chamisa is but the proverbial boastful frog who claimed he could put out the forest fire with his punny fart! 

"…The nature of the dialogue is important. You can't invite 20 elements and bring them to State house and say 'we are going to dialogue'. Dialogue of who, with who, without MDC Alliance,” continued Mutambara.

"If Zanu-PF and the government are serious about dialogue, there must dialogue with the MDC Alliance.”

Anybody who is anybody has condemned last July’s elections as flawed and illegitimate. 

“The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU Zimbabwe Election Observer Mission final report.

“Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign. As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

How can a flawed and illegal election process produce a legitimate result? The only serious dialogue the nation must hold now is how to end this illegitimate regime and end the curse of rigged elections and pariah state. The nation prepare and hold free, fair and credible elections and bring back the nation to democratic legitimacy. 

Mandaza propose NTA with new executive only - as if only ED is illegitimate and dysfunctional W Mukori

“We now have a dysfunctional state, made worse by a crisis of illegitimacy, and in desperate need for re-engagement with the international community. This re-engagement grows more remote by the day with reports of gross human rights proliferating, prompting some to term these crimes against humanity,” argued Ibbo Mandaza and Tony Reeler. 

It should be stated here that Zimbabwe is a dysfunctional state because it is a de facto one-party dictatorship in which the ruling party Zanu PF has carte blanche powers to blatantly rig elections and to use state institutions to impose its rule on a cowed nation.

38 years of misrule by the incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship has landed the nation into this economic mess. Unemployment has soared to 90%, 3/4 of the population are so poor many are dying of want of clean drinking water, food, medicine, etc. The economic situation in Zimbabwe is dire and in need of urgent resolution. 

It is obvious the present dysfunctional state will never provide the way out of the economic mess and it is equally obvious that economic situation cannot be allowed to continue. The dysfunctional state must go and this cannot be done quickly enough given the country’s worsening economic situation.

Mandaza and Reeler are suggesting the dysfunctional state should be replaced by a National Transition Authority (NTA). Whether or not the NTA will be any better than the dysfunctional state we have will depend on what kind of animal this authority is going to be. The devil is in the detail!  

“It seems obvious in all the discussion about a national dialogue that there must be an end goal. In the current crisis, a national dialogue cannot be merely a talk shop. All who are talking about the national dialogue clearly are thinking about a process that resolves the legitimacy crisis, initiates a substantial process of reforms, and takes the country through to an undisputed election,” continued Mandaza. 

“The Zimbabwean NTA does not have to produce a constitution as part of its work. Zimbabwe has a highly operable constitution, a sitting parliament, and a functioning judicial system. Since all these are in place, there will be no need for complex negotiations about a constitution and the nature of the state. 

“The legal basis for the NTA will require the suspension of Chapter 5 (Parts 1 & 2) and its replacement by a schedule outlining the powers of a Transitional Executive Council (TEC). This TEC would be time-limited, but, given the depth of the problems facing Zimbabwe, would probably need at least two years in order to implement the reforms, and a "rescue package" to take effect.”

There are many glaring flaws in this argument are here are just some of the flaws.

1)     The legitimacy crisis arise out the election process was not free, fair and credible. 3 millions Zimbabweans in the diaspora were denied the vote. There is overwhelming evidence that many rural voters were coerced to vote for the ruling party, as Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission stated in its report. ZEC failed to produce a verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement. ZEC’s vote tallies could not be traced or verified because some on the V11 forms, the summary of vote count at the polling station, were never released although this too was a legal requirement; etc. Given all these flaws and illegalities it is therefore nonsensical to claim such an illegal and meaningless process can ever produce a legal result! 

2)     It is not only Mnangagwa, the executive leg of this regime, that is illegitimate, the MPs and Senators too are illegitimate. Chamisa is cherry picking, he is dismissing ZEC’s result of the presidential race but accepts the parliamentary result although both were affected by the same flaws and illegalities noted in 1) above. Indeed, Chamisa even have the guile to argue the nation should accept him as the winner of the presidential race regardless of the whole process being illegitimate. Proof, if any was still required that all MDC Alliance does not care about ending Zimbabwe’s dysfunctional political system and all they care about is power, just like Zanu PF.

3)     The legal justification for the NTA is that the present government is illegitimate as Zanu PF has no democratic mandate to govern. The constitution never envisaged a flawed and illegal election process resulting in an illegitimate government. We can either pretend the elections were free, fair and credible and continued to have rigged elections and dysfunctional government or bite the bullet and accept we have an illegitimate government and appoint an NTA tasked to implement the reforms designed to end the curse of rigged elections. After 38 years of rigged elections, the choice is obviously to bite the bullet and finally end this elections charade and madness. 

4)     The on-going inter-party dialogue is clearly a waste of time as it is premised on Mnangagwa’s demand that all the participants accept him as the legitimately elected president with the legal mandate to govern. So not even Mandaza’s proposed TEC cannot be discussed in the context of the present inter-party dialogue. 

5)     Even if Mnangagwa was to be pressure to step down and the TEC was formed, it is naive to expect a Zanu PF dominated parliament, senate, judiciary, etc. with a sprinkling of corrupt and incompetent MDC Alliance leaders to accomplish anything of substance. 

6)     Zimbabwe’s current constitution is weak and feeble and the reason it has failed to deliver the individual democratic freedoms and rights. Paul Mangwana, the Zanu PF co-chairperson of the parliamentary committee tasked to draft the new constitution boasted that Mugabe “dictated” the new documented and it shows. The task of dismantling the de facto one-party dictatorship is much more that “realigning existing laws to the new constitution” as MDC leaders claim. 

7)     Zanu PF and MDC GNU of 2008 to 2013 failed to accomplish anything of substance, we must have the courage to come up with a new solution that will deliver the changes we are look for. 

8)     Zanu PF rigged last July’s elections we must admit that and say so. Zanu PF has no mandate to government and must step down, that is not negotiable. We need Zanu PF to clear the democratic space for a fully-fledged NTA with executive and legislative powers to change the constitution and restructure the judiciary, ZEC, etc. that too is not negotiable. After 38 years of letting Zanu PF rig elections and get away with it to appease the party thugs we owe it to the long suffering ordinary Zimbabweans to finally do the right thing; restore the rule of law and end the curse of rigged elections.