Implications of opposition snub of by-elections

MDC, like MDC-T has said they will not take part in by-elections proclaimed by the president of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe for June 10 2015. They are calling for electoral reforms before they can take part in any election.

Some of the reforms demanded by the opposition are:

·         Production of a new voters’ roll

·         Recruitment of new impartial staff at the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission

·         The opening of the public media to opposition political parties.

Is the Zimbabwean opposition likely to get these reforms in place before the 2018 elections? That’s very unlikely. So a crucial question has to be asked: Does the protest by the opposition serve any purpose?

We all protest on a daily basis for a variety of reasons. We are reasonable in our protest: We consider what is at stake. We also consider what we will do if the person/institution we are protesting against calls our bluff and refuses to budge. An apt example: When feeling naughty and not in hurry one can decide to protest against traffic police by parking by the side of the road, switching off engine and taking out a novel to read until the issue of an illegal spot fine is resolved. But in this kind of protest, not much is at stake: You are not rushing to an important meeting and if the police officers call your bluff, you can always laugh about it and give them a negotiated bribe.

The by-election boycott by the opposition does not make sense because too much is at stake and the institution they are protesting against will obviously call their bluff; the by-elections will happen without reforms, without the opposition and a lot would have been lost:

The parliamentary seats likely to be lost to ZANU-PF are:

1.      Harare East  

2.      Kambuzuma

3.      Kuwadzana

4.      Glen View South

5.      Luveve

6.      Dzivarasekwa

7.      Pelandaba-Mpopoma

8.      Highfield West

9.      Pumula

10.  Lobengula

11.  Mbizo

12.  Makokoba

13.  Dangamvura-Chikanga

14.  Tsholotsho North

With the exception of Tsholotsho North, this is crucial urban territory that traditionally belongs to the opposition and they have put it on the line because of a meaningless protest: I say the protest is meaningless because it will achieve nothing whilst relinquishing political ground that will never be regained. So I need educating here: Why is the opposition giving up these seats in protest over electoral reforms that will not happen? And the absence of these reforms will not prevent them from winning these particular seats?

ZANU-PF might be clueless when it comes to fixing the economy, but they know how to consolidate power: Once they have won these crucial urban seats, they will make resources available to their MPs and the electorate will consider giving ZANU-PF benefit of the doubt come 2018. We haven’t really seen or felt the presence of our urban MPs, have we? We will see the ZANU-PF MPs in these urban constituencies the opposition is willing to throw away.

Doesn’t common sense dictate that if protest action is unlikely to yield any results, the best move would be to abandon that form of protest action? Did grown men have meetings that resulted agreements that can be best be described as nonsense?

The Zimbabwean opposition has decided to betray the masses and they will be recorded in history as a bunch of losers who succeed in denying Zimbabweans an opportunity of achieving democracy.

The grandstanding 'tactics' that destroyed Morgan Tsvangirai

 By Budiriro Peter Moyo

Well actually when I met him (Tsvangira) at the YES/NO Referendum in 2000, then a student journalist, we voted at the same voting station in Ashdown Park. He arrived in a Mazda twin cab with a few aides. I had just voted YES for the constitution which I thought was going to give them better ground for them to win and rule Zimbabwe, he came in, voted NO and then came out. As he walked towards his car in a hurry as it seemed he had been running away from media which had been tracking him. I then stopped him with my dictaphone and asked what he thought of the new constitution and what his position was. Immediately a swam of international media arrived and asked him to wait so he could answer during their recording. His answer which i repeated in an article in the Daily News clearly summed up what kind of man and what kind of legacy he was to leave. "Our stance is NO! We cannot be party to such a flawed process," he answered. I then asked him if he had ever read the constitution. His answer was muted, more rushing to attack personalities than concentrate on the substance of the document and the difference voting YES would have meant. of course he had a chance to make history - a YES vote would have insured the death of Lancaster constitution - he would have challenged Mugabe on pure neutral grounds of a new document and he would have had a better chance of winning under the new constitution, with elections just 3 months away. But then, they were all for grand standing. He loved the international attention and it was then I made my analysis, that if Tsvangirai was a brand, he could be a Nokia - a brand that had it all, controlled all, took the market for granted thinking there would never be anyone better, that it was an anointed brand, no one would ever live a normal life without owning a Nokia but then we all know what happened to Nokia. It is there but the Finnish brand is all but finished. It had a good ride while it lasted and with time had shrunk to become a shadow of it former self. Don't get me wrong, it is still there, the Nokia, but that's just it. When I had a chance to have a talk with Innocent Gonese during my incarceration in Mutare, I asked the question why with all the chance to be part of the history changers in 2000, they had decided to do some grand standing with a NO vote, he said, it had been a political decision. They had not wanted to be seen to be agreeing with Zanu PF and infact they had opposed for the sake of it, hoping the YES vote would carry the day. And I was like what a bunch of MORONS! WHAT A BUNCH OF BUFFOONS! They literally stole Zimbabwe's future through their grand standing and with every NO vote they campaigned for all those years back has served them right and come back to haunt. The seat of power shall elude them to their grave

