"All in Gold Mafia will face full wrath of the law!" Bollocks! For once, face povo's wrath in free elections. W Mukori

 

“Charova sei chando kukwidza hamba mumuti!” (The winter will have to be extraordinarily cold to force the tortoise to climb a tree!) so goes the Shona adage. Well after weeks of dismissing the Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary as a storm in a tea-cup, the Zanu PF tortoise has lumbered up a tree!

“Government takes note of a documentary titles “Gold Mafia” currently being serialised by an international broadcasting channel which purports to expose a network of alleged  money laundering and gold smuggling in Zimbabwe” stated the Press Statement signed by Senator Monica Mutsvangwa, Minister of Information, Publicity and Broadcasting Services.

“Government takes the allegations raised in the documentary seriously, and has directed relevant organisations to institute investigations into the issues raised therein. Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, fraud or any form of crime, will face the full wrath of the law.”

Bollocks! These Zanu PF thugs must think every Zimbabwean is a certified village idiot who will believe anything the regime says!

In Zimbabwe corruption has been tolerated as the norm and even approved and legitimised and thus institutionalised. It is not just a few individuals who are corrupt the whole organisation is rotten to the core.

When those in position of power and authority are corrupt, it is not surprising how quickly the rot will spread. When the subordinates are armed with the details of the criminal activities of the boss, they are emboldened to commit similar crimes themselves confident the boss would never act for fear of self-incriminating.  

The very fact that 80% of Zimbabwe's US$2 billion gold or 16% of the country's GPD is being smuggled out of the country every year, this has been going for years and it is not only gold but diamonds and other resources; proves corruption in Zimbabwe has reached pandemic proportions. All our institutions and organisations, banks, security services, Customs, right up to government itself; are not just corrupt but rotten to the core!

“Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, will face the full wrath of the law!” Yeah right!

Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission was launched in 2018 with the usual funfair and razzmatazz and so far ZACC has spent US$ 33.3 million fighting corruption. The Commission has not managed to have even one big fish charged and convicted. The modus operandi is catch and release, and after a while the case kicked into the long grass and forgotten.  

The British Football Premier League is one of the most successful sporting leagues in the world. Their secret? Teams attract the best players and managers in the world and anyone whose performance falls short of the demanding standards is sacked.

So far, with 28 games played out of 38 in a 20-team in the Premier League, 13 managers have been sacked. There are no sacred cows!

43 years after independence, Zimbabwe has only had two leaders and it took a military coup to remove Robert Mugabe only for the coup plotters to replace him with another dictator, Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa. The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis is political stagnation, the nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 43 years and counting, regardless of the regime’s pathetic track record of failure corruption and tyrannical oppression.

It was none other than President Mugabe and after him Mnangagwa who has presided over the wholesale loot Al Jazeera Gold Mafia has uncovered. It was Mnangagwa himself who appointed this third-grade crook, Prophet Uebert Angel, ambassador-at-large and granted him the plenipotentiary, carte blanche, powers! How can such a dunderhead be the Head of State! And yet Mnangagwa is

Head of State but only because Zanu PF has rigged elections these last 43 years, denying the ordinary people a meaningful say in the governance of the country! The failure to hold free, fair and credible elections is the root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic decline, notoriety as one of the most corrupt nation on earth and political paralysis. Nothing of substance can ever be accomplished until we cure ourselves of this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Nothing!

Zimbabweans will be going to the polls in four months, the exact date is yet be announced; the signs are Zanu PF is once again blatantly rigged these elections. The regime has stubbornly refused to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, has denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote or 37% of the electorate, etc., etc. This time Zanu PF must be denied political legitimacy for filing to hold free, fair and credible elections.

Deny Zanu PF political legitimacy will force Zimbabwe to set up an interim government, a GNU, as happened in 2008. This time we will appoint individuals with at least the common sense to implement the democratic reforms to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and end the curse of rigged elections!  

“Zanu PF government will “institute investigations into the issues raised therein. Any person found to have engaged in acts of corruption, fraud or any form of crime, will face the full wrath of the law.” No, forget Zanu PF launching yet another ZACC! We know already the criminals behind the economic meltdown, the tyrannical oppression and the looting of our gold and diamonds and they must now face the full wrath of the electorate in a free, fair and credible 2023 elections! If Zanu PF rigs the 2023 elections, as it did with past elections, then the party must and will be denied legitimacy!  

