Opposition participate in illegal elections for povo's 'welfare' - how has povo ever benefited from rigged elections

Zimbabwe is in this economic mess with unemployment level a dizzying 90%, no clean water, health care service that has all but collapsed, etc. because the country has been stuck these last 38 years with a corrupt, incompetent and Zanu-PF regime. In a healthy and functional democracy the electorate would have been removed the party from power as soon as the people realised the regime was incompetent and corrupt. Zimbabwe is not a healthy and functioning democratic nation.

Ever since Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF regime first got into power in 1980 they have corrupted our state institutions such as ZEC, the Court, the Police, etc. to create a de facto one-party dictatorship in which the party has carte blanche dictatorial powers to deny the people their freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country and even the right to life.

So instead of state institutions like ZEC, Constitutional Court, etc. carrying out their statutory duty of delivering free, fair and credible elections, for example, they are helping Zanu-PF rig the elections by ignoring the rules or turning a blind-eye to Zanu-PF lawlessness.

The principle task of the opposition leaders' is to safe guard the country's democratic constitution and institutions and to hold the ruling Zanu-PF party to account. The tragedy for Zimbabwe is the opposition have turned out to be hopelessly incompetent and corrupt. There have been many golden opportunities to end the Zanu-PF dictators but they have all been wasted because the opposition sold-out.

Zimbabwe's opposition are so incompetent and corrupt they are now the milestone weighing the nation down in its fight for free, fair and credible elections. It was bad enough that the opposition participated in last year's elections regardless of the election process being flawed and illegal; they were warned of this but chose to disregard the warning. It is very disappointing that the opposition leaders have now taken it upon themselves to claim the vote rigging Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF party are legitimate!

"According to the MDC-T, the question of Mnangagwa's legitimacy is misplaced because his administration was declared duly elected by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the Constitutional Court after the tightly- contested harmonised polls in July last year," reported Bulawayo 24/ Daily News.

"This government is recognised by SADC, AU, EU, USA and the UN; therefore to any logical person it becomes apparent that any way forward can only come through dialogue," MDC-T national chair Abednico Bhebhe told journalists here on Friday.

"Does this mean we agree with this government? Of course we don't, hence the dialogue. But for us the welfare of Zimbabwe and her people trumps any personal ambition. It is not going to be easy but the dialogue needs mature people and if we did not participate who was going to be the adult in that room," added Bhebhe.

Mr Bhebhe and his like-minded friends in opposition and the ruling party are forgetting that political legitimacy is not whatever ZEC or the Constitution Court says because these institutions are manned by mortals who may be corrupt and/or incompetent. The UN Declaration of Human Rights has spelt out the basic rules that must be fulfilled to ensure free, fair and credible elections whose result is beyond question and dispute.

Article 21.
 
(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

The EU, USA, the Commonwealth and many other nations and organisation who had election observers noted in their reports the many glaring flaws and illegalities in last year's election.

"Notably, major shortcomings in the pre-election environment impacted on the free expression of the will of electors, state resources were misused in favour of the incumbent and coverage by state media was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party. Further, the electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner," stated the EU Election Observer Mission final report.

"The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability. Finally, the restrictions on political freedoms, the excessive use of force by security forces and abuses of human rights in the post-election period undermined the corresponding positive aspects during the pre-election campaign.

"As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards."

The Americans and the British have gone one step further and confirmed they will NOT lift the targeted sanctions and broke up the re-engagement efforts they had undertaken, respectively. They have made it clear they imposed these measures because Zanu-PF had failed to honour its promise to hold free, fair and credible elections.

In his book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of tyranny in Zimbabwe, former MDC – Ncube Senator and Minister of Education in the GNU, David Coltart, admitted that it was greed that made the opposition participated in flawed and illegal elections.

"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 (2013) elections," he wrote.

"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."

A number of MDC factions did come together to form a coalition just before last year's elections but that did not stop them participating in the elections regardless of fact that not even one reform had been implemented since the 2013 elections. Again, it was greed that got the better of them.

So Zimbabwe's opposition know the elections will only be judged free, fair and credible if the process does not have flaws and illegalities. They know last year's elections had glaring flaws and illegalities but are ignoring this and accepting ZEC and Constitutional Court's judgement on the matter to hide their own greed.

The international community was surprised that Zimbabwe's opposition candidates were so naïve and competent they participated in last year's elections something as basic as a verified voters' roll. After that fiasco, no one is at all surprised that the opposition are participation in these political dialogues geared to confirm Zanu-PF's legitimacy for a share of the gravy train spoils of power. Chamisa is holding out from joining the dialogue in the hope of Mnangagwa will offer him a big bribe!

By blatantly rigging last year's elections, Zanu-PF confirmed Zimbabwe is still a pariah state ruled by corrupt and vote rigging thugs. As long as Zimbabwe remains a pariah state the international community will continue to shy away from doing any business in the country. The opposition's participation in last year's flawed and illegal elections did not fool the international community to believing the elections were free and fair. By the same token, the addition of opposition candidate(s) to this illegitimate Zanu-PF regime will not transform it into a legitimate one.

"We are participating in the illegal elections and meaningless dialogue for welfare of the people!" No, you are selling-out out of greed!