By Wilbert Mukori- Ever since the day SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM) led by Dr Nevers Mumba of Zambia released their preliminary report condemning the 23 August 2023 as flawed and illegal, Emmerson Mnangagwa and his apologists and toads have declare war on Dr Mumba.
They have thrown everything including the kitchen sink at him; to discredit him in the vain hope by discrediting him they discredit the SEOM report!
“President Hichilema throws Mumba under the bus!” proclaimed Nkululeko Nkomo, in Bulawayo 24 article.
“Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has distanced himself from a report by the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Head of Electoral Observation Mission in the just-ended elections, Dr. Nevers Sikwela, that alleged electoral irregularities in Zimbabwe,” Nkomo explained.
“Last Monday, President Hichilema sent his Foreign Affairs Minister, Stanley Kakubo, to the inauguration of President Emmerson Mnangagwa. This move was seen as a sign that he did not endorse the report’s findings.
“President Hichilema has not commented publicly on the report, but his actions suggest that he does not believe that Mumba’s report was accurate. By sending his Foreign Affairs Minister to the inauguration, he essentially endorsed President Mnangagwa’s victory.”
And, in Nkomo’s infantile wisdom, THAT is tantamount to President Hichilema “throwing Dr Mumba under the bus”!
Everyone with half a brain knows that Zimbabwe was forced to form the 2008 to 2013 GNU after the country failed to hold free, fair and credible elections. The primary purpose of that GNU was to implement the democratic reforms to stop the blatant cheating and wanton violence of 2008. SADC leaders wanted the 2013 elections postponed because not even one token reform was implemented.
“If you participate in next month’s elections, you will lose. The elections are done!” SADC leaders warned Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends at the June 2013 SADC Summit in Maputo, Mozambique.
Alas! MDC leaders paid no heed to the advice and we all know Zanu PF went now to blatantly rig those elections. SADC, in sheer exasperation, went on to grant Zanu PF political legitimacy knowing fully well that the elections were flawed and illegal.
MDC leaders acknowledge they had made a fatal mistake in participating in the 2013 elections without implementing the reforms. MDC-T resolved at their 2014 party congress they would not participate in future elections without first implementing the reforms. “No reforms, no elections!” they chanted.
After a year they ditched the “No reforms, no elections!” They participated in the 2018 elections with no reforms for the same reasons they participated in the 2013 elections and had failed to implement even one token reform during the GNU – greed and breath-taking incompetence.
In like fashion SADC once again granted Zanu PF political legitimacy in 2018 as in 2013 knowing fully well the elections were flawed and illegal. Dr Nevers Mumba and his fellow SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM) team pointed the election flaws and illegalities that everyone in SADC and AU knew were there but did not dare admit.
The SEOM team was nothing more that the little boy who pointed out that the Emperor was naked in the classical folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen. The moral of the tale was to illustrate the dangers of conformity and mob rule.
SEOM report mere pointed out the lie that Zimbabwe elections were free, fair and credible and got the gene out of the bottle. The reaction of the Zanu PF regime and its apologists was an all out attack on Dr Mumba; the region could not deny the election process was flawed and illegal, the message, and so went after the messenger.
One only hopes that SADC and AU will not be bullied and bamboozled by Mnangagwa and his hounds into granting vote rigging Zanu PF political legitimacy.