News / National
Fair or Unfair 2023 Election - Opposition is going to Win - Teedzai
12 Dec 2020 at 18:11hrs | Views
Maxwell Teedzai, the leader of Zimbabwe's newest opposition part Emej Zimbabwe (Economic Movement for Equality and Justice) has advised the opposition camp in Zimbabwe to stop wasting precious time on the 2018 election rigging conflict but rather channel its energies, time and resources to map a winning formula to clinche the presidency in 2023.
"Elections, even if we're rigged before by Zanu PF, victory for the opposition is certain only when the opposition deliberately chooses to forget the former things and start ploughing the ground to prepare for the battle to win the 2023 elections," said Teedzai.
He added that the prevailing authoritarian regime our hybrid state of Zimbabwe was ideal political climate to build base for the opposition as it afforded unique transformational opportunities for pro-democracy change and greater potential to lead the country to liberalizing outcomes.
"I'm not here to merely look for the first civil job in the land as (president), no, I stand for a diverse, and pluralistic constituency representing mainly, the interests of all change-loving Zimbabweans and especially the will of the oppressed people of Zimbabwe who are sick and tired of the one party state political system and want change, and for that I think leadership of opposition politics in Zimbabwe now calls for a reckoning of the dire need to urgently reform Zimbabwean pro-democracy institutions and move in a reverse formation of our strategies to serve as an important mode of democratization, a move that I strongly believe will guarantee the survival of pro-democracy in a hostile and hyper-dynamic political landscape that is titrating every moment of time in favour of the authoritarian."
The same scenario he postulated, existed during the Chimurenga/Umvukela liberation struggle where there were numerous liberation movements and activities who combined their diverse aspirations into one common agenda to offset the Smith regime - and they won except that Zanu PF started to dominate the political scene and crush to cinders dissenting voices which ironically brought about our subsequent independence from Britain in 1980. That is the problem with us Zimbabweans.
"Mr Mnangagwa seems to be irrelevant as president today because his time to rule this country was denied him by the same self-defeating political system which he is now vehemently defending. If he had asked for his throne then, the system would have automatically deleted him from the ambios bin of Zanu Pf and be declared a national hero. That selfish spirit of thinking that to be opposed is to be belittled rather than to be helped to rule better was Mr Mugabe's thinking that we the opposition must not institute into our pro-democracy structures or we will be worse leaders than them" added Teedzai.
He pointed out that winning 2023 will entail pro-democracy institutions in Zimbabwe to aggressively pursue, even when the odds seem stacked against them, to manipulate government so that it dances to their tune.
"There is no need to form a new opposition political party unless that voice is genuinely filling-up a needs gap in our polity that might have been ignored because no political party is complete in itself, and that's why we promote pluralism and diversity in order to create variance in opposition electoral strategy because that is key to our success or failure as opposition grouping," asserted Teedzai while responding to the 'why start a new opposition political party when we already have a lot of them in Zimbabwe?'
He further called for a more ambitious and innovative opposition grouping whose political muscle should be exhibited by strong performance in the upcoming 2023 elections. This he added would greatly and, in turn, improve our chances of winning even if the 2023 election is going to be the most unfair in the history of Zimbabwe since 1980.
"As a pro-democracy movement, we must draft new and unpredictable "electoral models," because we are not competing against a weak target but one that is a full-fledged authoritarian regime with subtle manoeuvres and a plethora of international allies who are benefiting extravagantly in exchange for Zanu PF rule endorsement," revealed Teedzai.
Teedzai lamented at the lack of foresight in the opposition which he described proverbially as a creature which depended on its tail to see and its eyes to sleep and not see ahead but waist time, resources, energy and precious lives of young Zimbabweans thinking about yesterday they cannot change.
"As the opposition in this country I urge us all to start changing our theory of practice and come with long-term planning, as well as pay close attention to detail, coordination, and rather reduce practical lessons learned from past failures," said Teedzai.
Teedzai further castigated some old horses in opposition section who were refusing to work together with his movement a move which he said was self-defeating as it works against our ultimate game-changing strategy to unseat Zanu PF from power.
"Most importantly, as pro-democracy parties, we must pursue an overarching process through which we form transnational networks between civil society groups, other opposition groups, local electoral activists, international organizations, and nations striving to promote democracy in our country," added Teedzai.
Maxwell also pointed out the other major goal of his party, Emej Zimbabwe, to find better and modern ways of clearly explaining to the public the costs of keeping the incumbent regime in power and promote direct contact between opposition political leaders and citizens especially ially in the rural areas and the dispersion.
