By Patrick Guramatunhu- Mnangagwa is a creature of habit – his habit is to make promises which he clearly has no intention of honouring. Empty promises! “Charovedzera charovedzera, gudo rakakwira mawere kwasviba!” as one would say in Shona.
“President Mnangagwa has further relaxed the coronavirus-induced national lockdown as he sought to re-activate what he termed ‘freedoms promised’ at the outset of the ‘new dispensation.’” Reported Bulawayo24, quoting FinX.
“In an address, which contained reminders of perhaps the difficult task, which his presidency met when he took over from Robert Mugabe, Mnangagwa said the country must once again refocus, recalibrate and revamp.
“Let us recall that Zimbabwe was in the midst of deep and broad reforms. We were reforming distortions, which have bedeviled our economy for decades, we were reforming the old, creating the new and building stronger foundations for a prosperous Zimbabwe.”
“President Mnangagwa, who is currently facing sharp criticism over his failure to deal with the economic challenges and his failure to rein in corruption, said the progress had been registered on the economic and political landscape as well as media space by removing antiquated laws and opening up new channels for dialogue and debate. “Unfortunately as Zimbabwe was opening up both internally and externally, we were forced to closed”
“The President said the country will open under certain conditions and that the creation of jobs will return to the top of the Government’s agenda. He promised to work twice as hard, “work with promise and promise to improve lives and give children a better future.””
The real tragedy here is that the nation is stuck with a regime it cannot remove from office because the party, Zanu PF, has carte blanche powers to rig the elections.
The number one real change the nation has been dying for these last 40 years is the raft of democratic changes to restore the people’s freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country. In his “new dispensation”, Mnangagwa has made a big song and dance about the freedoms and rights he would restored but never did.
Corrupt and murderous tyrants like Mnangagwa will never ever understand the concept that these freedoms and rights are birth-rights and inalienable. They are therefore not his or anyone else to give to some and deny to others as their dictatorial whim sees fit.
In Zimbabwe, the people’s fight for freedoms and human rights has suffered a real setback with the election of Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into power. The people have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders into office on the understanding, once in power, they would bring about the democratic changes necessary to restore the people’s freedoms and human rights.
Sadly, once they got into power the MDC leaders, just like Zanu PF leaders before them, betrayed the people.
Morgan Tsvangirai et al had their best chances ever to implement the democratic reforms and end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office and, to show their appreciation to the dictator, they throw all reforms out of the window.
And ever since the GNU, Zanu PF has learnt that it does not have to give up its dictatorial powers, the party can continue to deny the people their freedoms and rights including rigging elections and yet fudge legitimacy by making sure MDC participates in the elections. Zanu PF bribed MDC to participate by offering a few gravy-train seats as bait.
Ever since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 till the watershed 2008 elections it was easy to condemn Zimbabwe elections because there was all the evidence of the blatant cheating and wanton violence. The GNU change things in that in those five years the opposition was given the opportunity to implement the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections.
So, post 2008 GNU it was not enough for the opposition to claim the elections were rigged they had to explain why they had failed to implement the reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections.
They could not do so, not without admitting they had sold-out. And Zanu PF has exploited this weakness, naturally; the party has rigged elections and used the MDC’s continued participation as a smoke-screen for legitimacy.
So ever since the GNU fiasco, MDC has pretended to pursue the democratic change agenda to impress the naïve and gullible populous when in reality the party had settled for the few gravy-train seats Zanu PF was giving away as bait..
“MDC has stringent measures to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections!” boasted Chamisa before the 2018 elections. Of course, MDC had no such measure!
Indeed, MDC did not even have the common sense to demand that ZEC produce a verified voters’ roll, itself a legal requirement too!
Understanding the subtlety of how MDC’s continued participation in flawed and illegal elections is, nonetheless, giving some modicum of credibility to the process thus legitimacy the ensuing government is vital in unlocking the now, seeming intractable political impasse.
Understand that, and the notion of that MDC leaders are hunting with the Zanu PF hounds whilst, outwardly, they continue running with the povo hare; makes perfect sense.
But more significantly, it makes perfect sense to even povo themselves why they must now disown the corrupt, incompetent and sell-out MDC leaders if the nation is to finally break the vicious cycle of legitimising rigged elections by participating.
A discredited MDC cannot give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF regime. And starved of legitimacy Zanu PF will be forced to step down to allow the implementation of the reforms and restoration of the people’s freedoms and rights. At long last!