Opinion / Columnist
Mnangagwa's straitjacket has no wriggle room, especially now coups are 'legal' - off with his head with crown upon it
by Wilbert Mukori
21 Nov 2020 at 08:31hrs | Views
"Zanu-PF has a constitution and under that constitution, we sit as a congress to elect our president," said Zanu PF acting national spokes-person Patrick Chinamasa.
"In 1977, a lot of the leaders had fallen by the wayside. The most senior person in rank remaining was (the late) Cde Robert Mugabe and at the congress in Chimoio, he was elected president of Zanu then," Chinamasa said.
"In November (2017), exactly on the basis of the precedence of 1977, exactly that is what happened when it became very clear that our constitution was being trampled upon by the G40 cabal and that they were threatening the stability of the nation, the party moved in and we elected, at our December congress, President (Emmerson) Mnangagwa as leader of Zanu-PF."
Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs with no regard to rule of law and the constitution much less the truth, not even historic facts.
Zanu PF is a party of ruthless thugs whose greed for absolute power and wealth is insatiable. They have ridden roughshod over the ordinary people denying them their freedoms and rights including the right to a meaningful elections and even the right to life.
Mugabe was able to hold the party together for the first 30 years after independence only because there was a lot of wealth, loot he then dolled out to the party leaders to feed their ever growing appetites. The power and loot was the glue that held Zanu PF together.
The Zanu PF thugs' are corrupt, incompetent and wasteful and with time their appetites for loot grew exponentially, by the late 1990s the Zimbabwe economy was in serious trouble.
Mugabe seized white-owned farms, the only other asset of value left, to give his very demanding and wasteful cronies. The farm seizures resulted in the collapse of the agricultural sector and with it the economy.
To make matters worse, Zanu PF started printing money fuelling the hyperinflation which, by 2008, reached the nauseating heights of 500 billion percent! Zimbabwe's economy completely collapsed, and has never ever recovered; trigging the dog-eat-dog for the scraps amongst the Zanu PF thugs.
Chinamasa contradicted his early claim that Zanu PF an orderly party that respected the rule of law and the constitution. Mnangagwa's 2017 succession was not a smooth transition but a messy and ruthless affair culminating in the bloody November 2017 military coup.
"Behind the scenes, a lot took place, but it is too early to say. The further from November 2017, the more likely we are going to tell you," confessed Chinamasa.
"We are yet to heal. Those were the worst ever days in the chapter of the life of our President, Cde ED Mnangagwa, worse than the hanging sentence because then, it was the enemy he had chosen to fight against notwithstanding any consequences."
Mnangagwa's clarion cry following the November 2017 coup was "Zimbabwe is open for business!" He was cocksure it would revive the economy generating the much need loot to doll out to his restless Zanu PF cronies. The expected flood of investors and lenders in answer to his call has never materialised. "Zimbabwe is open for business!" is dead in the water and Zimbabwe's economic meltdown is even worse than before the coup.
Chimanasa said the succession in Zanu-PF was a straitjacket and while it allowed everyone to manoeuvre "within the straitjacket, no one could manoeuvre outside it".
Mnangagwa knows that his position as leader of Zanu PF and government is not secure. He is reportedly building a bunker complex, such is his fear of another military coup. In the November 2017 coup Mugabe lost the crown, that is as much wriggle room as he got! Mnangagwa may got get even that much wriggle room in the straitjacket he is wearing; he may well lose his head and the crown upon it!
Mnangagwa got Justice George Chiweshe to rule the November 2017 coup "was legal, justified and constitutional". The judgement has comeback to haunt him. Everyone knows that Zanu PF party elections are rigged and that leaves a military coup as the short cut to power and glory, particularly now there is a legal precedence too.
As for the ordinary people, there really is no wriggle room, full stop. Zanu PF thugs have become addicted to the absolute power and the loot it has brought them over the last four decades. It is bad enough they are not having their fill because of the economic meltdown; they are not going to risk losing the scraps too by risking losing power in a free, fair and credible elections. No way!
