Mnangagwa's Lies cannot go unchallenged

President Mnangagwa’s falsehoods and damned lies in the Guardian (UK) newspaper cannot go unchallenged.




The jacaranda trees have bloomed without failure throughout the years of white colonial oppression just as they have bloomed throughout the years of corrupt and tyrannical Zanu PF oppression that followed. Yes the people of Zimbabwe were very pleased to see Robert Mugabe finally forced out of office; they had to be eternally grateful for even this little mercy.

 

Of course, it was a little mercy because no one, other than the very naïve and gullible, were under any illusion the November coup was about removing the top dog in the Zanu PF dictators and a handful of others around him but only to replace Mugabe with another dictator, Emmerson Mnangagwa, “mark 2 Mugabe”, as UK MP Kate Hoey called him.

The real acid test of whether the November coup had ushered in real democratic change in Zimbabwe was the elections. Mark 2 Mugabe promised to hold free, fair and credible elections but no serious political analyst believed him and events have since confirmed they were right.

This year the junta instructed its operatives to take their foot off the violence pedal and concentrated on reminding the voters that the violence of 2008 and 2013 will return if Zanu PF should lose these elections, “operation harvest fear” as some people have called it.





Just two months before this year’s July elections, President Mnangagwa gave an interview with UK based Economist Magazine in which he flatly denied that Zanu PF rigged the 2008 elections. “Where is the evidence of vote rigging!” he maintained. He is still in denial that Zimbabwe is a pariah state ruled by vote rigging thugs.



The investors and lenders whose help Zimbabwe needs to kick start its comatose economy are a shrewd and savvy lot, they are smart enough to see that these elections were rigged. They will continue to shy away from investing in Zimbabwe.



Jacaranda trees do not care whether it is Mugabe or Mugabe mark 2 ruling the country; investors and lenders care a great deal hence the reason the economy is in a mess and is not going to recover.

By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka