By Wilbert Mukori| “Answer the question you were asked and not one you wanted to be asked!”Is the one lesson I learned from my secondary school Bible Knowledge teacher, I remember to this day. “You will not get any marks for answering questions you wanted to be asked!”
Zimbabwe is a failed nation sinking deeper and deeper into the abyss. Why? Well, for one thing, we Zimbabweans have certainly a knack for answering the questions that we wanted asked and not the questions life has asked.
“The opposition cant be the problem!” insisted one member in my WhatsApp group.
“The problem lies in the denial of the people especially those in the rural areas their real right to vote. People in most rural areas are coerced directly and also indirectly who to vote for … the result being that at the end of the day they do not substantively exercise their right to vote in the real sense of it.
This has affected our democratic system a lot and ultimately the result is not a true reflection of the democratic will of the people.”
The problem of rigged elections certainly lies with Zanu PF but considering Zanu PF has rigged elections ever since 1980, 43 years and counting, one would expect the nation to have moved on by now from who is rigging the elections to what are we going to do about it! And true enough this is exactly what the nation has done.
By the late 1990s the people of Zimbabwe came to the conclusion that the only way to stop Zanu PF rigging elections was by implemented the democratic reforms designed to take away the regime’s dictatorial powers including the carte blanche powers to deny the people their right to free, fair and credible elections. The people also realised that Zanu PF thugs could not be trusted to implement these democratic reforms and thus reform themselves out of power.
The people of Zimbabwe have risk life and limb, from the Zanu PF thugs desperate to retain their iron grip on power, to elect opposition members into power for one express purpose – they would implement the democratic reforms and stop Zanu PF rigging elections once and for all. After 23 years of MDC/CCC leaders on the political stage, 5 of which in the 2008 to 2013 GNU, it is most disheartening that MDC/CCC leaders failed to implement even one token democratic reform. Not even one!
Worse still, ever since the GNU debacle MDC/CCC leaders have participated in flawed elections, knowing fully well that Zanu PF was rigging and that participating would give the election process some modicum of credibility and thus give Zanu PF legitimacy. They have soldiered on and participated out of greed. They knew Zanu PF would give away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate. They found the bait irresistible and did not care about the millions denied the vote!
Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF cronies blatantly rigged the August 2023 elections because MDC/CCC leaders had failed to implement even one token democratic reforms to stop the rigging.
Indeed, even after AU, SADC and even Zimbabwe’s own ZHRC election observers had condemned the 23 August 2023 elections as a farce; CCC leaders were falling over themselves in their hast to take up their gravy train train seats. By accepting their gravy train seats CCC gave their resounding endorsement of the elections leaving SADC leaders speechless.
Zimbabwe’s problem of the failure to hold free, fair and credible elections is an OPPOSITION problem as contrast to being a Zanu PF problem in the sense that it is the form who have failed to implement the necessary reforms to stop the rigging. Zanu PF blatantly rigged the 2023 elections and thanks to CCC’s participation and endorsement they got away with it, in like manner the regime will rigged the 2028 elections unless we finally answer the question: Is there a competent opposition who can and will implement the democratic reforms to end the curse of rigged elections?
Zimbabwe should have been a healthy and functioning democratic country by 2013, at the latest, if MDC leader had implemented the democratic reforms. Even now, after 23 years including 5 in the GNU and without even one token reform implemented many Zimbabwe are still reluctant to accept that MDC/CCC leaders are corrupt and incompetent and will never implement the requisite democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging elections.
23 years wasted dithering over reforms and for our part dithering over MDC/CCC leaders are up to the task of implementing the reforms. There is a heavy price to be paid dithering and we are paying it. Zimbabwe is a failed state because we have failed to end the curse of rigged elections and there is nothing that will give me reason to believe the reforms will finally be implemented and the curse lifted. Nothing!
SOURCE: zimbabwelight.blogspot.com