tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9603700433422287562024-01-31T16:20:02.266+02:00Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News BlogLIVE FROM HARARE, ZIMBABWE - DAILY LATEST ZIM NEWS, OPINION AND ANALYSISUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger997125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-960370043342228756.post-69489967895179791722019-01-17T22:43:00.005+02:002019-01-17T22:43:59.525+02:00PERMANENT SOCIAL MEDIA BAN BEING PREPARED IN ZIMBABWE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
<br />
<br />
Intricate plans are being worked on in Zimbabwe to permanently ban Western social media platforms are currently being undertaken in Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
A reaction to the massive abuse of social media by Zimbabweans both in and outside the country, this overhaul will completely transform the way in which Zimbabweans interact with each other and the rest of the world.<br />
<br />
There are two processes currently running in tandem.<br />
<br />
The first is that, with the blocking of the social media sites currently underway as I write this, the blocked social media sites are being combed methodically in order to for government to put together a comprehensive list of the "radical terrorist" network they say was active on Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp and other platforms.<br />
<br />
Timelines and walls are being examined, using a sophisticated algorithm which triggers specific words and phrases. The flagged walls and timelines will then be queued for physical examination.<br />
<br />
These social media networks will very soon have to make a choice: to cooperate with authorities in Zimbabwe in unmasking ghost accounts used for "abusive behaviour and inciting violence" or be permanently blocked/banned in the country.<br />
<br />
A senior government source tells me: "It is standard practice even in the USA. When crimes are committed, authorities can approach the courts to get an order to identify criminals on social media in order to hold them accountable. If a social media network is operating in a sovereign country, whose laws govern them? If they are governed by a foreign law and they are not accountable to the sovereign country's laws, this compromises national security. They can even be used by foreign hostile powers to compromise a sovereign nation. If you go to the aggressor nation's courts, you will not get a hearing, you will not be heard and the foreign court will almost certainly rule against you."<br />
<br />
This has led government in Zimbabwe to frantically rework the online internet connectivity matrix.<br />
<br />
Here is where the seismic shift will now occur.<br />
<br />
Let us hope I do get into trouble for this:<br />
<br />
But it has to be said. Impeccable sources tell me China is likely going to be biggest beneficiary of all of this and it is their model which will be followed.<br />
<br />
China has banned a host of sites, going beyond social media, but Zimbabwe is at the moment at an advanced stage of looking just at the social media space.<br />
<br />
Youku replaces Youtube in China (Youtube is banned in China), Wechat replaces Whatsapp. `Then there is Weibo and others.<br />
<br />
China has perfected the art of tight control over social media and other undesirable sites within their territory and this route is what Zimbabwe is currently implementing. China actively and routinely deletes undesirable posts within seconds. These, for example, may include unflattering posts about their leaders of their wives (as happened a while back with posts about the wife of the current Chinese President).<br />
<br />
I put the question to my source that this could be ab opportunity to develop our own homegrown social media networks, like China did. It will spur tech entrepreneurs and help grow the digital economy. <br />
<br />
The immediate answer was Zimbabwe's population is not big enough, for start. But more importantly: "Any locally developed platform can never be trusted. It can be compromised or it can easily morph into a reflection of the political inclinations of the local owners. China's platforms are tried and tested. They are strong and practically impregnable. They are are designed to react quickly to any breach by malcontents. It's the best option at the moment."<br />
<br />
The question now remains: once Zimbabwe takes this leap, how long before other African countries follow suit in order to "safeguard our sovereignty"?<br />
<br />
I'll probably do a longer post later on explaining in greater detail just exactly what else is going with this once I have verified a few more facts.<br />
<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>It is puzzling how President Mnangagwa is now flinching from making the bold decisions that are needed to start Zimbabwe on a path to recovery. The most glaring dropping of the ball is the refusal or reluctance to demonetise the Bond Note. It can only be because he wants to protect and encourage corruption and black market activity, fuellled by a criminally negligent Dr Mangudya at the RBZ</i></b></div>
<br />
President Emmerson Mnangagwa is in the process of undoing an image that he had carefully built up since November last year and which had brought him massive support and goodwill that he should have capitalised on to correct market sentiment.<br />
<br />
But he has dropped the ball so massively that even his own supporters are beginning to have second thoughts. They are beginning to think that there was nothing to all the talk and display of resolve except a desire to win the election and become President.<br />
<br />
Fundamentally, the problem with Zimbabwe at the moment is the complete lack of confidence in President Mnangagwa's political will to<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>Fight Corruption</li>
<li>Take painful measures, even politically unpopular ones, in order to right the ship</li>
<li>Properly clean house in ZANU PF and government to signal to local and international investors that things have changed.</li>
</ul>
<div>
<b>Take the first and most glaring issue: the Bond Note.</b> There is no useful purpose being served by this surrogate currency except to drive speculative activity on the black market. By stopping Professor Mthuli Ncube from demonitising the Bond Note, the president has sent a fundamentally fatal signal to the markets.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let us explain.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There is believe (sentiment) in the market that the RBZ is secretly printing Bond Notes and selling them on the black market to raise US Dollars. Which takes us back to 2008. The people in the street with the US Dollar also believe this, so they are going to continue driving the "exchange rate" to dizzying heights that will take us to 2008 before the year is out. Guaranteed. Absolutely guaranteed.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Why?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because there is no confidence in the system and no confidence in the Reserve Bank. Those with US Dollars believe the RBZ will continue printing Bond Notes, and it is an avenue for them to enrich themselves by demanding more and more and more Bond Notes per US dollar, taking this into the formal system and becoming, <b>nominally, through RTGS, US$ billionaires without producing anything at all.</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Which makes the refusal by President Mnagagwa to demonitise the Bond Note all the more alarming.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
By removing this surrogate currency from circulation and stopping it from being legal tender, we will immediately go back to 2010, where everything is priced is US dollars, not Bond Notes or any other local currency.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It will also stop the RTGS problem where it currently is, allowing government to deal with it methodically. Whereas, right now, the RTGS situation continues to get out of hand, driven primarily by the Bond Note on the street.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>This leads us directly to the lack of political will to fight corruption. </b>With known criminals and corrupt people, including cabinet ministers and former cabinet ministers, continuing to enjoy their ill-gotten gains, it fuels the sentiment that the fight against corruption was just a cosmetic anti-G40 move.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Which leads to the sentiment that even those remaining in government now, including the new ministers, are still engaging in corruption because there are no consequences for that behaviour as long as you support President Mnagagwa (just it was under President Mugabe).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This sentiment emboldens the black market and fuels lack of confidence in the general population, resulting in panic-behaviour across the board.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Dr Mangudya at the RBZ sits at the nexus of all this and his continued tenure at that institution is so criminal it beggars belief.</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Let us give just one example.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Under our system, the political leaders and the RBZ should know that fuel is one of the most visible and fundamental drivers of confidence in the market.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When people see a fuel queue and fuel appears to be in short supply, basic psychology kicks in and people's minds start running to cooking oil, maize-meal and other basic commodities. It just starts with those visible fuel queues and people telling each other <i style="font-weight: bold;">"Zvatotanga so" </i>meaning "It has started." And suddenly, you have cooking oil or maize meal demand shooting through the roof as people panic to get these commodities before the fuel situation also reaches those shelves and commodities become scarce.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It follows therefore, that the first thing the RBZ and Ministry of Finance should do is oversupply fuel, consistently. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Doing this calms the situation in all other sectors automatically.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But this is not happening and no one now believes a word Dr Mangudya says about the situation. He is a walking confidence crisis.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It also does not help that the President has suddenly gone underground and is no longer visible (just like Mugabe).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
People are asking genuinely what happened to the billions of dollars' worth of deals that he was trumpeting just before the elections.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Which adds to the crisis of confidence.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All this, of course, can be traced back to a shocking lack of transparent communication that almost feels like sabotage of the new administration. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And no, Nelson Chamisa is not the solution. A GNU is not the solution. Even if Chamisa had been elected, we would still have had the debt that we currently have and the world would still be as circumspect as it is now.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The problem is a governance style on the economic front which has distanced itself enough from the Mugabe regime in how it operates. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
