Staff Reporter | Former Intelligence guru and war lord Didymus Mutasa, who now plays a prominent role as the National Electoral Reforms Agenda (NERA) face and spokesperson is a liar and election thief, together with his boss Joice Mujuru, Zimbabweans have said.
Zimbabweans have reacted angrily to recent revelations by Mutasa that veteran opposition politician Morgan Tsvangirai won the crucial 2008 by 74 percent. At the time not only were Zimbabweans robbed of their future and still suffering to this day, Mutasa and Mujuru benefited from the status quo back then, and even took part in the traumatic bloodletting that ensued in the run off elections which gave President Mugabe victory. The two until they were chased like thieves out of Zanu PF, have silently watched while Tsvangirai who they now assert lacks boldness, was in the trenches fighting tooth and nail for democracy. Consequently, they become complicit, not just in violence, election theft, murders, but as agents who willingly and knowingly gave a new lease of life to Mugabe.
A human rights lawyer told ZimEye when it comes to matters of accountability, criminal offences dating back even to the Ian Smith regime will be considered, meaning the likes of Mujuru and Mutasa will not easily run under the cover of opposition politics to avoid scrutiny.
“Why didn’t he come out with the truth then? Is he trying to buy trust from us? Well its not for sale you earn it by your reputation?” asked one Zimbabwean.
Another wrote, “Mutasa is also an election thief. He was involved in this and is now coming out at a late date to say otherwise. Mutasa and Mujuru must explain themselves; tell us the role they played in all this mess. Our country is at crossroads over the situation they created whilst in Zanu.”
Mutasa’s attempts of buying a new life as an opposition figure might not be as easy as he thinks.
Speaking to journalists, Mutasa said Tsvangirai was just not bold enough to demand what was rightly his so Mugabe took advantage of this to continue as President of Zimbabwe illegally. Mutasa said this when journalists asked him in his current capacity as the spokesperson of the National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) if he thought Mugabe would buckle to pressure from the protesters.
“One thing you don’t know is that Mugabe is a hopeless coward… when Tsvangirai won the 2008 election by 73,8% he wanted to run away… he wanted to flee from Zimbabwe and it only took Chiwenga and others to claim him as work on rigging the results started… he was not sure that it would work and he started panicking more when the rigging process appeared to be going on for ever… he feared the people would pour out in the streets. “If we put enough pressure on him, he will buckle in… if you ask those of us who know him better.
If he was such a hard nut to crack, do you think some of us would be into this thing in the first place… we are doing it because we know our target very well.” In 2008, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission withheld the results of the Presidential vote for a record five weeks, after which they showed that Tsvangirai won 47,9% of the vote and Mugabe 43,2%, necessitating a run-off, which Tsvangirai pull out of citing widespread violence against his party’s members and supporter.