Opinion / Columnist
Mnangagwa will never ever win free elections - not with that 'GUKURAHUNDI' tattoo
25 Mar 2016 at 21:30hrs | Views
"Vice President, Emmerson Mnangagwa, is going to finish off President Robert Mugabe's term in office, amid top secret disclosures that, a cross-section of International players are reportedly embracing and endorsing Mnangagwa, behind the curtains to bring economic stimulus to Hara-re," Spotlight Zimbabwe reported.
No thinking man or woman will have any problem with Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe to the 2018 finish line. The takeover will be good for the country, if for nothing else, in that it will end the dangerous and very destabilizing factional war that has raging on and on in Zanu PF for the last two years.
What Mnangagwa's backers must understand, however, is his takeover to 2018 is one thing go-ing beyond that is another matter. The people of Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged elections; we must have the democratic reforms and the free and fair elections. Mnangagwa will never implement the reforms and deliver the free and fair elections because he is unelectable, not even a guaranteed Chinese style two digit economic growth rate can ever change that. Since Mnangagwa cannot win free and fair elections and the 2018 election MUST be free and fair, it follows that he cannot be president after 2018.
President Mnangagwa will scrap the indigenisation law and a basketful of Mugabe's many other misguided and unworkable laws and policies, he will rein in some of the looting and plunder that have sucked the life-blood out of the nation, etc. There is no doubt he will impress the IMF and many of the other international players who have been itching to return and invest in Zimbabwe.
Given Zimbabwe's present rock-bottom economic position, it is very possible to record noticeable economic recover after a few months. The economy showed the new growth after the formation of the GNU and the electorate was bowled over, it is not inconceivable to achieve the spring growth and bowl the people over once more.
The big question President Mnangagwa and his backers will have to answer is: Will the signs of economic recovery, no matter how impressive they happen to be, ever be enough to make Mnangagwa believe he can ever win free and fair elections?
What Mnangagwa and his backers must understand is that there are many Zimbabweans who totally believe that it is in the short, medium and long term interest Zimbabwe to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p. and replace it with a healthy and functional democracy complete with the guarantee of free, fair and credible elections. The 2018 elections must be free, fair and credible that objective is not negotiable!
So to rephrase the above question: Will Mnangagwa ever have the confidence, between now and 2018, to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure 2018 elections are free and fair? If President Mnangagwa's challenge was delivering economic recovery alone, then he would have a fighting chance; sadly he such a dirty past that not even the most skilful spin-doctors can ever conceal it.
36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and looting and murderous political op-pression by Mugabe and Zanu PF have taken a heavy toll on the nation; the people do not only mistruth the regime they hate the tyrant and his cronies with a burning passion. When Joice Mu-juru and her supporters were booted out of Zanu PF; they thought all they needed to do was de-nounce Zanu PF and rebrand themselves as a caring people orientated outfit and povo will em-brace them once again as their liberators as happened in 1980. Wrong!
Joice Mujuru has found herself being bombarded with hard-hitting questions about her Zanu PF past. "My hands are clean!" she screamed like a startled fork-tailed drongo, when she was quizzed on corruption.
Mugabe admitted recently that the regime has looted $15 billion worth of diamonds in the last 7 years. The true amount must be $150 billion, at least; given Mugabe alone pocketed $2 billion in 2012, according to Allan Martin of Partnership Africa Canada, a respected research organization fighting the trade in "blood" diamond. Everyone knows that the Mujurus have amassed a big for-tune, she is a simpleton with no known talents; she was the second highest ranking member in the regime whilst all this wholesale looting of diamonds was going on. She is on record denying there was no corruption in Zimbabwe!
Even if one was to accept the drongo's "clean hands" denial she should have known about the loot-ing and stopped it; if anyone loot billions under her very nose without her knowing then surely she is just too incompetent to be president.
Mai Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF leaders are having a real tough time shaking-off their rotten Zanu PF past and they were considered the doves in Zanu PF compared to the blood-thirsty hawks like Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The people of Zimbabwe hate Mnangagwa and for very good reasons too. Zanu PF has been unelectable for donkey years but has nonetheless managed to stay in power regardless because Mugabe resorted to all manner of dirty trickery including vote rigging and wanton use of violence to stay in power. Through it all Mugabe has had Mnangagwa as his right-hand man, his most trusted henchman.
