Opinion / Columnist
We are re-using the 2013 election rigging template to win again in 2018 elections
23 Jun 2017 at 17:46hrs | Views
The following is a hypothetical synopsis of ZANU PF rigging mission for the 2018 elections written in the first person.
'You are well aware that any election is a threat to the rule of our ZANU PF government, political positions of our comrades, quality of life of our families and security of our personal wealth that we worked so hard to accumulate over years. Our popularity is dwindling and losing the 2018 elections is a strong possibility. I sometimes wish there were no elections at all and we would rule forever. A defeat in these elections is not a choice we want to take. Political power sharing is not in our DNA too. Power sharing constrains our decision making powers by being subjected to unnecessary scrutiny for transparency, responsibility and accountability. The power sharing approach is not how we do our business in ZANU PF government. It is for this reason that we will continue to use our 2013 election rigging template again in 2018 elections to attain another resounding victory. Let's us put aside the succession fights that are going round at the moment within our party and work together to win the next elections. The succession battles will be resolved once we are back in power. We will use our laid down due processes in line with our ZANU PF constitution to choose our leaders.
We have at our disposal government resources, trusted cadres in the judiciary, security services, intelligence services, police, Zimbabwe electoral commission, and the registry of the deaths and births. Our youth militias are on standby waiting for our instructions. Remember these youths are like vicious dogs that have been given mustard. We have given the poor traditional leaders up and down the country a few dollars, bicycles, some of them have been given cars and they seem to be responding well to our whims. We have our secret ballot paper printing machines from 2013 that are still intact and functioning very well. Our trusted friends in the army are taking care of them in a secret location. Our Nikuv friends thought us the rigging tricks after paying them millions of dollars. Some of our good comrades were assigned to understudy our Nikuv good instructors. We now have the personnel with the right knowledge and skills to carry out our rigging mission to a resounding success. We have the money from the diamonds mines; our ZANU PF Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamonds Company is making billions of dollars for us. We have our good friends around the world that are happy to sponsor us return power. If we do not get money for our project anywhere else we can print more bond notes for ourselves. We can also simply force these external companies operating in our country at our holy messy to fund our mission or they will have their businesses repossessed by this government of the people by the people.
My friends and comrades, you are either with me or you are not with me. If you do not have the spine, if you are ethical or controlled by your good morals then you do not belong to ZANU PF. We need to forget about this monster called rule of law. We are above the law. We are in fact the law itself, so on that score you do not need to worry because your activities are covered for anything we do on behalf of ZANU PF and the President. We have our people in the judiciary to take care of any legal challenges by our desperate opposition parties. If you cannot perpetrate violence, maim or torture misguided elements bent on attempting to topple our president I will request you to go and get a few lessons from comrade Chiwenga who is happy to show you how it's done. Comrades, violence pays. We subdued ZAPU to extinction in the eighties killing 20000 of its followers and thereafter our power nourished. We defeated MDC with a violent campaign in the presidential rerun in 2008. What happened? Morgan went into hiding in some embassy and we won with no opposition at all. We cannot afford to leave anything to chance, this is a do or die scenario. Our aim is to win these elections at all cost. Anything that stands in our way will be met with the resistance it deserves. I must seriously remind you comrades that you are all signatories to the ZANU PF code of secrecy, the confidentiality of sharing of information and a duty of loyalty to our president, the only centre of power. The consequences of any breach of our oath in the service of ZANU PF and the President are well known to every one of you. There is no need to give any further details on this requirement.
Our election rigging strategic objectives of 2013 remain unchanged. Our objectives as you know are to manipulate the voter registration process, disenfranchise voters in the opposition strong holds, create ghost voters on the voters roll, impersonate people in the diaspora and the dead to vote on their behalf, reduce polling stations in the opposition strong hold and increase them in our own strong holds, create secret provincial centres for staffing of ballot papers, disrupt opposition parties rallies and even arrest them on any charge we may think of, intensify political ganagsterism using our youth brigades and militias, create a sense of insecurity and fear to drive away potential voters in the opposition strong holds, create overnight settlements at strategic constituencies and abandon them after the elections, delay the delivery of ballot boxes to opposition strong holds and if possible deliver them with ballot papers mixed up or wrong ones to delay the start of voting but keep the voting closing time unchanged, create unorthodox methods of transferring ballot boxes to locations to allow staffed ballot boxes to be loaded on the way and always ignore cries electoral foul play. It's now the right time to start distributing food aid in the name of ZANU PF in exchange of votes and ensure that the recipients of food aid have ZANU PF cards. Our campaign is to make promises of 2 million jobs under the ZimAsset programme. Give figures pointing to the success of the programme. Promise the youths several housing stands and conduct ground breaking ceremonies showing a few youths receiving stands. The strategy will motivate more youths to join and vote for us in the hope of getting housing stands too.
