'Less than 5 000' attended the man march, says Gutu - ostrich with head buried in the sand

We have all heard of the expression "of the ostrich burying its head in the sand" meaning someone who is refusing to confront or acknowledge a problem. With the MDC ostrich the expression has assumed a more sinister meaning!

"The so-called million men march that was staged by the faction-ridden and crumbling Zanu-PF regime on Wednesday, May 25, 2016 was a spectacular flop," wrote MDC-T spokesman Obert Gutu. "A few thousand people, most of whom had been commandeered to travel to Harare to attend the puerile and utterly purposeless march, turned up for this non-event. In fact, less than 5,000 people turned up for this march, whose main agenda was to massage the ego of a nonagenarian who has run down the former jewel of Africa. What a big yawn, the march was."

There is no doubt that President Mugabe "has run down" Zimbabwe's once promising econ-omy the facts on the ground speak volumes; unemployment rate has soared to 90% as the na-tion has continued to lose jobs and the regime has failed to deliver on its 2013 promise of 2.2 million new jobs.

Yes the march was "to massage" President Mugabe's humongous ego praising his "visionary and iconic leadership" many of the huge and industrial produced quality placards. Given that he is the one responsible for the country's economic mess, only someone with a humongous ego would still beam with pride, as Mugabe did, at be showered with such meaningless praise.

It is laughable that 90% of those marching and singing Mugabe's praise are unemployed. Surely there must be one or two homemade placards at least demanding that the President should honour his promise and create jobs; there were not even one such placard! None!

President Mugabe spend billions of dollars in the last election to pay for his very elaborate and expensive vote rigging scheme in the 2013 elections. He paid the Israeli company that tampered with the voters roll US$10 million and must have spent millions on the hired crowd and on bussing them around the country to attend rallies and then to vote on polling day.

Some people believe it must have costed the regime $200 million to hire and bus this one-million man march crowd (none of them dared raised the lack of employment opportunities or many of the other problems because they were paid to praise the great leader even when that meant lying about his competence). President Mugabe admitted in March that $15 billion in diamond revenue was looted; it is no secret that Zanu PF chefs are the looters including the President himself. President Mugabe paid the $200 million for his one-million man march, it was small change to him!

The one million man march was a "flop" first and foremost because this country has a thou-sand and one other pressing matters to which the $200 million should have been used. Zim-babweans are very rarely granted a chance to meet President Mugabe and so for these march-ers to do so and then say nothing to him about their myriad of economic problems included the lack of job opportunities was a wasted opportunity.

Only a shallow minded person like Obert Gutu would argue the march was a flop because instead of the one-million Zanu PF claims "less than 5 000 people turned up". He missed the point completely because it is not the head count that is at issue here.

What exposed Gutu for his the proverbial ostrich with the head buried in the sand mentality is his claim that "less than 5 000 turn up" and even gave the list of school buses commandeered by Zanu PF as it to "prove" his case. Anyone who has seen the photographs or videos of the rallies saw there were a lot more that 5 000 people at the rally!

Tell you what you empty head Gutu; give me $200 million even $2 million and even I Patrick Guramatunhu the son of a peasant with none of your Deputy Minister of Justice in the GNU political credentials, will amass a hired crowd of one million!

Zanu PF's unfettered access to State human and material resource including the looted wealth from Marange diamonds is at the very heart of its ability to amass a one-million man hired crowd and to rig national elections. This is way we must implement the democratic reforms necessary to stop the regime looting the nation's resources and then, to rub hot chilli into the nation's eyes, use the looted wealth to bankroll its vote rigging schemes.

MDC failed to implement even one democratic reform during the GNU allowing Zanu PF to blatantly rig the July 2013 elections. Since the elections MDC-T has promised to implement the reforms but to date, it is only two years now left before the next elections, the party not implemented even one reform.

The fact that Zanu PF has managed to use its ill-got wealth once again to stage this pointless one-million man rally should be a stake reminder to the opposition body politics and the na-tion at large that unless meaningful democratic reforms are implemented quick-smart Zanu PF will blatantly rig the next elections. Obert Gutu's pathetic attempt to falsify the size of the hired crowd is the ostrich in him burying its head in the sand, in this case, not to see the fierce grass fire engulfing it!

We can hardly endure another day of this economic meltdown let alone another five years beyond 2018 and yet unless we implement the reforms that is what we will have. We must not allow ourselves be fooled by people like Gutu, the present economic meltdown is hurting us a hell lot more than it is hurting Gutu and his fellow MDC friends who sold-out during the GNU and failed to implement even one reform.

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Patrick Guramatunhu can be contacted at patguramatunhu@gmail.com