Zimbabwe is well and truly stuck in an insane situation economic meltdown and tragic human suffering as a result of 38 years and counting of corrupt, tyrannical and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship.
When Zanu PF first got into power in 1980, the party promised “Gutsva ruzhinji!” (Mass prosperity!) By the end of the first decade, the ordinary people were alarmed at the steady economic decline.
The next decade was the two five-year Economic Structural Adjustment Programmes (ESAP) in which the ordinary people were asked “to tighten their belt”, in preparation for economic hardship to come. The people tightened their belts but the promised economic recovery never materialised.
Zimbabwe’s economic situation has got even worse from 2000 to the present. One of the root causes of the economic meltdown was Zanu PF’s violent seizures of the white-owned farms that started in 2000. The farms were given to party loyalists, mainly, who failed to put them to productive use resulting in total collapse of the country’s agricultural sector and with it the economy.
Zimbabwe, which had prided itself in being the breadbasket of the region, soon found itself dependent on imported food aid – the nation was so impoverished it could not pay for the food. So we are starving in a country which is, for all intent and purposes, the Garden of Eden! A damning testimonial to Zanu PF misrule!
On the political front, Zanu PF has over 30 000 innocent Zimbabweans to establish and retain the de facto one-party dictatorship the nation has suffered under all these years. Last month the regime shot died seven Zimbabweans; a warning shot across the bow to scar away all those who might have dared to the just ended rigged elections – the latest in a string of rigged elections!
Zimbabwe is in this economic and political mess because the nation has been well and truly stuck for 38 years and counting with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship. The people have long realised Zanu PF was a disaster for the nation but were powerless to remove the party from office.
“Zanu-PF is a political party and a player that is there also to observe those human rights that are enshrined in our laws,” Justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi told News Day report.
The minister was boasted about Zanu PF’s commitment to human rights. This, from the party that has just blatantly rigged the elections for the umpteenth time!
“In terms of realigning laws, what we have been doing and will continue to do is allow the Attorney-General's Office to identify all the laws that need to be aligned and we have a dashboard where they need to follow up the laws that need alignment. Basically, what we need to do is look into the outstanding laws that need alignment, such as the Marriages Act, Public Order, and Security Act, Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Citizenship Act. I think we need to clean them up and make sure that they are aligned to the Constitution, so that is one of the tasks that we should complete within the lifespan of this Parliament.”
Minister, the new constitution was approved in March 2013 and you are still talking of realigning laws! Zanu PF has usurped the people’s power to hold those in power to account and acquired for itself the carte blanche dictatorial powers to deny the people their freedoms and rights including the right to free fair and credible elections.
Zanu PF will never ever implement the democratic reforms to ensure free, fair and credible elections.
The root cause of Zimbabwe’s economic and political mess is 38 years of corrupt and tyrannical rule, it is the metaphorical leaking bucket. The people know the solution to their problem is removing Zanu PF from office by making sure there are free, fair and credible elections. Zanu PF has usurped the people’s power.
If the people of Zimbabwe are insane then it is for failing to realise that allowing Zanu PF to rig elections and getting away with it was in itself an act of futility because this has allowed the regime to drag the nation deeper and deeper into this hell-on-earth the nation now finds itself in!
The longer the people have allowed Zanu PF to rig elections and get away with it the harder it has become to stop the vote rigging. If this Mnangagwa junta is allowed to stay in power for the full five years then we can be 100% certain that the next elections will be rigged. A Zanu PF government will never ever implement any meaningful democratic reforms.
With unemployment now a nauseating 90%, most basic services such as healthcare all but collapse, 75% now living on US$1.00 or less a day, etc. poverty in Zimbabwe has now reached now levels – it is a killer. Hunger, cholera, typhoid and even the easily curable diseases are now killing people!
By allowing Zanu PF thugs deny us our fundamental right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country we have allowed the regime to condemn us to an early grave. We have, by our silence and indifference to our own fate, condemned ourselves to a short and miserable existence. We are nothing but the living dead!
By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka
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