Thabo Mbeki's take on Zimbabwe's Land Reform

 

Image - http://talkzimbabwe.com

Many years ago, the leadership in the region engaged the Zimbabwean leadership, that is, President Mugabe and others in a very sustained process to discourage them from the manner in which they were handling the issue of land reform.

We were saying to them that "yes indeed we agree, the land reform is necessary but the way in which you are handling it is wrong." We tried very hard.

We said, all these things about the occupation of the farms by war veterans, all of this is wrong. This is what we said.

But fortunately the Zimbabweans did not listen to us and went ahead. The consequence of it is that I've looked at, at least four books that have been written about the land reform in Zimbabwe. All of them say that in fact the process of land reform in Zimbabwe has given land to 300 000 – 400 000 new land owners. The peasants of Zimbabwe at least own the land of Zimbabwe. The programme succeeded. It has this very direct benefit on these huge numbers of Zimbabweans.

And so I found it very strange that this intellectual friend of mine that I mentioned earlier on, could say that the MDC would win the elections in the rural areas. They couldn't have, essentially because they were identified by that rural population as having opposed the land reform...rightly or wrongly.

I think that it is exactly the manner in which they came at that question of land reform that offended other forces in the world that said this is wrong, we don't like it. Unlike like us who said well, they're not listening, they've done what they want to do about their country, and we have to accept that.

These others said they have set a bad example, which we don't want, everybody else in Africa and the rest of the world to follow. So they must pay the price for setting a bad example – a bad example in the instance of the interests of these other people, and not bad in terms of the interests of the people of Zimbabwe.

So I think this is part of the reason that there is so much attention globally on a country on the continent, which is actually not particularly important. But it is important because it is setting, in the eyes of some, a bad example, which must be defeated.

All of us know that the African Union and SADC, among others, deployed large numbers of observers for these elections. The African Union even placed its observers in Zimbabwe at least a month ahead of the elections. I know of no deployment of African observers of this size. Between the AU and SADC, just these two, they had at least 1000 observers in Zimbabwe. I know no instance when the continent has deployed that kind of number. This was because of this concern about Zimbabwe in particular.

Both observer teams have essentially said the elections were peaceful and everybody agrees with that. They have said that the elections were free, that they represented the opinions of the people of Zimbabwe.

SADC has said that it will need a bit more time to look at the matter of this fairness of the elections. The reason the SADC observers said that they want to look at this in detail was because, for instance, they need to look at the media coverage of the contending parties to determine whether it was fair and balanced. They may make a determination about that. They also want to look into whether the location of the voting stations were done in such a way that it would ensure equal access - relatively easy access between rural and urban areas. They will make a determination about all of these.

They were not questioning the credibility of the elections but want to look at this matter about what is meant by fair in order to ensure that, as a continent, when we do indeed conduct elections in future, we've got some standards to follow in terms of what would constitute this element of fair, so they decided to leave a residual group in Zimbabwe to look at that question and the AU agreed to join them.

I am saying one of the strange things is that you have the entire continent, in terms of its credible and legitimate institutions, saying yes indeed there were problems and we are going to detail what those problems were, but these elections represent the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

Then you have an alternative voice in Washington, London and Brussels, which says no, you Africans are wrong. I mean, how does that happen?

Why this absolute contempt for the view of the Africans about themselves? Why? Maybe because the Africans are stupid, the Africans can't count or something.

The MDC decided to go to court in Zimbabwe to contest the elections, as you know, and then suddenly withdrew the petition. Personally I was very pleased that they submitted the petition because it would give a possibility to actually look in detail at all the allegations that had been made about what went wrong with the elections. I was quite upset when they said they are withdrawing the petition because it denied us the possibility to really look into these things [the allegations].

But later I understood why they withdrew. This was because even in their petition they made various allegations and did not submit to the court any documents to substantiate any of the allegations.


