We are in a hell-hole, which every way OUT is uphill - implementing the GPA reforms. By Wilbert Mukori

There is no thinking Zimbabwean out there who would dispute that the country is in serious political and economic trouble. The economy is in total meltdown with unemployment a nauseating 90% plus and 76% of the population now living in poverty with over 3 million of them so poor they cannot afford even one decent meal a day! Zanu PF is imploding and 36 years of political repression has made it impossible for a competent opposition party to emerge.

So we are facing a double tragedy here; an economy in total meltdown and have no working political system to chart the way out of this hell-hole! Wait, correction, Vince Musewe has a solution!

“I, therefore, propose a gathering of coalition forces,” he wrote in his latest article (Time to save Zimbabwe) “where all political parties come together to give Zanu PF notice that unless we enter into substantive negotiation on a political transition now, we will bring Zimbabwe to a standstill until change comes.

“For me that is the only power we have and it’s time to use it. There is no doubt that we all want the same things, we all want Zanu PF to go and it is time we put aside our differences and save our Great Zimbabwe.”

To the regular readers this is nothing new, we have all heard Mr Musewe’s hare-brain plan before and know exactly what he will say next!

“I continue to insist that those who continue calling for political reforms (implementation of the 2008 GPA reforms, to be exact) without offering us the practicalities of it are really wasting our time. These are times for solutions and not change rhetoric,” wrote Musewe.

For those not too familiar with the GPA forms, these were the democratic reforms everyone in 2008 agreed should be implemented to ensure the rule of law, human freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections and the right to life itself. The principal task of the GNU was to implement the democratic reforms so that the madness of the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence of the 2008 elections will never ever be repeated.

 The task of implemented the reforms fell on Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti (who is the president of PDP of which Musewe is Secretary for Finance and Economic Affairs) and the other MDC leaders in the GNU. They failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not one!

Soon after the rigged 2013 elections which saw Mugabe reclaim the presidency and his party secure the two thirds majority in parliament (MDC has since increased these a few more freebees) SADC complained that MDC leaders “were busy enjoying themselves in the GNU and forgot why they were there (to implement the reforms)”. MDC leaders have never owned up to their betrayal of the nation in failing to implement the reforms.

Mr Musewe’s smart-Aleck jibe about “those who continue calling for political without offering us the practicalities of it” is just part of the MDC leadership’s attempt to falsify the facts about the GPA reforms. MDC failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU not because it was not practical but because they sold-out!  

Vince Musewe is not the only who has been calling on the opposition parties, civic society and all the other stakeholders in Zimbabwe to unite and confront Mugabe and Zanu PF demanding an end to the tragic misery the economic meltdown has brought to the nation. The coalition has never materialized because people would not agree on what exactly they would be demanding from Mugabe, amongst other things.

Tsvangirai and his MDC-T followers plus a few other opposition parties wanted to demand the implementation of the electoral law reforms, wishy-washy watered down variation to the GPA reform. Veritas, a local think tank on legal matters, have dismissed the reforms as “inadequate and incomplete”!

Musewe has dismissed the demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms because Mugabe will never accept any. So Musewe is proposing that we demand the formation of “political transition”, a second GNU, and to make this attractive to Mugabe, he will be assure that there will be no democratic reforms leading to free, fair and credible elections at the end of the transition.

If we are going to confront Mugabe then we must demand of him something worthwhile; if not an immediate end to the corrupt and oppressive dictatorship and the holding of free, fair and credible elections then a clear roadmap with solid rock guarantees that the democratic reforms necessary for free and fair election will be implemented this time without failure! To ask people to risk life and limp to demand the implementation of useless electoral law reforms or the formation of yet another GNU which will leave Zanu PF with its dictatorial powers untouched is not just a waste of time but it is downright stupid!

We are in this hell-hole because for the last 36 years we have been bending over backwards to appease Mugabe. Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders did not implement even one democratic reform during the GNU because Mugabe would have been most displeased if they had done so! Even now with the nation is serious economic and political trouble people like Musewe still continue to discount the only viable solution out of this hell because Mugabe will not approve of it.

Damn it Musewe; are we looking for a solution out of this hell-hole or a solution to appease Mugabe it regardless of whether it works or not! The dictatorship is the problem here and it must be dismantled. We cannot have a healthy and functioning democracy, which we all agree is absolutely essential in solving our teething economic problems, and still keep the dictatorship just to appease Mugabe, the dictator.