When Mnangagwa got into power following the November 2017 military coup, he promised, amongst many other things, to hold free, fair and credible elections. He did not implement even one token democratic reform. Not one!
Whilst everyone who observed Zimbabwe's July 2018 elections condemn the election as a farce. "The electoral commission lacked full independence and appeared to not always act in an impartial manner. The final results as announced by the Electoral Commission contained numerous errors and lacked adequate traceability, transparency and verifiability," stated the EU Observer Mission final report.
"As such, many aspects of the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe failed to meet international standards."
Indeed, it was impossible to trace and verify anything given ZEC failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters' roll; a legal and common sense requirement. Why all Zimbabwe's opposition parties, all 130 of them, participated in the July 2018 elections knowing fully well that Zanu PF was rigging the elections is only a mystery to those who do not know just know corrupt and incompetent MDC leaders are.
During the 2008 to 2013 GNU Zimbabwe had the golden opportunity to implement the democratic reforms which, implemented, would have ended the curse of rigged elections and bad governance once and once for all. The task of implementing the reforms fall to Morgan Tsvangirai and his fellow MDC leaders. They failed to implement even one token reform because Mugabe bribed them with the trappings of high office, the ministerial limos, the generous salaries, the US$ 4 million mansion for Tsvangirai, etc. The MDC leaders had the snout in the feeding trough and forgot about the reforms for next five years!
Ever since the failure to implement the reforms MDC and the rest of the opposition camp have participated in the elections knowing fully well with no reforms Zanu PF would rig the elections. They did so because they also knew that Zanu PF was giving away a few gravy train seats, bait, to entice the opposition to participate regardless. It has worked!
Nelson Chamisa has been making the usual noise, demanding the implementation of "comprehensive reforms to end the culture of disputed elections"! Zanu PF know when push comes to shove, Chamisa and his MDC A friends will be filing their nomination papers even with no verified voters' roll!
"As far as we are concerned 2023 election is a forgone conclusion. In fact it is over before the people have vote." Chinamasa declared with the confidence of one who knows exactly what he talking about. Confidence born out of 40 years of rightly predicting a landslide Zanu PF election victory every time without failure.
Mugabe survived as Zanu PF top dog and head of state for 37 years because he had loot to buy blind loyalty and could bend and even break the party rules to suit his selfish megalomania needs. The country's economic meltdown changed all that; without the loot down payment blind loyalty evaporated like the morning mist under the African sun.
Mnangagwa has no loot with which to buy blind loyalty and so his hold on power is tenuous the more so that military coup is now "legal, justified and constitutional!"
Anyone outside of Zanu PF cannot aspire to govern Zimbabwe, as long as Zanu PF retains the carte blanche dictatorial powers to rig elections, thanks to MDC leaders who have all but sold-out on the fight for free, fair and credible election.
Zanu PF is a party of corrupt, incompetent and murderous thugs. Zimbabwe's economy under Zanu PF stewardship was doomed to collapse because no economy can sustain for long the criminal waste of human and material resources; 40 years of Zanu PF misrule has left the Zimbabwe economy in ruins.
Zanu PF itself was doomed to implode. With the economy in meltdown, Zanu PF thugs were going to fight each other to the death over the scraps; the centre will not hold and the party will implode.
Zanu PF is sinking into the abyss under it own dead weight. But as long as Zanu PF remain in power, the governing party, the party will drag the whole nation into the abyss with it. It is for the people to end Zanu PF's strangle hold on the nation or suffer and dead the consequence of continue Zanu PF tyrannical rule.
The people can end Zanu PF rule by demanding the implementation of the democratic reforms to ensure the next elections are free, fair and credible. Just because MDC leaders have sold-out on free and fair elections does not mean we too must throw in the towel!
Source - zimbabwelight.blogspot.com
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