"No white super-dog will observe, pass or fail our elections". Feeble excuse for blocking EU 2023 scrutiny W Mukori

 

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! Zanu PF has rigged elections since the country’s independence in 1980 and now President Emmerson Mnangagwa thinks the party has the divine right to rig elections!

"Going forward, and as a country and Nation which is proudly African and sovereign, we shall be insisting on the principle of reciprocity when it comes to the practice of international election observation. The time will soon come when we will not accept that condescending and even racist view of a pecking order when it comes to measuring electoral democracy unfolding in our sovereign countries, and which, in any event, is meant for our people,” argued President Mnangagwa in the Sunday Mail column.

When you know, you are going to rig the elections; you have failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, will frogmarch voters to vote for you, etc.; of course, you will not want anyone to scrutinise the process.

Zanu PF’s vote rigging juggernaut is now unstoppable and the party has bribed the opposition to guarantee their participation no matter flawed and illegal the process get. The party has woken up to the political reality that party will not get political legitimacy if the process is judged to be flawed and the opposition is dismissed as lacking political credibility.

The recent Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary has portrayed Mnangagwa himself and his administration as dunderheads controlled by the white, Indian, Chinese and Russian Mafia Gurus operating in the country. Before the documentary the Zanu PF regime’s reputation was bad and now it is mud. Some of the African leaders who would have turned a blind eye to Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections will now be forced to think twice about granting legitimacy to a regime of dunderheads!

"A pecking order with white super-dogs who must observe elections of lesser beings, on the one side; and black underdogs whose polls must be observed, passed or failed, on the other,” continued Mnangagwa.

"Nothing about our chequered colonial history justifies that false hierarchy; nothing in present international rules legitimises that presumptuous supremacy. The theory and practice of election observation must be on the basis of equality and reciprocity among nations. Anything less and one-sided diminishes and creates a deep sense of bruise and injury to our sovereignty.”

This is just nonsense! In a healthy and functioning democracy every stage of the election process is transparent and open for verification by all the election contestants, the media, the public and observers. Zimbabwe has never requested to observe any Western nation’s elections and had the request denied. What “reciprocity” is he wittering about!

In democratic nations, any election irregularities are dealt with by an independent judiciary. In Zimbabwe it is laughable that the Constitutional Court handled the 2018 election challenge when 8 months earlier the same judiciary had ruled the November 2017 military coup was “justified, legal and constitutional”!

The right to free, fair and credible elections is not just universal right; it is the very foundation of good governance. Zimbabwe is a failed state precisely because the nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship for 43 years and counting.

"Much worse, we reject as utterly racist and condescending this practice of making our proud and sovereign Nation an equal if not a junior of some Western non-governmental centre, institute or foundation. We are no one's subaltern, least of all of some non-governmental organisation. Never again will we subject ourselves to such false, humiliating equivalences.

"We go to elections as sovereign nations, indeed as State Parties of the United Nations; its hallowed Charter makes all Nations equal, regardless of size and age, however these are reckoned or claimed. State Parties relate to each and to one another on equal terms, with respect, and strictly on the basis and principle of reciprocity. Going forward, only those Nations who invite us to observe their own elections in future will also be invited to do the same here.”

“One man, one vote!” was the rallying cry before independence. It was valued then as more than just a human right but as one of the key pillar on which good governance stand. Zimbabwe is failed state and in economic ruins precisely because the nation has failed to hold free, fair and credible elections since independence in 1980. The country has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 43 years!  

Only a dunderhead, drunk after decades of enjoying absolute power, would now think he has a right to rig elections and justify his foolishness on the grounds free, fair and credible elections are a threat the nation’s sovereignty!

It was foolish of us to have allowed the Zanu PF dunderheads to rule for even a day much less for 43 years. We have paid dearly for our folly and must now put an end to this madness. Zanu PF is rigging these 2023 elections and CCC are hell bent on participating in these flawed elections for selfish reasons. Our task is to denounce the flawed elections, show the opposition have lost political credibility and thus stop Zanu PF getting political legitimacy.

