“It is at times futile to have press debates on contentious issues
because these debates never really end as we tend to be selective on what
catches our attention based on our mental biases and dispositions and may
therefore completely miss what we are saying to each other,” said Vince Musewe.
It is in fact the “contentious issues” that we MUST debate and no one
should ever be “selective” as to what they say because that will indeed make
the debate a futile waste of time.
Vince you have the knack for contradicting yourself: you have just said
you “tend to be selective” on what you say in the quote above. In the next
paragraph you tell us “My objective here is really to make sure my readers have
the correct information”.
Anyone can say they want a democratic Zimbabwe that is the easy bit; how
to end the ruthless dictatorship and create a healthy democracy is the
contentious bit. The devil is in giving detailed and correct information, in
acknowledging and working within the confines of historic facts because to do
anything else kills honest debate and, worst of all, damages the prospect of
ever achieving the set goal of a democratic Zimbabwe.
There are three contentious issues here:
- What reforms do we need to end the Zanu dictatorship and have a democracy?
There are 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA) democratic reforms which
everyone agreed were necessary for free, fair and credible and elections. Sadly,
at the end of the five years of GNU, not even one reform had been implemented.
Since this is an honest no-holds barred discussion, it must be stated not
even one reform was implemented because MDC leaders proved to be breathtakingly
incompetence and corrupt. They were warned by SADC leaders, among many others,
to implement the reforms and later not to take part in the elections with no
reforms but paid no heed. These are historic facts. For someone of Mr Musewe’s
intellect to then dismiss a deliberate and calculated act of corruption, the $
4 million mansion paid bribe there, as a “mistake” is to blatantly break the
rules of honest debate!
Having failed to implement the GPA reforms during the GNU MDC leaders are
now demanding that the Zanu PF regime must implement electoral law reforms,
NERA. This is a time wasting exercise by the opposition designed to give the
electorate the impression the opposition is still fighting for free and fair
elections when they are not.
Legal experts have already dismissed NERA as “inadequate and incomplete”.
Not one of those backing NERA has ever dared to claim publicly the reforms will
deliver free and fair elections. In fact it is for this reason MDC leaders have
picked on NERA and not GPA reforms, they know Zanu PF will implement the former
because they have nothing to lose as contrast to the latter reforms in which
Zanu PF will be forced to hold free and fair elections with the real prospect
of regime change.
So only the GPA reforms will dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and
deliver democratic change including free and fair elections guaranteed. NERA
reforms never deliver a democratic Zimbabwe, never ever; they are a smoke
screen to hide the opposition’s cowardly decision to once again kick GPA
reforms, the game-changer, into the tall grass.
I challenge Mr Musewe or anyone
else who dares to deny that adopting the biometric system alone, which NERA
demands, without reforming ZEC, demanded by the GPA, will not stop Zanu PF
rigging the vote!
- If Mugabe refuses to implement the GPA reforms by 2018, what then?
It was you, Vince, who posed the above question. I totally agree that implementing
the GPA reforms, forget for a moment how this can be achieved, will deliver free
and fair elections. Mugabe and Zanu PF will never win such elections, not with
their track record of corruption, incompetence and murderous oppression. So it
would be “political suicide”, as you rightly said for Mugabe to implement the
GPA reforms.
The question is in fact inappropriate; it should be What if Mugabe refuses
any democratic change necessary for free and fair elections and the nation’s chance
to end this corrupt and oppressive system of government that has crashed the
hopes, dreams and the very humanity of millions of Zimbabweans? Because,
ultimately this is what implementing the reforms is about.
My answer to the appropriate question is let us not put words in his
mouth, let him refuse!
Your answer is that we accept implementing the reforms will be political
suicide for Mugabe and therefore we accept the status quo. Why then are you
pretending to be fighting for democratic change when you are in reality
fighting to maintain the dictatorship?
Your plan B does not seek to end the dictatorship but to accept it as a
political reality you cannot change. After 36 years you have not only failed to
see that it is not working but worse still, that it is now your plan A.
As to the question of how are we going to get Mugabe to implement the GPA
reforms; this is not the impossible task of the mouse tying the bell round the
cat’s neck, as you try to portray it.
Mugabe signed the GPA in 2008 committing himself and his party to the
full implementation of the reforms. We can criticize SADC leaders over many
things but the one area no one can fault them, especial SA’s President Jacob Zuma
and his representative, Lindiwe Zulu, is their commitment to making sure Mugabe
will not refuse to implement the reforms.
It was MDC’s fault, not Mugabe’s, that not even one reform was
implemented in five years of the GNU. SADC did their best to get Tsvangirai,
Biti, Ncube and all the other MDC leaders to implement the reforms but was
ignored.
So strictly speaking, it was Tsvangirai and his MDC friends “refused to
implement the GPA reforms”. It therefore beggars belief that anyone would
considered Tsvangirai et al, the breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent
individuals who “refused” to implement even one GPA reform in five years, as
suitable leaders to be trust implement the same reforms. Worse still, they
refused when Mugabe’s hands were tied by the GPA what hope is there they will
do so now when the GPA has expired and Mugabe is free to refuse?
As we have already seen above, Tsvangirai and his friends have indeed
decided to forget demanding the GPA reform in favour of the wishy-washy NERA;
proof, if any was still required, that these breathtakingly corrupt and
incompetent individuals are not to be trusted.
