By Wilbert Mukori| If I tell the truth about how the election was lost there would be an earthquake in Zimbabwe,” claimed Hopewell Chin’ono in one of his comments on X.
“Nelson Chamisa knows what happened, he knows how he was misled, he knows who misled him, he knows that he should never do it again.
“I will leave it there, one day you too will know.
“He was played by the system!”
For a start Chamisa was not “played by the system” because he and his fellow MDC/CCC friends knew exactly what was happening. After 23 years on the political stage they could have changed the system if they wanted to but have done nothing and are, per se, part and parcel of the system.
Chin’ono has made one basic and yet unfounded assumption, that if told the truth, people will comprehend it. There will be no earthquake in Zimbabwe even if he told the whole truth of how Zanu PF rigged the 2023 elections with the active co-operation of the opposition because the people must NOT comprehend the truth.
If there was ever going to be an earthquake in Zimbabwe, it would have happened in 2013 when it was clear MDC leaders had sold out big time by failing to to implement even one token reform during the five years of the GNU. When SADC leaders gave Tsvangirai and company a chance to redeem themselves by advising them not to take part in the 2013 elections without reforms; the MDC rejected the advice out of greed.
There was no earthquake in 2013 when Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections and reimposed the dictatorship the GNU was supposed to end because most Zimbabweans had no clue what the reforms were much less that the primary purpose of the GNU was to implement the reforms and MDC leaders had sold out.
MDC/CCC leaders have been participating in flawed elections ever since the failed GNU knowing fully well that Zanu PF was rigging the elections and that participating would only give the process legitimacy or “credibility” As David Coltart called it.
Both Tendai Biti and David Coltart have told the people of Zimbabwe the truth about how the opposition has been participating in these flawed elections out of greed.
“Look, you can’t keep on participating in flawed electoral processes that serve to give big benefits to dictators such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has perfected the art of winning elections. So it will be very foolish for the opposition to continue legitimising these sham elections which don’t deliver.
“This country will go through a serious economic crisis in 2020 caused by Zanu PF. And yet, this is the only country where a government doesn’t perform, it is encouraged by a super majority in parliament,” said Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.
“So you can’t continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed.”
Coltart went one step more and confessed that the opposition has been participating in the flawed elections out of greed.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the (2013) elections,” confessed Coltart in his Book, , The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.
“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”
There is nothing new you, Hopewell Chin’ono, can tell Zimbabweans on what happened in these 2023 elections that the people did not already know. After all these flawed elections are just a repeat of the past rigged elections. Same s****t different year!
Zimbabweans did not revolt against MDC when Tendai Biti, David Coltart and many, many others told them of how MDC leaders had sold out big time by failing to implement reforms and by participating in flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the nation’s suffering.
They heard the truth but failed to comprehend what it meant much less that their suffering would have been avoided if MDC leaders had not sold out. The heard it, it came in one ear and out the other without even leaving a foot-print!
There has not been and there will be no earthquake in protest against MDC/CCC leaders selling out because the people are blissfully unaware of the treasonous betrayals.
“In knowing nothing, life is most delightful” (In nil sapiendo vita iucundissima est), said Publilius Syrus, Latin writer. Of course, Syrus was write, given Zimbabweans are contend in their miserables lives and there would be an earthquake if only they knew the men and women they have risked life and limb to end the Zanu PF dictatorship and the ones keeping Zanu PF in power!
Ignorance is Zimbabwe’s greatest curse! As long as our people remain ignorant, nothing of substance will ever change. Nothing!