How can a flawed election process, so flawed it does not even have a verified voters’ roll, in which a discredited opposition participate for 30 pieces of silver produce a legitimate government?

"CCC and MDC are two different entities!" St Paul's Damascus moment was about a lot more than changing his name W Mukori

“CCC and MDC are two different entities so please your arguments have no basis, and it lacks facts. We are in 2023. MDC then was Tsvangirai and ZANU was Mugabe,” complained Jimmy Marunza.

Nelson Chamisa and his CCC friends from MDC Alliance cum MDC-T rebranded their new political party and called it CCC but we should not be fooled into believing they are now squeaky clean. During the GNU days they sold out by failing to implement even one democratic reform even when they had the golden opportunity to do so.

Worse still, they have since given up on reforms and free elections since the GNU debacle by participating in the 2013 and then 2018 elections knowing fully well Zanu PF was rigging the elections and doing so would only give Zanu PF legitimacy. They have done so out of greed; pure and simple!

“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” confessed Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”

CCC are hell bent on participating in these 2023 elections knowing fully well the whole election process is flawed and that participating will only give the process some modicum of “credibility”, as Coltart put it, and thus give vote rigging Zanu PF some modicum of political legitimacy. Once again, they are participating out of greed.

CCC rebranding is no different from Mnangagwa’s Second Republic rebranding of Zanu PF. The dictator is demanding of us all not only forget what Zanu PF has done from 1980 to November 2017; “let bygone by bygones”, he argued. He too, just like Chamisa and company, is refusing to held to account for what Zanu PF has done until November 2017 although he has not only a senior member in the Zanu PF governments throughout those years; he was Mugabe’s henchman!

The Mugabe dictatorship lasted 37 years because Mnangagwa played a major role in imposing and retaining the de facto one-party dictatorship by spearheading the 1983 to 1987 Gukurahundi massacre and carrying out the blatant rigging of elections. Mnangagwa, by his own admission, was the principal player in the 2008 election coup that denying MDC the keys to State House.

Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies promised the Second Republic will have “zero tolerance on corruption” and will hold free and fair elections. Corruption is now into overdrive as the ongoing Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary is revealing. The regime blatantly rigged the 2018 elections and is doing the same now with the 2023 elections.

When Saul had his Damascus moment, he was completely transformed from the zealot persecuting and murdering believers of Jesus Christ to one of the most outstanding Christian evangelists of all time. Even if Saul had never changed his name to Paul his work from that dramatic moment on the road to Damascus earned him the heavenly acclaim and rightly honoured as a Saint!

Both Emmerson Mnangagwa and Nelson Chamisa have rebranded their political parties from Zanu PF to Zanu PF Second Republic, MDC cum MDC-T cum MDC A to CCC respectively for the sake of running away from their dismal past and to deceive the populous by claiming they have changed when they have not change one bit! They have cast off the old party regalia but not its old dirty habits. A cobra does not seize to a deadly snake just because it has shed off its old skin. It was not the change of name from Saul to Paul that made him a Saint it was the transformation from a murderous zealot to an Christian evangelist per excellence! 

Al Jazeera Gold Mafia exposed Mnangagwa as a corrupt dunderhead. Charamba, threats will not put gene back W Mukori

 

The Al Jazeera Zimbabwe’s Gold Mafia documentary uncovered the details of gold smuggling and money laundering that has left all those involved stack naked with nowhere to hide. Zanu PF has hit the panic button!

The initial reaction by the Zanu PF regime was to dismiss the documentary as a just another Western inspired “regime change” propaganda to discredit the regime’s sanctions-busting stroke of genius. It is a hard sell to tell people the nation is prospering from the gold smuggling and money laundering when the economic reality tells of the few who have become filthy rich and wasteful and the millions living in abject poverty.

When President Mnangagwa took over from Mugabe in 2017, he promised “zero tolerance on corruption”. The Al Jazeera has him as the godfather of all those involved in the gold smuggling and money laundering. The man he appointed Zimbabwe’s first ambassador-at-large is the one using the diplomatic bag to transport dirty money!

