'We are stuck with ED,' says Cross - nonsense, only if MDC contest flawed elections again

Zimbabwe's curse is not only in having Zanu PF, a party of corrupt, vote rigging, coup staging and murderous thugs but to be stuck with the regime because we also have a corrupt, incompetent and utterly useless opposition. It is disappointing that MDC leaders have never grasped their serious shortcomings and thus continue to blunder from pillar to post.

"The new team in power are clearly trying to change things for the better," wrote Eddie Cross. "They have no choice as elections loom and must be fought in just 7 months' time. They know that they have a real challenge ahead of them; they are committed to a free and fair election, they know they have not made any friends in what they have done over the past 4 years, and they know that that must, to a very great extent, carry the baggage left over from the Mugabe era.

"For all of us we must accept that this agenda is also in our interests – even if we are in the opposition. These are national and not parochial problems that must be tackled if any of us are going to have any sort of future. The MDC and especially Morgan Tsvangirai have brought democracy back to Zimbabwe and restored our rights as a people. But right now, with his illness, other than offering opposition and curbing the excesses of any future government, we are probably stuck with ED and that is our dilemma. We have no choice but to make it work."

First things first, Eddie Cross can repeat the lie that "the MDC and especially Morgan Tsvangirai have brought democracy back to Zimbabwe and restored our rights as a people" a million times and a million times again. Nothing will change, it will still be a damned lie!

The people of Zimbabwe have risked life and limb to elect Tsvangirai, Cross and the rest MDC on the promise they will deliver democratic change, as their party name imply, and central to that change was to stop Zanu PF rigging elections to allow free, fair and credible elections. Since MDC took centre political stage in 1999, the party has had many opportunities to deliver the democratic changes with the golden opportunities coming during the 2008 to 2013 GNU. All the MDC leaders had to do then was implement the raft of democratic reforms which Mugabe had already agreed to in the Global Political Agreement (GPA) of which SADC was the guarantor.

Robert Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the honey trappings of high office; limos, generous salaries, a $4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc., etc.; and they forgot about the reforms. SADC leaders did their best to remind MDC leaders to implement the reforms but they were ignored.

In five years of the GNU, Tsvangirai & co. failed to implement even one democratic reform. Not even one! It is therefore an insult to the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans MDC leaders sold-out by failing to implement to hear a very senior MDC leader like MP Cross claiming MDC restored democracy and people's freedoms and rights in Zimbabwe.

The fight to have the democratic reforms implemented to ensure free, fair and credible elections was at the heart of the nation's struggle in 1999 and is still at the heart of our struggle as a nation today. Nothing, absolutely nothing, of substance will ever be accomplished until we stop the curse of rigged elections and the corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical regime such elections produce.

The one thing we cannot ascribe to President Mnangagwa and his coup-plotter regime is that they will implement democratic reforms before the elections or ever. They are the thugs who have masterminded and executed all the vote rigging, political repression and thuggery, riding roughshod over our people's freedoms and human rights, to impose the de facto one-party, Zanu PF, dictatorship all these years. When, their old boss, Mugabe, threaten to wrestle power from them the stage a coup to stop him and seized absolute power for themselves.

Anyone who thinks that Minister P Shiri, Minister S Moyo, VP Chiwenga and all the other coup plotter who are clearly enjoying their new-found power and influence will risk losing it all in a free, fair and credible elections is naïve. These thugs have rigged elections in the past to keep Mugabe and others in power and now they will not do the same to keep themselves in power! Be real!

There is no doubt that President Mnangagwa and his team are passionate about wanting to do something to revive the Zimbabwe economy and they have already undertaken to do some positive things. Mnangagwa's zeal is no different from Mugabe's scientific socialism zeal soon after independence. It is a historic fact that Mugabe's "Gutsva ruzhinji!" (Mass prosperity!" policies brought free education and health care, price controls, wage increases, etc. Many of the feel-good achievements did not last but the people did feel good whilst the lasted. No doubt Mnangagwa will score so economic successes, particularly given the sorry state the economy is in, and deliver some feel-good accomplishments.

The principal reason Zimbabwe is in this sorry economic and political mess is not so much that Zanu PF was corrupt and incompetent, that was the principal reason the first five years or so; thereafter it was our failure to remove the regime from office. The party eroded the people's freedoms and human rights under the pretext these were petty bourgeois values the nation should not waste time on and concentrate on the bread and butter issues of Gutsva ruzhinji.

It was only when the party's mass prosperity was turning into mass poverty that people wanted to exercise their right to have a meaningful say in who ruled the nation that they discovered they had lost the right to a free vote. The nation has been fighting to get the democratic reforms implemented since the late 1990s, as stated above, and, also as stated above nothing will be accomplished until restore the individual freedoms and rights.

If this year's elections are held without implementing the reforms then President Mnangagwa and his cronies will be allowed to carry through the carte blanche tyrannical powers that Zanu PF has used all these last 38 years to rig elections and stay in power. We should have never allowed Mugabe to establish the de facto one-party state in the first place and have paid dearly for our folly. No regime should ever again be allowed to usurp the people's power to hold it to democratic account.

It will be folly to allow this Mnangagwa regime to fail to implement reform necessary for free and fair elections and get away with it.

"But right now, with his (Tsvangirai) illness, other than offering opposition and curbing the excesses of any future government, we are probably stuck with ED and that is our dilemma. We have no choice but to make it work," says Eddie Cross.

Of course, we are NOT "stuck with ED", this is just another feeble MDC excuse for contesting this year's elections with no reforms implemented just as they did in July 2013.
 
"If you go into elections next month, you are going to lose; the elections are done!" SADC leaders had warned MDC leaders at the time.

As we know, MDC leaders ignored the warning and Zanu PF rigged the elections. The nation has paid dearly for having another five years of Zanu PF rule. It will be folly to allow Zanu PF to rig this year's elections too, knowing the regime will use the five years to consolidate its hold on power and its ability to rig future elections. We do not want to be stuck with this Mnangagwa cabal just as we have been stuck with Mugabe! We must end the culture of rigged elections, this year and not postpone that fights to 2023!   

It is insane to keep contesting elections one knows are flawed and illegal. We must stop the madness; we must refuse to take part in any elections until all reforms are implemented. If Zanu PF and some of the corrupt and incompetent opposition parties disregard our demands and go ahead with the flawed and illegal elections; we must make sure the process is declared null and void!

It is all very well for MP Cross to say Mnangagwa is "committed to a free and fair election". He has not implemented even one of the raft of democratic reforms required for free elections and, for many of the reforms, he has already run out of time!

President Mnangagwa is shrewd enough to know he needs to hold free and fair elections to correct the illegitimate label earned by staging the coup but after 37 years of rigging elections he and his cronies do not have the political will and courage abandon their old ways and risk losing power!