Now that Mugabe is riding into the sunset, Mnangagwa must also accept the spotlight and blame for the regime's treasonous crimes like the Gukurahundi massacres will shift from the tyrant to him. Mnangagwa has since mounted a concerted effort to distance himself from their shared past but to no avail. He has not only denied ever saying the cheap popularity statements he made at the time, for example, but has even threatened to sue former MDC Senator David Coltart for quoting the statements in his book. The threats have opened the flood gates; even more articles about Mnangagwa and the role he played in the massacre have come to light.
Gukurahundi is one of the darkest chapters in Zimbabwe's history; over 20 000 innocent people were murdered in cold blood. It is no exaggeration to say Mnangagwa has GUKURAHUNDI tat-tooed in florescent ink on his forehead. With such a cursed reputation, there is no way he can ever win a free, fair and democratic election.
Mnangagwa's crocodile nickname is well earned and Mugabe has rewarded him for doing the tyrant's dirtiest jobs. But if Mnangagwa ever thought the people of Zimbabwe will forget or forgive him for all the human misery this tyrannical Zanu PF regime has inflicted on them all these years, then he must be very naïve indeed. In a free and fair election no one will vote for him because, given half a chance to end this dictatorship forever, only a fool would waste it.
Mnangagwa; no freeman or freewoman would ever want a crocodile for president! No one!
The fight for a democratic Zimbabwe stalled after Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends betrayed the nation by failing to implement even one democratic reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU. The fight stalled but it did not stop; the need for meaningful change is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford to have another rigged elections and the fight to get all the GPA reforms implemented before the 2018 elections will intensify.
Mnangagwa will never implement any meaningful democratic reforms; he was stupid enough to do Mugabe's dirties jobs but he is smart enough to know he will never win free and fair elections. If any of his handlers think he will implement and democratic reforms then they are naïve. As for the people of Zimbabwe we are determined to have meaningful democratic change because we now know that whatever economic recovery we achieve without political reforms will be as short lived as the recovery during the GNU years.
No thinking man or woman will have any problem with Mnangagwa taking over from Mugabe to the 2018 finish line. The takeover will be good for the country, if for nothing else, in that it will end the dangerous and very destabilizing factional war that has raging on and on in Zanu PF for the last two years.
What Mnangagwa's backers must understand, however, is his takeover to 2018 is one thing go-ing beyond that is another matter. The people of Zimbabwe cannot afford to have yet another rigged elections; we must have the democratic reforms and the free and fair elections. Mnangagwa will never implement the reforms and deliver the free and fair elections because he is unelectable, not even a guaranteed Chinese style two digit economic growth rate can ever change that. Since Mnangagwa cannot win free and fair elections and the 2018 election MUST be free and fair, it follows that he cannot be president after 2018.
President Mnangagwa will scrap the indigenisation law and a basketful of Mugabe's many other misguided and unworkable laws and policies, he will rein in some of the looting and plunder that have sucked the life-blood out of the nation, etc. There is no doubt he will impress the IMF and many of the other international players who have been itching to return and invest in Zimbabwe.
Given Zimbabwe's present rock-bottom economic position, it is very possible to record noticeable economic recover after a few months. The economy showed the new growth after the formation of the GNU and the electorate was bowled over, it is not inconceivable to achieve the spring growth and bowl the people over once more.
The big question President Mnangagwa and his backers will have to answer is: Will the signs of economic recovery, no matter how impressive they happen to be, ever be enough to make Mnangagwa believe he can ever win free and fair elections?
What Mnangagwa and his backers must understand is that there are many Zimbabweans who totally believe that it is in the short, medium and long term interest Zimbabwe to dismantle the corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship a.s.a.p. and replace it with a healthy and functional democracy complete with the guarantee of free, fair and credible elections. The 2018 elections must be free, fair and credible that objective is not negotiable!