We are in a hole; we can pick the direction to take but, if we want the way out, then they will all be uphill. There is no such thing as an easy downhill route out of a hole, it is an oxymoron. For 36 years we taken the easy downhill path and allowed Mugabe to do as he pleased. We must now confront him with the truth; his no-regime-change mantra is not just unworkable it is destroying the nation and it must be dismantled, period!

It is the confused messages coming from the likes Tsvangirai and Musewe which have allowed Mugabe to hang on to power this long; why would he want to give up his dream of no-regime-change if he is being told he does not have to. However the economic meltdown will continue and get even; it is the economic mess and/or the social consequences flowing from it that will, in the end, force Mugabe to accept free and fair elections and regime change.

"We are prepared to die for the people," says Bhasikiti - rich, they killed just as readly! By Wilbert Mukori

Kudakwashe Bhasikiti is just a confused and greed individual who is so desperate to get back into power and the gravy train he is displaying the most common characteristic behaviour of villain; “Sell –out your fellow villains for whatever you can get; they will do the same for you!”

There is no doubt that Bhasikiti knows a lot of dirty about Zanu PF; even a simpleton would get to know a lot after a few years at the heart of power given the depth of corrupt and murderous intrigue that has been going on in the party. It is impossible to loot $15 billion in seven years, rig a nationwide election, murder over 30 000 innocent people, etc. and think the details will never leak out.

Now that the leaking has started Mugabe must know that there is no stopping it now. It will be drip, drip, drip, splash, splash, splash; with the only variation being in interval between each drip or splash and the severity of the damage inflicted! Not even the tough Robert Mugabe with the political skin as thick as a hippopotamus’ hide will survive this Chinese torture.

Mugabe told Bhasikiti that he was in the “wrong basket” a cruel play at words with his name before he booted him out of the party and government for belonging to the Mujuru faction. When Grace Mugabe started her campaign to “baby dump” and to “just unemployed” Mai Mujuru and her supporters she never thought she would never see or hear from them ever again.

When USA President Lyndon Johnson assumed the presidency, he thought of appointing someone else to head the FBI but in the end kept J Edgar Hoover. When he was asked why he plied “It's probably better to have the son-of-a-bitch inside the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in.”

Mugabe is going to get a lot of s***t from all these all these Zanu PF members he is purging from the party on a weekly basis; he would have many occasions to reflect on what President Johnson said on what to do with one’s political enemies!

"It is a revolution that we have dedicated ourselves to see to the bitter end, being killed is no longer an issue of option," said Bhasikiti, to justify why he was now spilling the beans on Zanu PF.

"We have just dedicated our loyalty to the people, the masses, and that is why we are called People First. We are prepared to die for the people."

Hold it one minute here! Mr Bhasikiti, you are a Zanu PF villain and thug who played his party in creating and retaining the incompetent, corrupt and murderous dictatorship; your hands are red with the blood of innocent victims you shed; your took your share the spoils in political power, influence, farms and very much treasure!

For 34 years, until the day you were unceremonious booted out of Zanu PF, you showed that there was nothing you would not do for the party. You have harassed, beaten and even murdered innocent people, the very people you now say you are “prepared to die for”, for selfish political gain.

Mr Bhasikiti, whatever you and your many ex Zanu PF bigwigs, did before independence it was not out of love for freedom, liberty, justice and povo; for the last 34 years you have proven beyond all doubt that you do not care about any of these things, you do not have any human compassion for the suffering of others. All you care about is absolute power and the prestige and wealth it brings. Your appetite for absolute power is insatiable and you have shown that you would stop at nothing; you even killed innocent people; to get more and more of it.  

Now that Mugabe kicked you out of Zanu PF and the gravy train you have decided to tell the truth of the corruption, murder and other dirty you and the party got up to in the hope of winning back the people’s trust and confidence in you so they will elect you back into power. The truth about Zanu PF tyrannical rule is coming out with or without your help. As for winning the public trust to be elected back into power; that will never happen, take my word for it! You are too dirty to fool anyone with half a brain into believing you are clean; the change of name from Zanu PF to ZPF will not fool anyone!

If 2018 elections are NOT free, fair and credible then we must hang our heads in shame! By Patrick Guramatunhu

If the 2018 Zimbabwe parliamentary and presidential elections are not free, fair and credible; be it they are marred by blatant vote rigging as happened in 2013 or, worse still, by wanton violence as happened in 2008; then every thinking Zimbabwean out there will hang their head in shame. Shame, shame, shame on you! Because, after 38 years of independence in this day and age what excuse will anyone of us have for failing to hold free and credible elections!

