Opinion / Columnist
'It is possible' to have economic change without regime change ZDI claim - profane nonsense
05 Jan 2015 at 20:36hrs | Views
"It is possible to change people's lives without taking power!" This is a very profound statement from Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI), a local political think tank headed by none other than Dr Pedzisai Ruhanya.
The question one has to ask is this a profound statement of political genius or a profane statement of political nonsense?
Zimbabwe is right now in the middle of a serious economic meltdown that has send unemployment to the dazing heights of 90% plus, 60% of the people are poor with 16% or 2 million already living in abject poverty, 300 000 or 80% of the children did not go to school last year because their parents are too poor, millions of Zimbabweans have left the country to escape the poverty, etc. Nothing, absolutely nothing would please all these millions of Zimbabweans than to see the economic meltdown end, the national economy prosper and their lives changed.
The only way to end the economic meltdown is by addressing the root causes behind the country's economic poor performance – stating the obvious! And the three main causes are mismanagement, corruption and the lack of investment.
Zimbabweans have known about mismanagement and corruption for decades but Mugabe and Zanu PF have denied their very existence and blamed the country's poor economic performance on "illegal sanctions imposed by the British imperialist and their evil Western allies" or some such scapegoat. The denials have only given these cancerous problems time to grow and spread and today the criminal waste of resources due to the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption are like a mile stone round the nation's neck dragging the whole nation into the abyss.
The Zimbabwe economy is not going to recover as long as the criminal waste of resources, human and material, due to mismanagement and corruption is allowed to continue. Mugabe has denied these problems all these years because he knew created them by appointing and rewarding people loyal to his singular goal of retaining political power at all cost, including poor economic performance.
In 2000 Mugabe decided to seize white owned farms and give them to party loyalists to appease them because he was running out of loot to give them. Of course he knew the agricultural sector was the backbone of Zimbabwe economy and he knew too that his cronies will not be able to maintain the same productivity as the white farms. Still he went ahead and destroyed the agricultural sector wand with it the nation's economy. But by move paid off in that he won back the blind support of his party hardliners who had been grumbling and who have since helped him rig elections and thus stay in power.
In 2008 Zanu PF passed the indigenisation law in which all foreign investors are forced to sell 51% of their equity to local partners. The law is but an extension of the regime's white farm invasion; with no more white farms let to loot Mugabe had to offer his ever demanding something else to loot. Zanu PF would select the local partner for the foreign investor and, needless to say, it would be a party loyalist – the same animal behind the mismanagement, corruption, the abandoned farms, etc.
All the would-be investors have shied away from Zimbabwe, naturally, who would want to be forced to take a partner who is nothing but a blood sucking parasite!
"The civil society must drop the regime change agenda with its logic rooted in the 'will to power' and adopt a 'will to transform' approach," argue the ZDI.
So either ZDI has completed failed to comprehend the simple reality that Mugabe, for the selfish reason of gratifying his own insatiable appetite for absolute political power and the influence and wealth it brings, has decreed that there will be no regime change and so we are stuck with the mismanagement, etc. Or else Dr Ruhanya and his colleague are so incompetent they believe the national economic can still recover and even prosper regardless of the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and no investment! Either way the ZDI's position is profane stupidity because it defies logic and common sense.
What is so disheartening here is ZDI consider themselves a political think tank; no wonder the country is in this hell-hole, what else if the people have to look up to septic tanks propagating nonsense for guidance!
It is impossible to end Zimbabwe's economic meltdown without regime change; it is utter nonsense to think otherwise.
Zimbabweans have had many chances to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but wasted them all. The best chance by far was during the GNU where implementing the agreed democratic reforms would have delivered free, fair and credible elections and democratic rule. But because of the corrupt and breath-taking incompetence of MDC led by the village idiot Morgan Tsvangirai not even one reform was implemented. The country's equally corrupt and incompetence civic society like ZDI, who cheered and applauded MDC and/or dished out to the nation stupid advice, failed to stop MDC waste this chance.
The nauseating unemployment rates, millions living in abject poverty, etc. is the price this nation is paying for allowing Zanu PF to remain in power all these last 34 years. The economic meltdown means the price in unnecessary human suffering and deaths is going up now at an even faster rate than ever before.
