By Patrick Guramatunhu- The fight amount opposition politicians for headlines is hotting up!
“MDC Alliance’s outspoken Vice Chairman and MP, Job Sikhala that despite all adversities in jail and even if it means dying in Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison – “a concentration camp” – he will never give up fighting for people’s freedom,” reported Bulawayo 24.
The report was accompanied by a handwritten declaration presumably pen by Sikhala himself in his prison cell.
Job Sikhala must stop confusing fighting for headlines to place himself in pole position for the few gravy train seats opposition politicians will be fighting for come the 2023 elections; with fighting for the people’s freedom. The two objectives are not even complimentary, they are diametrically opposed!
Job Sikhala is in prison awaiting bailout hearing. He was arrested for “publishing falsehood”. He published a story of a Police Offer who fatally struck a baby with a baton.
Even if the story was true, it would only be one more story of the brutality of this Zanu PF regime. It would be stretching one’s imagination how the story, in itself, in “a fight for people’s freedom”!
Ever since Zimbabwe’s independence, in 1980, Zanu PF has ridden roughshod over the people, denying them their basic freedoms and human rights including the right to a meaningful vote and even the right to life. Fighting for freedom has meant implementing the democratic reforms to restore the individual freedoms and rights.
MDC leaders; including Tendai Biti, David Coltart and Nelson Chamisa now in the MDC A with Sikhala; had the golden opportunity to implement the reforms and thus end the Zanu PF dictatorship during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. They sold-out and failed to implement even one democratic reform in five years.
To add salt to the nation’s open wound, MDC leaders have participated in flawed and illegal election knowing that doing so would give legitimacy to the vote rigging Zanu PF as David Coltart has readily admitted.
“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,” wrote Senator Coltart.
“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.”
Three of the main MDC factions plus three other opposition parties did come together to form the MDC Alliance before the 2018 elections. The party went on to participate in the elections for the same reason as before – greed.
Zanu PF has offered a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition to participate in elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process happened to be. As long as Zanu PF is assured of opposition participation, the party will resist all pressure to implement reforms and hold free, fair and credible elections.
MDC A and the rest in the opposition camp have found Zanu PF’s bait irresistible hence the reason there were 23 presidential candidates, 130 political parties, to say nothing of the independent candidates, contested for the 210 parliamentary seats.
Job Sikhala and Tendai Biti are some of the lucky opposition politicians to win the few gravy train seats on offer. The competition for these few seats in hotting up and anything to keep one’s name in the public eye will not be amiss.
There is everything to suggest Sikhala will be participating in the 2023 elections with no reforms in place. He has never demanded reform. The arrest over the alleged killing of baby by the Police Officer has put Sikhala’s name back on the front pages and public eye and pole position in the 2023 elections.
Fadzai Mahere, MDC A spokesperson, has just been release on bail from Chikurumbi Prison. She too was arrested and incarcerated for a week on the same charge as Sikhala – publishing falsehoods.
Advocate Mahere too participated in the 2018 elections as an independent candidate but lost. She is certainly going to try her luck again in 2023.
The living conditions in Zimbabwe’s prisons are terrible, “concentration camp”, as Sikhala aptly up it. In these corona virus days, a jail term is, for many, a certain death sentence.
Ms Mahere has since tested positive of corona virus, the grime reminder of the life and death reality of prison in Zimbabwe.
“Even if I die in the concentration camp called Chikurumbi Maximum Prison, dear Zimbabweans remember me,” pleaded MP Job Sikhala.
“Remember me that it is because of our freedom, happiness and liberty that has been robbed from one generation to another, that I met that fate!”
Your brave stand on this occasion and on numerous others in the past have certainly put you in pole position to, once again, win the few gravy train seats Zanu PF gives away as bait to the opposition. If you should die, God forbid, it will be for the sake of getting pole position in the rat race for the scraps Zanu PF is offering to bribe the opposition.
Even you cannot deny that by participating in the 2018 elections you, Comrade Job Sikhala, and your fellow MDC A gave the vote rigging Zanu PF regime legitimacy and earned the coveted gravy train seats for yourselves. The ordinary Zimbabweans gained nothing and, instead, forfeited yet another chance to get the reforms implemented.
No Comrade Sikhala, Zimbabweans would have been enjoying their freedom for decades now if you lot were risking all for freedom! If you die, you would have died fighting for pole position in the 2023 gravy train rat race
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