Opinion / Columnist
MDC want 2018 elections postponed 'but not GNU 2' - In the name of God, just go
26 Oct 2017 at 04:29hrs | Views
It has been years, over ten years including the wasted GNU years, in coming but finally it here - MDC has finally admitted it is foolish to contest election without implementing the reforms.
"Chances are if we go for elections in 2018, the plebiscite will be so massively rigged in favour of the incumbent ruling party to such an extent that no right-thinking person will term the election free and fair," said MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu.
Not even a month ago, Gutu was the one boosting that the party had devised "Winning In Rigged Elections, WIRE for short, strategies guaranteed to deliver opposition victory. Of course, if you have strategies to deal with all the vote rigging shenanigans, you do not worry about the vote being rigged!
Sadly, it was all MDC hot air as the on-going BVR exercise showed. Some of us pointing out that the very fact that the voter registration was only starting with less that a year before voting day meaning ZEC will not be able to register the 7 million expected and also produce a verified voters' roll in time for the elections. This means hundreds of thousands will be denied the chance to register and, worse still, it is ridiculous to expect the election to be free, fair and credible when there is no know who is on the voters' roll and who voted! It seems, the penny has only now, finally dropped in the empty heads in Harvest House.
"ZEC is simply not up to scratch. As presently constituted, it would be much easier for one to sell ice to an Eskimo than to expect ZEC to conduct a free and fair election next year. The ongoing BVR exercise has come a shed too late," admitted Gutu.
"It will definitely not be able to produce a credible and legitimate national voters' roll in time for the 2018 plebiscite. Experiences in other parts of Africa such as Uganda, Kenya, Cameroun and Namibia, show that the electoral body needed at least three years to roll out an efficient and credible biometric voter registration exercise."
Morgan Tsvangirai and co. dragged the nation into a totally pointless election process in July 2013 knowing fully well that the process was flawed and illegal. SADC leaders warned them not to contest the flawed elections but the warning fell on deaf ears. And now they were trying to drag the nation into yet another futile election.
The evidence that the 2018 elections would be rigged have been mounting and it was just a matter of time before the opposition politicians were forced to admit the elections would be rigged. The opposition has been losing political credibility by the day it was now certain SADC and the rest of the world were going to reject next year's elections as a sham.
It was not that MDC leaders have been slow to realise the elections were flawed; they have known that but they still wanted to contest out of greed as David Coltart, MDC Minister of Education in the GNU readily admitted in his book.
"The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn't now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections," explained Senator Coltart.
"The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility."
The three main MDC faction have since formed the MDC Alliance but there was no talk of boycotting the elections, until no, because of greed. As long as long Zanu PF was throwing away the few gravy train seats as bait the opposition was going to contest the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process.
The growing mountain of evidence that Zanu PF is already rigging the elections and the opposition has no chance of winning the rigged elections, they are contesting for the scraps, has all forced the opposition to finally admit that contesting the elections with no reforms was insane!
"This writer is not, by any stretch of the imagination, proposing that Zimbabwe should have a GNU (Government of National Unity) 2; not at all," concluded Gutu.
There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of GNU, the country will need some form of government arrangement which will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. What was wrong with the 2008 to 2013 GNU was that it failed to get even one democratic reform implemented; that will not happen again, you can be certain of that!
For a start, you Mr Obert Gutu and your MDC friends and Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies will not be consulted as to what format GNU mark 2 should take much less be invited to play any role. You lot had many golden opportunities during the last GNU to implement the democratic reforms and get the country out of the mess and you wasted them all. Now, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
The people of Zimbabwe will all join Oliver Cromwell in his dismissing a sleazy, corrupt and utterly useless parliament of his day!
"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
"Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone!
"So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"
In like language and like spirit this corrupt and murderous Mugabe regime complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition must go. In the name of God, go!
"Chances are if we go for elections in 2018, the plebiscite will be so massively rigged in favour of the incumbent ruling party to such an extent that no right-thinking person will term the election free and fair," said MDC-T spokesman, Obert Gutu.
Not even a month ago, Gutu was the one boosting that the party had devised "Winning In Rigged Elections, WIRE for short, strategies guaranteed to deliver opposition victory. Of course, if you have strategies to deal with all the vote rigging shenanigans, you do not worry about the vote being rigged!
Sadly, it was all MDC hot air as the on-going BVR exercise showed. Some of us pointing out that the very fact that the voter registration was only starting with less that a year before voting day meaning ZEC will not be able to register the 7 million expected and also produce a verified voters' roll in time for the elections. This means hundreds of thousands will be denied the chance to register and, worse still, it is ridiculous to expect the election to be free, fair and credible when there is no know who is on the voters' roll and who voted! It seems, the penny has only now, finally dropped in the empty heads in Harvest House.
"ZEC is simply not up to scratch. As presently constituted, it would be much easier for one to sell ice to an Eskimo than to expect ZEC to conduct a free and fair election next year. The ongoing BVR exercise has come a shed too late," admitted Gutu.
"It will definitely not be able to produce a credible and legitimate national voters' roll in time for the 2018 plebiscite. Experiences in other parts of Africa such as Uganda, Kenya, Cameroun and Namibia, show that the electoral body needed at least three years to roll out an efficient and credible biometric voter registration exercise."
Morgan Tsvangirai and co. dragged the nation into a totally pointless election process in July 2013 knowing fully well that the process was flawed and illegal. SADC leaders warned them not to contest the flawed elections but the warning fell on deaf ears. And now they were trying to drag the nation into yet another futile election.
The evidence that the 2018 elections would be rigged have been mounting and it was just a matter of time before the opposition politicians were forced to admit the elections would be rigged. The opposition has been losing political credibility by the day it was now certain SADC and the rest of the world were going to reject next year's elections as a sham.
It was not that MDC leaders have been slow to realise the elections were flawed; they have known that but they still wanted to contest out of greed as David Coltart, MDC Minister of Education in the GNU readily admitted in his book.
"The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility."
The three main MDC faction have since formed the MDC Alliance but there was no talk of boycotting the elections, until no, because of greed. As long as long Zanu PF was throwing away the few gravy train seats as bait the opposition was going to contest the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process.
The growing mountain of evidence that Zanu PF is already rigging the elections and the opposition has no chance of winning the rigged elections, they are contesting for the scraps, has all forced the opposition to finally admit that contesting the elections with no reforms was insane!
"This writer is not, by any stretch of the imagination, proposing that Zimbabwe should have a GNU (Government of National Unity) 2; not at all," concluded Gutu.
There was nothing intrinsically wrong with the concept of GNU, the country will need some form of government arrangement which will be tasked to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. What was wrong with the 2008 to 2013 GNU was that it failed to get even one democratic reform implemented; that will not happen again, you can be certain of that!
For a start, you Mr Obert Gutu and your MDC friends and Mugabe and his Zanu PF cronies will not be consulted as to what format GNU mark 2 should take much less be invited to play any role. You lot had many golden opportunities during the last GNU to implement the democratic reforms and get the country out of the mess and you wasted them all. Now, you are part of the problem, not the solution.
The people of Zimbabwe will all join Oliver Cromwell in his dismissing a sleazy, corrupt and utterly useless parliament of his day!
"It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money. Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess?
"Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth? Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone!
"So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!"
In like language and like spirit this corrupt and murderous Mugabe regime complete with its entourage of corrupt and incompetent opposition must go. In the name of God, go!
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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