By Wilbert Mukori| “Behind-the-scenes and indirect ‘talks about the talks’ appear to be gathering pace with Chamisa now saying that he will accept mediation by “neutral” locals,” reported Dailynews.
“MDC spokesperson Daniel Molokele said at the weekend that the party would be comfortable with an independent judge or clergyman mediating the mooted dialogue.”
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown and political paralysis (the nation has been drifting like a log in a flooded Zambezi River with no one in control for decades) is the country’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections. The curse of rigged elections is the elephant in the room that the nation has ignored for the last 39 years.
During the 2008 to 2013 GNU, SADC leaders made a determined effort to deal with Zimbabwe’s problem of rigged elections. They managed to get Robert Mugabe to agree to a raft of democratic reforms designed to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. SADC leaders entrusted Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to implement the democratic reforms.
Mugabe bribe the MDC leaders with ministerial limos, generous salaries, a US$4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc. And with the snout in the feeding tough, MDC leaders forgot to implement the reforms. Not even one reform was implemented in five years. Not one!
SADC leaders made one more determined effort to get MDC leaders to postpone the elections until reforms are implemented.
“In 2013 the (SADC) Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza, Director of the think tank SAPES Trust, told Violet Gonda.
“I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections. If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws.
“After that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done’.”
Sadly, SADC leaders’ stern warning fell on deaf MDC ears! The 2013 elections were not postponed and Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig them, as SADC leaders had predicted.
If both sides wanted the elections to go ahead regardless of the flaws and illegalities, there was nothing SADC leaders could do but accept that reality. They judge Zanu PF the winner of the flawed and illegal 2013 and 2018 elections, a subtle and mooted point that Zanu PF leaders has ignored, naturally.
Still, SADC leaders know last year’s elections were rigged and, more significantly, they know nothing of substance can ever be accomplished in Zimbabwe until the curse of rigged elections in dealt with. SADC leaders will therefore agree to mediate in the Zimbabwe crisis again on one condition; there are cast iron guarantees that the democratic reforms will be fully implemented this time.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF friends know SADC will insist on having the democratic reforms implemented and hence the reason the party is standing its ground and refusing outside mediators. It appears MDC is giving in on this point, not that Chamisa was ever interested in getting the reforms implemented; MDC lost they golden opportunity to do this during the 2008 GNU. All MDC leaders want is a chance to get back on the gravy train and the feeding trough.
What Mnangagwa and Chamisa must know is their political dialogue will be judged a waste of time and opportunity if it does not resolve the curse of rigged elections and bad governance! Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown has reached crisis point, the nation wants a solution to rigged elections and not another gimmick!
Any political solution that does not include the implementation of the democratic reforms and guarantee free, fair and credible elections is as futile fixing everything on the car as good as new but would not do anything to seized engine. A car with a seized engine will go nowhere!
SOURCE: zsdemocrats.blogspot.com