'CCC will announce results on 24 August!' Yeah and prime street protests. We've travelled this path in 2018!

Nelson Chamisa and company's child-like stupidity never seize to amaze and infuriate me.

"We have told ZEC that yakafamba kamwe haiteyewi. What you did in 2018, that rigging cannot be repeated again. I am a peace loving man. I love peace and I am going to maintain peace. Loving peace is not a weakness," Chamisa told the CCC multitude the other day.

"We want to see the voters' roll you are going to use and that voters' roll must be authenticated so that we are not going to be surprised on the day. We want the ballot paper for the President and for the MPs to be given to us as samples so that we validate them."

ZEC is obliged to produce a verified voters' roll at least one calendar month before nomination day, which for these 2023 elections was 21 June 2023. ZEC has never ever produced a verified voters' roll before nomination day or after. Never ever!

Chamisa said MDC A, of which he was the presidential candidate, would not participate in the 2018 elections without a verified voters' roll. "This was a mistake Morgan Tsvangirai made in the past. A mistake he will not make!" he warned.

Zanu PF knew this was just grandstanding and political posturing. "Shiri maririre ayo!" The party knew MDC A were corrupt and incompetent and the promise of winning a few gravy train seats would entice them to participate in the elections without a verified voters' roll. MDC A members were falling over each other to submit their nomination papers knowing fully well there was no verified voters' roll.

Both Tendai Biti and David Coltart are some of the opposition leaders who have admit on the sheer futility of participating in these flawed Zimbabwe elections.

"Look, you can't keep on participating in flawed electoral processes that serve to give big benefits to dictators such as Robert Mugabe. Mugabe has perfected the art of winning elections. So it will be very foolish for the opposition to continue legitimizing these sham elections which don't deliver,"said Tendai Biti in a 2015 interview with Isaac Mugabi.

"So you can't continue subjecting Zimbabweans to processes where their hopes just get crushed."

Coltart went one step further and explained why the opposition are all participating in these flawed elections knowing fully well they are only giving vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy. Greed!

"The (2013) 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," confessed David Coltart in his Book, The Struggle Continues 50 years of Tyranny in Zimbabwe.

The pressure to have a verified voters' roll for these 2023 elections  was  made unbearable when Team Pachedu revealed the chaotic state of the snippet voters' roll they had managed to access.

Whilst Chamisa and company made lip-service demands for a verified voters' roll they pointedly refused to make the production of the verified voters' roll a condition for CCC's participation in these 2023 elections. They knew it would be pointless as greed still ruled the roost.

So Chamisa's call to "see the voters' roll" on the eve of voting day must be dismissed with the contempt it rightly deserve. No one can authenticate the voters' roll of 6 million in just a few days. Even if they can, to what end and purpose since the voting is set for 23 August 2023? Why did you leave it for the last minute?

"What you did in 2018, that rigging cannot be repeated again. I am a peace loving man." Well that is just nonsense since the failure to produce verified voters' roll is one of key vote rigging tools at Zanu PF's disposal! As for Chamisa being a peace loving man that too is rhetorical nonsense. We have travelled down this path before and we certainly don't want to do so again.

"I have told SADC that Zanu-PF wants to get the presidential result before reporting it to ZEC but once we get the result we will tell the world what we got ourselves, we will not accept that.

"We will have the result by end of the next day."

Chamisa and company announced that Chamisa had won the 2018 presidential race ahead of ZEC official announcement primed the MDC A supporters to go out in the street to demand the results on 1st August 2018. Soldiers with standing instructions to shoot to kill awaited the protesters. Was that the acts of a peace loving man!

If CCC announce the presidential results on 24 August, there is a real danger of history repeating itself.

What is infuriating here is that Nelson Chamisa and company not only wasted many golden opportunities to implement the democratic reforms to stop Zanu PF rigging the elections but have knowingly given vote rigging Zanu PF legitimacy by insisting on participating in flawed elections.

Having given Zanu PF the opportunity to rig elections and get away with it; Chamisa wants to wrestle power from Zanu PF using defenceless civilians as cannon fodder! This is insane, the carry-on must be stopped and Chamisa et al must know they will be held to account for their blatant betrayal in all this madness!