“MDC Launched Vigorous 1million Voter Registration”- For Purpose Of Giving Vote Rigging Zanu PF Legitimacy
30 May 2021
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By Patrick Guramatunhu- “Yesterday (MDC) Mhondoro youths launched a vigorous voter registration campaign under the 1 million campaign banner in memory of one the youths who was brutally murdered!” announced mdcmhondora on twitter. The comment was copied to the party’s leaders, Nelson Chamisa and far and wide.

Murdered by whom?

What crimes had the youth committed?

Where the murderers arrested and punished?

What assurance are there that this will not be repeated again?

There are a thousand and one questions MDC supporters and the Zimbabweans at large should be asking Chamisa and company. The answer to the first question above is; murdered by Zanu PF operatives.

The answer to the last question is: the wanton violence will return if Zanu PF should feel the “vigorous voter registration” was posing a serious threat to its iron grip on power. Chamisa and company’s Win In Rigged Elections (WIRE) strategies are a bluff to fool the gullible public who are desperate for change and not a threat to Zanu PF hegemony!

There will be no meaningful economic and political change in Zimbabwe without first implementing the reforms. MDC A’s WIRE strategies, the so-called mass voter registration being one such phantom strategy, are all a waste of time and space.   

Zimbabwe’s 2008 elections were a watershed in that Zanu PF showed the world there are no limits to what the party will do to retain absolute power. None! The party ordered the recount of the March 2008 vote to whittle down Tsvangirai’s 73% vote, by Mugabe’s own Freudian slip, to 47% – enough to force a run-off.

Zanu PF’s primary focus during the run-off was to punish the people for having rejected Mugabe and Zanu PF in the March vote. The party used war veterans and Zanu PF youths backed by the Police, Army and CIO to destroy property, intimidate, beat, rape and over 500 people were brutally murdered.

“What was achieved by the bullet cannot be changed by the ballot!” thundered Robert Mugabe.

Mugabe won the run-off with a landslide 84%!

SADC and AU refused to accept Mugabe and his Zanu PF as the legitimate government because of the blatant cheating and wanton violence. SADC forced Mugabe to join Tsvangirai to  form the 2008 to 2013 GNU whose primary task was implement the raft of democratic reforms to ensure the vote rigging of 2008 will not be repeated ever again. Sadly, not even one reform was implemented. Not one!

The task of implementing the reforms during the GNU fell to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends. Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office and, with their snouts in the feeding trough, they completely forgot about the reforms for the five years of the GNU.

SADC leaders, who were the guarantor the GNU, tried to have the July 2013 Zimbabwe elections postponed until the reforms necessary for free and fair elections were implemented. “If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!” SADC leaders warned Tsvangirai in June 2013, according to Dr Ibbo Mandaza who attended the SADC Summit in Maputo, Mozambique.

Tsvangirai and company paid no heed.

Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the 2013 elections as SADC leaders had rightly predicted.

There was very little violence in 2013 and 2018, at least nothing compared to 2008, but only because Zanu PF had revamped its vote rigging schemes to deliver a landslide electoral victory without having to resort to the use of violence. The party has deployed the war veterans and other party operatives just to remind the electorate the party will resort to wanton violence at the drop of a hat if its hold on power should ever be threatened again.

Chamisa and company did nothing to threaten Zanu PF’s dominance in 2013 or 2018. This “vigorous voter registration campaign under the 1 million campaign banner” is just a blast of hot air. But if it should be a threat, Zanu PF will respond stepping up the intimidation, beatings, rape and cold-blooded murders.

What is almost certain to happen is that the 2023 elections will be relatively peaceful because Chamisa and company have no intention of posing a serious political challenge to Zanu PF. Ever since the GNU debacle, MDC leaders have given up on implementing the reforms and are now quite content to be Zanu PF’s junior partner.

Zanu PF has retained all its dictatorial powers and will exercise them as it sees fit to secure 2/3 majority plus the presidency. MDC play its role as the opposition party for the sake of keeping up the appearance of Zimbabwe as a functioning multi-party democracy. MDC leaders will have the remaining 1/3 of the gravy train seats plus the corresponding portion of the annual Political Party Finance Act pay-out.

The real losers in this new Zimbabwe Zanu PF and MDC marriage of convenience are the ordinary Zimbabwean. They have risked life and limb to elect MDC leaders on the understanding the party will deliver democratic changes to restore their freedoms and rights including the right to free and fair elections. After 21 years, 5 of which in the GNU, MDC has failed to implement even one reform and to add insult to injury MDC is now abusing the people’s naivety to keep Zanu PF in power.

MDC in lying about the party winning rigged elections, these WIRE strategies are just nonsense. By participating in these flawed elections Zimbabweans are unwittingly giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the Zanu PF dictatorship – the very thing they continue to risk life and limb to end!  

How long will it take Zimbabweans before they finally realise that by participating in flawed elections, they are giving the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy? It is insane to expect to win rigged elections, especially given there is no limit to Zanu PF’s blatant cheating and wanton violence. The sky is the limit!