Patrick Guramatunhu | There is one thing we can say with certainty about the 21 January 2017 Bikita West by-election – Zanu PF did not roll out its vote rigging juggernaut. The party did not deploy NIVUK to corrupt the by-election voters roll, for example. In the 2013 national elections, the Israeli company’s handwork disenfranchised nearly one million, mainly opposition voters whilst hiding the multiple voting of Zanu PF supporters bussed from one polling station to the next. The number of polling station was increase from 2 000 to a staggering 9 000 just two days before voting day!
The Zanu PF candidate in the Bikita West by-elections does not have the cash to spend on a vote buying spree as did party heavy-weights like Professor Jonathan Moyo. In the Tsholotsho by-election the later splashed $500 000, looted from the Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef), buying bicycles and motorbikes for community leaders in the constituency. The Professor was in trouble for corrupt but the case was dropped after Minister Chombo, speaking on behalf of President Mugabe, said spending government money on Zanu PF business was not corruption.
When the going gets tough, Zanu PF has always resorted to the use of violence, especially in the rural areas where the party thugs run riot with impunity. Masvingo Provincial Affairs Minister, Shuvai Mahofa, has reminded the opposition and Bikita West voters that Zanu PF will punish them if they do not vote wisely.
“Muno, munonetsa kutamba namo. Ukada kutamba nemadh**** pasina mvura unoshaiwa pekumagezera,” Minister Mahofa threatened. (Here (Masvingo Province) one must be very careful or they will get into serious trouble.)
Still, whatever Zanu PF has been doing in Bikita West by-election so far is not even a foretaste of what the party will do come the national elections when all the parliamentary and senatorial seats and the presidency will be up for grabs. Zanu PF will roll out its vote rigging juggernaut and then, Lord have mercy! Or as one would say in Shona, “Vane vana, sudurukai!” (Those with children, get out of the way!)
It is therefore laughable that Mai Mujuru and her Zim PF, the main challenger in the Bikita West by-election, should be panicking after hearing Minister Mahofa and are begging for MDC-T support.
“If all goes well, Save (Tsvangirai) will join Mai Mujuru when he returns from Ghana at a joint rally, on the 14th, in Bikita. We expect the president (Mujuru) and Save to share the podium as we prepare to take Zanu-PF to the cleaners come the 21st (January),” a Zim PF official told Daily News.
“In the process, the rally will also send a message to all who are doubting the prospects of an opposition coalition that we are not about to ignore the national sentiment that we should unite.”
SADC advised MDC not to take part in the 2013 election without implementing the democratic reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Sadly, Tsvangirai and his MDC friends paid no heed to the advice and we all know what happened – Zanu PF went on to blatantly rig the elections landing the nation in the mess we are in today.
Since the rigged July 2013 elections, nothing has changed, not even one reform has been implemented, and thus the SADC’s advice not to take party in the elections is valid for the 2018 elections as it was for the 2013 elections.
All this talk of presenting the opposition uniting to form the grand coalition as the panacea to counter the failure to implement democratic reforms is nonsense. How will the coalition stop NIKUV corrupting the voters roll or the plundering of diamond wealth going on right now!
Zanu PF has corrupted all the key state institutions such as the Public Media, Police, CIO, Army, Judiciary and ZEC, they now serve the regime’s selfish political interest instead of public national interests. The regime has unfettered access to the nation’s resources and wealth and thus can bribe officials and buy specialist services such as those of NIKUV.
Millions of ordinary Zimbabweans are out of work and living in abject poverty, the need for meaningful economic recovery is now a matter of life and death. There is no chance of any meaningful economic recovery without a meaningful political change. The need for free, fair and credible elections is now a matter of life and death and not to be left in the hands of political day-dreams like Mujuru and Tsvangirai and their utterly useless opposition coalitions!