Thursday 11 February 2016

Political reforms are "precondition for economic recovery" admit Musewe and yet belabour the latter. By P Guramatunhu

In his latest articles Comrade Vince Musewe gave the reader his take on what should be done to improve the operation of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe for it to play an effective role in the nation’s desperately needed economic recovery. There is no point in discussing the merits or otherwise of his proposed solution because, as he himself admitted, they will never see the light of day.
 
“I doubt very much whether we have the political will to address political reforms as a condition to access new funds. There simply is no visible interest within ZANU (PF) and the Government to address political reforms as a precondition for economic recovery. Unfortunately they think and hope these are mutually exclusive. They are not,” wrote Musewe.

“Besides all the good sounding ideas proffered by the RBZ, the brutal truth is that we cannot expect any fundamental economic turnaround at all without some sort of political settlement.

“Unfortunately this truth seems unpalatable to ZANU (PF).”
 
 When one is dealing with people like Vince, one has to be pedantic and state the obvious over and over again. Why are we wasting time discussing economic policies that we know will never see the light of day, regardless how sound they are; not until there is political reforms? Why are we not therefore concentrating all our energy in doing whatever is required to get these political reforms finally implemented, done and dusted, so we can then turn on the economy and other things?
 
What is so irritating about Vince’s articles is they are good at wasting time and never say much about the political reforms other than acknowledge we need them. Worse still he has completely lost his sense of proportion. “Unfortunately this truth seems unpalatable to ZANU (PF),” he tells us. Zimbabwe is facing a serious tragedy; what is merely “unpalatable to Zanu PF” is now killing hundreds of people!
 
Millions of our people are now living in abject poverty, poverty that kills, because of the country’s serious economic meltdown. Decades of misrule has left many people impoverished and have lived from hand to mouth for years without putting anything aside for a rainy day and so the serious drought that has just started is going to hit the nation hard.
 
16 000 cattle have already died because there is no grazing and water for them and we still have another nine months to go before the start of the next rainy season. With unemployment a nauseating 90% and the Zanu PF government preoccupied with its internal succession wars there is no doubt that the next nine months will test this nation to the core. There will be hundreds of thousands of graves, victims of economic poverty; human lives that could and can still be saved if we pushed through the political reforms necessary to get the economic reforms.
 
Political reforms are now a matter of life and death for hundreds of thousands of our people. To suggest that we forget implementing them because they are “unpalatable” to those whose insatiable greed for absolute power landed us in this mess in the first place is absurd.
 
If the truth be told and it must; we have not had any meaningful political reforms not only because President Mugabe did not want the reforms but because there was no political will on the opposition side to implement them. It was not President Mugabe’s doing that not even one reform was implemented during the five years of the GNU; he had his hands tied by the GPA and SADC. It was MDC leaders who elected to kick the reforms into the tall grass; SADC Heads of State tries to remind MDC to implement the reforms but were ignored.
 
Instead of demanding the implementation of the GPA reforms, Tsvangirai and his MDC-T plus other parties (Musewe and PDP, the party he has since joined is sitting on the fence on this as far as I know) have come up with a revised list of electoral law reforms more “palatable” to Zanu PF to implement. So it is not President Mugabe who is cherry-picking the reforms, the opposition is doing that for him!
 
As long as we limit ourselves to discussing economic policies and will not dare comment on political reforms because all real reforms are “unpalatable” to the powers that be then there will never be any democratic change in Zimbabwe!

7 comments:

  1. Progress in the implementation of ZimAsset? The party is still in deny of the economic meltdown but the latter will match on regardless. The regime is failing to pay civil servants let alone have money for other important matters like buying drugs or water pumps. It is a great pity that the ordinary people who are feeling the full effect of the economic meltdown are suffering greatly.

    President Mugabe and Zanu PF must know that the country will continue to sink deeper and deeper into economic despair until there is political reform and an end to this failed political system. They must accept political reform now and save the nation more suffering!

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  2. @ Murenje

    You can tell a lion has passed by from its huge paw-prints, you cannot say the same of a mouse! If this article was meant to say something decisive on Zanu PF in-fighting then is has as much track as a feather blowing in wind!

    On in-fights, Sithole wrote: “They are a fact of political life, a part of the dynamics of human organi-sation. Nothing will be gained by assuming or even wishing the contrary. Where human beings are involved with one another and interact directly or indirectly, conflict, tension, and struggle are bound to exist and describe the relationships. This is true in a family, be it consisting only of husband and wife; true in a church organisation; in a school; in a social club; you name it. Contradictions are a given in social and political life.”

    This nonsense the in-fight in Zanu PF is over trivial matters and, worse still, after the years of plot-ting, intrigue and blood shed they will continue fighting. Surely that is NOT “a fact of political life” because this is not happening in many other countries. What is happening in Zanu PF is classical in those societies ruled by fear, ignorance and chaos, going back to the start of human civilization.

    “Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people,” said Eleanor Roosevelt. One cannot even call the Zanu PF mob small minded because they have no mind to talk about; they do not even know what is in their own interest.