We cannot blame President Mugabe and his lunatic cronies for rigging the vote or cause the mayhem; we know that their insatiable greed for political power and material wealth has soared to such nauseating heights they cannot be reached by logic, reason, common sense, empathy for the suffering their follow Zimbabwe or any other human emotion. They are so desperate to stay in power they will rig the vote and cause the mayhem including the murder of innocent people just to stay in power without a moment’s hesitation. It is up to us, those still with a conscience and lucid mind to realized the futility, the madness and the tragic consequences of 38 years of incompetent, corrupt and tyrannical rule because we could not effect regime change because we did not have free, fair and credible elections.

We cannot blame Morgan Tsvangirai, Joice Mujuru and all the other opposition politicians for failing to implement the democratic reforms necessary to the 2018 elections are free, fair and credible. People like Tsvangirai have had their chance to implement the reforms during the GNU years and after five years failed to get even one reform implemented. They have already proven beyond all reasonable doubt that they are incompetent and corrupt and we are suffering the political and economic consequences of their failure; what else do they have to do and what how much worse do things have to get to finally drive the message home that we cannot count on the likes of Tsvangirai or Mujuru to get us out of this mess. We need people with common sense, people who can think!

When it comes to government, 2 500 years ago the Greeks figure out the democratic system in which every citizen has a meaningful say in the governance of the country as the answer to the failed totalitarian dictatorship President Mugabe has imposed on the nation. We do not need to reinvent the wheel; all we have to do is copy it!

Following the wanton political violence of the 2008 elections SADC helped us to come up with a raft of democratic reforms we need to implement to transform the dictatorship into a healthy and functioning democracy. Ok MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU but what is there to stop us the people demanding that the reforms must be implemented?

We had a five year window of opportunity to get the GPA reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections implemented from 31 st July 2013, day of the last elections, to July 2018, date of the next elections. So far there is no sign any of the reforms are going to be implemented; the signs are we are going to have the wanton violence of 2008.

There is no doubt that the day after the 2018 elections, the nation will list out the usual election irregularities; failure to produce a voters roll, the unfair media coverage, the abuse of State resources by the ruling party, widespread harassment, beating and even murderers. The people will start to mourn about the violence and vote rigging but, to be honest, no one in their right mind will listen because everyone knew in advance these things would happen, what to do to stop them happening and to do nothing but complain afterwards is rubbish.

Zimbabwe is in this political and economic hell-hole because we, as a nation, have failed to come up with a system of government that would stop the criminal waste of human and material resources that have been happen under this Mugabe regime. Are we really that incompetent that even after 38 years of self-rule we are still failing to hold free, fair and credible elections!

Each generation has its challenge; our forefathers’ generation was to end white colonial oppression, this generation’s challenge is to make black majority rule work for the good of all our people. So far we have made a dog’s breakfast of it; I hope and pray that we have learnt from our past 36 years of mistakes and in 2018 Zimbabwe will finally hold free, fair and credible election!

MDC lost 2013 because no reforms were implemented - folly not be repeated in 2018 by W Mukori

“Former Zanu-PF bigwig, Temba Mliswa, has predicted the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai will once again win the 2018 elections even if he does not reach an electoral pact with former Vice President Joice Mujuru,” reported the Daily News.

“At the same time, and with Zanu-PF drowning from its seemingly unstoppable factional and unstoppable wars, Tsvangirai himself is taking advantage of the mindless bloodletting in the governing party, traversing its former strongholds around the country with little interruption.

Yes Zanu PF is imploding but only a naïve and conceited individual like Temba Mliswa would jump to the conclusion that means Tsvangirai and MDC electoral victory. In 2013 Tsvangirai made a similar miscalculation with disastrous consequences for us all. We must not allow pretentious people like Mliswa raise our hopes again of democratic change and of finally getting us out of this political and economic hell-hole only to be disappointed yet again.  

Tsvangirai was confident of winning the 2013 elections; so confident, he did not implement even one democratic reform agreed in the 2008 GPA. Even when SADC leaders warned him and his fellow MDC leaders not to take part in the elections with no reforms, they paid no heed. As we now know, Mugabe went on to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections; landing us all in this nightmare scenario where we are still stuck with an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous regime and, having wasted the GNU chance to end the dictatorship, are at a loss what to do now to remove it from power.

