Sunday 31 December 2017

My simple wish for 2018: that Zimbabweans see the futility of contesting flawed elections W Mukori

Power and authority in the hands of ruthless thugs is a curse because wrestling power from thugs and tyrants who claim to have the legal authority to exercise power is one of the toughest challenges one will ever encounter. Ever since the military coup last month, President Mnangagwa and his posse of coup plotters have been trying to rewrite history and put a heroic gloss over the coup; just to hide the fundamental truth that Zanu PF is still a party of thugs.

“The Zimbabwe Defence Forces is a people's army, and this was shown during Operation Restore Legacy, ZDF Commander General Phillip Valerio Sibanda has said,” reported Bulawayo 24 quoting Sunday Mail.

“He said he would continue championing professionalism in the ZDF's rank and file, setting up an organised military that always stands for the people.

"(Sister military organisations) have been congratulating us and wishing us well going forward. They were generally happy that the operation did not have any bloodshed; that had been their major concern,” he said.

Since when has staging a military coup been the duties of a professional Army anywhere in the world!

It had not been possible to remove Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF thugs from office these last 37 years by the normal democratic means because the tyrant blatantly rigged the vote. It was none other than Le Commandant Sibanda and his fellow November 2017 coup plotters who had time and time again helped rig the elections. There was nothing professional about deploying Army personnel to harass, beat, rape and even murder civilians to coerce them to vote for Zanu PF! The only reason the coup conspirators staged a coup against Mugabe this time is because the tyrant was in the process of booting the plotters out the party and power.

"We have always said we are a people's defence force. We relate with the people and the people relate to us. That is what you saw on that Saturday (November 18, 2017). That was just a manifestation of something that we are already very much aware of.

‘‘We have a very good relationship with the people of Zimbabwe and will continue to do so."

If the truth be told, it was not so much that the people had forgotten ZDF is an Army of thugs or that they believed the coup was some Damascene moment for the likes of Chiwenga and Sibanda; our people are easily fooled but not this time. The only reason the people treated the ZDF thugs as heroes on 18 November is that the hated Mugabe so much they did not mind kissing the blood-stained hands of thugs who dislodged the dictator. Deep, deep down many people knew it was wishful thinking to equate the demise of the dictator with the end of the Zanu PF dictatorship too. Their suspicions were soon confirmed.   

Soon after the coup President Mnangagwa promoted a new train-load of majors and generals to swell up the ranks of Zimbabwe’s already bloated security services. Many members of the, until then, shadowy Joint Operations Command, a Junta behind the Zanu PF dictatorship, merged out of the shadows to join the coup cabinet. It was clear as day, the coup was about the Junta consolidating its strangle hold on power and redistributing the spoils!

“According to Reuters, the generals dubbed their project "Operation Restore Legacy." They called the move a "democratic correction" against a 93-year-old leader whose decisions, they alleged, were being manipulated by an ambitious wife half his age,” reported Zimeye, in a related article.

"The generals want Mnangagwa to run for one or two terms before handing over to Chiwenga," a Nov. 29 intelligence report seen by Reuters reads. "They want Chiwenga to be in power for two terms before handing over to the next general to be announced."

For the last 37 years the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship has systematically denied the ordinary people their freedoms and basic human rights including the right to a meaningful vote. The nation is now being told that the coup plotters have already decided who will rule the nation for the next two decades. How can this be a “democratic correction” when they, the people, are still being denied a meaningful say!

Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first post-independent Prime Minister, and fellow nationalist leaders at the time discounted the option of waging an armed struggle to end British rule of India. “What kind of leaders will an armed struggle throw up?” they asked. “Are those the kind of men and women we would want to rule the nation?”

Zimbabwe’s armed struggle has thrown up some of worst thugs in human history and for the last 37 years, and counting, since our independence the nation has failed to wrestle power from them. We are stuck with these Zanu PF thugs as leaders.

The one way to end the Zanu PF thugs’ reign of terror peacefully will be for the international community to declare next year’s elections null and void and force the country to implement the democratic reforms as happened after Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2008 elections. Sadly, not even one of the raft of democratic reforms the GNU was tasked to implement ever saw the light of day. Mugabe bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends, tasked to implement the reforms, to kick the reforms into the prickly pear thicket! Still, we need to revisit the reforms.  