It is not the survival of Mugabe and Zanu PF which is at issue here but that of the nation; only a lunatic would not know which one to save!
The question one has to ask is this a profound statement of political genius or a profane statement of political nonsense?
Zimbabwe is right now in the middle of a serious economic meltdown that has send unemployment to the dazing heights of 90% plus, 60% of the people are poor with 16% or 2 million already living in abject poverty, 300 000 or 80% of the children did not go to school last year because their parents are too poor, millions of Zimbabweans have left the country to escape the poverty, etc. Nothing, absolutely nothing would please all these millions of Zimbabweans than to see the economic meltdown end, the national economy prosper and their lives changed.
The only way to end the economic meltdown is by addressing the root causes behind the country's economic poor performance – stating the obvious! And the three main causes are mismanagement, corruption and the lack of investment.
Zimbabweans have known about mismanagement and corruption for decades but Mugabe and Zanu PF have denied their very existence and blamed the country's poor economic performance on "illegal sanctions imposed by the British imperialist and their evil Western allies" or some such scapegoat. The denials have only given these cancerous problems time to grow and spread and today the criminal waste of resources due to the gross mismanagement and rampant corruption are like a mile stone round the nation's neck dragging the whole nation into the abyss.
The Zimbabwe economy is not going to recover as long as the criminal waste of resources, human and material, due to mismanagement and corruption is allowed to continue. Mugabe has denied these problems all these years because he knew created them by appointing and rewarding people loyal to his singular goal of retaining political power at all cost, including poor economic performance.
In 2000 Mugabe decided to seize white owned farms and give them to party loyalists to appease them because he was running out of loot to give them. Of course he knew the agricultural sector was the backbone of Zimbabwe economy and he knew too that his cronies will not be able to maintain the same productivity as the white farms. Still he went ahead and destroyed the agricultural sector wand with it the nation's economy. But by move paid off in that he won back the blind support of his party hardliners who had been grumbling and who have since helped him rig elections and thus stay in power.
In 2008 Zanu PF passed the indigenisation law in which all foreign investors are forced to sell 51% of their equity to local partners. The law is but an extension of the regime's white farm invasion; with no more white farms let to loot Mugabe had to offer his ever demanding something else to loot. Zanu PF would select the local partner for the foreign investor and, needless to say, it would be a party loyalist – the same animal behind the mismanagement, corruption, the abandoned farms, etc.
"The civil society must drop the regime change agenda with its logic rooted in the 'will to power' and adopt a 'will to transform' approach," argue the ZDI.
So either ZDI has completed failed to comprehend the simple reality that Mugabe, for the selfish reason of gratifying his own insatiable appetite for absolute political power and the influence and wealth it brings, has decreed that there will be no regime change and so we are stuck with the mismanagement, etc. Or else Dr Ruhanya and his colleague are so incompetent they believe the national economic can still recover and even prosper regardless of the gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and no investment! Either way the ZDI's position is profane stupidity because it defies logic and common sense.
What is so disheartening here is ZDI consider themselves a political think tank; no wonder the country is in this hell-hole, what else if the people have to look up to septic tanks propagating nonsense for guidance!
It is impossible to end Zimbabwe's economic meltdown without regime change; it is utter nonsense to think otherwise.
Zimbabweans have had many chances to end the Zanu PF dictatorship but wasted them all. The best chance by far was during the GNU where implementing the agreed democratic reforms would have delivered free, fair and credible elections and democratic rule. But because of the corrupt and breath-taking incompetence of MDC led by the village idiot Morgan Tsvangirai not even one reform was implemented. The country's equally corrupt and incompetence civic society like ZDI, who cheered and applauded MDC and/or dished out to the nation stupid advice, failed to stop MDC waste this chance.
The nauseating unemployment rates, millions living in abject poverty, etc. is the price this nation is paying for allowing Zanu PF to remain in power all these last 34 years. The economic meltdown means the price in unnecessary human suffering and deaths is going up now at an even faster rate than ever before.
It is not the survival of Mugabe and Zanu PF which is at issue here but that of the nation; only a lunatic would not know which one to save!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
All articles and letters published on Bulawayo24 have been independently written by members of Bulawayo24's community. The views of users published on Bulawayo24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Bulawayo24. Bulawayo24 editors also reserve the right to edit or delete any and all comments received.