"The opposition must articulate, in clear terms, how particular encroachments place the system at risk, and advantage the incumbent and the need to grow-up and mature politically so that we are politically correct and not solely reliant upon negative attacks on the incumbent and as opposition, go beyond rhetoric by improving upon policy failures and proposing better solutions that will meet the needs of real people in our country," Teedzai said
He said that as the opposition we had to learn fast so that we effectively understand that unmanaged conditions of anger and disillusionment among opposition leaders and the electorate would continue to feed further rise of authoritarian leaders in Zimbabwe.
Due to the monopoly of the media enjoyed by the incumbent, Teedzai further advised pro-democracy parties in Zimbabwe to also adjust to the changing digital landscape for political campaigns and dispelled the myth among the ruling elite that social media is a platform for disinformation.
Opposition parties should also push for greater mobile and internet connectivity and lobby for reduced mobile and internet tariff regime so that the poor in Zimbabwe can access the country's communication network at affordable and reasonable cost and that coverage reach to the furthest and remotest areas of our country.
Teedzai further highlighted optimism about the internet's potential to make elections more democratic, as he said it had become clear that the web is a double-edged sword for political campaigns, one that seems to favor illiberalism.
In Zimbabwe, we must sit on our laurels and think president Mnangagwa would wake on Tuesday next week and announce the independence of the judiciary and, or swift electoral reforms - never, rather we should reform our strategy as opposition and instead stop crying foul all the time because the truth of the matter is that Zanu Pf will never appropriately calibrate and implement new electoral policies designed to disfavor them as the incumbent, because in my own shallow thinking that would be a thing more difficult for authoritarian leader than is generally assumed.
Rather, as opposition in Zimbabwe he said we had to be aggressive in asserting our cause and make even the most extreme election fraud (such as ballot box stuffing, multiple voting, voter intimidation arising from a lack of voter secrecy, or the falsification of vote counts), present significant stage management problems for the authoritarian come 2023.
"When Zanu PF rigs again in 2023, this time around, it will be to make the opposition win and that means we must be selfless and quickly find each other now, fast-resolve our party and opposition camp differences and work towards a common goal, working so hard now to make election fraud in 2023 produce unintended results that are not ideal from an authoritarian's perspective and further re-plan our strategies in such a way that even with excessive fraud that produces a flagrantly false margin of victory must draw widespread condemnation, or too little rigging, such that the Zanu Pf ultimately loses.
He added there was need to start working together transparently and accountable in order to come up with a combined strategy rather than pursue the old rhetoric of joining to form a coalition and the need also to interact together with strong independent election observers in nations so that vote rigging for the incumbent is very difficult to conduct undetected in 2023.
"We know that the ruling elite is already spending huge sums of money scheming new tactics to defraud the electorate of the 2023 vote but our progressive and united effort now to organise for the election strategy for 2023 is critical even when we know the incumbents are actively trying to secure their re-election using the most extreme election rigging measures, we must however work together so that they may fail."
Teedzai has since called upon the opposition in Zimbabwe to start pushing back against election rigging, and has urged all opposition parties, individuals and Civic society (and the movements that support them) to proactively develop plans ahead of time as a deterrent by employing new and relevant mechanisms that include election monitoring, exit polling, and a mass mobilization strategy if discrepancies arise.
Zimbabwe is a competitive authoritarian contexts where political opposition campaign strategies and individual votes can make a difference.
"Despite narrowing democratic space, the political opposition does have a broad menu of institutional and extra-institutional options of varying severity available to them and the golden question to ask now, is, 'How, then, should the opposition best compete?" And the answer is the opposition should continue to defy authoritarian rule not via unorthodox means or by breaking the democratic norms that we're ultimately seeking to strengthen."
Emej Zimbabwe is a new opposition party that has naturally been born out of the transformed political landscape in Zimbabwe which now calls for new and predatory politics that feeds not on past models but the current economic, social and political landscape. The founder and Leader is a journalist by profession, a minister of religion, musician and s strong advocate for girls and women rights in Zimbabwe.
"A new Zimbabwe premised upon the vision for a country where everyone can thrive is our goal and we are strategising to collapse the age-old walls of economic injustices and social inequalities that have sentenced millions of Zimbabweans into acute poverty, starvation, mass dispersion and we stand to continue mounting pressure on Mr Mnangagwa and his government to step down and pave way for change. We're all created equal before God and none deserves to treated as the 'others,' without identity, recognition, rights and access to the means of production."
Emej Zimbabwe is alternatively called the Khaki Movement. This is because Maxwell believes that we're a satire, representing prisoners of conscience living in a maximum security prison. Wearing khaki, or upholding the khaki colour is therefore symbolic of the prison gab, prisoners wear in Zimbabwe's jails and is a clear sign of standing in solidarity with his cause.
"It is now time to act, isikhathi sokuphatheka, nguva yebasa yasvika to join hands and unseat Zanu PF from statehood."