    Mnangagwa has spent most of his adult life helping Mugabe rig elections, for example. Of course it was not in the national interest or Mnangagwa’s own interest that the nation should have a tyrant. In 2004 Mnangagwa was to be a victim of Mugabe’s vote rigging when the tyrant fraudulently changed the party’s constitution to appoint Joice Mujuru VP.

    Having played his dirty part in the ouster of Joice Mujuru in 2014, at least he said nothing about President Mugabe’s once again fraudulent disregard of civilized behaviour in falsely accusing her of plotting to murder Mugabe. It is nonsense that Mnangagwa should now complain of similar dirty tricks being played on him.

    The in-fighting in Zanu PF is because there is no order and respect of the rule of law; everyone has played their part in mudding the waters and yet they all take it in turn to complain of mudded wa-ters! Of course it is it normal for human mind to be so confused and idiotic only an idiot like the late Professor Masipula Sithole would think is “a fact of life”. As for you, my friend you should be careful whom you quote as an authority in future!

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  3. President Mugabe is still in power because of Tsvangirai's breathtakingly incompetent and corrupt because if the latter had implemented the GPA reforms the tyrant would have been buried, politically, on 31 July 2013. President Mugabe is being thankful to Tsvangirai for helping him survive in his usual way - with a savage kick in the teeth! Not that I feel sorry for Tsvangirai, anyone who is a sell-out like him deserves what is coming to him. In time, the nation must take away the $4 million Highland mansion from him!

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  4. @ Blessing

    Any article that fails to treat established material facts with respect lose credibility. President Mugabe did not “romp to victory with a 61% of the vote”. Anyone who is anyone knows that Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections. Most people accepted the result as a fait accompli because the opposition had five years to implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop the vote rigging but failed to get even one reform implemented.

    SADC leaders were very disappointed with MDC’s failure to implement the democratic reforms and said so in a statement accusing MDC leaders “enjoying themselves during the GNU and forgetting why they were there!”

    None of the Western countries accept the rest of Zimbabwe’s 2013 elections as a true reflection of the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe. By rigging the elections President Mugabe highlighted his regime’s total disrespect for the rule of law and it is this lawlessness that is at the heart of the regime’s failure to attract any foreign direct investment and financial assistance.

    President Mugabe confident he would raise the $27 billion to pay for his ZimAsset economic recov-ery plan after the 2013 elections. The plan is died in the water because he failed to get anyone to bankroll it. He talked of “progress” in the implementation of ZimAsset yesterday at the Zanu PF politburo meeting; he is still in denial that the plan is died, but he is only fooling himself and no one else.

    Zimbabwe’s economic recovery is now totally dependent on the country’s return to political legality and the rule of law and that will only happen by implementing the democratic reforms MDC should have implemented during the GNU and holding of free, fair and credible elections. The Zanu PF regime has a serious legitimacy problem and it why its economic relationship with the rest of the world has been strained and it all stemmed from the blatant rigging of the 2013 elections.

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  5. @ The Commentator

    It is sad but true that Zimbabwe's economic nightmares have been of Mugabe's. 36 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has taken its toll on the people of Zimbabwe.


    The drought will hit the nation very hard, a lot more that it would have done is the nation had silos full of grain, millions had well-paying jobs instead of 90% plus being out of work, etc. Cattle have started to die already and there is still 9 months still to go before the next rains soon people too will start to die.

    Decades of misrule has left millions of our people vulnerable like chicken caught in a storm with no shelter and the drought is one hell of a storm to be caught away from shelter - it is raining hailstones the size of golf balls!

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  6. It is clear President Mugabe cannot stop the dog-eat-dog fighting for power going on in Zanu PF; Grace will no doubt be off on one of her Meet the People rallies, even he cannot stop her. So he is doing the next best thing force the fighting Zanu PF members to do so behind closed doors. He cannot do the same thing with the economic meltdown.

    ZimAsset is died and yet the party’s politburo meeting on Wednesday was told of "progress" in implementing the plan. This only shows the party is still in denial over this; still it is fooling no one much less the economic meltdown itself which marches on regardless of the denials.

    The ill effects of the economic meltdown will make the hardships brought on by the drought a lot worse than they would have been. ZimAsset was supposed to create 2.2 million new jobs in the period 2013 to 2018 and so far the country has lot tens of thousands of jobs a year without creating any new ones. So where is the progress in the implementation of ZimAsset if it is failing to create the much need employment?

    President Mugabe cannot force the economic meltdown into the shadows as he has done with so many other national issues; this is the one battle that will continue to be fought in the open for all to see. The only solution to end the economic meltdown is to implement the GPA reform and hold free, fair and credible elections! There is no other way out of this mess.

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  7. Zimbabwe's opposition has proven in the past that they are incompetent and corrupt, especially the MDC factions and the opposition formed by former Zanu PF members. The trouble is not so much the opposition but the electorate, we are too lazy to formulate what is it we would want in a good and competent leader and then go out there are get him or her. And so we keep recycling the same incompetent and corrupt leaders expecting them to perform above their level of competence.

    After the disappointing performance of the MDC during the GNU; all the leaders would have resigned en mass if the Zimbabwe electorate had been wide awake and the country was a healthy and functioning democracy.

    If we are serious about getting a competent opposition then we must first get a competent and vigilant electorate!

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