Opinion / Columnist
Ncube admits opposition obsessed with 'removing' Mugabe but not the afterwards
26 Oct 2015 at 21:01hrs | Views
In a rare moment of insightful thinking, Professor Welshman Ncube has admitted Zimbabwe's corrupt and incompetent opposition will at best unity to remove Mugabe and then will not know what to do after that!
"That commitment of coming together has been expressed in word and conduct in engaging others. With a background of history, it's next to impossible to have coalitions on the eve of an election. If you are not able to do it well in advance, at least a year or two before the next election and to try and put up a house in the middle of a thunderstorm, it's difficult," he said. "If all we share is to see the back of Zanu PF and President Mugabe, you can sense the problem we have. What has dominated our politics of everyone who is not in Zanu PF is the obsession of removing Mugabe. "If we remove him (Mugabe) what do we do afterwards? I believe that if all that binds us is to defeat Mugabe, that coalition won't survive even if it won (elections). I am afraid of the desperation among other players. That's not how coalitions are built."
If the truth be told most Zimbabweans are sick to their back teeth with Mugabe they will be glad to see the opposition unity to achieve the singular goal of removing Mugabe and Zanu PF. But even this the opposition will never accomplish because not even one opposition party has come up with what to do to stop Zanu PF rigging elections!
SADC in the 2008 GPA came up with the raft of democratic reforms the country must implement to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Sadly MDC failed to get even one reform implemented in the five years of the GNU.
Contrary to MDC's claim that the new 2013 constitution would deliver free and fair elections; it did not, because it was weak and feeble. MDC leaders were warned about this and not to take part in the 2013 elections without the reforms but they paid no heed.
Instead of going back to GPA reforms, Morgan Tsvangirai is now calling for the re-alignment of the electoral laws to the new constitution, the weak and feeble constitution. This is dead end; Tsvangirai is hoping the amended laws will address the deficiencies of the constitution which they derive their legal strength. And, as if that was not bad enough, the laws are to be amended by Zanu PF, the very people with an invested interest in maintaining the status quo.
It is naïve to expect Zanu PF to be authors of their own demise, especially now when the party has managed to resist the GPA reforms during the GNU.
"Proposed amendments to the crucial Electoral Act now before the Zimbabwe parliament are inadequate and incomplete," reported Veritas, an independent Zimbabwean think tank on legal matters.
Veritas has confirmed what anybody with any brain already knew; Zanu PF has no intention of implementing any meaningful reforms.
Now MDC-T has no excuse for continuing with this line of thought, re-aligning the existing laws to the weak new constitution will not deliver free and fair elections.
Tendai Biti and his People Democratic Party are demanding that the EU must be allowed to observe the next elections or else they will boycott the elections. So they are doing nothing to ensure the next elections are free and fair all they want is for the EU to tell us what we already know; that Zanu PF rigs elections.
The EU already knows that MDC failed to get even one GPA reforms implemented during the GNU and, worse still, that the opposition has done absolutely nothing to get the said reforms implemented since the rigged 2013 elections. So instead of aspiring for implementing the reform and stopping Zanu PF rigging elections all Biti wants is EU to tell us something we already know - Zanu PF rigs elections and if we want to stop them then we must implement the GPA reforms! How stupid is that!
Zimbabwe's opposition politicians are corrupt and incompetent and they have already proven this. If we are ever to get out of this political and economic mess Mugabe and Zanu PF have landed us, then we need to accept the reality that we need competent leaders to get us of the mess.
We are in this political mess because we have not taken the task of defining what we want in good leaders. Until we take this task with the seriousness it deserves then we will we be stuck forever in this nightmare!
"That commitment of coming together has been expressed in word and conduct in engaging others. With a background of history, it's next to impossible to have coalitions on the eve of an election. If you are not able to do it well in advance, at least a year or two before the next election and to try and put up a house in the middle of a thunderstorm, it's difficult," he said. "If all we share is to see the back of Zanu PF and President Mugabe, you can sense the problem we have. What has dominated our politics of everyone who is not in Zanu PF is the obsession of removing Mugabe. "If we remove him (Mugabe) what do we do afterwards? I believe that if all that binds us is to defeat Mugabe, that coalition won't survive even if it won (elections). I am afraid of the desperation among other players. That's not how coalitions are built."
If the truth be told most Zimbabweans are sick to their back teeth with Mugabe they will be glad to see the opposition unity to achieve the singular goal of removing Mugabe and Zanu PF. But even this the opposition will never accomplish because not even one opposition party has come up with what to do to stop Zanu PF rigging elections!
SADC in the 2008 GPA came up with the raft of democratic reforms the country must implement to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections. Sadly MDC failed to get even one reform implemented in the five years of the GNU.
Contrary to MDC's claim that the new 2013 constitution would deliver free and fair elections; it did not, because it was weak and feeble. MDC leaders were warned about this and not to take part in the 2013 elections without the reforms but they paid no heed.
Instead of going back to GPA reforms, Morgan Tsvangirai is now calling for the re-alignment of the electoral laws to the new constitution, the weak and feeble constitution. This is dead end; Tsvangirai is hoping the amended laws will address the deficiencies of the constitution which they derive their legal strength. And, as if that was not bad enough, the laws are to be amended by Zanu PF, the very people with an invested interest in maintaining the status quo.
"Proposed amendments to the crucial Electoral Act now before the Zimbabwe parliament are inadequate and incomplete," reported Veritas, an independent Zimbabwean think tank on legal matters.
Veritas has confirmed what anybody with any brain already knew; Zanu PF has no intention of implementing any meaningful reforms.
Now MDC-T has no excuse for continuing with this line of thought, re-aligning the existing laws to the weak new constitution will not deliver free and fair elections.
Tendai Biti and his People Democratic Party are demanding that the EU must be allowed to observe the next elections or else they will boycott the elections. So they are doing nothing to ensure the next elections are free and fair all they want is for the EU to tell us what we already know; that Zanu PF rigs elections.
The EU already knows that MDC failed to get even one GPA reforms implemented during the GNU and, worse still, that the opposition has done absolutely nothing to get the said reforms implemented since the rigged 2013 elections. So instead of aspiring for implementing the reform and stopping Zanu PF rigging elections all Biti wants is EU to tell us something we already know - Zanu PF rigs elections and if we want to stop them then we must implement the GPA reforms! How stupid is that!
Zimbabwe's opposition politicians are corrupt and incompetent and they have already proven this. If we are ever to get out of this political and economic mess Mugabe and Zanu PF have landed us, then we need to accept the reality that we need competent leaders to get us of the mess.
We are in this political mess because we have not taken the task of defining what we want in good leaders. Until we take this task with the seriousness it deserves then we will we be stuck forever in this nightmare!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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