By Wilbert Mukori- Julius Malema, the leader of SA’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party  is a demagogue and, like all demagogues, one cannot reason with him. He does not have the intellectual incapable of comprehending simplest facts! 

Malema has failed to understand that Zanu PF not just rigs elections but that the process has become so flawed and illegal the only rational solution is to stop participating. 

In 2008 Morgan Tsvangirai garnered 73% and that was not good enough to get him the keys to State House. ZEC has failed to produce a verified voters’ roll and Team Pachedu has since uncovered so many glaring and deliberate mistakes in the voters’ roll it is immediately clear why the regime did not want the roll properly audited. The regime has plans to frogmarch rural voters; etc., etc.

There is a mountain of evidence already that Zanu PF is rigging these elections and that participating will only serve to give SADC the excuse to grant Zanu PF political legitimacy. And yet Malema still insists that Zimbabweans must participate.

“We call on all Zimbabweans who are here in South Africa to go back home and vote. If it means coming back, they can come back, they are more than welcome, but they must do the right thing and go and vote,” he said  few weeks ago.

Well the demagogues has since put his money where his mouth is. EFF help pay for 500 buses to transport Zimbabweans travelling back to Zimbabwe to vote! 

Now that Malema has gone the extra mile and offered to pay for 50 000 (assuming 100 voters in @ bus), he will probably assume that 20 times that number will make their own way and so over 1 million of the 3 million Zimbabweans in SA alone will be voting to remove Mnangagwa. 

Many of those who do travel to Zimbabwe to vote will be denied the vote because their name is not in the Polling Station voters’ roll the expected it to be or has been deleted or some such reason as many in Zimbabwe will find out on voting day. But of course, Julius Malema will take another Zanu PF landslide victory as proof Zimbabweans are not fighting to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. 

The accusation that Zimbabweans were in SA because they are cowards who would not confront the Zanu PF dictatorship was the caucus celebre to justify the xenophobia attacks of Zimbabweans.

Credit where credit is due, Julius Malema and his EFF have condemned the xenophobia attacks. His language has changed, there is a razor sharp edge to it.

“No-one is going to fight for these Zimbabweans who are loitering the streets here. They are their own liberators. For once, they must take responsibility and get into buses and go home and vote.”

Julius Malema and his EFF cronies are renowned for their flip flops. Will another Zanu PF landslide victory; Malema will not care that the elections were rigged, he does not care about details especially when they are way above his head; force Juju to perform one of his notorious flip flops.  

If Zanu PF rigs and wins the 23 August elections, all signs are they will, then there will be new wave of Zimbabwean economic and/or political refugees. Those going to SA will be shocked to find increased anti-Zimbabwean vibes and the next xenophobia violence will be even worse than ever! 

Again, credit where credit is due, SA’s Minister Lindiwe Zulu did push Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. If the reforms were implemented Zimbabwe would have cured herself once and once for all this curse of rigged elections and bad governance. 

Sadly, all her effort was wasted, the MDC leaders turned out to be (and still are) corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. They failed to implement even one token reform in five years. 

SADC leaders made one last minute attempt to have the 2013 Zimbabwe elections postponed until reforms were implemented. “If you take part in these elections, you will lose. The elections are done!” the regional leaders told Tsvangirai and company to their faces at the June 2013 SADC Summit in Maputo, Mozambique.

But again MDC leaders paid no heed to the warning. Zanu PF went on to rig the 2013 elections, as SADC leaders had warned and they did a volte-face of their own by granting vote rigging Zanu PF political legitimacy. And granted vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy yet again in 2018. 

At its party congress SA’s ruling party, ANC, resolved that they would not allow regime change in Zimbabwe. This is most alarming because this suggests that SA will use it dominance in SADC to once again grant vote rigging Zanu PF political legitimacy in these 2023 elections regardless of the evidence these elections a flawed and illegal. 

It is infuriate that both EFF and ANC are completely ignoring the political reality that Zanu PF is blatantly rigging these elections, and are conniving in granting vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the dictatorship and yet have the chutzpah to blame the ordinary Zimbabwean economic and political refugee escaping the consequences the failed state they are nurturing!