You can fool some people all the time. You can fool all the people some of the time. But you cannot fool all the people all the time! The Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary has uncovered so much in so much detail it is really impossible for the Zanu PF regime’s snip doctors to deny corruption is rampant in Zimbabwe. Impossible! And so they have changed tac, gag the nation.

"Al Jazeera is not a court of law before whose claims impart privileges to defamatory utterances,” tweeted George Charamba, President Mnangagwa’s spokesperson, under the pseudonym Tinoedza Zvimwe.

“It is merely some weaponised channel.

“If you are reckless to enough repeat what it's phoney documentary defamatorily says hoping to plead ‘I heard/saw it on Al Jazeera', you will be sorry for yourself.

"Do not for once think there is no grit to act against reckless, defamatory and politically-motivated journalism. Faceless Twitter names egging you on will not be a factor when brickbats come. Be warned."

NewsDay contacted Charamba and he added, "Waverenga tweet yacho (You read the tweet). It's complete in its meaning and sense."

Mark my words and mark them well. I am not dismissing Charamba’s threats, Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are ruthless thugs they carried out the 1983 to 1987 Gukurandi massacre in which they murdered over 20 000 innocent civilians and have murdered a further 20 000 more since to consolidate their strangle hold on power. The regime has a well-documented track record of rigging elections and, time and again, resorting to wanton violence in its desperate effort to gain and retain absolute power at all costs.

President Mnangagwa has clearly failed to revive the Zimbabwe economy since taking over from Mugabe after the 2017 military coup. The Al Jazeera documentary could not have come at a worse time for him, he is facing elections in five months. In their desperate effort to silence the corruption narrative and hang on to power, Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies will do anything.

Still, what cannot be denied too is the heavy price the nation has paid in allowing Zanu PF rid roughshod over us all. 43 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule have left the country a failed state, unable to provide even the most basic necessities of life such as education and health care, millions are living in abject poverty. The present economic and political situation is set to get worse not better.

One of the key revelations of the Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary is that Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies are buffoons, “dunderheads” as one Mafia gangster aptly put it. It is bad enough that we have allowed dunderheads to ride roughshod over us denying us our freedoms, rights and human dignity for the last 43 years. Enough is enough! We must not allow ourselves to be outwitted by dunderheads ever again, even though they are the ones wielding the stick!  

In the 9 Oscar Award winning epic movie Gandhi, directed by Sir Richard Attenborough, Mahatma Gandhi showed the world that even the rich, powerful and ruthless tyrants can be defeated. In one scene a calvary of horse mounted Police armed to the teeth charged Gandhi and his fellow peaceful demonstrators who were demanding a fair wage and justice. Instead of the marchers scattering in panic, they laid down. The horses reared up and would not tramp over the humans.

The Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary has revealed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa is not only corrupt but that he is a dunderhead who is not fit to be Head of State. The gene is out of the bottle and cannot be put back. What is important now is the consequences of the gene being out of the bottle, the importance of making sure we have free elections and good governance.

The documentary has once again underlined the importance of implementing democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. The Gold Mafia are using the looted wealth to bankroll both Zanu PF and opposition to ensure the country remains in the hands of dunderheads.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Zanu PF has stepped up the threats to use violence to silence discussion on details of the gold smuggling and money laundering we must be subtle and never lose sight of the primary task of reforms and free elections.

Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections. CCC will participate no matter how flawed and illegal the process gets because they are after the few gravy train seats on offer as bait. We can outsmart these dunderheads by refusing to participate in the flawed elections and denounce the process to deny Zanu PF political legitimacy. How can an election process so flawed there is no verified voters’ roll, rural voters are frogmarched to vote for Zanu PF, etc. produce a legitimate government!!!

Spectre of Zanu PF thugs rigging party primaries underlines folly of participating 2023 without even verified voters roll. W Mukori

 

“Matsotsi haagerani!” (Crooks do not cut each other’s hair!) so goes the Shona adage. Meaning it is one thing the crooks playing their mischief on the unsuspecting public, when one of them is the victim; they do not like it one bit!