To illustrate this, this particular post was made only because of what we saw yesterday, with government now trying to yet again to intervene in the economy by issuing threats to businesses. That is the Mugabe style, a style that does not work and has never worked. It only ensures the continued decline of industry and confidence.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Margaret Thatcher showed the way in Britain in 1979/1980. You can not, as a government, engage in half-measures when it comes to liberalisation. When you liberalise, you do so fully, without flinching. When you do so, you normally correct the situation in a period of 7 months.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But President Mnangagwa is flinching. And we fear the lack of confidence will, within the next 14 days, be so bad that it will not be possible correct it before 2023. </div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>President Mugabe's eldest child, Bona Mugabe, is seen here greeting Vice Presidents Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi & their wives at President Mnangagwa's inauguration ceremony at the National Sports Stadium in Harare today</i></b></div>
<br />
<br />
President Robert Mugabe was not in Singapore today. He was at home. For a man his age, he is in remarkably good health, even though he sent a letter to the inauguration, read by President Emmerson Mnangagwa at the National Sports Stadium today, pleading ill-health.<br />
<br />
The letter was not a sign that Mugabe has forgiven Mnangagwa and Chiwenga. No.<br />
<br />
Those present at the Blue Roof when the decision was made are clear what Bona and her husband's presence at Mnangagwa's inauguration today was all about.<br />
<br />
As an aside, despite what the former president is accused of having done to this fellow citizens and to the country, some of us were amazed at the spontaneous and deafening applause that echoed through the National Sports Stadium in Harare today when Bona Mugabe's name was called by the Master of Ceremonies. No other dignitary present, apart from Chief Justice Malaba, got such a reception.<br />
<br />
But back to the real story. The former president is nearing his 100th birthday.<br />
<br />
Sending Bona and Simba to the inauguration today was this wily old gentleman setting his family up for a time he will not be around.<br />
<br />
We are reliably informed that President Mugabe told his family, "Emmerson and his people have issues with me. They don't have issues with the Mugabe family, but with Mugabe."<br />
<br />
He explained that the family needs to make sure that they signal to Mnangagwa and to ZANU PF "<i>kuti hamuna kutenga nyaya yangu</i>" (loosely translated, that means, "you need to show that you are not aggrieved on my behalf."<br />
<br />
Uppermost in his mind is the peace and prosperity of his family in the future.<br />
<br />
The former president honestly and genuinely believes that the current administration is restraining itself when it comes to his family because he is still alive, around. He believes Emmerson Mnangagwa and his allies either still have some respect for him or fear him. Hence, they will not make a move against his family as long as he is still around.<br />
<br />
He has also made it clear that, primarily for this reason, he also believes, as long as he is still around, President Mnangagwa's government will not make any moves to take away the farms that belong to his children, grandchildren or his wife.<br />
<br />
He is convinced, however, that, should the bad blood between him and Mnangagwa/Chiwenga spill into being a "family feud" - the thing he cherishes more than anything else will be wiped off the face of the earth.<br />
<br />
Those who truly understand Mugabe know that legacy means a lot to him (Chiwenga and ED were not stupid when they named their Operation). But here we are not talking about the political legacy.<br />
<br />
Mugabe was deeply troubled by the fact that, with his Ghanian wife, it looked like he would leave no heirs to carry the Mugabe name forward. It was one of the primary driving forces for his behaviour in the last days of his first wife, which some people took to be mean and cold behaviour.<br />
<br />
It was, instead, action driven by his wiring, which sits very comfortably with his idealistic, ideological and unsentimental approach to life.<br />
<br />
If you listen to his interview with Dali Mpofu, which is probably the most intimate and personal interview he has ever given, make sure you listen careful to his own words as he talks about why and how he came to be with former First Lady Grace Mugabe. It is a shockingly unsentimental narration, clinical description of how he went about securing heirs for himself.<br />
<br />
A family feud with the new rulers, therefore, risks seeing an entire dynasty wiped off the face of the earth once Mugabe is no longer on the scene.<br />
<br />
This, he wants to avoid at all costs.<br />
<br />
So, sending his first born today to the inauguration was his way of ensuring that he separates his feud with Mnangagwa from his family. By having them demonstrate that they, the children and the in-laws, hold no grudge, will congratulate and kiss and hug the new dispensation, he has ensured that the new dispensation under Mnangagwa and Chiwenga, realise that the children and the heirs are no threat to their new-found power. There is no need to go after them.<br />
<br />
It is a masterstroke only because, despite the temptation that would have consumed any other person, Mugabe was able to stick to his principle of not hobnobbing with those who "tormented" him while at the same time retaining some clear strategic thinking to secure his family's future beyond his own personal presence on earth and in their lives.<br />
<br />
He has, in effect, thrown a shield over his family that he is reasonably sure will long outlive him.<br />
<br />
Mugabe has never believed in punishing children for the sins of their fathers, unless those children sinned in their own right. It is what separated him from the more acidic and vindictive politics of his opposition when he was in power, an opposition that followed the children of ZANU PF officials to foreign countries and persecuted them there.<br />
<br />
