By Nomusa Garikai- “As your Listening President and a Servant Leader, I will continue engaging with you and listening to your concerns so that we walk hand in hand, together in unity, love, peace and harmony towards a prosperous Zimbabwe,” said Mnangagwa!
“Listening President!” You have just blatantly rigged the elections, for umpteenth time it must be said, denying us, the people, a meaningful say in the governance of the country.
3 millions in the diaspora were denied the right to vote, a very large number considering Mnangagwa garnered 2.4 million and declared the winner. ZEC failed to produce a verified voters’ roll, a legal and common sense requirement, and so no one who was on the voters’ roll, who voted, etc.
Rural voters were subjected to the usual intimidation and harassment by traditional leaders and party operative, reducing them into nothing short of medieval serfs beholden to the overbearing landlord, Zanu PF.
The EU and all the other election observer with any democratic credential have all dismissed last year’s election as a farce. So Mnangagwa switches off the mic, the amplifier, and all the democratic means for people to express their voices and has chutzpah to claim he heard us!
By failing to stamp out corruption; failing to keep his promise to hold free, fair and credible elections; etc. Mnangagwa has confirmed that, contrary to his claim of Zimbabwe being “new democratic dispensation and Second republic”; the country is still a pariah state of Mugabe days.
And as long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state there will be no meaningful economic recovery. None!
“There is indeed, much more to look forward to in the New Year. Tomorrow is a better and brighter day. I wish you a happy and prosperous New Year,” Mnangagwa continued.
Rigging elections and thus confirming Zimbabwe’s pariah state status, was the easy bit; rigging economic recovery, given the pariah state, is proving mission impossible!
Mnangagwa has denied the people of his Zimbabwe a democratic voice because he and his Zanu PF cronies did not want to be told that they have failed and must go. So he is “a listening president” hearing the voices of an imaginary electorate.
The sorry state of the country’s economy is spelt out in the 90% unemployment rate; the soaring hyperinflation; the 90% of the population now classified as poor with 34% of them living in extreme poverty, according to a recent WB report; most of the country’s hospitals have all but closed and hundreds are dying of easily treatable ailments; etc. No amount of Zanu PF propaganda and coercion will force Zimbabweans to mistake abject poverty for economic prosperity!
There are some Zimbabweans who have argued that Mnangagwa should be given the benefit of the doubt. “Give him a chance, to turn the economy around!” They argued.
It is now over two years since the November 2017 military coup that booted Mugabe out of office and still there is nothing to make one believe Zimbabwe has or is ever going to turn the corner. Mnangagwa’s vision 2030 with its promise of middle income status for the country is just a mirage; same as Mugabe’s vision 2000, vision 2020, etc.
“Wishful thinking is hoping to feast on a bushel after bushel of mangoes in the future when you have never planted even one mango sapling,” my late father would often say. “Plant ten saplings and your wish will come true!”
Mnangagwa has had the last two years to plant the saplings to give hope in a future economic recovery; by failing to stamp out corruption, to hold free and fair elections, etc. he has continued with Mugabe’s destructive ways, cutting down the few mango trees for selfish gain.
Holding free, fair and credible elections to end the country’s curse of rigged elections, bad governance and pariah state is the mango sapling Zimbabwe must plant to secure economic recovery and prosperity.
“Happy and prosperous New Years!” Mnangagwa said this last year and the year before that and yet year after year the country’s economic meltdown has got progressively worse and not better. With nothing done to end the curse of bad governance, 2020 is not going to buck that trend.
The people of Zimbabwe must demand that this illegitimate Zanu PF regime steps down now to allow the appointment of an interim administration that will implement the requisite reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections.
The tragic human suffering brought about be the worsening economic situation is the compelling case why this vicious cycle of rigged elections and tyrants hearing imaginary voices must be broken now.
The right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country is not just a key fundamental right, it is also the essence of good and accountable government.
The charade of being denied a voice and tyrants boasting about listening to the people’s democratic voices but not be allowed to continue even for one more day. Enough is enough!