Monday 17 April 2017

MP Cross admits Zanu PF's "overwhelming" powers but denies de facto one party dictatorship. W Mukori

After years of denying that MDC leaders sold-out by failing to implement even one democratic reforms during the GNU the party’s leaders are finally admitting their failure – in their usual confused and self-contradicting way.

“ZEC has produced electoral regulations that entrench cheating; the government has rejected UNDP participation in procurement of biometric voter registration (BVR) equipment; reforms recommended by Sadc and the AU have not been implemented,” Mukusha Mugabe, MDC-T UK spokesman, told New Zimbabwe.

ZEC has since invited all interested parties to inspect the BVR kit it is proposing to buy. NERA, the opposition grouping that is championing the fight for electoral reform, has seized on this as a victory.

“We expected these short notices from ZEC, therefore technical experts were ready. We now have to fight to make sure they are accredited by the 19 th April 2017 and can attend. Let’s keep the fight going, victory is certain as long as we keep fighting,” NERA said in a statement.

NERA is claiming an empty victory here since Zanu PF has rejected the group’s demand that UNPD should be given the task of sourcing and buying the BVR kits, as Mukusha Mugabe has admitted. Not that UNPD buying the kits would have guaranteed free and fair elections as ZEC, with no reforms in place, will still be subject to corrupting Zanu PF diktats.

The most important admission by Mukusha Mugabe is that none of the raft of democratic reforms proposed by SADC and AU were implemented. Eddie Cross, MDC-T MP and former Minister in the GNU, has took admitted the same point.

“When the GNU was terminated in 2013 without fulfilling its reform agenda, the opportunity to deal with the Opposition was taken by Zanu PF who then just rolled over the MDC and others using its overwhelming financial and State resources and control,” wrote MP Eddie Cross in The Zimbabwean.

What MP Cross failed to say is that it was MDC leaders’ fault that not even one democratic reform was implemented during the GNU. The GNU was supposed to last 18 months but lasted 60 months, five years, and still not even one reform was implemented.

SADC leaders, as the guarantor of GPA that gave rise to the GNU, did their best to encourage MDC leaders to implement the democratic reforms during the five years of the GNU. With no reforms in place SADC leaders literally begged MDC leaders not to contest the 2013 elections. Sadly, Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, including MP Cross, paid no heed.

MDC leaders “were busy enjoying themselves during the GNU and forgot why they were there!” Remarked SADC leaders in sheer exasperation!

“The MDC under Mr Tsvangirai’s leadership started the journey to the 2018 elections with the suggestion that all opposition forces should form a coalition to force reform and to commit themselves to not fighting the elections until the playing field was more level for all players. This led to the formation of NERA, a loose alliance of some 18 Parties to negotiate reforms. This is now a quite effective grouping and substantial pressure is being put on the regime to implement electoral and media reforms,” continued MP Cross.

“In a way the formation of NERA has encouraged the discussion of an electoral alliance to fight the elections and increasingly Mr Tsvangirai is seen as the only candidate with the capacity to defeat the Zanu PF candidate. However the debate has a long way to go before a decision is reached and it is by no means clear just who will contest the elections on behalf of Zanu PF or the Opposition. But one thing is for sure, Zimbabwe is no longer a one Party State!”

Zimbabwe’s greatest misfortune is to have had some of the most corrupt and incompetent opposition politicians during the GNU, when the country had its most opportune moment to end the Zanu PF dictatorship by implementing the democratic reforms. Even now with the benefit of hindsight MP Cross does not appreciate the critical importance of implementing the SADC reforms as contrast to these NERA electoral reforms he keeps wittering about.

Only someone as political naïve and incompetent as MP Cross would still think NERA putting “substantial pressure on the regime to implement electoral and media reforms.”

He readily admits of how easily Zanu PF has “rolled over” the MDC and the rest of the country’s opposition parties because of the regime’s “overwhelming financial and State resources and control” in one paragraph. In the next paragraph, he has Zimbabwe is not a one-party dictatorship!