So to rephrase the above question: Will Mnangagwa ever have the confidence, between now and 2018, to implement the democratic reforms necessary to ensure 2018 elections are free and fair? If President Mnangagwa's challenge was delivering economic recovery alone, then he would have a fighting chance; sadly he such a dirty past that not even the most skilful spin-doctors can ever conceal it.
36 years of gross mismanagement, rampant corruption and looting and murderous political op-pression by Mugabe and Zanu PF have taken a heavy toll on the nation; the people do not only mistruth the regime they hate the tyrant and his cronies with a burning passion. When Joice Mu-juru and her supporters were booted out of Zanu PF; they thought all they needed to do was de-nounce Zanu PF and rebrand themselves as a caring people orientated outfit and povo will em-brace them once again as their liberators as happened in 1980. Wrong!
Joice Mujuru has found herself being bombarded with hard-hitting questions about her Zanu PF past. "My hands are clean!" she screamed like a startled fork-tailed drongo, when she was quizzed on corruption.
Mugabe admitted recently that the regime has looted $15 billion worth of diamonds in the last 7 years. The true amount must be $150 billion, at least; given Mugabe alone pocketed $2 billion in 2012, according to Allan Martin of Partnership Africa Canada, a respected research organization fighting the trade in "blood" diamond. Everyone knows that the Mujurus have amassed a big for-tune, she is a simpleton with no known talents; she was the second highest ranking member in the regime whilst all this wholesale looting of diamonds was going on. She is on record denying there was no corruption in Zimbabwe!
Mai Mujuru, Didymus Mutasa and the rest of the ZPF leaders are having a real tough time shaking-off their rotten Zanu PF past and they were considered the doves in Zanu PF compared to the blood-thirsty hawks like Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The people of Zimbabwe hate Mnangagwa and for very good reasons too. Zanu PF has been unelectable for donkey years but has nonetheless managed to stay in power regardless because Mugabe resorted to all manner of dirty trickery including vote rigging and wanton use of violence to stay in power. Through it all Mugabe has had Mnangagwa as his right-hand man, his most trusted henchman.
Now that Mugabe is riding into the sunset, Mnangagwa must also accept the spotlight and blame for the regime's treasonous crimes like the Gukurahundi massacres will shift from the tyrant to him. Mnangagwa has since mounted a concerted effort to distance himself from their shared past but to no avail. He has not only denied ever saying the cheap popularity statements he made at the time, for example, but has even threatened to sue former MDC Senator David Coltart for quoting the statements in his book. The threats have opened the flood gates; even more articles about Mnangagwa and the role he played in the massacre have come to light.
Gukurahundi is one of the darkest chapters in Zimbabwe's history; over 20 000 innocent people were murdered in cold blood. It is no exaggeration to say Mnangagwa has GUKURAHUNDI tat-tooed in florescent ink on his forehead. With such a cursed reputation, there is no way he can ever win a free, fair and democratic election.
Mnangagwa's crocodile nickname is well earned and Mugabe has rewarded him for doing the tyrant's dirtiest jobs. But if Mnangagwa ever thought the people of Zimbabwe will forget or forgive him for all the human misery this tyrannical Zanu PF regime has inflicted on them all these years, then he must be very naïve indeed. In a free and fair election no one will vote for him because, given half a chance to end this dictatorship forever, only a fool would waste it.
Mnangagwa; no freeman or freewoman would ever want a crocodile for president! No one!
The fight for a democratic Zimbabwe stalled after Tsvangirai and his MDC fiends betrayed the nation by failing to implement even one democratic reform when they had the golden opportunity to do so during the GNU. The fight stalled but it did not stop; the need for meaningful change is more urgent now than ever. Zimbabwe cannot afford to have another rigged elections and the fight to get all the GPA reforms implemented before the 2018 elections will intensify.
Mnangagwa will never implement any meaningful democratic reforms; he was stupid enough to do Mugabe's dirties jobs but he is smart enough to know he will never win free and fair elections. If any of his handlers think he will implement and democratic reforms then they are naïve. As for the people of Zimbabwe we are determined to have meaningful democratic change because we now know that whatever economic recovery we achieve without political reforms will be as short lived as the recovery during the GNU years.
Source - Wilbert Mukori
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