Latest News Editor's Choice


Opinion / Columnist

MDC will win 'free and fair elections' - devil is in ensuring elections are indeed free

25 May 2016 at 07:04hrs | Views
"We have the people and the required formula to boot Mugabe out of office in a free and fair election with or without State-sponsored political violence," said MDC spokesperson Kurauone Chihwayi.

Well this is typical Zimbabwe opposition party talk that makes one despair.

Many people have said as far back as 2000 that Zanu PF would not win a free, fair and credible election and thus setting the challenge for the opposition – implement the democratic changes to ensure the elections are free, fair and credible.

The best chance to get the democratic reforms implemented was without doubt during the GNU when Professor Welshman Ncube, the leader of MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai leader of MDC-T and Tendai Biti, secretary general of MDC-T during the GNU but now leader of PDP, etc. were all in cabinet and had parliamentary majority. SADC leaders, amongst many other people, literally begged these MDC leaders to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure free, fair and credible elections. MDC leaders would not listen; they failed to get even one reform implemented in five years of the GNU.

Without even one democratic reform implemented it was a foregone conclusion that Zanu PF will rig the 31 July 2013 elections and they did just that and blatantly too. The Zanu PF vote rigging machine is well oiled with billions of dollars looted from Marange. We are not dealing with some mickey-mouse problem which MDC can wish away!

Naïve and gullible political upstarts like Kurauone Chihwayi must be forced to read the history of vote rigging and Zanu PF inspired political violence before they talk about "with or without State-sponsored violence"! We do not want this nation dragged back into the wanton violence of 2008 or worse still the Gukurahundi madness.

If Chihwayi cannot read then listen to the video on the following website, https://www.enca.com/africa/viral-video-alludes-zim-vote-rigging.

Since the July 2013 rigged elections, what has MDC or any of the other opposition parties done to ensure the next elections are indeed free, fair and credible? Nothing!

So MDC is repeating the same stupid mistake of the GNU years of assuming Zanu PF will be defeated in free and fair elections when the opposition has still done nothing to ensure the elections are indeed free and fair. No doubt Chihwayi and friends will complain that Zanu Pf rigged the elections after the fact as they have always done! How stupid is that?

Professor Ncube, Tsvangirai and all the other MDC leaders should not be in active politics because by failing to get even one reform implemented during the GNU they proved beyond doubt that they are breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent. They sold-out! They are so incompetent in fact that even now with the benefit of hindsight of the rigged 2013 elections they still failing to understand why we must implement the democratic reforms first for the nation to have free and fair elections. Just as happened during the GNU, the need for reforms has been explained to MDC countless times and still they do not get it. I doubt they will ever understand this!

I totally subscribe to the school of thought that failed leaders must step down; in Zimbabwe we like recycling our leaders even when they are so old they doze off at the drop of a hat. The great irony here is that dozy President Mugabe completely outwitted the MDC leaders into doing nothing to implement the reforms during the GNU; a measure of just how breathtakingly corrupt and incompetent the MDC leaders are!

If we fail to implement any meaningful reforms before the 2018 elections, the signs are this is what is going to happen, then the elections will marred by vote rigging and violence. The elections will be a contest between recycled Zanu PF deadwood and recycled incompetent MDC, as for which side "win" is a matter of indifference. What is certain and of great importance to the nation is that the country will continue to blunder from one crisis to the next as it has done for the last 36 years!
 

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.
More on: #MDC