"Era of bussed voters is over," says Muchinguri - meaning Zanu PF will go extra mile to hide damning evidence W Mukori

“The Zanu PF National Chairperson, Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri, National Political Commissar, Retired Lieutenant General Dr Engelbert Rugeje and the principal of the Chitepo Ideological School, Munyaradzi Machacha have agreed that Zanu PF has to change its work ethic, adding that the era of bussing people around is over,” reported Bulawayo 24.

“The three were addressing Zanu PF provincial chairpersons and provincial commissars in Harare this Wednesday.”

Is this the party now admitting that it bussed people around to attend its rallies and, more significantly, to cast multiple votes?

I do not believe you can teach an old dog new tricks much less teach it to forget old tricks. I firmly believe Zanu PF has no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections next year; it will rig the vote as before. What the party will do different next year is go the extra mile, ten miles whatever it will take, to hide the evidence of vote rigging.

There are four bench marks to show Zanu PF has no intention of holding free, fair and credible elections:

a)     ZEC will not have the time to register 7 million, by its own estimate, voters and, worse still, to produce a verified voters’ roll. Until the Mugabe’s last cabinet reshuffle two months ago now President Emmerson Mnangagwa was VP and also Minister of Justice. He would have known that the voter registration exercise should have started January 2015 at the very latest for ZEC to given all would be voters a chance to register. Instead the registration only kicked off in mid-September 2017 and ZEC has been given five months to register the voters. A week ago, ZEC officials admitted they will only register 5 million instead of 7 million. How can this process be legal when it has disenfranchised nearly 30% of the electorate just like that!

Worse still, ZEC will not have the time to produce a verified voters’ roll, there is simple no time left with the voter registration finishing mid-February and voting set for July at the very latest. It was because there was not verified voters’ roll that nearly a million opposition supporters were denied the vote in July 2013 because their names were not in the constituency voters’ roll they expected. Also with no verified voters roll Zanu PF was able to bus its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple votes. The party will do the same again next year or bus marked ballots not people to avoid detection.

b)    Two years ago then President Mugabe admitted the country was being “swindled out of $15 billion in diamond revenue”. No one has ever been arrested and not one red cent has ever been recovered. A year ago, Finance Minister Patrick Chinamasa, told parliament he was receiving 1/6 of the expected diamond revenue. In other words, the swindling is still taking place. Some of the money has been used to build Zanu PF ruling elite’s ten bedroom plus mansions and their multi-million business empires. However, some of the looted money has been used to bankroll the party’s multifaceted vote rigging schemes.

How can we have a fair election when Zanu PF spends $15 billion plus on its campaign activities whilst the opposition will be very luck to amass $1.5 million?

c)     Zanu PF’s monopoly of the public media is totally unacceptable because it has denied the electorate the opportunity to hear the opposition’s points of view.

d)    SADC came up with a raft of democratic reforms including reforms to free ZEC and the Police to carry out their duties without fear or favour. None of these reforms were implemented during the GNU and the regional leaders recommended that the July 2013 elections must be postponed to allow time to have the reforms implemented.

MDC passed a party resolution not to contest future elections until reforms are implemented. “No reform, no elections!” Sadly, they have since disregarded the resolution in pursuit of the few gravy train seat Zanu PF gives away to entice the opposition to take part.

With no reforms in place it is IMPOSSIBLE to hold free, fair and credible elections.

“The three also called for people to register to vote in next year's general elections,” continued the report.

Well there lays the political dilemma, the catch-22 of Zimbabwe politics. With not one sign of movement in any of the four areas above there is no doubt that Zanu PF is determined to rig next year’s elections or be it go the extra mile, ten miles or whatever it takes, to hide the evidence. The catch is if people register to vote or participate in any other way, they cannot complain after the event that the elections were rigged.

If people participate in the elections knowing, as we all do, that the process is flawed and illegal then it is assumed they are doing so because they have devised “Winning In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies” as MDC-T put it. If the strategies do not work, well tough luck; one must not complain that the elections were rigged.

So, for anyone with no WIRE strategies the choice is pretty simple do not register to vote or play any part because doing so gives the flawed process credibility.