Our secret election rigging organisational structure worked well in the 2013 elections rigging mission. We will therefore maintain the same structure. We have at the top, the national executive rigging elections committee, and below it are the provincial rigging command centres; constituency rigging coordinating teams and polling stations rigging teams. All of them will be staffed with our trusted and no nonsense members of our security forces. Our security forces will be given overriding powers and authority of implementing our rigging action plans. They will report directly to the national executive committee and to the president. The Zimbabwe electoral commission is under our command. We instruct them on what to do. ZEC is only there as a window dresser to the world but our rigging committee welds the power and it is in charge of operations behind the scenes. We have instructed the Zimbabwe electoral commission to engage the opposition parties at a superficial level to create a perception of transparency so as to reduce complains about the credibility of our win. Let them spend all their time forming NERA and CODE and conducting protests against us. It is good for us as this reduces scrutiny on our rigging activities.
I must reiterate that there will be a few changes in the composition of the secret national rigging executive committee. Unfortunately Nicolas Goche was purged. He served us well in the last rigging committee. We are not sure about the position of Saviour Kasukuwere being included in the rigging committee. There are signs that he is becoming a prodigal son. We really do not know what to do with Emmerson Mnangagwa whether to include or exclude him this time. His association with team lacoste leaves us hesitant to trust him anymore. Jonathan is a clever destructive lad. We are also reluctant to include him in the rigging committee as we are concerned that he might let the cat out as he is an addict of tweeter and he has this appetite for being mouthy. I have warned my wife to tone down her wild speeches and rants; so do not be surprised that she is less vocal of late but I must however add that she is ready to be the next president of our Zimbabwe if she is chosen by the people to lead them. We will keep all the members of the top security forces that were in the previous rigging committee, without them we could not have succeeded in winning the 2013 elections.
Comrades, if we win you will be rewarded handsomely.
'You are well aware that any election is a threat to the rule of our ZANU PF government, political positions of our comrades, quality of life of our families and security of our personal wealth that we worked so hard to accumulate over years. Our popularity is dwindling and losing the 2018 elections is a strong possibility. I sometimes wish there were no elections at all and we would rule forever. A defeat in these elections is not a choice we want to take. Political power sharing is not in our DNA too. Power sharing constrains our decision making powers by being subjected to unnecessary scrutiny for transparency, responsibility and accountability. The power sharing approach is not how we do our business in ZANU PF government. It is for this reason that we will continue to use our 2013 election rigging template again in 2018 elections to attain another resounding victory. Let's us put aside the succession fights that are going round at the moment within our party and work together to win the next elections. The succession battles will be resolved once we are back in power. We will use our laid down due processes in line with our ZANU PF constitution to choose our leaders.
We have at our disposal government resources, trusted cadres in the judiciary, security services, intelligence services, police, Zimbabwe electoral commission, and the registry of the deaths and births. Our youth militias are on standby waiting for our instructions. Remember these youths are like vicious dogs that have been given mustard. We have given the poor traditional leaders up and down the country a few dollars, bicycles, some of them have been given cars and they seem to be responding well to our whims. We have our secret ballot paper printing machines from 2013 that are still intact and functioning very well. Our trusted friends in the army are taking care of them in a secret location. Our Nikuv friends thought us the rigging tricks after paying them millions of dollars. Some of our good comrades were assigned to understudy our Nikuv good instructors. We now have the personnel with the right knowledge and skills to carry out our rigging mission to a resounding success. We have the money from the diamonds mines; our ZANU PF Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamonds Company is making billions of dollars for us. We have our good friends around the world that are happy to sponsor us return power. If we do not get money for our project anywhere else we can print more bond notes for ourselves. We can also simply force these external companies operating in our country at our holy messy to fund our mission or they will have their businesses repossessed by this government of the people by the people.