ISSUED BY: THE OFFICE OF FORMER PRESIDENT THABO MBEKI

CONTACT: MUKONI RATSHITANGA, 082 300 3447 

What I told MDC T Secretary General, Tendai Biti

By Budiriri Peter Moyo

You should really be concentrating your energies on telling people a message of love and hope on how you are going to make their lives better, especially in the constituencies you won if you ever wish to win them again in five years’ time. Also concentrate on self-introspection, find out which sleeping pill you drank over the five years of GNU so you don't drink it again for the coming five years if you wish to remain relevant at all. The Chinja mantra is done and gone so surely in five years’ time you can't be singing the same song. The mistake was to sing the same song for 13 years thinking the same challenges of 1999 remain stagnant in 2013. You should have learnt from Obama who came with Yes We Can but changed it to Forward within four years. You have been singing Chinja for more than a decade as if Zimbabweans are caught in a time warp. Many Zimbabweans have moved from being workers to owners - maybe that's a problem with a labour movement like yourselves - you just thought creating jobs and insulting Mugabe was enough. You should have been singing a tune reminiscent with your record in the cities you have been ruling since 1999, what has changed in those cities? Do we see an improvement of life or we see looting of massive proportions? You can't also be in a government for five years and then come out saying Chinja. Chinja what, when you are the ones building what's already there? What kind of a builder builds a house and then campaign against it asking people to demolish it after five years? Also this issue of using sanctions to punish Zimbabweans for your failures will never win you many friends in Africa and most importantly in Zimbabwe. It is similar to the scotched earth policies of the Rhodesians where if they could not find the comrades, they burnt the whole veld, killing everything and everyone just to flush out one person. That is what you did in essence with your call for sanctions on your mother country. Wake up now and look within yourselves, the best gift you can give Zimbabweans, your supporters and ZANU PF supporters alike, is letting the country move forward because no matter how much Botswana, America and the West can cry on your behalf, nothing is changing for the next five years and no Zimbabweans will die for you like they did in 2008 before you came with a support for a Human Rights body that disregarded these atrocities as if they had not happened. Learn from the Democratic Alliance in South Africa which with just 20% of the vote, they are able to make their spheres of influence as efficient as possible, making them win provinces like Western Cape based on their track record not how much ANC is so bad. They use their efficient record to decampaign ANC and you should show us where you have been efficient not how Mugabe has been so bad for the past 33 years. So stop crying as if that crying will change who is at state house. Start participating in nation building for Zimbabwe is for all Zimbabweans and if you had won you would have won to rule Zimbabweans and not MDC supporters

Devolution is the new Revolution

Image - devolution.gov.nt.ca

There has been a lot of talk around the subject of devolution and it is surprising it has been interpreted to mean dividing the country along tribal lines and or just one tribal line: Ndebele and Shona. Devolution is not just a Ndebele and Shona thing, but an efficient form of governance that has been implemented successfully in a number of countries.

                Is the concept that difficult to comprehend? Is devolution the reason why Welshman Ncube has been labeled a tribal leader? Is he a tribal leader because his election campaign was premised on the Devolution is our new Revolution mantra? My thesis is not based on Welshman Ncube, but on the concept of devolution that the people of Zimbabwe are being prevented from understanding.

                I would have assumed that Zimbabweans, who claim to be the most educated Africans, would understand that devolution in simple terms is just allowing each province to determine its own economic fortunes: Have budgets drawn up at provincial level. Have provincial governments chat the developmental course of the province instead of taking everything to central government. Isn't it easier to make a provincial government accountable than take everything to the doorstep of the person of Robert Mugabe at state house? Why should a burst sewer pipe in the suburb of Luveve have anything to do with Robert Mugabe? Isn’t it easier to elect a provincial government into whose offices we can march into at any time and demand answers?

            I would have assumed that Zimbabweans would understand this and realise that it is a win-win solution for everyone. Of course there are a few individuals who want total separation of Mthwakazi from the rest of Zimbabwe but that should not be used to shut down the noble idea of devolution that is desired by the majority of provinces in Zimbabwe, not just Matabeleland. Kenya has successfully implemented devolution. Why not us?

            ‘In Kenya, the constitution approved in 2010 created 47 new counties that elected officials at the 4 March national elections. The county governments will have to provide services, but the earning potential from wooing investors will in some cases be life-changing’ – writes Parselelo Kantai in The Africa Report.

            When launching his party’s manifesto in Binga a week or so before the general elections in Zimbabwe which were held on the 31^st of July, president of the MDC said, “Here in Binga, you have your own natural resources. You have your own river, Zambezi. You have your own fish. Despite the river flowing at your doorsteps you do not have permission to fish your God-given fish; you are not even allowed to draw water from the same river,”.