Surely, if Zanu PF has the political muscle to roll over the opposition and deny the people their basic freedoms and human rights including the right to free and fair elections and even the right to life to effect its no-regime-change mantra then we still have a de facto one-party dictatorship. The fact that the regime has connived to allow the naïve and gullible opposition to win a few seats and thus entice them to contest the elections regardless how flawed the process does not change the fundamental reality that the elections are not free, fair and credible.


37 years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF rule has landed this nation in a real political and economic mess. The only way out of the mess is for the people to demand the implementation of the democratic reforms proposed by SADC. There is no other way out!

8 comments:

  1. 21 people were killed this Easter Holiday against 10 last year, 91 injured in 171 accidents with 55 recorded as injured in 181 road accidents last year.

    We have to do something about these accidents, we have more accidents than nations with far more cars on the road than us! The poor state of our roads will no doubt have a lot to do with it.

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  2. SADC warned MDC leaders not to contest the 2013 elections without reforms, Tsvangirai and company did not listen. It was therefore no surprising that when Tsvangirai complained of Zanu PF "stealing the elections" no one wanted to know. SADC literally begged MDC leaders not to contest the 2013 and after their warning was disregarded it is understandable why the regional leaders were bitter and said so openly.

    MDC leaders “were too busy enjoying themselves in the GNU they forgot WHY they were there!” was the embittered criticism from SADC leaders.

    SADC is clearly not going to beg Zimbabwe’s opposition politicians or the people of Zimbabwe not to contest next year’s elections with no reforms in place. It is up to up to decide but as far as SADC is concerned we should not contest the elections with no reforms in place. If we disregard the warning once again then it is our funeral!

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  3. President Mugabe has surrounded himself with some of the most corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless individuals for his own selfish reasons. Margaret Dongo was right to call Zanu PF leaders "vakadzi vaMugabe" (Mugabe's subservient concubines!). Martin Dinha is one of the many of Mugabe's subservient concubines. Little wonder the country is in a real mess!

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  4. Senator David Coltart has admitted in his book that the 2013 new constitutions give “excessive power to the State President without the usual democratic checks and balances.”

    Here MP Eddie Cross is admitting President Mugabe has "overwhelming financial and State resources and control" to “roll over” his political opponents.

    It is obvious from the two statements that President Mugabe has tyrannical dictatorial powers. For anyone to accept the two gentlemen’s assessment and yet try to deny that we have a dictatorship is a nonsense.

    MDC leaders wasted five years of the GNU and failed to get even one democratic reform implemented and, no doubt, they were caught up in semantics and still are – in their childish minds they dismantled the Zanu PF dictatorship. They accept that Zanu PF “stole the 2013 elections” but what of it! We should contest the 2018 elections regardless!

    We have a serious problem here of dismantling the dictatorship and it would be totally irresponsible to waste time indulging these MDC morons in their pointless semantics.

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  5. How President Mugabe managed to con MDC leaders for five long years into doing nothing about implementing the democratic reforms will always be one of the tragic moments in Zimbabwe’s history. The fog over the mystery is lifted when one realises just how breathtakingly corrupt, incompetent and naïve MDC leaders are. Here is MDC MP and cabinet minister in the GNU, Eddie Cross telling us just how naïve he is.

    “In 2013 some 14 Parties contested the election and there were a number of Presidential candidates. In my Constituency in 2013, 7 opposition Parties put up candidates compared to 1 in 2000, 3 in 2005 and 4 in 2008. Now we approach the next elections, scheduled for 2018 and already the field is crowded. At my last count we had some 50 Parties in the field and 14 potential Presidential candidates,” said MP Cross, boasting of his party’s achievements in delivering democratic change in Zimbabwe.

    The democratic changes the nation wanted and which MDC had the golden opportunity to deliver during the GNU were designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and restore all the individual freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections and the right to life!

    Thanks to MDC’s breath-taking incompetence, not even one reform was implemented in five years of the GNU. Instead of having free, fair and credible elections at the end of the GNU; Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the vote, herding off people to polling stations, bussing in its supporters to cast multiple votes, corrupt the voters’ roll, etc.