Mugabe is under enormous pressure to accept change from the country’s
worsening economic meltdown and from the infighting tearing his party apart. A
united public demanding GPA reforms as the only way out could still force him
to accept the reality that change is necessary.
Even if Mugabe soldiered on to 2018 without implementing the reforms our
position should remain that we will not take part in any fraudulent elections
designed to deny the people their right to free and fair elections and hope of
a better future.
There will be some opposition members who will take part in the elections
even with no GPA reforms implemented because they know Mugabe will allow the
opposition to “win” a few seats. They will be going for the scraps. These
opposition members will be exposed for the two-faced traitors they are that
they should grant fraudulent electoral processes some measure of legitimacy for
the sake of scraps!
- If there is to be a grand opposition coalition, what kind of animal should it be?
All Zimbabwe’s political parties have one thing in common; most of their leaders
are corrupt and incompetent. The problem is with the de facto one-party
dictatorship Mugabe has imposed of the nation which has stifled public debate
and democratic competition. Mugabe has made politics such a dirty game that
only thugs, the brain-dead, opportunists, etc. play and little wonder the
corrupt and incompetent emerge as their leaders.
By implementing the GPA reforms we will dismantle the dictatorship to
allow free flow of information, debate and democratic competition. Joice Mujuru
will not last long on the political stage under the full glare of a USA type free
media, for example, not with her record of 34 years of corruption, corruption
and corruption.
Implement the reforms and let the democratic process separate the good,
the bad and the ugly!
The only grand coalition, if there ever to be one, must be united front
demanding free, fair and credible elections because this is the one issue that
should unite us all who want a democratic Zimbabwe and see the nation finally
emerge out of the darkness of corruption and murderous tyranny.
Musewe has never asked for the implementation of any reforms , be they the GPA reforms or Tsvangirai's electoral law reforms. He has pushed that aside as inconsequential political con-sideration. When he was pushed to comment on the matter he then asked what if no reforms are implemented before 2018. It is fair to say he has always worked on the assumption that there will be no reforms implemented.
ReplyDeleteHe has pretended he too want the reforms implemented as his plan A but had plan B in the event no reforms are implemented. In reality he never expected the reforms to be implement-ed because President Mugabe will be committing "political suicide" and so he has worked with plan B and planned for A to fail.
He has preached about his plans to turn Zimbabwe economy around to a $1 trillion economy in 30 years. Well that has gone down well in many quarters. What he has refused to say is how he will do that because the Zanu PF regime will never give up its looting and plundering privileges to allow him to try his economic model.
Without political reforms, Vince Musewe's $1 trillion economy is nothing more than the crow in Animal Farm's sugar-candy mountain utopia! Like the pigs to the crow, Zanu PF will encourage Musewe to preach his utopia; he is not threatening to end their struggle hold on power and helping calm a restive public with his talk of the mirage of economic prosperity.
@ Rakanga
ReplyDeleteThis is a well thought out piece, I will give you that. But surely even you have to admit that for our knowledge based civilization to work there are certain things, once agreed and established as fact or empirical must so remain otherwise we will be going back over the same ground without ever making any progress.
1+1=2
It took some of us a while to learn that but we did. My nephew will be going to school next year, he too will have to learn the same simple arithmetic and so will many generations to come and, hopefully, make their lives better from all this learning. The whole education system will collapse if we allowed some one, for whatever reason, to willy-nilly change the system.
We accept Albert Einstein’s energy equation because it has been rigorously tested and proven that it works.
I am not here to question the validity of your statement that “It is Philosophically factual that a per-son who talks too much, contradicts himself.” Or “Philosophically factual that every single intellectual has a degree of insanity somewhere.” What I am questioning is their validity of calling Albert Einstein insane visa via in his work to produce the energy equation. The equation was pure genius, period!
We are talking about how to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and have a democracy. To say both Mukori and Musewe “talk too much (and thus) contradict (themselves)” is to miss the point. Whilst I agree that both talk too much what is important here is who contradicted himself on this issue.
Musewe says he wants to see democratic change but will not fight to have the have the GPA reforms implemented because President Mugabe will not agree to the reforms for his own selfish tyrannical reasons. Musewe is proposing we go on and have an election with no reforms. Suring Musewe is contradicting himself here; how can we have democratic change by accepting the undemocratic status quo?
Mukori has contradicted himself in other articles but not in this article; he acknowledges that getting the GPA reforms will not be easy but rejects accepting the NERA reforms as an alternative because they will never deliver the set objective, a democratic Zimbabwe.
Philosophy, I have learnt, like Shona proverbs, is loaded with wisdom and best appreciated if read within the right context. Honey on its own or on bread tastes great but try it on salted meat and many will find the combination is not so palatable.
@ Choto
ReplyDeleteIt is true that getting the reforms implemented now will not be easy; Mukori has never said it would be. He has said Zanu PF is under economic and political pressure from the economic melt-down and Zanu PF imploding if the nation was united in the call for GPA reforms then Zanu PF will know there is no way out than accept change. This has not worked because of the confusion brought by MDC with their NERA reforms.
Zanu PF will not accept GPA reforms forcing them to accept free and fair elections if they can get away with NERA reforms in which they will still retain the power to rig the elections. In other words MDC and their NERA reforms are offering Zanu PF an escape bolt-hole from implementing the GPA reforms.