Chiefs must reject Mugabe $6m Isuzu bribe, argue MDC - hypocrites took their GNU bribe

President Mugabe has just splashed US$6 million buying Isuzu twin-cab vehicles for country's 226 chiefs. The news has sparred the usual suspects to respond with their usual blast of hot air full of sound and fury but signifying nothing!

"It, thus, cannot escape scrutiny that there is a sinister and ulterior motive behind the Zanu-PF regime's decision to buy motor vehicles for chiefs at this juncture," fired Obert Gutu the spokesman of MDC-T, "Zimbabwe's biggest and most popular political party" he often boasts.

"At a time when the public health delivery system has virtually collapsed and when most of the country's district hospitals do not even have an ambulance, one can easily conclude that the decision to buy these motor vehicles for the chiefs is nothing but a blatant vote-buying exercise by the desperate, crumbling and bankrupt Zanu-PF regime.

"Chief Fortune Charumbira, the president of the Chiefs' Council, was recently quoted openly calling upon chiefs to campaign for Zanu-PF in the forthcoming election because the regime had bought them cars.

"Chiefs shouldn't be reduced to become Zanu-PF political commissars, whose loyalty and support is bought by the purchase of cars and other perks."

These opposition idiots would try the patience of a saint to destruction, and I am no saint and have lost all patience!

Gutu, we know Zanu PF is using the new cars as a carrot to motivate the chiefs to wield their very large sticks – deny all those who dare step out of line food aid, agricultural input, harass, beat and even boot them out of their homes - to corral povo to register and then vote for Zanu PF. Zanu PF has been doing this for the last 37 years it is part and parcel of the party's modus operandi!
 
The whole purpose of the 2008 to 2013 GNU was to implement the raft of democratic reforms designed to severe the undemocratic influence and control Zanu PF has over the nation's traditional leaders, Police, Judiciary, ZEC, etc. You Mr Obert Gutu, were a deputy minister in that GNU, and your fellow MDC leaders failed to get even one reform implemented in five years. Not one!

SADC leaders, if you could not figure it out for yourselves, advised MDC leaders not to contest any elections without implementing the reforms first because Zanu PF will just use its undemocratic control over the Chiefs, etc. to rig the vote. MDC leaders refused to listen and contested the July 2013 elections which Zanu PF blatantly rigged.

Now MDC leaders want to drag the nation into yet another utterly meaningless election process in which the same routine of Chiefs, with their palms well-greased, herd povo like cattle to the dip-tank! And Obert Gutu and his opposition friends can do is pay lip-service to condemning Zanu PF's corrupting influence but will not do anything to end for their own selfish reason. It is no secret that Obert Gutu and his opposition friends will contest Zimbabwe's flawed elections regardless how flawed and illegal they become, as long as there a few gravy train seats on offer.

Since the fiasco of the 2008 elections, Zanu PF has since learnt that it can continue rigging the vote as long as it throws away a few gravy train seats to entice the opposition contest the flawed elections. By contest the flawed elections, the opposition will give the flawed election process some credibility and acceptance which is all Zanu PF wants.

"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," was Senator Coltart's excuse for contesting the flawed July 2013 elections.

"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 factions have since united to form the MDC Alliance with every intention to contest next year's elections and not to boycott. Boycotting the flawed and illegal elections is the obvious thing to do, even more so now than in 2013. They are not boycotting because greed has trumped reason!
"Our traditional leaders are the pillars of our cultural values and ethos and we are pretty sure that they would prefer to have an arrangement whereby more pressing national issues are attended to first before they can get delivery of their new cars," concluded Gutu.

What a hypocrite! Was it not for the similar thirty pieces of silver - the trappings of high office, generous salaries and allowances, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. - that made MDC leaders forget about the reforms for five years of the GNU? Indeed, it is the hope of securing a seat on the gravy train that is stopping you, Gutu and your oppositions, from boycotting elections until reforms are implemented.

The Chiefs cannot refuse the Isuzu vehicles no more than MDC leaders refused the bribe offered to them during the GNU for them to kick reforms into the tall grass! There were pressing national issues during the GNU just as they are today! The national tragedy is that the people, povo, are the ones caught between the corrupt, tyrannical and vote rigging Zanu PF regime, the corrupt and incompetent opposition and the corrupt traditional leaders.