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Mnangagwa on SADC tour, promising free elections - bitten by Mugabe's globe-trotting

by Nomusa Garikai
15 Jan 2018 at 13:04hrs | Views
It seems globe-trotting is in the blood of Zimbabwean leaders. We all know of Tsvangirai's world tour during his five-year term as Prime Minister. Little wonder the MDC failed to get even one democratic reform implemented during the GNU, Tsvangirai had no time for that after his busy travel schedule and his equally demanding womanizing programmes.

As for Robert Mugabe, every year of his 37 years in power he probably clocked more air miles than the Pope, US President, British Prime Minister and UN Secretary General put together! Zimbabweans have nicknamed Mugabe, Vasco da Gama, the 15 century Portuguese explorer and first European to reach India.

President Mnangagwa has been in State House for less than three months and already he has been in and out of the country like a yoyo!

"President Emmerson Mnangagwa will today visit Namibia on the third leg of his regional tour to brief his counterparts on the political situation in the country and the forthcoming harmonised elections," reported Bulawayo24. "He will meet Namibian counterpart, President Hage Geingob.

"President Mnangagwa's first stop over was Pretoria in South Africa where he met President Jacob Zuma and ANC leader Cyril Ramaphosa, and on Friday he was in Luanda, Angola, on a similar mission.

"In Angola, President Mnangagwa met his counterpart, President Joao Lourenco, who also chairs the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security.

"In an interview yesterday, Presidential spokesperson Mr George Charamba confirmed today's visit. He said the President would also use the visit to explain opportunities presented by the new dispensation ushered into power following the resignation of former President Mugabe on 21 November 2017."

Well, it seems President Mnangagwa was not only bitten by the travel bug the turn Mugabe into Vasco da Gama but worse still he was also bitten by the bull-s**t bug!

The nation will never ever forget Major General Sibusiso Moyo's 15 November 2017 04.30 ZBCTV broadcast announcing that the army had seized all the strategic State Institutions and President Mugabe was under house arrest. "This is NOT a military coup!" insisted the Major, foolishly.

Of course, it was a coup but the coup plotters, of whom President Mnangagwa and Commander Chiwenga were the ringleaders, have insisted it was "military assisted transition to usher a new dispensation". Bull s**t! Sadly, the bull s***t from the regime has clearly not stopped there.

President Mnangagwa has insisted this year's elections are going to be free, fair and credible and yet he has not implemented even one democratic reform without which it is impossible to have free and fair elections. He is forgetting that it was SADC leaders who forced Zanu PF to sign the 2008 Global Political Agreement in which Zanu PF and MDC were instructed to implement a raft of democratic reforms designed to stop the blatant vote rigging and wanton violence that had marred Zimbabwe's elections that year. The one deliverable product of the agreement was free, fair and credible elections and SADC were the guarantor of that agreement.

Not even one reform was implemented in five years of the GNU because Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, the party tasked to spearhead the implementation, was busy gallivanting and womanizing, among other things. With no reforms implemented SADC leaders made their position very clear; elections must be postponed, as Dr Ibbo Mandaza explained to Violet Gonda.

"Of course, they (2018 elections) can be postponed.  In 2013 the Maputo Summit, in June 2013, before the elections, the Maputo Summit was all about having the elections postponed – the SADC summit. I went there. I was there at the Summit and Mugabe pretended to agree to a postponement of the elections," explained Dr Mandaza.

"If you recall, the postponement was based on the need to reform at least electoral laws, and after that Summit, Morgan Tsvangirai, Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, all of them were called to a separate meeting by the Heads of State of SADC in the absence of Mugabe, that same evening. And they were told; I was sitting there outside the room with Mac Maharaj; they were told ‘if you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done'.  

"And we came back on a Sunday and that Monday we had a SAPES Policy Dialogue to discuss the Summit and lo and behold, whilst we were discussing it, the court papers arrived calling the MDC to court to show reason why the elections should be postponed.  Mugabe had done a volte-face against the decision of the Summit. Mugabe went on TV and threatened to leave SADC – ‘who is SADC, we can leave SADC anyway'. And so, under some pretext of a court application by Jealousy Mawarire, which others claim was really a ZANU PF ploy, the elections were held.

"And 3 or 4 days before the election Morgan Tsvangirai was lamenting that he had evidence that the election was already rigged. But they were warned like they are being warned again now. But blindly, they cannot make any excuses now, they going into elections again."

The full interview with Dr Mandaza is available on violetgonda.com.

 Of course, the President Mnangagwa regime is illegitimate born as it was from a military coup (it is bull s***t to deny it was a coup). The Zimbabwe's roadmap to return to legitimacy is by holding free, fair and credible elections and that is only possible is all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA are fully implemented. The suggestion that the November coup has brought about a new dispensation to allow free and fair elections with not even one reform implemented is bull s***t!

Indeed, President Mnangagwa is busy implementing the Zanu PF vote rigging programme such as buying Chiefs new trucks, a bribe to encourage them to continue campaigning for the party and threatening villagers who dare support the opposition. He has appointed know Zanu PF thugs like retired Lt. Retired Lt General Engelbert Rugeje, Zanu PF Political Commission; the man who spearheaded Zanu PF's campaign of terror and mayhem in 2008 and 2013. He has already started reminding people what the party will do to them if they do not vote for anyone else, etc. Proof this year's elections will not be free and fair unless the reforms are implemented.

President Mnangagwa, you can visit SADC leaders are often as you wish and repeat the lie of Zimbabwe holding free and fair elections again and again. The regional leaders know that Zanu PF has not implemented even one reforms since the July 2013 rigged elections they had asked to be postponed. They know without reforms Zanu PF will rig the elections as before and they will never ever believe your new dispensation bull s**t! Never!