MDC congress failed to transform the party - Chamisa plus 3 Amigos are back blundering from pillar to post

Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the country has had the great misfortune of having some of the most corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless politicians in human history. Having a ruthless mafia style political system that stifled debate and meaningful democratic competition has made our politics a downright dangerous occupation thus encouraging the scum on both sides of the political divide to occupy public office.

Eighteen months ago, there was euphoria in Zanu-PF following the 15 November 2017 military coup which ousted Robert Mugabe, his wife Grace and a handful of the G40 faction members. Mnangagwa, the coup plotters and his Lacoste faction members went to town in portraying the coup as the spring cleaning cleansing the party of all the corrupt, incompetent and murderous tyrants. The new government, we were told, was the "new democratic dispensation ushering the Second Republic"!

Mnangagwa and company were so convinced of the transformation of Zimbabwe from the pariah state ruled by corrupt, vote rigging and murderous thugs to a health and fully fledged democracy they did not waste time selling it as such to the world. By January 2018, just two months after the coup, Mnangagwa and friends were already shouting "Zimbabwe is open for business!"

It was all nonsense, of course. Zanu-PF was still a party of corrupt, incompetent, vote rigging and murderous thugs, the removal of Mugabe a few others did change anything since many of those responsible for the corruption, etc. remained. By blatantly rigging the 2018 elections, Mnangagwa and company confirmed that Zimbabwe was still a pariah state or be it under a new dictator.

Nelson Chamisa and many of those around him have billed the just ended MDC Alliance congress as a transformative process. Whilst Mnangagwa booted out some of the deadwood and recycled the remaining deadwood, Chamisa has brought back many of the deadwood that had left the party in the past and recycled as new.

The MDC A congress has brought back Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube and David Coltart; the 3 Amigos, into top leadership position as two VPs and Treasurer Generals respectively. The three played a pivotal role in convincing the nation to accept  the 2013 new constitution.

"In my last profession, I was Professor of constitutional law and this is the most democratic constitution I have ever seen!" argued Professor Ncube.

Soon after the nation had approved the new constitution with a warping 95%, Paul Mangwana, the Zanu-PF MP and co-chairperson on the parliamentary committee tasked to write the new constitution, boasted that Mugabe had "dictated" the new constitution. It showed, the new constitution has failed its litmus test; it failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections and many other rights and freedoms. "The most democratic constitution ever!" Yeah right!

The corrupt and incompetent MDC of Tsvangirai days, blundering from pillar to post, back. Chamisa, just like Mnangagwa with his ill-conceived "Zimbabwe is open for business!", has hit the ground running after the MDC congress.

"From here onwards, we are going on a diplomatic offensive. We will visit every African country to present our roadmap to recovering this country. We believe in African solutions to African problems." Chamisa said in his closing remark to the party congress.  

The MDC roadmap will be premised on implementing the reforms necessary for free, fair and credible elections but who does not know that it was none other than Chamisa et al who failed to implement even one during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. So reforms are just a smoke screen behind which the MDC leaders are hiding their real agenda – they are desperate to secure a seat of the Zimbabwe political gravy train.

Zimbabwe is in a serious and urgent political and economic mess. Unemployment has soared to dizzying heights of 90%, ¾ of the population now live on US$30 or less a month, etc. Zimbabwe is on the edge of a dangerous precipice and may descent into economic chaos and political instability dragging the whole SADC region down with it. The country needs a solution to its seemingly intractable political problem of rigged elections.

The solution is for Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF junta must step down to create the space for the appointment of an interim administration that will finally implement the reforms the nation has been dying for.

The Zanu-PF regime rigged last July's elections and it is ipso facto illegitimate. Chamisa and company are calling for dialogue with Zanu-PF for the sake of securing gravy train seats for themselves. We should be concerned about rescuing the nation from the consequences of the worsening economic meltdown and not appeasing the regime by granting it legitimacy by the back door.

If Zanu-PF is allowed to remain in office till 2023, the party will rig that year's elections too! That is one "African solution" the people of Zimbabwe does not want. Not again!