Opinion / Columnist
WARNING: both ED and Nero do NOT want you to know this - not before you have voted
26 Jul 2018 at 05:39hrs | Views
It was the great Physicist, Albert Einstein, who said "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result!"
I believe, like many other Zimbabweans now do, that Zanu PF has been rigging elections. There is evidence galore to suggest that Zanu PF is rigging this year's elections; the lack of free public media; ZEC's failure to release a credible, clean and verifies voters' roll; Zanu PF has access to billions of dollars looted from the people which the party is then using to bankroll its vote-buying and vote-rigging schemes when the opposition have no money to fund even a modest campaign; etc.
So after 38 years of rigged elections, 100% convinced that Zanu PF is just doing to rig these elections too and, most important of all, 100% convince that I am NOT insane; I have decided to do the following:
1) I AM NOT GOING TO WASTE MY TIME JOINING THE QUEUE TO TRY AND VOTE ON MONDAY 30 JULY 2018.
2) I AM GOING TO TALK YOU, THE READER AND ANYONE ELSE I CAN REACH, NOT TO BOTHER TO TRY TO VOTE ON MONDAY.
Here are some of the arguments to help make up your own mind:
a) You should participate because these elections are free, fair and credible.
Anyone telling you that is being totally disrespectful of you because it is nonsensical to think you can ever have free, fair and credible elections when you do not a verified voters' roll. Many people who should be on this new voters' roll are not; they were never afforded a reasonable opportunity to register because the whole voter registration was started very late, September 2017, when it should have started January 2015 at the latest.
Many who did register will be denied the chance to vote because they will turn up at the wrong polling station.
In the 2013 elections Zanu PF was able to bus its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple vote because there was no verified voters' roll. There is no verified voters' roll again this year and so it is almost certain that the same or a similar vote rigging scam will be used this year.
So, if you were going to participate in these elections because you believed the process was free and fair; it is not! Now you know.
b) The election process is not free and fair but if we mobilise and voted in numbers then we can still win. We can win rigged elections.
It is true that one can win rigged elections under certain conditions and these conditions must be clearly defined and if there are not met one should have the courage to accept that continuing regardless is futile, insane.
Zanu PF control every aspect of the electoral process and so the party is able effectively to counter all efforts to stop or at least minimize the vote rigging. Zanu PF has responded to the opposition to mobilise the public to register is numbers by cutting the registration period to five months, by would-be registrant all manner of additional details, make the process slow and frustrating, etc., etc. The harder the opposition tried to mobilise the higher Zanu PF raised the bar to make it harder to do so.
Those who persisted and jump all the hoops could not still find they are not on the voters' roll because the powers that be saw to it that the details were never down loaded, posted to the wrong polling station, etc. Since the regime has refused to release the voters' roll many voters will only find out on voting day that they have been denied the vote. Nearly one millions would-be voters were denied the vote in 2013.
There is overwhelming evidence that Zanu PF's vote-buying and vote-rigging powers are so varied and sophisticated that it is no exaggeration to say it is impossible to expect the party to rig the vote and lose the elections. There is a world of difference between someone playing with a loaded dice and one with a dice with sixes on all six sides; Zanu PF has the later! It is insane to bet against Zanu PF throwing a six when you know it can only be a six!
c) I have been in the trenches for decades fighting for democratic change; I am not going to quit now. What is there to lose by fight on.
The right to free, fair and credible elections in a birth right and not a privilege that Zanu PF can grant to some and deny others as the party pleases. By continuing to participate under the above conditions a) or b) one is only reaffirm that it is a privilege.
Should demand the implementation of the democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF's excessive power to blatantly denying you your birth rights. Rules, laws and constitution are there for a purpose you must demand that no one should be above the law. If there are oppressive laws then it is you duty to break them and expose them for what they are.
By participating in a flawed and illegal system you are giving the process legitimacy because even if you are insane, the law assumes that you are sane and know what you are doing; especially when you have been warned the process is flawed. By participating one is therefore forfeiting the chance to push to change because it is assumed the participant is expecting change doing the same thing over and over, insane as it may be to outsiders.
Whilst you spend time, energy and resources fighting a battle you know you will never win you wasting time, energy and resources you should otherwise be spending considering alternative strategies. There are many ways of killing a rat starving yourself to death so you can kill the rat by over feeding it is down-right stupid.
d) I have been in the trenches for decades fighting for democratic change; I am not going to quit now. I am no quitter!
After reading through a), b) and c) above there are only two kind of individuals who will say this. The first one is the opposition politicians, MDC politicians like Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, David Coltart, etc. Zanu PF has allowed the opposition to win a few gravy train seats to keep them interested in contesting the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process may get.
So, when people like Chamisa say; "I am no quitter!" what they are really saying is "I am greed!"
Indeed, MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which would have stop Zanu PF rigging the election during the GNU. They failed to get even one reform implemented because Mugabe bribed them with the trapping of high office and they forgot about the reforms. There is greed for you!
If an ordinary Zimbabwean insist on trying to vote (whether they do or not is another matter) on Monday and they are not doing so out of fear (rural folk know their lives will be hell if Zanu PF candidates in their area should lose) then it must be because they do not understand the explanations above or they are simply insane. By doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result the insane are, after all proving that they are not quitters too!
In conclusion then, ED is rigging these elections, he was already won. Your participation in the process, whether you vote for ED or Nero, will not change the result; all you will do is give the flawed process the modicum of credibility! If you value your vote then you should that neither ED nor Nero value it because they would have never allowed this flawed election process to take place.
Do not even bother to vote because your vote either way is of no consequence. None!
