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.

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 

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  

Elections will produce outright winner

In the 2008 presidential election, Morgan Tsvangirai beat Robert Mugabe. If it wasn’t for the requirement for the winning candidate to have an absolute majority, Morgan Tsvangirai would be the president of the republic of Zimbabwe right now. Do we perhaps curse that piece of legislation that denied him a chance to get to state house or do we celebrate it? A lot of people are of the opinion that the absolute majority requirement did us a huge favour as a lot of Morgan Tsvangirai weaknesses have been exposed since then and his lack of discipline when it comes to women is the least of Morgan Tsvangirai and his supporters' worries. Elections are due this year and the question on many people’s lips is; are we headed for another GNU?

            I don’t think we are headed for another Government of National Unity: Robert Gabriel Mugabe of ZANU-PF has got the most realistic chances of winning the 2013 presidential elections. My preferred candidate is Welshman Ncube of the MDC, but I feel now is not his time, mainly because voting patterns are still along tribal lines in Zimbabwe and Zimbabweans still vote for their ‘heroes’ instead of voting for the right candidate for the good of the country. Welshman Ncube will get his moment in the sun, but not now. Morgan Tsvangirai is sure he will topple Robert Mugabe from the presidency and no matter how unpalatable the truth is; he will fail dismally and here is why:

·         When Simba Makoni  announced his intention to run for presidency, Morgan Tsvangirai was sharply critical of him, saying that Makoni had "been part of the establishment for the last 30 years" and therefore shared responsibility with Mugabe for Zimbabwe's situation. The same can be used against Morgan Tsvangirai himself; he has been part of government for the past five years and therefore responsible for what has happened to our country within the past five years. The GNU has been a curse to Morgan Tsvangirai as his presence in government has stripped him of the magical aura that many thought he would take with him to cabinet and somehow miraculously solve our myriad of problems. Instead, his presence in government has just shown the Zimbabwean people that his appetite for looting and self-enrichment is the same if not bigger than that of the ZANU-PF crowd. A lot of us are now sure that voting for Morgan Tsvangirai will be a change of government in name only: Giving a different set of thieves a chance to steal.

·         In Zimbabwe takes back its land Joseph Hanlon, Jeanette Manjengwa and Teresa Smart conclude: “In the biggest land reform in Africa, 6,000 white farmers have been replaced by 245,000 Zimbabwean farmers. These are primarily ordinary poor people who have become more productive farmers. The change was inevitably disruptive at first, but production is increasing rapidly. Agricultural production is now returning to the 1990s level, and resettled farmers already grow 40% of the country’s tobacco and 49% of its maize. (page 209). The book is obviously not balanced, but there are some truths in it. The New York Times, The Guardian UK amongst other publications have written positively about the land reform. The issue of the land reform was one of the main reasons why there was so much negativity about Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF. Now, if there is no consensus that the land reform was a bad thing, what chances does Morgan Tsvangirai have in a presidential election: Outside of the protest vote against Robert Mugabe, Morgan Tsvangirai does not have a support base that believes in what he stands for; if he stands for anything at all.

·         On 2 May 2008 Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced that Tsvangirai won 47.9%, Mugabe won 43.2% and Simba Makoni 8.3% thereby necessitating a run-off, which was held on 27 June 2008. 47.9% was a pathetic share of the vote for Morgan Tsvangirai considering the ‘overwhelming’ support the man had. Supermarket shelves were empty, there was hyperinflation and there was a general onslaught on the person of Robert Mugabe and ZANU-PF from local and international media: If Morgan Tsvangirai failed to get 51% of the vote under those conditions, thinking he can do so when Zimbabwe has more or less stabilized is delusional. The fact that Simba Makoni managed to get 8.3% of the vote shows us that the people were craving for a better alternative to Robert Mugabe and Morgan Tsvangirai. And the 2013 presidential elections have Welshman Ncube; who will put to rest the scramble for the Matabeleland vote and has a wider support base than Simba Makoni and the many voters who are going to vote for Welshman Ncube will not come from ZANU-PF, but from MDC-T and that spells doom for Morgan Tsvangirai.

We hope that Morgan Tsvangirai will respect his party’s constitution and step down from the party’s presidency after he loses the forthcoming presidential elections; he has already served more than two terms. With a more credible leadership the MDC-T will then become a much needed opposition alongside Welshman Ncube’s MDC and then maybe we can talk of dislodging ZANU-PF from power. But as things stand, Robert Mugabe will cruise to victory and we have ourselves to blame as we wasted more than a decade of our lives backing an obviously self-serving Morgan Tsvangirai.

This article originally published here: http://www.misazim.com/beyond.pdf

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