By Wilbert Mukori| “A boycott from this month’s harmonised elections as mooted by the MDC Alliance can only have an impact if it has the buy-in of all opposition parties,” argued Daily News.
“The Alliance is bitter that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) is not transparent in its approach to electoral issues, including the printing of ballot papers.
“If the MDC Alliance decides to boycott the poll, this will backfire spectacularly as other political parties will go ahead and contest, hence legitimising the process.”
Read that and it is immediately clear why Zimbabwe must be one of the “shit-hole countries”, USA President Donald Trump was talking about. In 38 years we have fallen from one of the top ive richest countries in Africa to the poorest country in Africa. Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90% and has been 80% plus for the last decade already. ¾ of our people now live on US$1.00 or less a day! Basic services like clean running water, health, etc. have all but collapsed.
What makes Zimbabwe’s rapid descend into this hell-hole so shocking and disappointing is that it is man-made. The filthy poor majority live cheek by jowl with the few filthy rich ruling elite who live in $4 billion Blue Roof mansions, have a fleet of expensive cars, have 45 gold watches, have multiple farms, multi-million dollar business interests, etc.
Before independence the country produced enough to feed its own people with plenty leftover to be the bread basket of the region. Today the country is dependent on imported food aid, too poor to pay for it. In the day and age when human ingenuity has turned deserts into green orchards we are starving in, for all intent and purposes, the Garden of Eden – a living testimonial of a nation blundering from pillar to post.
The Daily News article above, showed that here is a nation that cannot even see that two wrongs do not make a right, a kindergarten level intellectual challenge. There was no hope of the nation understanding the more complex and intricate matters of freedom, human rights, justice and commonwealth hence the blundering from pillar to post and the rapid descent into the shit-hole!
“If the MDC Alliance decides to boycott the poll, this will backfire spectacularly as other political parties will go ahead and contest, hence legitimising the process,” the Daily News argue This is just nonsense! The legitimacy or otherwise of these elections is not decided on the head count of how many political parties participated but on whether the process itself was free, fair and credible. The 2008 elections have become the benchmark because that year Zanu PF showed the world that the party’s blatant cheating and vote rigging and use of wanton violence has reached nauseating heights, it was impossible to see how one can hold free, fair and credible elections under such conditions.
Mugabe declared himself the winner of the 2008 elections, but no one grant him and his Zanu PF thugs the political legitimacy as the dually elected government. Not even SADC and the AU, known for turning a blind eye to Zanu PF rigging in the past, would pretend the 2008 elections were free and fair.
SADC leaders told Mugabe the only legitimate government they will recognise was a
Government of National Unity (GNU) of Zanu PF and the two MDC factions. The GNU’s primary task was to implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF one-party dictatorship and all its dictatorial powers including the carte blanche powers to rig elections.
Sadly, Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to whom the task of implementing the reforms fell, sold-out.
Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders’ the trappings of high office; a former white-owned farm for Welshman Ncube, $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. In return, the MDC leaders kicked reforms into the thicket of prickly pears!
When SADC leaders realised that no reforms had been implemented, they wanted the 2013
elections postponed. “If you go into next month’s elections, you will lose; the elections ARE
DONE!” they told MDC leaders.
By ignoring SADC leaders’ advice and taking part in the 2013 elections with no reforms the MDC give the flawed and illegal process some modicum of credibility and legitimacy as David Coltart readily admitted in his book.
“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,” explained Senator Coltart.
“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.”
SADC leaders were not interested in getting every opposition politician to boycott the elections, it is not the head count that mattered, but when they failed to get even one Zimbabwean opposition party to public support the boycott they were forced to allow the flawed election result stand.
The reason the MDC factions contest the elections in total disregard of the SADC leaders’
warning is greed. It was greed that had made Tsvangirai et al kick the reforms into the prickly pear thicket and it was the same greed that drove them to take part in the flawed 2013 elections and now this year’s equally flawed elections.
“The MDC Alliance will have to work hard so as to convince its members to also boycott the
election; something which will be very difficult. It has also not invested in regional diplomacy and advocacy, hence will have very few backers if they pull out,” continued Daily News.
Hogwash! MDC members and the Zimbabwe electorate at large agreed to participate in the 2013 elections only because MDC leaders had repeatedly assured them the elections will be free, fair and credible. The penny dropped, in some few head at least, when Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections! A significant number of Zimbabweans are not taking part in this year’s elections because they can see the futility of hoping to win rigged elections.
Why would SADC leaders need convincing of the need to implement reforms before holding
elections when they are on public record arguing the same thing in 2013?
“We hope Chigumba will be able to uphold her constitutional duty to deliver a free, fair and
credible election in which the MDC Alliance participates,” said the Daily News.
The writer has no clue what he/she is writing about! The unreformed ZEC is, in all but name, a department in Zanu PF there to deliver the party’s no regime change mantra. How anyone can still hope that the same ZEC will also deliver free and fair elections only goes to show how confused they are.
The Daily News article was titled: “MDC Alliance election boycott will be suicidal”. Actually, MDC leaders committed collective kamikaze when they forgot about the reforms because they had their snouts in the gravy train feeding troughs. When it emerged that they had failed to implement even one reform in five years MDC lost all political credibility and it has been rapid descend into chaos and hell from there on.
By contesting flawed and illegal elections MDC are giving the process credibility; a second wrong compounding the first wrong of MDC failing to implement the reforms during the GNU. Ask yourself: If you were Zanu PF desperate to hang on to power, would you ever implement any reforms if you are guaranteed that the opposition will always participate no matter how flawed and illegal the process happen to be? You will have to be stupid to do so; Mnangagwa and his junta friends are ignorant, corrupt and, yes, even stupid but not that stupid as to risk losing power by holding free and fair elections.
Indeed, by participating in flawed elections, so flawed “the elections ARE DONE” long before even the first ballot is cast, MDC are helping Zanu PF extend its autocratic rule and the nation stuck in the shit-hole the regime has landed us in. The nation gained nothing from Zanu PF ‘s continued rule expect trouble and more trouble.
Zimbabwe’s hope of ever getting out of this shit-hole now rests with the international election observers. If they ignore the foolish notion that the legitimacy of these elections depends of the head count of how many political parties took part and focus on process; then there is no way such a flawed and illegal process can ever be judged to be free, fair and credible. Condemning these elections will give Zimbabwe a chance to revisit and implement the raft of democratic reforms agreed at the onset of 2008 GNU.
The very best result one can expect is an MDC victory with a powerful Zanu PF opposition. After their pathetic performance during the GNU, there is nothing to make anyone believe that the MDC government will be mediocre, at their best. Having a very disruptive Zanu PF opposition will only make the matters worse!
In a democratic Zimbabwe, neither Zanu PF thugs nor these sell-out MDC leaders will survive. A free media and democratic opponents will dig up their pathetic past record and make sure the electorate know they will be letting the nation into if they recycled the deadwood.
Only a health and functional democratic system of government complete with freedom of
expression and a free media will end the Zanu PF dictatorship and allow the people to think for themselves. We must end the insanity of risking the whole the nation’s destiny on a capricious act as winning rigged elections, even after 38 years of repeated failures! – SOURCE: zsdemocrats.blogspot.co.uk