All the losing candidates in the Zanu PF primary elections have complained the elections were rigged. One of the losing candidates could not even vote for himself because his name and many of his supporters were no longer on the membership register! He was shocked at just how many new members had joined the party in the last weeks before the primary!

Tales of Zanu PF blatantly rigging the national elections, including the use of wanton violence, are abound. During the Zanu PF elections there was the usual vote buying. Come the national elections, there will be a bigger stick and a small carrot.  

"We allowed people to lodge complaints, an ad-hoc special tribunal will be meeting today (yesterday) and outcomes of these complaints will affect results," said Mike Bimha, Zanu PF National Political Commissar.

Complaining at national election level has been a complete waste of time, since the ruling party Zanu PF has captured and corrupted the state institutions like ZEC, Police, judiciary, etc. It was laughable when Nelson Chamisa lodged a Constitutional Court challenge the 2018 presidential elections results. The same judiciary had just ruled the November 2017 military coup “justified, legal and constitutional”!  

Any day now, President Mnangagwa will dissolve parliament and announce the date for presidential, parliamentary and local council elections. The nation has not yet produced a verified voters’ roll, nor is it likely to do so now!

Indeed, ever since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, the country has never ever produced a verified voters’ roll. Never ever!

How can we expect to hold free, fair and credible elections without something as basic as a verified voters’ roll beggars belief! The Americans were reminding us of this, calling on ZEC to "polish" the voters roll and avail it to the public to guarantee credible polls.

"The consistent message that we provided to the government was that we are calling for peaceful elections. That was the issue that we raised with both the government and the opposition leaders. We call for political leaders to come out and call for peace during and after the elections," Robert Scott, USA deputy assistant in the Bureau of African Affairs, reminded Zimbabweans.

"They should disavow any of their members who resort to violence instead of a peaceful exchange of ideas, transparent elections which include polishing the voters roll, accrediting long-term international and local observers and inclusive elections that include allowing the media to report freely, and the civil society organisations."

This is not the first time the American have called for free and fair elections nor are they the only ones to do so. The EU, Commonwealth, SADC and many others have done so but all to no avail. It was none other than SADC who proposed and were the guarantor of the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) whose primary purpose was implement the democratic reforms to guarantee free, fair and credible elections.

In June 2013 SADC leaders made a last-minute bid to get the democratic reforms implemented before the elections. “If you participate in the elections, you will lose. The elections are done!” they warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders in Maputo in 2013. As we know, their warning fall on deaf ears and, in disgust, SADC leaders have ever since endorsed Zanu PF rigged elections granting the party legitimacy.

Ever since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, Zanu PF leaders have always believed they have the right to rule the country by right of conquest; they are the ones who fought and defeated the white colonial government. Robert Mugabe and his cronies had their way, they would have imposed a de jure one-party state but had to settle for a de facto one-party state instead. They have maintained their iron grip on power all these last 43 years by rigging the elections; period.

The only time Zanu PF did not enjoy absolute power was during the 2008 to 2013 GNU when SADC refused to recognise the party’s election victory because of the blatant cheating and wanton violence. Being asked to share power with Morgan Tsvangirai was the most humiliating time in Mugabe’s whole political career – up to that point. (Worse time was when he was booted out of office in the 2017 military coup!)

Mugabe had always assumed that SADC will turn a blind eye to his election shenanigans and grant his regime legitimacy. When SADC refused to endorse his 2008 election victory, it was a really shock to him. He had never thought SADC would dare to hold him to political account.  

Mugabe thanked his lucky stars that MDC leaders turned out to be so hopeless corrupt and incompetent they failed to implement even one reform during the GNU. And so Zanu PF emerged out of the GNU with all its dictatorial power untouched. Still he was shrewd enough to scrap the one-party state ethos and replace it with a façade of Zimbabwe as a multi-party democracy. All he had to do was to bribe the opposition to make sure they participated in the elections no matter how flawed and illegal the process got. SADC leaders have obliging reverted to turning a blind eye to Zanu PF election shenanigans as long as the opposition participated.

And so Zanu PF will ignore the call to produce a verified voters’ roll, to free the media, etc., etc. because the party is confident of two things:

1)     That the opposition will participate in these elections in numbers regardless how flawed and illegal the process happened to be.

