Zanu PF and MDC in secretive talks to form GNU mark2 - we demand a meaningful say and not to be told!

There are rumours that Zanu PF and MDC have been holding secret meetings with the view of forming another GNU which will then be tasked to find a way out of the country's worsening economic and political situation. The representatives of the parties have met in Accra, Ghana and will meet in Victoria Falls before the end of this month.

"If you love this country you would not write such stories. Some of us are working very hard to try and alleviate the people's suffering and we do not need the media to throw spanners in the works," responded an MDC national executive member when asked to comment on the story.  

This is a sick joke; because this is exactly what happened last time. In the last 2008 -2013 GNU it was Zimbabwe's political leaders who negotiated a political way out of the political impasse in total secret and get presented the nation with the 2008 GPA as fiat accompli. Back then at least SADC was involved and the GPA had a raft of democratic reforms which, if implemented, would have dismantled the Zanu PF dictatorship and delivering the democratic system of government the nation has been dying for, literally!

As it happened, the GNU failed to implement even one of the GPA reforms, not one, and so Mugabe was able to rig the July 2013 elections with the greatest easy. Mugabe bribed Tsvangirai and his MDC friends to kick the reforms into the tall grass so that not even one reform was implemented. We are in this political and economic mess because those tasked to implement the reform in the last GNU let us down.

Now the same politicians who created the dictatorship, on the one hand, are teaming up with the same opposition politicians who sold-out during the last GNU to produce another GPA and then yet another GNU. Once again the negotiations are all being carried out in secret and the nation will be presented with a fait accompli GPA.

At least the 2008 GPA had SADC as the guarantor and, no doubt, it was SADC who pushed hard to have the raft of democratic reforms in the agreement. This time SADC is not involved and we know Tsvangirai has already been talking about some watered down versions of the original 2008 reforms we wanted implement.

The failure to allow free media coverage of the negotiations in 2008 meant the people did not have clue what the reforms were and hence the reason they failed to force the politicians to implement them.

Of course we all want to hear that our politicians are working hard on our behalf so why all the secrecy? There are two areas in which Zanu PF and the MDC opposition have cooperated fully. The first area being in getting salary, allowances or more perks for the politicians. The second area is in keeping the public in the dark of what the politicians were up to.

The MDC official is telling us the party is "working very hard to try and alleviate the people's suffering"; if they had done a day's work during the GNU then why did the fail to get even one reform implement.

 So as contrast to the 2008 GPA this 2015 GPA will have feeble reforms; to be implemented by the same incompetent and corrupt leaders; the public will be confine to their usual role of helpless bystanders and SADC will play no supervisory role. In short this 2015 GPA and the GNU to come from it will accomplish nothing of substance!

The people of Zimbabwe have been short changed and betrayed by Mugabe and Zanu PF for 35 years and sold-out by MDC during the GNU. If anyone is serious about democratic reforms in Zimbabwe then the first thing that must be implemented is media reforms so that the people are given a chance to at least follow the dialogue determining their future. We must stop treating them as they are idiots to be told after everything has already been decided; they have the right to be asked!