What happened with Nelson Chamisa during the election demonstrates that we have always said is true: at some point, history will rehabilitate Mugabe, just as it has rehabilitated corrupt dictators like Julius Caesar and even bloodthirsty lost causes like Idi Amin, who is being viewed more favourably today by Ugandans.<br />
<br />
When that happens, his descendants will retain a nostalgic power that, no matter how much you may disagree today, will be sought out by future leaders and citizens.<br />
<br />
But for today, we all have to agree that Mugabe pulled his latest and, perhaps, his last masterstroke, designed to protect the interests of his family long into the future. Should the MDC or an opposition party come into power in the future, you all know that he has also covered that base.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<br />
<br />
Zimbabweans owe a huge debt of gratitude to Morgan Tsvangirai for the fact that it is now impossible to rig elections in Zimbabwe. We will explain today why. The mistake Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance made this time around was using the pre-reform tactics to fight this election instead of adapting to the news circumstances. It is the main reason we kept saying Chamisa had brought a knife to a gunfight.<br />
<br />
But let's look at why it is now impossible to rig an election in Zimbabwe and why this last election also falls into this category of "impossible to rig".<br />
<br />
It is all about knowing how to use the tools Tsvangirai gave us as Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>All ballot paper books printed have serial numbers. Each ballot paper has a serial number. This is incredibly important for any party that does not trust the process, especially combined with the presence of their agent at the polling station throughout voting.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Each party has a polling agent at every polling station in Zimbabwe.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>At opening of polling, all agents, observers and NGOs present gather to check that the ballot boxes are empty. The boxes are then locked and the key is taped to the top of the ballot box.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Party agents, observers etc then sit down in full view of these locked boxes.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Having done this, they then record the serial numbers for the ballot books and papers they have received at that polling station</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>As a person comes in to vote, the party agents, ZEC officials, observers etc, verify that the person appears on the voters' roll for that polling station, and then they are allowed to vote.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Once voting has ended, all party agents/observers etc, gather to open the ballot boxes. They all confirm to each other that the box is still locked (they have been watching it all day as people voted).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>They then open the box and start counting, again with party agents/observers and NGOs present.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Once the counting is done, they agree that the number of votes they have arrived at is accurate and ask party agents/ZEC officials etc to sign the V11 form.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>The V11 form records the serial numbers of the ballot books for that polling station as well as the number of votes cast for each candidate and any spoilt ones.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Each party agent then gets a copy of the V11. (ZANU PF made sure that all their agents had enough airtime and whatsapp to take a photo of this V11 and send it to a central number at ZANU PF HQ).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Then this result is posted outside the polling station (please note this is a redundant process that was used to reassure all parties before Tsvangirai insisted and got all the other reforms. So, even without the posting outside polling stations, because each party had a an agent in the stations whose role was effectively the same as that of the ZEC officials in the polling station, their agent could sign off on the result as true, get the V11 and send it to HQ).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Should there be a dispute, with a party agent disputing the count at the polling station for ANY reason, that result can not be sent on to ZEC constituency or provincial or National Command Centre. The result is only sent when all agents present have agreed that the result is accurate for that polling station.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>If your party does not have a polling agent for that polling station, then tough luck, the other parties and ZEC officials, as well as observers and NGOs are the ones who then agree that the result is accurate. Under these circumstances, because you did not have an agent present, you can not stop or delay the transmission of those results.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>These results then make their way up the chain from polling station to constituency centre and on to the provincial centre, then, finally, the national centre.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>An organised party will have a paper trail through all of this chain in realtime. They will probably know the results before even ZEC has announced at the national level (explaining why parliamentary candidates knew they had won or lost long before the results were even announced).</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Should ZEC announce figures that differ from the ones a party has gathered through its own agents, it can, within 48 hours, ask for a recount either nationally or at the <b>specific polling stations or in the specific constituencies where their own V11s and V23s (V23s are the constituency totals) differ from the ones ZEC is announcing.</b></li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>When a party calls for a recount, the rules about challenging the results at the Constitutional court also get suspended, because it is considered that no valid declaration has been made until the recount has been completed.</li>