I believe, like many other Zimbabweans now do, that Zanu PF has been rigging elections. There is evidence galore to suggest that Zanu PF is rigging this year's elections; the lack of free public media; ZEC's failure to release a credible, clean and verifies voters' roll; Zanu PF has access to billions of dollars looted from the people which the party is then using to bankroll its vote-buying and vote-rigging schemes when the opposition have no money to fund even a modest campaign; etc.
So after 38 years of rigged elections, 100% convinced that Zanu PF is just doing to rig these elections too and, most important of all, 100% convince that I am NOT insane; I have decided to do the following:
1) I AM NOT GOING TO WASTE MY TIME JOINING THE QUEUE TO TRY AND VOTE ON MONDAY 30 JULY 2018.
2) I AM GOING TO TALK YOU, THE READER AND ANYONE ELSE I CAN REACH, NOT TO BOTHER TO TRY TO VOTE ON MONDAY.
Here are some of the arguments to help make up your own mind:
a) You should participate because these elections are free, fair and credible.
Anyone telling you that is being totally disrespectful of you because it is nonsensical to think you can ever have free, fair and credible elections when you do not a verified voters' roll. Many people who should be on this new voters' roll are not; they were never afforded a reasonable opportunity to register because the whole voter registration was started very late, September 2017, when it should have started January 2015 at the latest.
Many who did register will be denied the chance to vote because they will turn up at the wrong polling station.
In the 2013 elections Zanu PF was able to bus its supporters from one polling station to the next casting multiple vote because there was no verified voters' roll. There is no verified voters' roll again this year and so it is almost certain that the same or a similar vote rigging scam will be used this year.
So, if you were going to participate in these elections because you believed the process was free and fair; it is not! Now you know.
b) The election process is not free and fair but if we mobilise and voted in numbers then we can still win. We can win rigged elections.
It is true that one can win rigged elections under certain conditions and these conditions must be clearly defined and if there are not met one should have the courage to accept that continuing regardless is futile, insane.
Zanu PF control every aspect of the electoral process and so the party is able effectively to counter all efforts to stop or at least minimize the vote rigging. Zanu PF has responded to the opposition to mobilise the public to register is numbers by cutting the registration period to five months, by would-be registrant all manner of additional details, make the process slow and frustrating, etc., etc. The harder the opposition tried to mobilise the higher Zanu PF raised the bar to make it harder to do so.
Those who persisted and jump all the hoops could not still find they are not on the voters' roll because the powers that be saw to it that the details were never down loaded, posted to the wrong polling station, etc. Since the regime has refused to release the voters' roll many voters will only find out on voting day that they have been denied the vote. Nearly one millions would-be voters were denied the vote in 2013.
There is overwhelming evidence that Zanu PF's vote-buying and vote-rigging powers are so varied and sophisticated that it is no exaggeration to say it is impossible to expect the party to rig the vote and lose the elections. There is a world of difference between someone playing with a loaded dice and one with a dice with sixes on all six sides; Zanu PF has the later! It is insane to bet against Zanu PF throwing a six when you know it can only be a six!
c) I have been in the trenches for decades fighting for democratic change; I am not going to quit now. What is there to lose by fight on.
The right to free, fair and credible elections in a birth right and not a privilege that Zanu PF can grant to some and deny others as the party pleases. By continuing to participate under the above conditions a) or b) one is only reaffirm that it is a privilege.
Should demand the implementation of the democratic reforms designed to end Zanu PF's excessive power to blatantly denying you your birth rights. Rules, laws and constitution are there for a purpose you must demand that no one should be above the law. If there are oppressive laws then it is you duty to break them and expose them for what they are.
By participating in a flawed and illegal system you are giving the process legitimacy because even if you are insane, the law assumes that you are sane and know what you are doing; especially when you have been warned the process is flawed. By participating one is therefore forfeiting the chance to push to change because it is assumed the participant is expecting change doing the same thing over and over, insane as it may be to outsiders.
Whilst you spend time, energy and resources fighting a battle you know you will never win you wasting time, energy and resources you should otherwise be spending considering alternative strategies. There are many ways of killing a rat starving yourself to death so you can kill the rat by over feeding it is down-right stupid.
d) I have been in the trenches for decades fighting for democratic change; I am not going to quit now. I am no quitter!
After reading through a), b) and c) above there are only two kind of individuals who will say this. The first one is the opposition politicians, MDC politicians like Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube, David Coltart, etc. Zanu PF has allowed the opposition to win a few gravy train seats to keep them interested in contesting the elections regardless how flawed and illegal the process may get.
So, when people like Chamisa say; "I am no quitter!" what they are really saying is "I am greed!"
Indeed, MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which would have stop Zanu PF rigging the election during the GNU. They failed to get even one reform implemented because Mugabe bribed them with the trapping of high office and they forgot about the reforms. There is greed for you!
If an ordinary Zimbabwean insist on trying to vote (whether they do or not is another matter) on Monday and they are not doing so out of fear (rural folk know their lives will be hell if Zanu PF candidates in their area should lose) then it must be because they do not understand the explanations above or they are simply insane. By doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result the insane are, after all proving that they are not quitters too!
In conclusion then, ED is rigging these elections, he was already won. Your participation in the process, whether you vote for ED or Nero, will not change the result; all you will do is give the flawed process the modicum of credibility! If you value your vote then you should that neither ED nor Nero value it because they would have never allowed this flawed election process to take place.
Do not even bother to vote because your vote either way is of no consequence. None!
Source - zsdemocrats.blogspot.co.uk
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