Grace Mugabe's role in Chamisa Court Case

On July 28th, Nelson Chamisa announced the MDC was broke. Addressing his final campaign rally, he stated, "We do not have enough money…we do not have resources."

The next day, July 30th, with Grace standing behind him, guiding the proceedings, Robert Mugabe confirmed what we had all known for months. That he (and mainly his wife) were allying with Nelson Chamisa in order to defeat ED.

What Chamisa promised for their support is the subject of much debate, with the Vice-Presidency the most likely position.

Upon losing the election, Grace was heartbroken. Her dream of becoming Vice-President, and de-factoPresident, was in ruins. Her ill-gotten fortune was now at risk, with ED having committed to tackling corruption following his victory.

And so she concocted a new plan – what she failed to do through the ballot box (and through a grenade as many people claim), she would do through the courts.

Chamisa, who was initially reluctant to go down the legal route, was suddenly committed to this course of action. And most surprisingly, a party that two days before the election had admitted to being broke, now had hired the most expensive legal team in Zimbabwean history, including multiple well-paid foreigners. How can Chamisa explain how a party that couldn't afford t-shirts for its supporters, now was paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to leading international law firms?

This development should concern all Zimbabweans. While the legal route is obviously preferable to the route of violence, Chamisa clearly has a very weak case. The results were completely in line with all pre-election polling and with the independent ZESN tallies. Further, for all the social media noise, no concrete evidence of irregularities has emerged. So this case is little more than a nuisance case, a political exercise that will be rejected in a matter of days.

But the real concern is the impact it has on the country. After a tense two weeks, we need to put the election behind us. We need to focus on rebuilding our economy. All this waiting around just makes our economic suffering worse.

Take the case of Kenya. Uhuru won the election in August 2017, but it took until late October for the results to finally be confirmed (after a costly and pointless re-run), and until March 2018, seven months later, for the opposition to accept the result. Those seven months saw the Kenyan economy completely stall, with devastating consequences that are only beginning to be undone now. We cannot afford that!

Of course, this matters little to Grace and Bob. They have money, plenty of it. They are in a fight for their political lives and will do whatever they have to in order to survive.

Nelson Chamisa is a pawn in their game. The expensive lawyers are pawns in their game. The Zimbabwean people are pawns in their game!

We cannot let Grace's money subvert the democratic will of the people. If we do, we will all suffer the consequences for decades to come!