Tsvangirai has since admitted that MDC did not implement the reforms because the party had the majority of the voters behind it to guarantee them victory regardless of Zanu PF vote rigging “shenanigans”. Since 2013 MDC-T has lost a lot of support following the party’s poor showing and its own in house fighting and dividing. None of the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections have been implemented since the rigged July 2013 elections.

So Mliswa predicts a Tsvangirai victory in the 2018 elections regardless the fact MDC-T has lost many of its supporters and, more tellingly, nothing has been done to stop Zanu PF blatantly rigging the elections as happened in 2013. Tsvangirai is a spent force and Mliswa is just a naïve and conceited person talking nonsense!

Mugabe is renowned for promoting idiots it has been his strategy for staying in power all these years; he has insisted there was no one competent to takeover and, looking at Simon Muzenda, Joice Mujuru, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Didymus Mutasa etc., who would argue. Sadly these idiots sometimes get big headed and they start to think their elevated position in the party was a reflection of their competence; Mliswa is one of these big headed Zanu PF “bigwigs” masquerading as political gurus saying a lot but most of it nonsense.

Zimbabwe wasted a golden opportunity to bring about meaningful democratic reform and free and fair elections in 2013 by failing to implement the democratic reforms necessary for these changes. Tsvangirai did not implement the reform because he foolishly believed he would win the elections without the reforms.

Since the rigged July 2013 elections, over two and half years ago now, the country has still done nothing to implement the reforms. We have not yet agreed on the need to revisit the GPA reforms (Tsvangirai and others are still wittering about electoral law reforms which are inadequate and will accomplish nothing), on the mechanism to implement all the GPA reforms, etc. and we have less than two and half years before the next elections in 2018.  

It will be an unforgivable act of national folly if we go into the 2018 elections still with no democratic reforms implemented on the basis of a fool like Temba Mliswa’s prediction that Tsvangirai will win these elections regardless!

Mugabe "ordered" the 2008 wanton violence, Bhasikiti said - the truth is coming out. By Wilbert Mukori

Kudakwashe Bhasikiti, the form Masvingo Province Resident Minister until he was booted out together with Mujuru and others in the new party ZimPF, has started to spill the beans on Mugabe. Bhasikiti told VOA Studio 7 that it was Mugabe himself who ordered the army to spearhead the orgy of political violence designed to reverse the presidential run-off election result after the tyrant lost the initial March 2008 vote.

Mugabe ordered the army to be involved in the elections. “Mugabe is the commander in chief of the Zimbabwe Defense Forces and the army cannot leave the barracks without his authority,” explained Bhasikiti.

“What happened is that there was full realization that the people had lost confidence in the Zanu-PF leader and then the only way to salvage the disappointment and embarrassment was for him as the commander in chief to command the military to salvage the loss…members of the opposition had stopped voting, they just went into hiding including their leader, and then, you cannot say there was an election, even the Government of National Unity was not warranted.”

The truth cannot be hidden for long, it will always come out and when it does, watch out!

Mugabe has the headache of the worsening economic meltdown; three and half decades of gross mismanagement and rampant corruptions have taken a heavy toll on the national economic it is now in a nose dive. His ZimAsset economic recovery plan is dead in the water no donor, not even his “all weather” Chinese friends were prepared to bank-roll the $27 billion hare-brain scheme.

As if the economic meltdown was not enough of a headache for the tyrant, Zanu PF is imploding as party members engage in a factional war for control of the party after his death – they can all sense that the end is near.

As if the economic meltdown and Zanu PF imploding was not enough trouble for the old and sickly tyrant now his former party members, the likes of Kudakwashe Bhasikiti and Didymus Mutasa, are spilling the beans about his dirty past. Now the leak has started there is no stopping it and each new revelation will be more damaging than the last.

There is no doubt that Bhasikiti knows a lot more that he has said so far; he was actively involved in the transporting some of the thugs who carried out the violence in Masvingo. Mugabe appointed him Minister as a reward for “a job well done!”

Mugabe is an incompetent, corrupt, vote rigging and murderous tyrant but for the best part of his 36 years in power he has been lucky to successfully hide the true Robert Mugabe and project himself as the cunning Pan Africanist statesman. At 92 years of age he is the only person I know with jet black hair; it is thinning especially at the top but still jet black. Sadly he has not been as successful at hiding his murderous persona as he was at hiding his silver white hair!

His long life has been a curse and not a blessing; he will go to his grave knowing that the whole world now knows that he is an incompetent and murderous tyrant!

Zim must "demand" Mugabe resign over $15b theft, argue Yamamoto - we hardly noticed it. By P Guramatunhu

On 3 March 2016 President Mugabe admitted that the nation had lost $15 billion worth of Marange diamonds because of the looting and plunder in Marange and Chiadzwa.