After the blatant vote rigging of the 2008 elections it was clear to SADC leaders that Zimbabwe could not hold free and fair elections without first implementing the reforms. The regional leaders argued that the 2013 elections must be postponed but again MDC paid no heed. To take part in elections knowing the process is flawed and the result will be rigged is like taking part in a rat race – in which you do not know the start line, the finish line, whether it is a 100m dash or a marathon, etc. it is the prerogative of your competitor to decide on any of these things to suit him/herself.

It is sheer madness to contest an election with no verified voters’ roll, for example. There will be no verified voters’ roll next year, although this is a legal requirement, because ZEC will not have the time to produce one. The voter registration was started very late, in September 2017 when it should have started in January 2015 at the very latest; this was deliberate. There was no voters’ roll in 2013 and the vote rigging was shocking!  

Of course, President Mnangagwa has known all along that the voter registration started late and what the consequences are – he was, until two months ago, Minister of Justice and ZEC reported to him. He has done nothing to ensure there is a verified voters’ roll just as he has done nothing to implement any of the other democratic reforms.

As we go into 2018 there are five certainties, settled and are beyond debate:

a)     Zanu PF, without Robert Mugabe is the same party of ruthless thugs as the party of Mugabe days.

b)     The coup was about Zanu PF thugs consolidate their strangle hold on power and, having tasted it, they have no intention risking losing it by holding free and fair elections. It was ill-advised to have chosen to wage a armed struggle to get our independence because the war threw up some ruthless thugs as leaders and we are well and truly stuck with them.

c)     Zimbabwe’s economic recovery will be limited because no foreign investors would risk doing business in a lawless nation. Holding free and fair elections is the ultimate test Zimbabwe must pass to prove its return to rule of law.

d)     It is madness to keep taking part in elections knowing the process is flawed and illegal, it is a rat race.

e)     Getting SADC to rule next year’s election null and void is one sure way to force the implementing of the reforms; we can help SADC make that decision by refusing to take no party in the flawed elections until reforms are implemented.


After 38 years of rigged elections, it is my ardent wish and prayer that the Lord God Almighty will open the physical and mental eyes of a significant number of Zimbabweans so they can finally see the sheer stupidity of contesting flawed elections! Making sure we have free, fair and credible elections is the holy grail for Zimbabwe because we will never accomplish anything of substance as long as these Zanu PF thugs remain in power and holding the gun to the nation’s head!  

5 comments:

  1. @ David Coltart

    “The only lawful way to remove Mugabe was to impeach him – I have argued that consistently since 2000 and ironically it was only the real threat of impeachment which eventually caused him to resign,” you said.

    That is nonsense and you know there were many golden opportunities to remove Mugabe from office and I will mention only two:

    a) The people of Zimbabwe risked life and limb to vote Mugabe out of office in the March 2008 elections. Tsvangirai won 73% of the vote by Mugabe’s own admission. When Zanu PF failed to declare the results after a day it was clear something was fishy. By the third day alarm bells were ringing and notable people like Archbishop Desmond Tutu called on the regime to declare the results and every pressure to be applied internally and externally to force the regime to declare the results. It was none other than Morgan Tsvangirai who asked people to be patient. It was only after a week that he called for pressure to be applied but the initiative had been lost. In the end Zanu PF finally declared the results after six weeks in which Tsvangirai’s vote had been reduced to 47%.

    b) Mugabe would have been vote out in the 2013 elections if MDC had implemented the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections. MDC had five years of the GNU to implement the reforms but failed to get even one reform implemented because Mugabe had bribed you lot with the trappings of high office.

    c) Even so, the nation would have still forced Zanu PF to implemented the reforms is MDC leaders had heeded SADC leaders’ warning not to contest the 2013 elections until the reforms were implemented. You, Mr Coltart admit in your book that it was greed that made you ignore the warning.

    “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 elections,” you wrote.

    “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.”

    The least you can do Mr Coltart is admit you and your fellow MDC friends are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent and that you have sold-out on many occasions. If Zimbabwe had a healthy and functional democratic system of government with an alert electorate you lot would have been forced to retire decades ago and not waste the nation’s time with all your endless nonsense.

    The bottom line is Zimbabwe would not be in this mess if MDC leaders had not proven to be so corrupt and incompetent. Frankly, the sooner MDC leaders left the political stage the sooner the nation can start the serious business of finding competent leaders. You and your fellow MDC leaders are just mudding the political water and making it easy for Zanu PF to stay in power as you readily admitted.