 

2)     That SADC will endorse the election process regardless how flawed and illegal the process happened to be. SA’s ruling ANC government has already said it would not permit regime change in Zimbabwe (presumably, regardless how flawed and illegal the election happened to be). It is sweet music to the Zanu PF leaders’ ears!

The task of implementing the democratic reforms to ensure free and fair elections has never been more urgent than it is right now with the country in a serious economic and political mess. 43 years of the Zanu PF dictatorship has left the country in economic ruins and political paralysis another rigged elections to give the regime five more years of this chaos and human suffering is unthinkable.

We cannot stop Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections, it is too late to do it. What we can and must do is make sure that this time, Zanu PF does not get political legitimacy by:

a)     Denouncing the electoral process for failing to produce a verified voters’ roll, no free media, denying 3 million in the diaspora or 37% of voters the vote, etc. How can such a flawed and illegal process produce a legitimate government!

 

b)     Denounce the opposition for not only selling out by failing to implement the democratic reforms and by insisting on participating in flawed elections out of greed and to give the flawed election some modicum of credibility. How can discredited opposition give the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy.

 

c)     SADC election observers must, like all the other election observers stick to their task of judging whether the elections process is free, fair and credible to internationally accepted democratic elections norms. To judge rigged elections as “substantial free and fair” to stop regime change or to punish the incompetent opposition is totally unacceptable particularly since it is the ordinary people who are paying dearly for the erroneous judgement.

"Zanu PF primaries were utter fiasco for ED" says Mliswa. ED's turn to sleep with one eye open Wilbert Mukori

 

If one, Right Honourable Temba P Mliswa, MP for Norton, is to be believed, then the Gold Mafia is certainly bigger then Zanu PF and they are the ones behind President Mnangagwa’s humiliating defeats in on going Zanu PF elections. No less than 30 Mnangagwa loyalists including seating MPs and ministers have lost the Zanu PF parliamentary primary elections.

Zimbabwe has 210 MPs and as a rule of thumb Zanu PF has been giving away 1/3 of the seats or 70 seats to entice the opposition to participate and maintain the façade Zimbabwe is a healthy multi-party democracy. This is important for the party to get political legitimacy.

So, losing 30 seats to a rivalry Zanu PF faction will rob Mnangagwa of the 2/3 majority and if the 30 joined up with the opposition and are joined by 11 more, Mnangagwa faction will lose its majority.

Besides the emergence of a strong Zanu PF faction could divide the presidential vote with faction supporters voting for Zanu PF MP and opposition presidential candidate. This happened in 2008 with operation “Bhora musango!” resulting in Mugabe losing heavily to Tsvangirai in the March 2008 vote, as Mnangagwa will know only too well.

“#BREAKING-The current Zanu PF primary elections have been an utter fiasco of manufactured winners and use of illegal parallel structures. At the centre of the mess is the Forever Associates of Zimbabwe (FAZ) led by Deputy Director of CIO Rtd Brigadier Tapfumaneyi.” Announced Mliswa in a string of tweets.

“FAZ has been pushing for former G40 members to be organically voted into the ZANU PF system through these elections. The ultimate output will be a body of MPs and Senators that are anti-ED. There is no transparency in the elections at all.

“Tapfumaneyi previously approached many G40 members to come and join FAZ and some, like Kasukuwere, refused. However, the agenda was not dropped. It has continued and can be seen through the sheer madness that is the current primaries.”

Most, if not all, losing candidates in Zimbabwe elections always claim that the elections was rigged and in most cases they will be right too. They will know of cases ranging from vote buying the more serious cases of tampering with the voters’ roll, intimidation and violence. Politics in Zimbabwe has become such a dirty game it is little wonder only season thugs play it!

Mary Mliswa, Temba’s sister was one of the losers of the primary elections and it is tempting to dismiss Temba’s renting as soar grapes but that would be to miss the point. The point being that Zimbabwe politics have become such a dirty and chaotic game in which outsiders, the gold Mafia, are the puppeteers and the Zimbabwean politicians, from both sides of the political divide are the puppets on the string. The puppets limbs and torso are flying in direction in the most vigorous dirty dance routine to the rancorous laugher of the Mafia!  

