Zimbabwe’s electoral silly season in once again upon us and the usual political analysts, the connoisseur of poll nonsense, have set up the stalls and they have started.
“Analysts say the only way Zimbabwe could get out of its current political and socio-economic mess would be if the opposition formed a coalition ahead of the 2018 national elections, possibly with former Vice President Joice Mujuru as their presidential candidate, to take on the ruling Zanu PF which has been weakened by its deadly infighting,” wrote Thelma Chikwanha in the Daily News.
“As you know, President Tsvangirai has repeatedly spoken about the MDC big tent, so there is already appreciation within the movement (MDC) that a coalition of whatever nature is the way to go in 2018. It is also certainly better to be smeared with Gamatox, because it can be washed off than go solo and lose,” a senior MDC official said, no doubt excited at the prospect of a coalition.
There is a tussel as to which of the two Tsvangirai and Mai Mujuru would constitute a winning ticket.
“Tsvangirai has an established support base, which can be calculated using perception surveys and more importantly previous performances in elections. Mujuru’s support is perceived and a matter of conjecture,” argued McDonald Lewanika of Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition.
All this talk is no consequence, hence electoral silly season talk, because come the 2018 elections, as things stand, the Mugabe/Mnangagwa Zanu PF faction will “win” the elections just as they did in the 2013 elections. History has a habit of repeating itself, especially amongst those who never stop to view the past!
Throughout the GNU years right up to the 31 July 2013 elections our political analysts set up their stalls, just as they have done now, and assured the nation and Morgan Tsvangirai that he would win the coming elections hands down based on MDC’s “established support base”. Mugabe went on to “win” the elections with a landslide victory regardless!
Mugabe “won” the 31st July 2013 elections because he was able to rig the vote and he was able to do so blatantly. He issued his supporters with voter registration slips so they would bussed from one Polling Station to the next casting multiple votes, for example. On the other hand, nearly one million or 100% of his winning margin, of mainly opposition supporters failed to vote because their names were deliberately posted in wrong constituency. It had to be a deliberate mistake because the regime stubbornly refused to release the voters roll a month before the elections as required by law.
MDC’s “established support base” counted for nothing in 2013 because Mugabe was able to rig the vote. Our good-for-nothing political analysts said nothing about the need to get all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA implemented. MDC had failed to get even one reform implemented and our analysts, for their, part said nothing on the subject.
Of course, it was the holding of elections with no democratic reforms implemented that allowed Zanu PF to blatantly rig the 2013 elections.
Our good-for-nothing political analyst are at it again they are producing volumes of commentary on the 2018 elections and yet have said nothing about getting all the democratic reforms implemented. What good is MDC’s mass support if Mugabe has all the leeway to use all the dirty tricks to rig the vote?
Tsvangirai has produced a watered down list of eight reforms MDC-T is demanding must be implemented for the party to call off its “No reform no elections” boycott. Even if Zanu PF implemented all the eight reforms; that will not stop the party using violence, a very serious matter as past experience has shown, to rig the vote.
The argument that being a former party member herself Mai Mujuru will have inside information on how Zanu PF intends to rig the vote and thus will foil future vote rigging is wishful thinking. Although Mai Mujuru and many of her supporters benefited from the July 2013 rigged elections there is nothing to suggest they knew the details of the scheme. To prove it, there is no doubt that Mai Mujuru and her supporters were completely outwitted and outmanoeuvred in the Zanu PF 2014 party congress that saw her and her supporters booted out of the party.
The truth both Tsvangirai and Mai Mujuru are corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent and they have already proven this beyond all doubt – a basic fact all our good-for-nothing political analysts have ignored. Facts are facts they will not change because someone pretended they are not there!
For the first 20 years of our independence the people have followed a corrupt and murderous tyrant and his band of thugs; no questioned asked. One had hoped that the people learned the lesson from that folly but clearly they did not as the switched their support from Zanu PF to MDC; a party of corrupt, incompetent and sell-out village idiots.
Of course it would be to what “analysts say (is) the only way Zimbabwe could get out of its current political and socio-economic mess,” as Thelma Chikwanha rightly said, that the nation will turn. It is therefore very disappointing that the good-for-nothing analysts should in fact be the cheer leaders in picking the same and proven corrupt and incompetent individuals as the worthy candidates to lead the nation out of the mess!
It beggars belief how anyone would consider Morgan Tsvangirai or Mai Mujuru as suitable presidential candidate!
The only way out of the political and economic mess Mugabe and Zanu PF have dragged us into is by making sure all the democratic reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections are implemented followed by fresh elections. It would have been infinitely easier to implement the reforms during the GNU, sadly that opportunity was wasted. Still these reforms must nonetheless still be implemented because absolutely nothing of substance can ever be accomplished until they are.
A democratic Zimbabwe with a freedom of expression and a free media will allow the quality leaders to shine like diamonds and an informed electorate will soon learn to distinguish the diamonds from the stones. Get a healthy and functioning democratic political system and quality leaders and political parties will follow, guaranteed!
The democratic reforms are the pre-requisite to political and economic reforms; they are the pre-requisite to good, competent and accountable government and to economic recovery and prosperity. Any political analysis worth its salt must therefore have democratic reforms at its heart and soul!