By Nomusa Garikai- ZEC has barred MDC Alliance from attending a ZEC organised all political parties meeting and the reaction from the MDC A spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere has been “full of sound and fury signifying nothing,” as William Shakespeare would say.
“Hon. Madzimure of the MDC Alliance has been barred from ZEC’s provincial consultative meeting for political parties which is scheduled for tomorrow in Harare. ZEC has an obligation to consult all stakeholders and to be independent,” said Mahere on Twitter.
ZEC has done a lot worse things than barring opposition members from attending stakeholders’ meetings which, from past experience, are just time wasting talk-shops. MDC A leaders know that ZEC; as is the case with the rest of the judiciary, Police, Army and all the other state institutions; is incapable of delivering free, fair and credible elections because it is a Zanu PF department in all but name.
“We reiterate our call for electoral reform and constitutional conduct on the part of ZEC,” continued the effervescent Mahere.
The 2008 Zimbabwe elections were a watershed because Zanu PF showed the full array of the party’s ability to rig elections. The part stepped in to stop ZEC announcing the result of the March 2008 vote and after six weeks of cooking up the figures Morgan Tsvangirai’s 73%, by Mugabe’s own Freudian slip, was whittled down to 47%, enough to force the run-off.
As far as Zanu PF was concerned, the run-off was all about punishing the people for having rejected the party in the March vote. And the people were punished; property was destroyed, the people were beaten, raped, abducted and over 500 were murdered in cold blood.
SADC leaders forced Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement (GPA), agreeing to the need for Zimbabwe to implement a raft of democratic reforms to restore the independence of ZEC, Police, Army, etc. and stop a repeat of the blatant cheating and wanton violence of 2008.
The GPA established the Government of National Unity (GNU) in which Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC-T and Arthur Mutambara and his MDC-M constituted the major partners. During the five years of the GNU, MDC leaders could do a lot more than “reiterate the call for democratic reforms”; it was in their power to implement the reforms!
Sadly, it was not to be; MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform in five years of the GNU. Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and company with the trappings of high office and, with their snouts buried in the feeding trough, MDC leaders forgot about the reforms for five years.
SADC leaders were the guarantor of the 2008 GPA and they made one last minute bid to get the reforms implement. They wanted the scheduled July 2013 elections postponed until the reforms were implemented.
“In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there,” Dr Ibbo Mandaza of SAPES told Journalist 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.
“And 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’.”
As we know Tsvangirai and company ignored the SADC leaders’ warning and participated in the 2013 elections for the same reason the MDC leaders had failed to implement the reforms during the GNU – greed. MDC leaders knew Zanu Pf was offering a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition and they found the bribe irresistible.
At it 2014 MDC-T congress the party resolved they would never participate in future elections until the reforms were implemented. “No reform, no elections!” they said.
By the end of the following year, 2015, it was clear the party was going to participate in future elections even if not even one token reform was implemented. Greed had once again got the better of MDC leaders.
By participating in the flawed and illegal elections, MDC A is gives the vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and in return the MDC leaders get a share of the spoils of power.
MDC A’s repeated calls for reforms are worse than Judas Iscariot’s futile gesture of throwing away the thirty pieces of silver after the deed was done. At least Judas was sincere in his remorse since he not only throw away the blood money but went on hang himself. MDC leaders are stubbornly refusing to admit they sold-out in failing to implement any reforms but worst of all are now the ones keeping the Zanu PF dictatorship in power as long as the later keeps paying them the thirty pieces of silver.
“We reiterate our call for electoral reform and constitutional conduct on the part of ZEC,” continued the effervescent Mahere. Yes darling, we have heard that thousands of times and so has Zanu PF.
It is the lack of political will and discipline by opposition to stand firm in demanding the implementation of the democratic reforms that is giving Zanu PF the confidence to ignore demands for free, fair and credible elections.
There must be consequences for breaking the rules others there is no incentive to up hold the rules especially by those who are benefiting from breaking the rules. MDC A keep participating in the flawed elections because they are getting a few scraps, which is better than nothing but trouble which is what povo are getting.
MDC leaders have given up the fight for free, fair and credible elections and settled to whatever scraps Zanu PF throws at them. It is for povo to wake up to this new political reality and to fight to end to this rotten arrangement.