No Temba Mliswa did not leave Nelson Chamisa out of this. “The reason why Chamisa has remained confident about the 2023 elections is that he is working with FAZ which is run by the CIO. He doesn't need to do much as FAZ is already strategising from within Zanu PF.”

“The problems have been a long time coming and I have pointed this out before. FAZ has actually received more money than the actual CIO. It is being taken care of more than the CIO personnel which should be worrisome for those in the system,” continued Mliswa.

It really does not matter who is whipping Mnangagwa; is it G40, VP Chiwenga or CCC. What matters is Zimbabwe’s politicians are fighting each other like wild cats and it is the Mafia who are bankrolling FAZ, all the Zanu factions and CCC who are benefiting from the chaos and confusion.

Lest some people should forget; in 2016 the late Robert Mugabe fell out with the Diamond Mafia and cancelled their carte balance looting licences and kick the lot out including the Chinese. Before the year was out his wife Grace was talking of how the dictators was living inconstant fear of a coup.

“Baba vanovata rimwe ziso rakasvinura!” (Mugabe is sleeping with one eye open!) Well on 15 November 2017 he must have had the lazy eye open because he, supposedly, filed to see the coup plotters until it was too late to stop them!

The 2017 coup happen soon after the Zimbabwe Defence Forces Commander C Chiwenga’s return from China. He was the head of the military coup. The Chinese company got its diamond looting licence back soon thereafter! Historic documents will fill in the gaps and cross the ts.

The only time when the Mafia godfathers were truly worried they might lose their strangle hold on their Zanu PF puppets was during the 2008 to 2013 Government of National Unity (GNU). In his desperate effort to retain political power Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies had certain over played their hand with the blatant cheating and, worse still, the wanton violence that followed.

The Mafiosi heaved a sigh of relief when at the end of the GNU not even one meaningful democratic reform had been implemented. The five years of bribing and pampering the MDC leaders had paid off. The pampering has continued post the GNU to maintain the façade Zimbabwe is a healthy and functioning multi-party democratic country.

The Al Jazeera documentary has not just exposed the extend of the gold looting in Zimbabwe but most important of all the sheer naivety and breath-taking incompetence of the Zanu PF government especially of President Mnangagwa himself. Only a village idiot, not a statesman much less Head of State, would appoint third grade conman like Uebert Angel ambassador-at-large!

Has Zimbabwe’s Mafia decided Mnangagwa is damaged goods and are moving in to remove him? Is the humiliating defeat of the Mnangagwa loyalists the first telling blows before the Mafia moving in to deliver the coup de grace?

My primary concern is what we, ordinary Zimbabweans, want? We need to implement the democratic reforms the 2008 to 2013 GNU was tasked to implement a.s.a.p. It is the only sure way to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. Make the country’s political leaders democratically accountable to the people and we will sever the puppet string the Mafia are using to control our politicians!

“I will be writing a letter to the international community outlining how FAZ is a CIO organisation playing being an NGO. That's why they have been against the real NGOs, because they have their own outfits created to subvert perceived enemies,” continued Temba Mliswa in his twitter monologues.

Yes, do that Temba! He is a Mnangagwa loyalists and must be worried sick what will happen to him lot if Mnangagwa is to booted out of State House!

He never imagined that happening until now. He knows the Mafia are after Mnangagwa and they will dispose of him with the same indifference as shown Mugabe if not worse!

Meanwhile, it is election time and the Mafia have their Zimbabwe’s puppet politicians, across the political divide, dirty dancing as if their very lives depend on it and, in this winner takes all, it does! It is Mnangagwa’s turn to sleep with one eye open!

"One thing I like about Zanu PF, gold Mafia is punishing those who voted for it too" sniggered some. W Mukori

 

The Al Jazeera “Gold Mafia: Laundry Service” of the looting of Zimbabwe’s gold has forced many Zimbabweans to sit up and pay attention. In my WhatsApp group there is a photo of a couple sniggering with the caption “One thing I like about Zanu PF anorwadzisa neakaivhotera!” (Zanu PF is punishing even those who voted for them!)