            Kenya is about 581, 300 km² in size against a population of about 44 million; that’s a bit crowded compared to Zimbabwe’s size of 390, 747km² against a population of 13 million. If Kenya can have 47 devolved counties, surely 10 devolved provinces is reasonable for Zimbabwe and we should learn from the example and embrace devolution. Each of the 47 counties will now get a share of the national cake. The division of revenue Bill provided some KSh210 billion – or 34.5 % of projected revenue – until 2014 for the 47 counties. County governments can collect property and entertainment taxes but in return they have to provide core services such as primary healthcare and transport.

            ‘Alfred Mutua, governor of Machakos County – one of 47 new county governments launched in the wake of the elections in March – was quickest out of the blocks to take his government to the market. And Mutua’s efforts paid off handsomely: Machakos secured KSh56.3 billion (US$660million) in investment pledges from more than 20 companies. The projects ranged from  factory to make surgical gloves to waste disposal and paper re-cycling plants, fruit juice processors and a company that will manufacture equipment for the disabled. That is without the multibillion-dollar plans for the Konza Techno City, the so-called Silicocon Savannah, which is also going to be set up in Machakos…” – Parselelo Kantai in the Africa Report.

            That is devolution; where provincial governments can determine the economic path of the province, county in the case of Kenya. Why does that seem to be so difficult to comprehend. We should go to Harare out of choice not because survival is close to impossible if we don’t work with the big, great Harare.

Morgan Tsvangirai is a power junkie

Can we liken power to hard drugs like cocaine and heroin? I think we should: Both hard drugs and power are highly addictive and you start off using just a little and your intake increases gradually until you are an addict who will do anything to support his/her habit. Power is worse than hard drugs actually: Power comes with an attachment called EGO and that's a very underrated and destructive thing. 

            Drug addicts are known to sell very valuable belongings for a tiny fraction of their worth just for a quick fix. When a drug addict has sold off all of his/her possessions he/she resorts to stealing other people’s possessions to support his/her drug habit. If a drug addict sells me his 32” LCD television for $20 does the deal not stand? It is not fair deal admittedly, but it is a valid deal. The fact that the television was sold by a drug addict who was desperate for a quick fix and failed to see that he was conducting a business transaction that was not fair to him/her is neither here nor there.

            Morgan Tsvangirai sold the entire country to support his power addiction and now he wants to reverse the deal. The situation a drug addict is in when he sells his possessions for a song is exactly the same situation Morgan Tsvangirai was in during the period leading up to the elections. Didn’t Morgan Tsvangirai say, “We need discipline. Imi mbuya imi kana musina discipline sudurukai. Tinoda vanhu vanoteerera kana vakuru vachitaura,” (Old woman move aside if you don’t have discipline, we want people who listen when elders are speaking) in response to a challenge regarding the imposition of Dr Simba Makoni to stand on the party’s ticket in Makoni Central. And on being asked what he would do if he lost the elections, Morgan Tsvangirai said it was impossible for him to lose.

            Morgan Tsvangirai is a power junkie and he failed to negotiate a good deal for himself and the country in his moments of desperation to get a quick power fix. In his desperation for power Morgan Tsvangirai accepted a deal without media reforms, adequate time for voter registration and inspection of the voters’ roll, he accepted a deal without the controversial security sector reforms. Morgan Tsvangirai accepted a deal without provision of an electronic copy of the voters’ roll. He thought only of himself and how powerful he was going to be when he became the president of the republic of Zimbabwe; just like a cocaine addict who sells a house for a thousand dollars to buy a day’s worth of drugs. And unfortunately for Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDCs, the deal stands because he signed off on it and he should stop being a cry baby and check himself into a rehabilitation center – in the form of a luxury cruise with a 20 year-old woman.

            In his desperation for power, Morgan Tsvangirai forgot that he was not only selling out himself but the entire country and now he wants us to help him wiggle out of a deal he signed off on. Unless there is compelling evidence of the poll being ‘rigged’ on the 31^st of July, anything that happened before then does not count because Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to it and with the inflated ego of a power junkie he walked into a trap that Robert Mugabe had elaborately set for him. May he please step aside so that we can move on?

Twitter: @MgciniNyoni       Email: mgcininyoni@gmail.com  

Constitution? What constitution?

