By Wilbert Mukori- “As I said last week, stealing elections through all manner of rigging before and after the polling day itself would have been ignored by the business and investor communities if Mnangagwa had appointed a craft competent cabinet,” argued Hopewell Chin’ono.
“That opportunity of salvaging any form of credibility is now gone through the window after Mnangagwa appointed the worst ever cabinet in Zimbabwe’s living memory.
“There are two types of legitimacy in global politics and business, there is Political and Performance legitimacy.
“Political legitimacy is derived from elections and Performance legitimacy is derived from a craft competent cabinet and administration.
“Countries like China and Qatar don’t even hold elections, but they cover up with Performance legitimacy.”
To expect Emmerson Mnangagwa to appoint “a craft competent cabinet and administration” would be unrealistic. He himself is not competent and I will be hard pressed to name one competent Zanu PF leader in the last 43 years. Just one!
Mnangagwa himself have proven beyond all reasonable doubt that he is corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless. He has held very senior government positions for the last 43 years for one main reason – he is a ruthless thugs whom Mugabe, a ruthless thugs himself, found very useful to establish and retain a de facto one party state.
Mugabe surrounded himself with buffoons like Mnangagwa who did not have any common sense much less political and business sense and Zimbabwe’s fate as a failed state was sealed. Mnangagwa has carried on from where Mugabe left off dragging the nation deeper and deeper into the economic and political abyss.
Zimbabwe has suffered the misfortune of the double whammy of a none perform regime and, to add insult to injury, was stuck with it. Zanu PF has rigged elections ever since the country’s independence in 1980, 43 year and counting of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and tyrannical oppression has all but destroyed the nation’s economy and democratic state institutions.
Before independence Zimbabwe was the bread-basket of the region. Mugabe seized the farms to give them to his Zanu PF cronies mostly. The last two decades Zimbabwe has relied on imported food aid every two or three years. The nation is starving in a country that is, for all practical purposes, the Garden of Eden. A damning testimonial is the failed Zanu PF leadership.
Zanu PF has corrupt the state institutions turning them into Zanu PF departments in all but name to serve the singular purpose of keeping Zanu PF in power at all cost. The political system has stifled debate and democratic discourse and competition it has been compared to a sewage pond where there should be clean water dam. It is no surprise country has no quality leaders both sides of the political divide, which explains the political paralysis. There is no quality fish in a sewage pond.
Zimbabwe had its golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms and dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. The opportunity fall to Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC friends and they turned out to be corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless. Mugabe bribed them with the tapping of high office and the rest is history.
Zanu PF rigged the 23 August 2023 elections and SADC and AU election observers have condemned the elections denying Zanu PF political legitimacy, a departure from the usual practice of turning a blind eye to the rigging. The electoral crisis is going to be resolved by appointing a new GNU, similar to the one appointed in 2008 following an identical electoral problem.
The primary task of the last GNU was to implement the democratic reform to end the curse of rigged elections. This new GNU’s primary task will be to implement the reforms too only this time no stone will be left unturned to make sure all the reforms and fully implemented.
Zimbabwe’s only hope of crawling out of the economic and political hell-hole Zanu PF has landed the nation into is regime change followed implementing the democratic reforms designed to drain the political sewage pond.
We cannot expecting a buffoon like Mnangagwa to appoint “a craft competent cabinet and administration” that would be making the proverbial a silk purse from sow’s ear! It is cannot be done.