Zimbabweans have a sense of humour but in this case the joke is on us. We think we are holding the thick end of the whip when, in reality, we are at the business end!

The art of rigging the elections is to do it in such way the electorate always, always, believe their vote counts regardless how flawed and illegal the process gets. But it helps if the said electorate are so naïve and gullible they believe anything the regime says even when their own eyes tell them otherwise! And Zimbabweans must be some of the most naïve and gullible people on earth!

The 2008 Zimbabwe elections were a watershed election in that the whole world learnt the full extend of Zanu PF’s vote rigging powers. “Kuzvionera pamhiro sefodya!” as one would say in Shona. MDC won 73% of the vote in the March 2008 vote, according to the late Robert Mugabe’s Freudian slip.

SADC, the regional body, refused to recognise Zanu PF as the legitimate winner and wanted the country to implement democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. It was SADC that proposed the 2008 to 2013 GNU and gave it the principal task to implement the democratic reforms. And when SADC realised that no meaningful reforms had been implemented, they wanted the 2013 elections postponed until reforms were implemented.

It is disappointing that the majority of Zimbabweans have remain ignorant of the primary purpose of the GNU was to implement reforms and stop Zanu PF rigging elections. They continue to pretend elections are free, fair and credible and Zanu pF has the democratic mandate of the majority. They are sniggering at the majority who are keeping Zanu PF in power. In the March 2008 vote it was MDC who garnered 73% of the votes and yet Zanu PF claimed victory. Since when has 27% trumped 73%?

The sniggering Zimbabweans should have realised that it was MDC leaders’ responsibility to implement the democratic reforms. And if they were paying attention to the Al Jazeera documentary they would have learned why MDC leaders not only sold out by failing to implement reforms but, worst of all, continue to sell out to this day by participating in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy.

 In the Al Jazeera documentary “Gold Mafia: laundry service”, Kamlesh Pattni, alias Brother/Pastor Paul, a Kenyan of Indian descend boasts of how he help President Arap Moi of Kenya, a notorious dictator, survive by buying off his political opponents and critics using the loot from his gold laundering activities. Pattni left Kenya and has been plying his gold looting skills in Zimbabwe on behalf of Mugabe and then Mnangagwa.

Of course, Brother Paul has helped Mugabe and now Mnangagwa survive by buying off Zanu PF’s opponents and critics. MDC/CCC leaders’ failure to implement even one token reform during the GNU and their stubborn insistence in participating in flawed elections is not only because they are breathtakingly incompetent. They are not whom we think they are! We think they are opposition when they are Zanu PF in all but name!

In the 2018 Zimbabwe elections the EU deployed a 245 strong Election Observer Team, the biggest such team. “Notably, major shortcomings in the pre-election environment impacted on the free expression of the will of electors, state resources were misused in favour of the incumbent and coverage by state media was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party. Further, the electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability,” stated the EU Observer Mission final report.

“As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards.”

The EU Observer Mission made 23 recommendations to ensure future elections were free, fair and credible. Not even one of these recommendations have seen the light of day. Not one!

Both Zanu PF and MDC/CCC have completely ignored all efforts to get the recommendations implemented before the 2023 elections. Indeed, Zanu PF’s dismissive arrogancy to born out of the knowledge that Zimbabwe’s opposition would never take a decisive position on the matter – the same dismissive arrogance Zanu PF showed throughout the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Proof that Kamlesh and his fellow gold Mafia, diamond Mafia are the ones helping Zanu PF “survive”.

Zanu PF is rigging the 2023 elections. CCC are participating for the sake of the few gravy train seats on offer as bait. And the many ordinary Zimbabweans are participating because they are naïve and gullible enough to believe Zanu PF’s claim elections are free and or believe CCC’s oxymoronic nonsense the party can win rigged elections. Frankly, it is pointless for EU or any other observers to attend the elections because nothing much will change from 2018 elections!

Like it or not MDC/CCC leaders will never ever implement the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. Never ever! We are well and truly stuck with this Zanu PF dictatorship and, to any thinking Zimbabwean out there, this is no laughing matter!