The great author and filmmaker, Tsitsi Dangarembga a few weeks before the Zimbabwe harmonized elections asked this: “What is our collective subconscious in Zimbabwe, one of strife, trouble, war, violence, lack, disease, coercion, brutality?” What is our collective subconscious in Zimbabwe? It’s an important question; especially as the nation of Zimbabwe has just come out of general elections many believe were ‘rigged’ by ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe. I believe the electoral process was manipulated by ZANU-PF, but was the manipulation enough to account for the more than million votes Morgan Tsvangirai was trounced by? That’s a debate for another day. The more immediate question is whether the two thirds ZANU-PF parliamentary majority is an impediment to democracy or we were screwed either way.

On 22 May 2013, the president of the republic of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe signed the very expensive draft constitution into law. Zimbabwe now officially has a new constitution and a lot of people were very excited about the whole thing. But I for one refused to join the farce: I relegated the whole thing to that rubbish pile that I dump the many hoodwinking efforts by African politicians. ZANU-PF got a two thirds majority in parliament in the just ended elections and they can throw the new constitution into the bin. That might be a problem, but not a real one; the signing of the new constitution was already a farce long before ZANU-PF won a two thirds parliamentary majority. There are two reasons why I believe the signing into law of the new constitution was a non-event that was never ever going to have any meaningful impact on our lives even if Robert Mugabe had lost the elections:

            The first reason is that more than fifty million dollars was wasted on an ‘outreach’ program that was meant to gather people’s views towards the new constitution. After the obviously self-enriching process by our politicians, the views of the people were thrown into the dustbin and what was eventually drafted was what they called a ‘negotiated’ documented. We did not protest much because we were now tired of the back and forth and we wanted the charade to come to an end. We were then given three weeks to go through the draft constitution and decide on whether we wanted it or not. Copies of the draft constitution were not provided. I did not vote in the ‘referendum’ that was held on the 16^th of March 2013 because I obviously did not know the contents of the draft constitution as I could not decipher the contents of a legal document in one week – I received a soft copy from a friend one week before the referendum. And besides, all the major political parties were campaigning for a ‘YES’ vote, so the result was more or less predetermined: The constitution obviously belongs to the elite grouping of politicians who seem to be in cahoots  to loot state resources.

The other reason why I don’t believe the new constitution is worth talking about is that African politics is not determined by constitutions but whoever is in power. Noel Kututwa, Amnesty International's Africa deputy director was quoted by The Zimbabwean Newspaper the day the draft constitution was signed into law:

 “The new constitution is a positive development with the potential to increase ordinary people’s enjoyment of their basic rights,”

“Not only is the world watching whether the country has truly turned the corner on this historic day, but millions of people in Zimbabwe hope that this new constitution will usher in a new political order where human rights are respected and protected.” Did he really believe the new constitution would somehow miraculously make our politicians become caring about the good of Zimbabwe?

The 1979 Lancaster House constitution which was replaced by the new constitution has a decent bill of rights, but that didn’t stop the current government from grossly abusing the rights of its citizens. As long as voting in Africa generally and Zimbabwe more specifically is not about who is sufficiently qualified to lead the country and about voting for our ‘heroes’ we might as well work without a constitution as Robert Mugabe or Morgan Tsvangirai (if he had won) will not hesitate to amend sections of the constitution that do not help them fulfill their self-interested agendas. 

            A few days before Robert Mugabe signed the new constitution into law, Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of MDC-T threatened to shut down newspapers that write negatively about him. Officially launching his party’s national policy conference in Harare on Friday the 17^th of May 2013, Morgan Tsvangirai said he was tired of receiving negative coverage from the public media. “You cannot have a newspaper with six articles saying Tsvangirai this and Tsvangirai that; everyday! Regai vakadaro. But musi umwe gava richadambura musungo (Let them be. But one day, things will go bad for them). That kind of a media has no future in a democratic Zimbabwe. I want to tell you this. Muchadya izvozvo. (You will be victims of your doings)” He said. 

            He makes it clear that he does not respect a right as basic as freedom of expression. A constitution, no matter how brilliant in the hands of either Robert Mugabe or Morgan Tsvangirai is not of much use. That’s why I did not get excited about the new constitution. As long as us, as Zimbabweans don’t seriously rethink how we vote our leaders into power, we can forget about the effectiveness of a good constitution.

            In conclusion, I will borrow again from the words of Tsitsi Dangarmbga: “We have to sew love, harmony, respect, collaboration, trust, honesty, diligence, fairness and prosperity for all in our nation. We have to vote into power women and men of the spirit who can sow these things in our country. Then we shall see the Zimbabwe we want”.

Twitter: @MgciniNyoni - Email: mgcininyoni@gmail.com