Wilbert Mukori | “At church…I’m so excited and empowered to know that God assures me that no weapon fashioned against me shall prevail. I thank the Sunday Mail for the free advert thru their false & malicious headline. Without doubt we are forming the next government because #Godisinit!!” Twittered Nelson Chamisa, MDC-T’s new Acting President.
This is just plan foolish and grandstanding posturing the nation have come to expect from our corrupt, incompetent and greedy political leaders from both side of the political divide.
Only an arrogant idiot would evoke the name of God Almighty in vain! MDC has been at the heart of Zimbabwe politics for nearly 20 years now and the nearest the party has ever come to forming the government was during the GNU. If one was to follow Chamisa’s naïve and simplistic logic the party failed to form the government because God was NOT in it!
There are many occasions when political power was within MDC’s grasp; the Lord had opened opportunity for the nation to end the Zanu PF dictatorship, to the religiously inclined; Chamisa and his friends wasted every one of these opportunities. The best chance by a long mile was during 2008 to 2013 GNU.
In the 2008 elections when Zanu PF instructed ZEC to cook up the vote count of the March vote to overturn Tsvangirai’s 73% victory to a mere 47% to force a run-off. It took six weeks to announce the fraudulent result because ZEC had to revisit each and every Polling Station to destroy the evidence of the true vote count for fear the result should be challenged in a Court of Law.
In the June 2008 run-off, Zanu PF deployed party thugs, war veterans and members from Army, Police and CIO to harass, intimidate, beat, rape and even murder innocent Zimbabweans. “Zanu PF has declared war on the people!” said Tsvangirai, when he announced his withdrawal from the race. The wanton violence was to punish the voters for having reject Mugabe and Zanu PF in the March vote and coerce them to vote for Mugabe in the run-off. It worked, Mugabe’s vote jumped from the misery 27% in March to a landslide 84%!
Not even SADC and AU election observers, who had turned a blind eye to Zanu PF vote rigging in the past, would endorse Mugabe’s victory as a free, fair and credible elections. SADC forced Mugabe and Zanu PF to sign the Global Political Agreement (GPA) agreeing to the implementation of the raft of democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF’s dictatorial control of ZEC, Police, Army and all the other State Institutions and restore all the people’s freedoms and human rights including the right to free, fair and credible elections.
The GPA agreed to the formation of the Government of National Unity (GNU), comprising Zanu PF and the two MDC factions. The GNU was tasked to implement the reforms and SADC was the guarantor of the agreement. The task of implementing the reforms fall to MDC naturally since they were the democrats and not Zanu PF, the dictatorial tyrants. It is a matter of historic record that SADC leaders did reminded MDC leaders, repeatedly, to implement the reforms during the GNU.
MDC leaders failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years of the GNU. Not one! Robert Mugabe bribed Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends with the trapping of high office, they were like cockroaches in a milk trap, they gorged themselves and forgot the reforms. Chamisa was one of the MDC ministers and he had his share of the ministerial limo, generous salary and allowances, world travel, etc., etc. He has bought many houses and amassed more wealth in those GNU years than many of his contemporaries will ever earn in a life time!
“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC people have learnt to enjoy the gravy train benefits and not rock the boat!) Boasted Zanu PF cronies during the GNU, in reply to why MDC leaders were not implementing the reforms.
Since the rigged July 2013 election, still not even one reform has been implemented. SADC leaders’ advice not to contest the election without implementing the reforms is more poignant this year than in 2013. It is insane to keep contesting elections that are so flawed and illegal, as was so graphically demonstrated during the 2008 elections, it is impossible to win. If Zanu PF can turn 73% to 47%, use wanton violence to boast their vote, etc., etc. it is impossible to see how the party can ever be defeated. The only reason MDC leaders have insisted in contesting the elections, regardless of the process being blatant fraudulent and illegal, is greed.
“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,” admitted Senator David Coltart in his recent book.
“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.”
Nelson Chamisa told an MDC Alliance rally in Mutare two weeks ago that the party has devised “stringent measures” to stop Zanu PF rigging elections. If the party was so clever, then why did it not use the same measure to stop the blatant vote rigging in 2013? This is just the latest feeble excuse to justify why is contest the elections with nothing done to stop the vote rigging.
The only effective measure to stop Zanu PF rigging elections is for the country to implement the reforms.
Many a battle have been lost unnecessarily because time, effort and money that should have gone into preparing for the fighting battle was wasted celebrating the victory not yet won!
“Without doubt we are forming the next government!” boasted Chamisa.
Yes, the pompous one; you can start forming the next government but first win the rigged elections; a feat you have singularly and foolishly failed to accomplish so far.
Zimbabwe cannot afford yet another rigged election born out of MDC’s arrogance, betrayal and blithering incompetence. If the elections are rigged then you, the pompous one, and you friends must explain to the nation why you dragged the nation into this flawed election, ignoring the warning that the elections will be rigged.