“This kind of plunder must immediately make Zimbabwe pass a vote of no confidence in Mugabe and his government,” wrote Ken Yamamoto in his latest article.



“If this theft does not cause Zimbabweans to demand that he resign, then nothing else will. In that case, going forward, Zimbabweans must just be left to their own devices and the donors currently feeding the population must just take their efforts to other countries. The country cannot be helped. And no more of this nonsense that Zimbabweans are the most literate people in Africa.”



Well Zimbabweans have hardly noticed the grand theft; it went in one ear and out the other!

We are in this mess because President Mugabe has rigged elections; we have the opportunity to stop the vote rigging and yet we continue to do nothing about implementing the reforms! We are halfway through the five years to the next elections and still nothing has been done to ensure the next elections are free, fair and credible; not a single thing. It is worrying because it shows we have learnt nothing from the rigged 2013 elections!

 Ken is right; the international community is getting sick and tired of helping Zimbabweans ease their suffering when we are doing nothing to help ourselves end the criminal waste of resources behind our suffering!

The discovery of diamonds in Marange and Chiedza should have been a blessing for us but our indifference to the gross mismanagement and downright looting of this resource by Zanu PF leaders to gratify their insatiable greed has turned the blessing into a curse. We have become a nation of free-loaders; scavenging whatever crumbles our leaders throw at us to top up whatever donors give us!

"I was not protected by the law!" Mukoko charge - Mutasa's "sworn to secrecy" is a feeble defence. By Wilbert Mukori

Jestina Mukoko reminded the people of Zimbabwe not to be so easily fooled by ZPF leaders like Didymus Mutasa forgetting who these individual really are. She was speaking at the commemorative service of Itai Dzamara who was abducted by State operatives a year ago and has never been seen again.

Jestina was abducted in December 2008 by State operatives and Didymus Mutasa refused to name the people responsible.

“When my lawyer wanted to know the identities of the people who did this (tortured me), minister Mutasa issued a ministerial certificate which said those people were not going to be identified because they were on State business,” Jestina told the audience.

“The new face does not change anything. It does not rub that I was abducted. I was tortured and I was not protected by the law and the people who did this to me have had their identities protected.

“It does not change anything that he (Mutasa) is no longer with Zanu PF and he is now with People First. He is still Didymus Mutasa,” Mukoko charged.

Indeed the very fact that people like Mutasa, Mujuru and all the other form Zanu PF leaders are now seeking to be elected back into high public office regardless of their tarnished past speaks volumes; they have clearly failed to comprehend the seriousness of their crimes against the people of Zimbabwe.

Asking Mujuru, Mutasa and the other ZPF leaders is like asking to the Nazi criminals at the end of the Second World War; the latter admitted doing nothing even when they took part in the mass murder of six million Jews, they were “following orders”.  Mujuru and her ZPF friends are hiding behind the oath of office and their fear of being prosecuted under the Official Secret Act.

“I had little choice but to withhold the (Mukoko) file because I was sworn to secrecy,” Mutasa told the Daily News.

The regime has rigged elections and murdered over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans, amounts some of its many serious crimes; it is hard to see how anyone can ever justify saying and doing nothing to stop the slaughter of so many innocent people because they are taken an oath of secrecy. Did the oath not include swearing to uphold the country’s constitution and defend its interests and treasures – what greater interests and treasures are there for a nation than the live of its citizens!

One of these fine days the country will conducted a thorough investigation of the country’s past elections and establish once and once for all that Mugabe and Zanu PF rigged elections. The investigation will also establish beyond doubt that officials like Mutasa and Mujuru knew the regime had rigged the elections and therefore was illegitimate.

Leaders like Mutasa and Mujuru will then be asked to swear to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth in a court of law. They will they be asked again to tell us what really happened during their years in Zanu PF.

The Official Secrets Act, like every other law, Mr Mutasa, was enacted to promote and protect national interests and not to protect those undermining public good and destroying the nation for their selfish gain. Investigating the excesses and blatant abuse of the state laws and institution by Mugabe and his Zanu PF regime is an important step in the process of restoring this country to legitimacy and rule of law.

“Rinemanyanga hariputirwi!” so goes the Shona adage! (There is no hiding the truth; it will be uncovered sooner or later!) Zanu PF’s incompetent, corrupt and murderous past cannot be hidden not even under the cover of the Official Secrets Act!