Odinga demands implementing reforms before rerun - exactly what we have been dying for

"Kenya's opposition leader Raila Odinga has just announced that he's not "ready" to take part in a planned re-run of the country's presidential election," reported Bulawayo 24.

 "Mr Odinga said he wanted "legal and constitutional guarantees" in place before agreeing to take part.

"He also called for changes to the country's electoral commission, which was blamed by the Supreme Court for irregularities which led to the August election being annulled."

These are logical and very reasonable demands!

What is the point in the nation going through yet another election process when there are no guarantees that the criminal vote rigging of yesterday will not be repeated? Election fraud is a very serious crime and the only way to show the world and would-be fraudsters that the nation will not tolerate it, is by punishing all those involved in last month's vote rigging.

To allow the crooks to walk scot free is unforgivable. To let the go scot free and allow the same criminals to stay in their jobs and manage the rerun election, as Uhuru Kenyatta is suggesting, is an insult to the nation and a mockery of justice. This is tantamount to challenging the crooks to rig the vote again but make sure they do a better job of covering their tracks, this time.

The constitution weakness identifies by the court must be addressed, before the rerun.

Only a fool would ever agree to participate in a process they know is flawed to favour of their opponent. The people themselves must have total confidence in the electoral process because their free vote is their only guarantee of a meaningful say in the governance of the country. The importance of ensuring free and fair elections is the one thing Tsvangirai has clearly failed to grasp.

A verified voters' roll is a key document in fight to stop vote rigging. Yet Morgan Tsvangirai surprised everyone by agreeing to contesting the July 2013 with no verifiable voters roll in place although constitution demands that one must be released at least one month before voting day.  The regime has stubbornly refuse to release the voters roll to this day. He has allowed the same ZEC officials who failed to produce a verifiable 2013 voters' roll to managing next year's elections. Even this early in the election cycle it is clear ZEC will not release a verifiable 2018 voters' roll as stipulated in the constitution. MDC will contest the flawed elections regardless.

As for the far reaching democratic reforms to restore the independence of ZEC, Judiciary, Public Media, etc.; Tsvangirai, unlike Odinga, has left them all untouched even when he had the power to implement them during the GNU. The recent ruling to annul the election results proves the independence of Kenya's Supreme Court, at least for now. Uhuru Kenyatta has already threatened to "fix" the court if he wins the rerun. No Zimbabwean court would ever make a similar judgement because they are still shackles Zanu PF.

As much as Zimbabweans would like to compare our political situation with what Kenya is going through, the truth is the two countries are moving in different and opposite directions. During the GNU, Raila Odinga implemented the democratic reforms and dismantled the one-party dictatorship. Kenya is now grappling with the problem of making the young democracy take root in the face of those like Uhuru Kenyatta who are keen to re-impose the dictatorship by hook and by crook.

In Zimbabwe, the Zanu PF was never dismantled and so nothing has changed. Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have abandoned the aspiration for free, fair and credible elections, the holy grail of democracy. The party claims "it is now smarter and has devised new strategies to Win In Rigged Elections, (WIRE) for short," MDC-T spokesman Obert Gutu explained on Zimeye LIVE last week.

The only strategy to defeat vote rigging is stopping the rigging, implement the democratic reforms in this case. None of the WIRE strategies are seeking to implement the reforms and so they are all totally useless. WIRE is just MDC-T's latest excuse to justify contesting the flawed elections again for the umpteenth time knowing fully well the elections will be rigged.  

I salute Raila Odinga for rightly demanding that everything necessary to ensure the vote is free, fair and credible in the presidential rerun in Kenya before voting is allowed to go ahead. On the other hand, Morgan Tsvangirai, with his WIRE strategy mentality would have gone into the elections with not even one reform in place.

37 years of gross mismanagement and rampant corruption has left Zimbabwe's economy in ruins. Zimbabwean are today the poorest in Africa, that should speak volumes of the seriousness of our present situation. Zimbabwe is tittering on the edge of economic collapse and political instability. One false move and the country will tumble over into the abyss; another rig election could well be that false move!

The nation's political stability and with it the very lives of hundreds of thousands innocent Zimbabweans is at stake if the elections are rigged. And to risk it all on the basis of MDC's feeble WIRE strategies is madness.

We must learn from Raila Odinga has done to save Kenya from the nightmare of one-party dictatorship; we must demand the implementation of the democratic reforms to guarantee free, fair and credible elections BEFORE the next elections can be held!