</ul>
<div>
If this process had been followed by the MDC Alliance, they would have had all the evidence that the Constitutional Court was asking for. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
And, if ZEC had refused to do a recount, either nationally or for specific constituencies and wards where the MDC had identified skullduggery, there is no way that refusal would have been condoned by the Constitutional Court because would have said this was evidence of ZEC having something to hide.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Under these circumstances, Chamisa and the Alliance would have won this court case and had a re-run (a declaration of Chamisa as the winner was always a pipe-dream that would not have happened considering the gap between his announced total and Mnangagwa's.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All evidence now point to the fact that the MDC Alliance did not have polling agents at most polling stations. The only V11s they could produce were the ones circulation on social media.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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Let us leave aside the question of what happened to all the money they raised to pay these agents. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is clear that, despite all the public bravado, Nelson Chamisa ran his campaign in a manner that says he was not expecting to win. If truly expected to win, he would have pulled all stopes to make sure that he had polling agents at every polling station, had got V11 forms within hours after voting ended and would have then been able to have national totals for himself and Mnangagwa before ZEC announced.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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More importantly, he would have had the proof of his totals and Mnangagwa's.</div>
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<div>
None of this has been put forward.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Yes, there are supporters of blind faith on both sides, MDC Alliance and ZANU PF. These ones will believe whatever their party or alliance tells them without bothering to use their own brain to critically look at the claims and at any evidence in order to see whether what their party is saying is plausible or not.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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Those ones are in the minority.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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The majority of those we have spoken to agree that the lack of evidence and the lack of an explanation as to why that evidence is missing, makes them believe that the president we will inaugurate in the next 48 hours is the winner of the election.</div>
<div>
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<div>
There the story ends.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div>
Form what we have outlines above, all rational examination of the processes that failsafes that Tsvangirai fought for and won in 2012/2013 just needed to be taken advantage of religiously by his successors and they would either have won the election or at least satisfied themselves and their supporters that they lost the election. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Narrowly, yes. But lost it all the same. Fair and Square. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_C0sT8Oi-bJa7jj3I4CW-TEVGhScNqXKJaJ5f1bPl0YknC89b1elsAuM_gQ6UwefJTl_rQ-sPsFkVHO2r8QOwGdadzu2BRQteZwVDEbsE5nY_b7KazcmTQmowOy_SEvEY00oSoWUqhGy2/s1600/Zim+ConCourt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_C0sT8Oi-bJa7jj3I4CW-TEVGhScNqXKJaJ5f1bPl0YknC89b1elsAuM_gQ6UwefJTl_rQ-sPsFkVHO2r8QOwGdadzu2BRQteZwVDEbsE5nY_b7KazcmTQmowOy_SEvEY00oSoWUqhGy2/s640/Zim+ConCourt.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Have people actually read through both sets of documents submitted to the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe by Nelson Chamisa and Emmerson Mnangagwa?<br />
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Monitoring the conversation in the media, both social and traditional, we see that almost 100% of the talk about the case is emanating from MDC supporters. ZANU PF supporters, on the other hand, are almost non-existent. One could argue that it is to be expected, since Nelson Chamisa's supporters have the most to look forward to and have clearly invested more, emotionally, in the outcome of the case.<br />
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The same, however, could be said, of ZANU PF supporters, since a ruling against their candidate would result in either an Chamisa presidency or a re-run.<br />
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It is clear from the chatter all around us that few MDC Alliance supporters have bothered to read the responses from Emmerson Mnangagwa and Priscilla Chigumba.<br />
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What you see instead is a search for hope, grounded not in facts, but in people's hopes that their own prejudices will be reflected in the judiciary.<br />
<br />
So you get pseudo-academics talking about how the Chief Justice possibly resents Mnangagwa because of alleged moves to deny him the position he now occupies by the then vice-president. You get far-fetched theories about Justice Makarau's resignation as Chair of the Electoral Commission after Mnangagwa took over the presidency.<br />
<br />
Yet when you read through both submissions, especially the response by Mnangagwa, and you put it in context, the outcome is not as certain as Chamisa supporters are making it out to be. To be fair, the outcome is also not certain for Mnangagwa supporters.<br />
