By Nomusa Garikai- When President Mnangagwa seized power from his former boss Robert Mugabe in the November 2017 military coup he promised to change things from what Mugabe had been doing for the last 37 years. 

On the economic front, he promised to scrap all the laws and the lawlessness that had made it near impossible for anyone to do business, end corruption, etc. “Zimbabwe is open for business!” became his calling card! 

He had starting flashing his calling card within weeks of taking over from Mugabe; he has at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January 2018. He had not changed a single thing to cleanse the country of its demonic past and yet he was already claiming the country was ready to do business. This made many people suspect he was not sincere. 

In 2016 Mugabe admitted the country was being “swindled out of US$ 15 billion in diamond revenue alone”. He never arrested even one diamond swindler nor recover one dollar. Mnangagwa has yet to arrest one diamond swindler in his two years in office. Those who suspected Mnangagwa was paying lip service to economic reforms were proven right. 

On the political front, Mnangagwa to restore the democratic rights of the people and promised to hold free, fair and credible elections. He refused to implement even one token democratic reform and went on to blatantly rig the July 2018 elections.

“No amount of propaganda can spin or sugarcoat this gruesome truth. The continued judgment and setting of utopian standards for Zimbabwe, which are never applied in any other jurisdictions, are callous, vindictive and should not be allowed to continue. This is the basis on which we say, enough is enough. Remove these sanctions,” argued President Mnangagwa last week.

How dare he say that!

He denied 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora a vote because he feared most of them would never vote for the party they know made them economic and/or political refugees. The regime failed to produce a verified voters’ roll so no one knows who voted, how many times, etc. When some dared to protest over yet another rigged elections he ordered soldiers to shoot to kill to silence all dissent. 

And now he dares tell Zimbabweans that to expect free, fair and credible elections is utopia! 

Of course, every thinking Zimbabwean out there is furious that Zimbabweans are still being denied  them this basic human right – a meaningful say in the governance of the country. The right to free and fair elections is more than just a right it is the nation’s only hope to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance after 39 years and counting of being stuck in this hell-on-earth Zanu PF had landed the nation in.  

The root causes of the country’s economic meltdown are 40 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption. And the nation has been stuck all these years with this incompetent and corrupt Zanu PF dictatorship. 

The ill effects caused by the sanctions are marginal compared to the disastrous effect caused by mismanagement and corruption. However sanctions have helped to highlight Zimbabwe’s failure to hold free, fair and credible elections and, more significantly, pile the pressure on the regime to hold free elections.

The sanctions must remain; indeed, increased; until we have free, fair and credible elections.

Free, fair and credible are not just a basic human right this is the nation only hope to end the curse of rigged elections and bad governance. 

How insulting that those responsible for dragging the nation into this hell-on-earth are denying us the chance to get out of this hell by blatantly rigging elections under the pretext of free, fair and credible elections which are a utopia!