'CCC is causing havoc and inflation' said Big Spender. Stop him rigging and he'll stop lying!

During elections, President Mnangagwa become Mr Bigger Spender! Anyone who is anyone gets something from Mr Big Spender.

Village hears got motorcycles plus free public service medical aid membership. Chiefs got the traditional new twin-cab trucks plus lavish new home steads. CIO directors and judges, whose role in the vote rigging is crucial, have receive US$400 000 housing loans. Zanu PF parliamentary candidates in these elections got new twin-can trucks,  etc. Even the teachers and nurses have finally got a wage increase, after years of endless negotiations. They got 100% wage increase with the low ranking Army, Police, CIO and Prison Services getting a differential 400%.

Where is Mr Big Spender getting all this money from? From all the wholesale looting of the nation's resources, all those benefiting the looting are bankrolling the Zanu PF vote rigging juggernaut. And then there is the option of printing more and more local currency, the Z$!

The increase in the local currency without a corresponding increase in wealth is the essence of inflation and therefore it was no surprise the prices of goods and services started to soar and the value of the Z$ started to fall compared to the US$. Within a matter of a few weeks the exchange rate from Z$200 to Z$ 600 to US$1.00.

The regime first blame the business owners and the street corner money traders. It has gone up the gears, it is now blaming the opposition and the West!

"We in Zanu-PF are building this country while some opposition parties supported by their Western handlers are causing suffering to our people through sanctions and the attack on our currency," President Mnangagwa to Zanu-PF supporters in Masvingo.

"We are aware of those bent on causing havoc in the country by attacking our currency, they will never succeed, and they want our minerals. They want citizens to get frustrated and rise against the Zanu-PF party. They are fighting to take advantage of manufactured poverty.

"These detractors and their surrogates have never had the people of Zimbabwe at heart, our mass revolutionary party is the only party with a vision for the future."

In a country where the ruling party rigs elections, it can say whatever it wants, blame everyone else except itself for all the country's ills, promise the moon on a silver platter, etc., etc. Nothing matters because it is not democratically accountable to anyone. Come elections it will rig, secure its iron grip on political power and to continue to do as it damn well please!

I blame the opposition for the country's sorrow state of economic and political affairs. MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections. As long as Zanu PF is able to rig the elections and impose itself on the nation the party will stifle all meaningful debate on the economy, politics and everything under the sun.

Lest we forget, MDC leaders had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms during the 2008 to 2013 GNU and they sold out. They failed to implement even one token reform in five years. Worse still, MDC/CCC have been participating in these flawed elections to give Zanu PF legitimacy and thus perpetuating the dictatorship.

What makes Zimbabwe's political situation infuriating is that MDC/CCC leaders know it is futile participating in these flawed elections only to give Zanu PF legitimacy but they continue doing so regardless out of selfish greed!

"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," confessed Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

"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."

If Zimbabwe was a healthy and functioning democratic country is which there was healthy public debate on issues, of course, many people will know by now that corruption, not sanctions, is the number one cause the country's economic meltdown.

A few weeks ago an Al Jazeera documentary revealed that Zimbabwe is losing a US$1.6 billion per year to gold smugglers or 80% of its gold. In 2016 the late dictator Robert Mugabe admitted the country had been swindled out of US$15 billion in diamond revenue. He did not say over what period but many believe in five years or so. And so Zimbabwe is losing a staggering US$4.6 b every year to gold and diamond smugglers alone or 17% of its US$28 billion GPD. No nation can expect that level of looting and expect to survive much less prosper.

But most important of all the people would have voted for regime change decades ago!

Zimbabwe is a failed state, 43 years of this corrupt, tyrannical Zanu-PF dictatorship has left the country in economic ruins. The state is failing to provide even the most basic services such as education, health care and clean running water. 49% of the country's population is now living in abject poverty.

The prospect of Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections and thus extend the regime's stay in power to continue riding roughshod of the people's rights, hopes and dreams is simply too gustily to contemplate. And yet this is a political certainty given CCC are hell-bent on participating in these flawed elections for 30 pieces of silver.