My friends and comrades, you are either with me or you are not with me. If you do not have the spine, if you are ethical or controlled by your good morals then you do not belong to ZANU PF. We need to forget about this monster called rule of law. We are above the law. We are in fact the law itself, so on that score you do not need to worry because your activities are covered for anything we do on behalf of ZANU PF and the President. We have our people in the judiciary to take care of any legal challenges by our desperate opposition parties. If you cannot perpetrate violence, maim or torture misguided elements bent on attempting to topple our president I will request you to go and get a few lessons from comrade Chiwenga who is happy to show you how it's done. Comrades, violence pays. We subdued ZAPU to extinction in the eighties killing 20000 of its followers and thereafter our power nourished. We defeated MDC with a violent campaign in the presidential rerun in 2008. What happened? Morgan went into hiding in some embassy and we won with no opposition at all. We cannot afford to leave anything to chance, this is a do or die scenario. Our aim is to win these elections at all cost. Anything that stands in our way will be met with the resistance it deserves. I must seriously remind you comrades that you are all signatories to the ZANU PF code of secrecy, the confidentiality of sharing of information and a duty of loyalty to our president, the only centre of power. The consequences of any breach of our oath in the service of ZANU PF and the President are well known to every one of you. There is no need to give any further details on this requirement.
Our election rigging strategic objectives of 2013 remain unchanged. Our objectives as you know are to manipulate the voter registration process, disenfranchise voters in the opposition strong holds, create ghost voters on the voters roll, impersonate people in the diaspora and the dead to vote on their behalf, reduce polling stations in the opposition strong hold and increase them in our own strong holds, create secret provincial centres for staffing of ballot papers, disrupt opposition parties rallies and even arrest them on any charge we may think of, intensify political ganagsterism using our youth brigades and militias, create a sense of insecurity and fear to drive away potential voters in the opposition strong holds, create overnight settlements at strategic constituencies and abandon them after the elections, delay the delivery of ballot boxes to opposition strong holds and if possible deliver them with ballot papers mixed up or wrong ones to delay the start of voting but keep the voting closing time unchanged, create unorthodox methods of transferring ballot boxes to locations to allow staffed ballot boxes to be loaded on the way and always ignore cries electoral foul play. It's now the right time to start distributing food aid in the name of ZANU PF in exchange of votes and ensure that the recipients of food aid have ZANU PF cards. Our campaign is to make promises of 2 million jobs under the ZimAsset programme. Give figures pointing to the success of the programme. Promise the youths several housing stands and conduct ground breaking ceremonies showing a few youths receiving stands. The strategy will motivate more youths to join and vote for us in the hope of getting housing stands too.
Our secret election rigging organisational structure worked well in the 2013 elections rigging mission. We will therefore maintain the same structure. We have at the top, the national executive rigging elections committee, and below it are the provincial rigging command centres; constituency rigging coordinating teams and polling stations rigging teams. All of them will be staffed with our trusted and no nonsense members of our security forces. Our security forces will be given overriding powers and authority of implementing our rigging action plans. They will report directly to the national executive committee and to the president. The Zimbabwe electoral commission is under our command. We instruct them on what to do. ZEC is only there as a window dresser to the world but our rigging committee welds the power and it is in charge of operations behind the scenes. We have instructed the Zimbabwe electoral commission to engage the opposition parties at a superficial level to create a perception of transparency so as to reduce complains about the credibility of our win. Let them spend all their time forming NERA and CODE and conducting protests against us. It is good for us as this reduces scrutiny on our rigging activities.
I must reiterate that there will be a few changes in the composition of the secret national rigging executive committee. Unfortunately Nicolas Goche was purged. He served us well in the last rigging committee. We are not sure about the position of Saviour Kasukuwere being included in the rigging committee. There are signs that he is becoming a prodigal son. We really do not know what to do with Emmerson Mnangagwa whether to include or exclude him this time. His association with team lacoste leaves us hesitant to trust him anymore. Jonathan is a clever destructive lad. We are also reluctant to include him in the rigging committee as we are concerned that he might let the cat out as he is an addict of tweeter and he has this appetite for being mouthy. I have warned my wife to tone down her wild speeches and rants; so do not be surprised that she is less vocal of late but I must however add that she is ready to be the next president of our Zimbabwe if she is chosen by the people to lead them. We will keep all the members of the top security forces that were in the previous rigging committee, without them we could not have succeeded in winning the 2013 elections.
Comrades, if we win you will be rewarded handsomely.
Source - Themba Mthethwa
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