    “Against this is the opportunity provided to Mnangagwa by the disarray in the opposition which has left many of the opposition's traditional supporters, namely urban workers and the professional and business community disillusioned and more inclined to support Mnangagwa than they did Mugabe,” you wrote.

    Why are you contesting the coming elections with not even one reform in place when you have admitted that boycotting the flawed elections is “the obvious” thing to do?

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  2. @ Noble Ngara


    Thugs and tyrants always disregard the law under the pretext they are following the spirit of the law which they alone know. It is nonsense that the law in word or spirit would encourage the disregard of the order and the protection of the weak from the abusive authoritarian which are the very things the law is there to protect.

    Mugabe, Mnangagwa, Chiwenga and the rest of the Joint Operations Command have been rigging elections for the last 37 years and in 2008 they stage a coup to stop MDC taking power. What spirit of the law were they following then? These are just seasoned thugs with no regard of the law and the democratic will of the ordinary people.

    President Mnangagwa has said there will be free, fair and credible elections this year and yet he has not implemented even one democratic reform to make this possible. Zanu PF has rigged elections in the past and has never ever acknowledge doing wrong. No doubt Mnangagwa is planning to rig the elections and instead of implementing reforms he is going the extra ten miles to make sure evidence of vote rigging are hidden.

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  3. It took former US Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, a few meetings with Tsvangirai for him to send a cable to Washington saying the MDC leader was "a flawed and indecisive character".

    The failure by the MDC to get even one democratic reform implemented in five years of the GNU proved beyond doubt just how corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders were. For anyone to still continue to follow MDC after 2013 elections showed just how naive and gullible they were.

    Many ordinary Zimbabweans lost confidence in the MDC after the 2013 elections but did not do anything to show it because they were like chickens caught in a storm with nowhere to go. The removal of Mugabe in November 2017 gave the people renewed hope in Zanu PF, it was the break in the storm, and they desert ed MDC in droves. Zimbabweans in SA got their chance to show they too have been waiting for an excuse to finally abandon the corrupt and incompetent and utterly useless MDC when Mnangagwa visited that country.

    It was the mass desertion by povo of MDC that has forced the MDC leaders like Eric Knight, Tapiwa Chiyangwa and many others who have remained doggedly loyal to Tsvangirai, Biti, Ncube and other failed MDC leaders to finally accept MDC was useless led as it is by flawed corrupt and incompetent individuals. Now these opportunists claim they are leaving MDC because the party has no vision as if they themselves have the intellect to see such things!

    “God has elevated me spiritually to a point where am seeing things more clearer and hence I have taken much more time to reflect on my political future,” writes Chiyangwa.

    It took you nearly two decades to see that Tsvangirai was corrupt and incompetent even with the mountain of evidence before you. You failed to see the truth because you too had your eyes fixed on one day winning a gravy train seat on an MDC ticket. Your greed made you blind and stupid. Please, do not evoke the name of God in your stupidity!

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  4. In another dent on President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s reformist image state security forces are out in full force as the 8 Gukurahundi protestors appear in court.

    “Rinemanyanga hariputirwi!” (The truth cannot be hidden forever!)

    President Mnangagwa, Minister Perrance Shiri, Commander Sibanda, VP Chiwenga and many others in this coup plotters’ administration’s Gukurahundi past, the vote rigging and corruption are all coming back to haunt them.

    “Mthwakazi Republic Party youths have been removed from the Brady Military Barracks (and taken) to Bulawayo Central Police Station, but they are badly injured. The police insist that they are detaining them and charging them with breach of peace,” said one youth leader.

    Ever since the November 2017 coup, the Army has been abusing civilians by assuming for themselves the powers of the Police. The Army had no business detaining the youths!

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  5. Is this not the same Jealous Mawarire who was used by Zanu PF to fill a court application to press for elections in 2013 when the logical thing was to demand reforms first? The idiot is at it again!

    There are many, many other countries that are doing well and they are led by men/women who are over 40 years of age. You have supported Mujuru until now, is she 40 years old? This is stupid argument from a stupid person with nothing to say.

    If Zanu PF's G40 faction had prevailed and Grace Mugabe and her friends went on to rig the next elections we would not be any better off!

    Zimbabwe is in this political and economic mess because Zanu PF thugs rigged elections and that is what we must focus on - demand reforms to ensure free and fair elections.

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