News about the party's formation broke out on social media in early November 2020 and anyone interested is advised to follow and support Emej Zimbabwe at Twitter Handles: @MaxwellTeedzai, @EmejZimbabwe and Facebook Page: Emej Zimbabwe and LinkedIn Account: Maxwell Teedzai, and Website: https://www.emejzimbabwemovement.wordpress.com, to get a clearer picture of the party's work so far.
"Elections, even if we're rigged before by Zanu PF, victory for the opposition is certain only when the opposition deliberately chooses to forget the former things and start ploughing the ground to prepare for the battle to win the 2023 elections," said Teedzai.
He added that the prevailing authoritarian regime our hybrid state of Zimbabwe was ideal political climate to build base for the opposition as it afforded unique transformational opportunities for pro-democracy change and greater potential to lead the country to liberalizing outcomes.
"I'm not here to merely look for the first civil job in the land as (president), no, I stand for a diverse, and pluralistic constituency representing mainly, the interests of all change-loving Zimbabweans and especially the will of the oppressed people of Zimbabwe who are sick and tired of the one party state political system and want change, and for that I think leadership of opposition politics in Zimbabwe now calls for a reckoning of the dire need to urgently reform Zimbabwean pro-democracy institutions and move in a reverse formation of our strategies to serve as an important mode of democratization, a move that I strongly believe will guarantee the survival of pro-democracy in a hostile and hyper-dynamic political landscape that is titrating every moment of time in favour of the authoritarian."
The same scenario he postulated, existed during the Chimurenga/Umvukela liberation struggle where there were numerous liberation movements and activities who combined their diverse aspirations into one common agenda to offset the Smith regime - and they won except that Zanu PF started to dominate the political scene and crush to cinders dissenting voices which ironically brought about our subsequent independence from Britain in 1980. That is the problem with us Zimbabweans.
"Mr Mnangagwa seems to be irrelevant as president today because his time to rule this country was denied him by the same self-defeating political system which he is now vehemently defending. If he had asked for his throne then, the system would have automatically deleted him from the ambios bin of Zanu Pf and be declared a national hero. That selfish spirit of thinking that to be opposed is to be belittled rather than to be helped to rule better was Mr Mugabe's thinking that we the opposition must not institute into our pro-democracy structures or we will be worse leaders than them" added Teedzai.
He pointed out that winning 2023 will entail pro-democracy institutions in Zimbabwe to aggressively pursue, even when the odds seem stacked against them, to manipulate government so that it dances to their tune.
"There is no need to form a new opposition political party unless that voice is genuinely filling-up a needs gap in our polity that might have been ignored because no political party is complete in itself, and that's why we promote pluralism and diversity in order to create variance in opposition electoral strategy because that is key to our success or failure as opposition grouping," asserted Teedzai while responding to the 'why start a new opposition political party when we already have a lot of them in Zimbabwe?'
He further called for a more ambitious and innovative opposition grouping whose political muscle should be exhibited by strong performance in the upcoming 2023 elections. This he added would greatly and, in turn, improve our chances of winning even if the 2023 election is going to be the most unfair in the history of Zimbabwe since 1980.
"As a pro-democracy movement, we must draft new and unpredictable "electoral models," because we are not competing against a weak target but one that is a full-fledged authoritarian regime with subtle manoeuvres and a plethora of international allies who are benefiting extravagantly in exchange for Zanu PF rule endorsement," revealed Teedzai.
Teedzai lamented at the lack of foresight in the opposition which he described proverbially as a creature which depended on its tail to see and its eyes to sleep and not see ahead but waist time, resources, energy and precious lives of young Zimbabweans thinking about yesterday they cannot change.
"As the opposition in this country I urge us all to start changing our theory of practice and come with long-term planning, as well as pay close attention to detail, coordination, and rather reduce practical lessons learned from past failures," said Teedzai.
Teedzai further castigated some old horses in opposition section who were refusing to work together with his movement a move which he said was self-defeating as it works against our ultimate game-changing strategy to unseat Zanu PF from power.
"Most importantly, as pro-democracy parties, we must pursue an overarching process through which we form transnational networks between civil society groups, other opposition groups, local electoral activists, international organizations, and nations striving to promote democracy in our country," added Teedzai.
Maxwell also pointed out the other major goal of his party, Emej Zimbabwe, to find better and modern ways of clearly explaining to the public the costs of keeping the incumbent regime in power and promote direct contact between opposition political leaders and citizens especially ially in the rural areas and the dispersion.
He said that as the opposition we had to learn fast so that we effectively understand that unmanaged conditions of anger and disillusionment among opposition leaders and the electorate would continue to feed further rise of authoritarian leaders in Zimbabwe.
