Mugabe has used violence to win elections now using it is his Achilles heel

We all know that President Mugabe is a control freak; only an "el classico" control freak would banish cabinet meetings, forcing the country to grind to a halt, unless he is there to chair the meeting for 36 years! Not content with controlling cabinet the tyrant has extend his control freak obsession to every facet of the nation's life; he wants only his voice to be heard and is incensed that anyone else should dare speak, especially when it is critical of him.

When Cephas Msipa said he was retiring from active politics he never said he would give up his basic human rights and freedoms including freedom of expression. Given that he, like everyone else in Zanu PF, had been denying the opportunity to express himself freely whilst he remained in the party; the political atmosphere in Zanu PF is stifling, as we know. He might well have taken early retirement (given that some Zanu PF leaders are 92 years old and are holding on to the seat like binnacles to a rock, he is 85 and therefore a spring chicken in comparison) to get away from the stifling setting for a breath of fresh air.

Cephas Msipa has said a lot of home truths about President Mugabe and the tyrannical style of leadership. Last week he said Zanu PF was a party that thrives on violence.

"They (Joice Mujuru and her ZimPF) have a mammoth task before them. I know Zanu PF are good at defending themselves and remaining in power. Since 1980, they (Zanu PF) have been using the same tactic," he warned.

 "They will do everything possible to destroy their opponents. They use all sorts of dirty tactics, including violence and intimidation. They think to win an election they need to use force."

The talk of Zanu PF using violence to stay in power is a political reality President Mugabe has had to resort to many times in the past but it is not something he is proud of given his obsession with portraying himself as a great statesman, Pan Africanist and liberation hero icon! Using violence has been like gashing wound in the great bull's rump from the enemy horn which the bull has been at great pain to pretend is nothing. Msipa knows the use of violence has done irreparable damage to Mugabe's pride and reputation; he deliberately bumped into the bull's rump to hear the bull issue an involuntary groan of pain.

"He now wants to paint a grim picture of violence in ZANU PF and expects us to believe it," wrote Gwinyai Mutongi jumping to the defence of groaning President Mugabe.



"The discourse of violence, which Msipa has now joined, is used to perpetuate the opposition cliché that the electoral system is unsustainable and requiring reform. It is also intended at casting ZANU PF's tenure in Government as illegitimate, having supposedly been attained through a violent campaign."

Our apologist Mutongi cannot rewrite history! Even SADC and the AU could not sweep President Mugabe's use of wanton violence in 2008; they refused to endorse his electoral victory as the true reflection of the free democratic will of the people and thus would not grant him the legitimacy he craved.

SADC would only restore his legitimacy on condition that he signed the GPA, agreeing to implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF's culture of vote rigging and use of violence to retain political power. President Mugabe was forced to eat humble pie and signed the agreement and formed the GNU with Tsvangirai.

"They would make fun of us at AU," President Mugabe told the war vets meeting in Harare last week. He was recalling the GNU days. "They would tell me, that seat is not yours. Tsvangirai should be sitting there, but I persevered."


How typical of him, the meeting with the war vets was called to discuss the nation's teething economic and political problems and what should be done to alleviate the war vets' suffering and the nation at large and he was talking about how the AU members had humiliated him. He had rigged the elections and "declared war" on his own people to win the elections and he was angry that the AU had not embraced him regardless.

Instead of thinking and acting in the public interest and implement all the democratic reforms during the GNU Mugabe had his own selfish devious plans. He bribed Tsvangirai and his MDC friends into cooperating with him so that not even one reform was implemented. "I persevered!" he know boasts as if he expects the whole nation to applauded for landing us all back into this political and economic nightmare.

It is a great pity that Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have turned out to be so breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent; they not only failed to get even one reform implemented during the GNU they are not going to get any implement before the next elections. So Zanu PF will have no problems using its vote rigging tactics including using violence.

Still, because of the country's worsening economic situation, the people will be more determined than ever to remove this corrupt and oppressive Mugabe tyrannical regime and end their suffering. Mugabe will have to use even dirtier vote rigging tricks and use even more wanton violence than he used in 2008, the whole world is sick and tired of his dirty tricks and he will find that not even SADC and AU will have an excuse to grant him legitimacy.

In a cruel twist of fate; President Mugabe's use of violence to win elections is now his Achilles hell. The pressure on him to win the next elections is greater than ever and, with his popularity the lowest it has ever been, he will have no choice but to use violence to win. Having used violence again to win, this time President Mugabe will be cast out with the sodomites!