Since there is very little the individual can do to stop the likes of Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Fadzai Mahere and all the others in the opposition camp contest next year’s elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process. Their beady eyes are set on the bait seats Zanu PF gives away and nothing short of shooting them dead is going to stop them contesting. The only this the ordinary Zimbabweans can do stay clean out of the whole thing; do not register to vote, do not attend any opposition rallies, etc. Show the whole world that these opposition politicians have lost public support and credibility.

Starve the flawed electoral process of political credibility and the international community including SADC will have no qualm in declaring the result null and void. SADC leaders would have never advised MDC leaders to boycott the July 2013 elections and then validated Zanu PF’s one-horse election result.

“If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done,” SADC leaders had warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders in June 2013, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza who attended the Maputo SADC summit too.

Zimbabwe’s economic recovery and political and social stability hinges on the country proving to the world that its days of lawlessness and thuggery are over. Removing the old dictator Mugabe and replacing him with another dictator, worse still in a military coup and then rewarding the coup plotters with cushy government post, will not fool anyone into believing the country has changed. Hiding all the evidence bussed voters when not even one reform has been implemented will impress the politically naïve and gullible Zimbabwe electorate but not the shrewd foreign investor.

President Mnangagwa must stop messing around, continue to rig the vote and hide the evidence. He must implement all the democratic reforms and then and only then can the country be certain the elections are free, fair and credible!

"Give Mnangagwa a long rope and he will hang himself," argue Masarira - Mugabe used long rope to hang povo W Mukori

Zimbabwe is not in this political and economic mess by accident. We are where we are because we, as a people, have not stopped to think through what is it we want and hence for the last 37 years we have blundered from pillar to post. Some of our social media based protest groups have been have had their share of blundering.

“I think it’s important for us to note that there have to be a moment with which we distil what has happened before we react,” Pastor Evans Mawarire of #Thisflag told New Zimbabwe.

“It’s important for now to just respond and not necessarily react. There is still need for analysis really on which direction are these people (government) taking.”

Pastor Mawarire has never really understood what it is exactly the nation has been fighting for these last 37 years. His understanding of anything has been very superficial at best. Admittedly it is impossible to have an intelligent debate on any subject much less on politics with someone whose starting baseline is zero and stick to the 140 characters maximum twitter limit.

Pastor Mawarire’s latest blunder emanates from his failure to appreciate that the military coup that forced Mugabe to resign and in the purge of all G40 loyalists from Zanu PF had everything to do with the dog-eat-dog factional war that has been raging in that party for the last three years. The coup had nothing to do with advancing the ordinary Zimbabwean’s fight for democratic changes to restore individual freedoms and basic human rights including the right to free and fair elections.

“Operation Restore Legacy”, as the coup plotter call the coup was about stopping Mugabe handing political power to his wife Grace and her G40 faction and handing it back, restoring it, to the Joint Operation Command (JOC), the Junta comprising of security services top brass and headed by Mnangagwa and Mugabe himself until the coup. JOC has ruled the country all these last 37 years with an iron fist, it has master minders and executed all the corruption, vote rigging, tyrannical oppression and murders.

All the coup has done is effect a change of JOC leader from Mugabe to Mnangagwa otherwise nothing else has changed. It is only those who are political naïve and gullible who equate the departure of the dictator, Mugabe, with the demise of the Zanu PF dictatorship.

Mugabe lost the March 2008 elections to Tsvangirai by a staggering 73%, for example. It was Mnangagwa and the other JOC members who told the tyrant not to throw in the towel. They masterminded the six weeks recount to reduce Tsvangirai’s victory to 47% and thus force the run-off. Again, it was Mnangagwa & co. who masterminded and executed Operation “Mavhotera papi!” (Whom did you vote for!) in which the electorate were subjected to barbaric abuse and wanton violence to punish them for having voted Tsvangirai in the March vote. Mugabe won the run-off by a warping 84%.

The most immediate proof of the JOC being perfectly capable of carrying on without Mugabe, is the November coup against the tyrant. It is clear that Mugabe himself never doubted Mnangagwa & co. were capable of staging a successful coup against him because his wife told us the tyrant was “sleeping with one eye open”.

Mugabe was the figure head of JOC but one the Junta could do without when push came to shove. Mugabe was no more than the tail of the autotomy gecko, when the JOC members were threaten they forced him to resign just as readily as the gecko, captured by its tail, will shed-off the tail to make good its escape.
    
