Mnangagwa rigged the recent elections and is therefore illegitimate. It is now four months since the rigged elections and if he thought he was going to get away with it; he was wrong.
“In 2008, Canada adopted Special Economic Measures Act (Zimbabwe) Regulations with respect to Zimbabwe. These measures prohibit arms trade with Zimbabwe, and impose sanctions against listed Zimbabweans and entities. These measures will remain in place until there are positive shifts in Zimbabwean policy that result in improvements in human rights, democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” Canadian ambassador to Zimbabwe, René Cremonese, told the Independent is a recent interview.
Rigging the has been a tough and very expensive task for President Mnangagwa but rigging the economic recovery, without which his continued stay in power is impossible, is proving to be mission impossible.
Full marks to Mnangagwa, he did not need anyone to tell him the importance of attracting foreign direct investment as the only way to revive Zimbabwe’s comatose economy. He hit the ground running with his “Zimbabwe is open for business!” mantra which he adopted soon after last November’s military coup. Sadly, for him, he did not have the intellect to realise that investors are shrewd lot; they would not take his word for it, they would want to see his words backed by action.
Mnangagwa promised to hold free, fair and credible elections, it was the ultimate assurance that Zimbabwe was no longer pariah state ruled by corrupt and lawless thugs. He failed to keep the promise.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta friends had risked life and limb to wrestle power from Mugabe in the November 2017 coup; many had people doubted if the coup plotters would risk losing it in turn in a free and fair elections. The doubters were proven right.
The July 2018 elections were whole flawed and illegal. There were glaring irregularities such as the denying of 3 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora the vote; the failure to produce a verified voters’ roll although this is a legal requirement; etc.
The elections have been condemned as “biased, unfair and falling short of accepted international standards” - diplomatic language for the elections were rigged and therefore Zanu PF is illegitimate. All the western nations has retained the economic sanctions they had imposed on the Zanu PF regime, as noted above.
The greatest pressure on the Zanu PF regime to step down is coming from the sanctions but from the country’s worsening economic meltdown. The flood of investors the regime had hoped for in response to the “Zimbabwe is open for business!” clarion call has not materialised. The shrewd investors and lenders did not miss the rigged elections, etc. and have shied away. They do not do business in a pariah state.
As soon as it became clear that Zanu PF had rigged the elections, thus confirming the country’s status as a pariah state, all hope of a meaningful economic recovery evaporated. There has been panic and chaos in the country’s economic and financial market caused by shortage of foreign currency, fuel, food, medicine, etc. and the fluctuation of the Bond Notes against the US$. The new Minister of Finance, Professor Mthuli Ncube’s ill advised comments have not helped.
“It is the economy, stupid!” The Catch phrase helped former US President Bill Clinton win the elections. The phrase is having the opposite effect on Mnangagwa, the economy is sealing his doom!
In his epic poem “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, describes a sailor who shoots a friendly albatross and, as punishment for his barbarism, is forced to wear the large bird’s carcass around his neck.
The worsening economic meltdown is the albatross round Mnangagwa’s neck, his punishment for blatantly rigging the elections.
Zanu PF is imploding, the factional dog-eat-dog infighting in the party is tearing it apart. However the party is as determined as ever to hang on to power and so whilst the party is sinking into the abyss it, nonetheless, still retains its strangle hold on the nation.
Zanu PF is sinking into the abyss and dragging the whole nation down with it. We must not and cannot allowed this to happen.
Mnangagwa and his Zanu PF junta must be forced to step down a.s.a.p.; the regime rigged the elections and is therefore illegitimate. Whatever happens the regime must not be allow to remain in office to the 2023 elections. Whilst the party remains in office it will never allow and meaning democratic reforms to be implemented and the nation cannot afford yet another rigged elections in 2023!
By Jeff Kurai Chakanyuka
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