    Even now, with the benefit of hindsight, MP Cross still think that we should measure our democratic credentials as a nation on the basis of how many opposition parties contest elections regardless how flawed the process happen to be.

    MP Cross, you and your MDC friends contested the 2013 elections because you were after the few seats Zanu PF gives away to the opposition to entice them to contest elections regardless how flawed they are. Fool; by participating you gave the undemocratic process democratic legitimacy!

    You and your MDC friends are gearing to participate in the 2018 elections although you agree that no even one reform was implemented since the July 2013 elections. Of course, Zanu PF will blatantly rig the vote and you will, once again, give the process a cloak of respectability. You have cause enough suffering because of your satanic idiocy and some of us are determined to stop you selling-out the nation again!

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  6. “Fellow Zimbabweans, let us use the opportunity next year to poise our country for growth, inclusion, unity and development. There has been so much hatred in the past; needless hatred that in 2008 cost us a glorious opportunity to move forward,” said Tsvangirai.
    “Indeed, as I have said before, none of us have any reason to fear the change that is now imminent upon this our beloved country in 2018.”
    This is the kind of foolishness that got us into this mess in the first place! Tsvangirai was elected into power to deliver democratic changes designed to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. He had his golden opportunity to implement the reforms during the GNU and he wasted the chance and failed to get even one reform implemented.
    Tsvangirai is once again ignoring the problem of the dictatorship and its license to rig elections. There will be no political change next year if we allow the elections to go ahead with no reforms. How many times are we going to contest flawed elections in which Zanu PF is allowed to rig the vote and we, foolishly, expect the regime to lose the elections.
    If the people of Zimbabwe once again follow Tsvangirai blindly like sheep to the slaughter then the nation will continue to sink ever deeper into the economic abyss! You have been warned!
    It was foolish contesting 2013 elections with no reforms in place but it is even more foolish doing this again in 2018! "Watershed elections!" Yeah right! This is insanity practised at a national level!

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  7. “Think of it; after the GNU if Mugabe had said, now that you have been working together for the last five years very well, why not go for another five years as GNU and then you go for elections,” Tsvangirai told mourners at the late MDC-T Harare province Senator Ronia Bunjira.
    So Tsvangirai did not implement not even one democratic reform in the hope of extending the GNU by another five years! How utterly stupid was that! President Mugabe strung the naïve green-horn Tsvangirai along and then surprised the MDC-T leader by calling for the elections!
    Zimbabwe is in deep political trouble and it needs quality leaders to dig itself out of this mess this is why the country needs a National Transition Authority to implement the democratic reforms because Zanu PF will never implement them and so too will the likes of MDC-T or Mujuru’s NPP!

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  8. Heal Zimbabwe Trust reported that in Nyanga District's Ward 2 on 24 March 2017, Zanu PF convened a meeting at Avila business centre.

    "The meeting was addressed by Zanu PF ward 2 chairperson, Wilson Sauro and Councillor Joseph Kadyamusuma. They told people that if they fail to vote for ZANU PF in the 2018 elections, Zanu PF was going to unleash violence similar to the one experienced in the 2008 elections. They also announced that all Village heads should ensure that people from their villages attend all Zanu PF meetings called for in the ward," said the trust.

    "On 27 March 2017, Chief Katerere and Village head Chabvura ordered 18 Village heads from ward 3 to evict people who fail to produce Zanu PF membership cards and also ensure that they do not receive food aid. To date, Village head Chabvura has already started asking people in his village to produce Zanu PF membership cards during food distribution meetings."

    In Gokwe North District at Gokwe Gumunyu ward 19, Village heads Matenga and Marima are forcing people to join Zanu PF. On 26 March 2017, the two Village heads sent out their secretaries who moved around the villages announcing that food aid will only be given to people with Zanu PF membership cards.

    This is the political reality of failing to implement even one reform before elections. It really is insane to contest an election knowing Zanu PF will rig the vote and expect the party to, somehow, lose the election!

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