The 2008 to 2013 GNU presented the nation a golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms necessary to restore the individual freedoms and human rights the Zanu PF dictatorship had systematically eroded away. Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends failed to get even one reform implemented and the chance was wasted.

The dog-eat-dog infighting in Zanu PF has left the party divided and weak, other than the GNU years, the weakest it has ever been in all its 37 years in power. This is another half chance for povo to their demands to implement the democratic reforms.

“I think these are all moments which are helping us to locate ourselves in this new dispensation; how do we posture ourselves in relation to this new government, what is our messaging, what are our key concerns so far in these first 50 or 100 days as we go,” argued Mawarire.

Wait, wait for what? Wait for Zanu PF to regroup and consolidate its power? No, you hit the metal whilst it is still hot, you press for reforms whilst Zanu PF is weak!

President Mnangagwa has promised “free, fair and credible” to take people’s attention off the demands to implement reforms before elections. Of all the Zanu PF leaders, he knows all there is to know about rigging elections and why the reforms are important because he, unlike the likes of Joice Mujuru who were spectators, masterminded and executed all Zanu PF’s vote rigging schemes in the past. He wants everyone to go into next year’s elections believing the elections will be free because he said so although he has not implemented even one reform.

President Mnangagwa is aware Zanu PF is already rigging next year’s elections. As Minister of Justice, he delayed the start of the on-going voter registration knowing ZEC will not have the time release a verified voters’ roll before the elections. He also knows that many of the party’s vote rigging schemes would have been exposed if ZEC had produced a verified voters’ roll for the July 2013 elections. The party does not want a verified voters’ roll for next year’s election for the same reason.

If people are naïve enough to allow Mnangagwa to get away with yet another rigged election; he will willingly take full advantage of their naivety.  

“I think it’s still premature for protest movements to go into the streets and protest because the president has only been there for less than a month now and we have to give him a long rope to hang himself,” chipped in Linda Masarira, another human rights campaigner who heart is in the right place but, sadly, her intellect has not been sound.

“We also have to consider that he has an obligation to try and reform Zanu PF and the system per se and reform does not happen overnight.”

Madam, that is precisely the point; Mnangagwa is not even trying to reform Zanu PF. He and the JOC cabal risked life and limb to stage a coup to restore their iron grip on power; many JOC members are now in his cabinet; those thugs are not going to risk being booted out of power by allowing free election especially when they are not under any pressure to implement any democratic reforms.

President Mnangagwa is not a democrat and he and his JOC Junta have no intention of reforming themselves out of office.

We made the mistake of giving Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs a long rope in 1980 and for the last 37 years they have frog-marched the whole nation into this hell-on-earth; harassing, beating, raping and even murdered over 30 000 along the way. We must not make that mistake again.

If next year’s elections are free, fair and credible; then they will be the country’s first free and fair elections. The nation’s priority then would be to make ensure they are not the last free and fair elections by voting to end Zanu PF’s reign of terror.

If next year’s elections are NOT free, fair and credible; which is a certainty given the party has failed to implement even one reform, there will be no verified voters’ roll, etc.; this will be proof that Zanu PF is not going to change. The nation must unite and demand reform BEFORE elections. The people must have nothing to do with the flawed elections.

SADC leaders advised Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, and through them the Zimbabwe people, not to contest the July 2013 elections with no reforms. The regional leaders accepted the futility of participating in a flawed process and then complain about it afterwards. If MDC and/or the Zimbabwe electorate had heeded SADC leaders’ advice then the regional grouping would have had no problem declaring the rigged July 2013 elections null and void.

Making sure the democratic reforms are implemented before any elections has been the number one priority on Zimbabwe’s national agenda since the 2008 rigged elections. It was foolish of the MDC leaders to take their eyes off the ball during the GNU. It equally foolish of the nation to do so again when Mugabe resigned because that, in itself, had nothing to do with implement the reforms. If anything, his resignation should have prompted us to push even harder for the reforms.

“Give Mnangagwa a long rope to hang himself,” says Masarira. We made the same mistake with Mugabe and he and his Zanu PF thugs thrived whilst we languished poverty and despair. It is insane to make the same mistake with Mnangagwa with the same team of Zanu PF thugs; they will string us up!