Due to the monopoly of the media enjoyed by the incumbent, Teedzai further advised pro-democracy parties in Zimbabwe to also adjust to the changing digital landscape for political campaigns and dispelled the myth among the ruling elite that social media is a platform for disinformation.
Opposition parties should also push for greater mobile and internet connectivity and lobby for reduced mobile and internet tariff regime so that the poor in Zimbabwe can access the country's communication network at affordable and reasonable cost and that coverage reach to the furthest and remotest areas of our country.
Teedzai further highlighted optimism about the internet's potential to make elections more democratic, as he said it had become clear that the web is a double-edged sword for political campaigns, one that seems to favor illiberalism.
In Zimbabwe, we must sit on our laurels and think president Mnangagwa would wake on Tuesday next week and announce the independence of the judiciary and, or swift electoral reforms - never, rather we should reform our strategy as opposition and instead stop crying foul all the time because the truth of the matter is that Zanu Pf will never appropriately calibrate and implement new electoral policies designed to disfavor them as the incumbent, because in my own shallow thinking that would be a thing more difficult for authoritarian leader than is generally assumed.
Rather, as opposition in Zimbabwe he said we had to be aggressive in asserting our cause and make even the most extreme election fraud (such as ballot box stuffing, multiple voting, voter intimidation arising from a lack of voter secrecy, or the falsification of vote counts), present significant stage management problems for the authoritarian come 2023.
"When Zanu PF rigs again in 2023, this time around, it will be to make the opposition win and that means we must be selfless and quickly find each other now, fast-resolve our party and opposition camp differences and work towards a common goal, working so hard now to make election fraud in 2023 produce unintended results that are not ideal from an authoritarian's perspective and further re-plan our strategies in such a way that even with excessive fraud that produces a flagrantly false margin of victory must draw widespread condemnation, or too little rigging, such that the Zanu Pf ultimately loses.
He added there was need to start working together transparently and accountable in order to come up with a combined strategy rather than pursue the old rhetoric of joining to form a coalition and the need also to interact together with strong independent election observers in nations so that vote rigging for the incumbent is very difficult to conduct undetected in 2023.
"We know that the ruling elite is already spending huge sums of money scheming new tactics to defraud the electorate of the 2023 vote but our progressive and united effort now to organise for the election strategy for 2023 is critical even when we know the incumbents are actively trying to secure their re-election using the most extreme election rigging measures, we must however work together so that they may fail."
Teedzai has since called upon the opposition in Zimbabwe to start pushing back against election rigging, and has urged all opposition parties, individuals and Civic society (and the movements that support them) to proactively develop plans ahead of time as a deterrent by employing new and relevant mechanisms that include election monitoring, exit polling, and a mass mobilization strategy if discrepancies arise.
Zimbabwe is a competitive authoritarian contexts where political opposition campaign strategies and individual votes can make a difference.
"Despite narrowing democratic space, the political opposition does have a broad menu of institutional and extra-institutional options of varying severity available to them and the golden question to ask now, is, 'How, then, should the opposition best compete?" And the answer is the opposition should continue to defy authoritarian rule not via unorthodox means or by breaking the democratic norms that we're ultimately seeking to strengthen."
Emej Zimbabwe is a new opposition party that has naturally been born out of the transformed political landscape in Zimbabwe which now calls for new and predatory politics that feeds not on past models but the current economic, social and political landscape. The founder and Leader is a journalist by profession, a minister of religion, musician and s strong advocate for girls and women rights in Zimbabwe.
"A new Zimbabwe premised upon the vision for a country where everyone can thrive is our goal and we are strategising to collapse the age-old walls of economic injustices and social inequalities that have sentenced millions of Zimbabweans into acute poverty, starvation, mass dispersion and we stand to continue mounting pressure on Mr Mnangagwa and his government to step down and pave way for change. We're all created equal before God and none deserves to treated as the 'others,' without identity, recognition, rights and access to the means of production."
Emej Zimbabwe is alternatively called the Khaki Movement. This is because Maxwell believes that we're a satire, representing prisoners of conscience living in a maximum security prison. Wearing khaki, or upholding the khaki colour is therefore symbolic of the prison gab, prisoners wear in Zimbabwe's jails and is a clear sign of standing in solidarity with his cause.
"It is now time to act, isikhathi sokuphatheka, nguva yebasa yasvika to join hands and unseat Zanu PF from statehood."
News about the party's formation broke out on social media in early November 2020 and anyone interested is advised to follow and support Emej Zimbabwe at Twitter Handles: @MaxwellTeedzai, @EmejZimbabwe and Facebook Page: Emej Zimbabwe and LinkedIn Account: Maxwell Teedzai, and Website: https://www.emejzimbabwemovement.wordpress.com, to get a clearer picture of the party's work so far.
Source - Agencies