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But, let us analyse the situation dispassionately, as we should.<br />
<br />
First, if I were a Chamisa supporter, I would be very worried by the indications coming from the court at the moment.<br />
<br />
Specifically, the failure by Nelson Chamisa to submit solid evidence with his application is a huge part of this case. Mnangagwa argues that, according to law, this failure means that the evidence, including CDs and V11 forms, can not be submitted later, after the application has been filed. This evidence is what the court requires to make a judgement as to the veracity of the claims Chamisa is making.<br />
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The court appears to be agreeing with Mnangagwa on this point. We say so because Chamisa's lawyers tried to leave whatever body of evidence they had gathered at the court the day after they filed their application, 15 August 2018.<br />
<br />
The court refused to accept them. A letter now circulating from the court, written to Chamisa lawyers on the same day, says, after consultations with the Chief Justice, the position that these documents can not be accepted stands. Chamisa's lawyers are asked by the letter to take their documents back.<br />
<br />
The deadline had passed.<br />
<br />
This is a particularly important point because it tells all of us that the Chief Justice is being a stickler for the rules and for the law, that is the first point.<br />
<br />
The second important indicator is that, since this position is basically affirming Mnangagwa's interpretation of the rules and the law around this issue, does this mean that the rest of the legal arguments that Mnangagwa makes are also more accurate and more in line with the law than the arguments coming from Chamisa?<br />
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Not necessarily.<br />
<br />
But it should worry those cheering for Chamisa. Because it raises the question: What other points of law, rules and procedures has Chamisa overlooked and which of them will cary weight in court and to what extent?<br />
<br />
Reading through Mnangagwa's response, he repeatedly refers to the strict application of the law, the rules and procedures of the court. If the court agrees with these points to the extent they have agreed with his interpretation of when and how evidence should be submitted, Chamisa has a huge problem on his hands.<br />
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But of course, we hold on to the glimmer of hope that he has lawyers. Who presumably know all of this. And, who, presumably, have come up with a strategy to counter these setbacks. But we will not know this until the case is being argued in court on Wednesday. Which makes the confidence of Chamisa supporters that they will be attending his inauguration soon rather perplexing. It will, we think, all end in grief, bitterness and more tears. As well as accusations of capture and so on. Which, of course, will be fanned vigorously by Chamisa and his army of dishonest academics, activists and anarchists as well donor-fund profiteers. <br />
<br />
But all this takes us into the real issue that some of us have with the way the MDC has sought to destroy and delegitimize our institutions of state.<br />
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Yes, no institutions are ever perfect.<br />
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We refer you to the Bush v Gore case of the early 2000s in the USA. There, the case was decided in Florida, by judges who declared George W. Bush the winner after stopping recounts of the notorious "hanging chards".<br />
<br />
George W. Bush's brother, Jeb, was Governor of Florida at the time. The judges were Republican judges (Bush was a Republican).<br />
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Al Gore accepted the judgement and threw his weight behind Bush as the genuine president of the USA, despite most of his supporters being very very angry, alleging rigging, corruption and referring to Bush as not being their president.<br />
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The behaviour of the supporters was to be expected as it is to be expected in Zimbabwe, also. But true leadership is what Gore did instead of following the instincts of the worst elements amongst his supporters.<br />
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Another example was the Nixon vs John F Kennedy election, which resulted in Kennedy being elected president. Kennedy won that election by around 1 000 (one thousand votes). It was widely accepted that Joseph Kennedy, JFK's father, had got into a pact with the Mafia in Chicago to rig that election and hand his son the presidency.<br />
<br />
There are other examples.<br />
<br />
Neil Kinnock in the UK, so sure of victory for his Labour Party against a dull John Major, that he organised a celebratory party the night of the election, only to cancel it after being beaten narrowly by Major's Tories.<br />
<br />
Or, perhaps most famously, the Truman vs Dewey election in the USA again. Newspapers actually published headlines the day after the election, big and bold on the front page, shouting " DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN". To this day, the photograph of a Truman who was declared the winner holding that newspaper aloft and beaming after being declared the winner is iconic.<br />
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There are other examples from all over the world.<br />
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The difference in all this and Zimbabwe is that the politicians involved in these elections understood that the integrity of institutions was more important than their own ambitions. They, therefore, did not join their less intelligent supporters in casting aspersions on these institutions or doubting their integrity for no reason except suspicion.<br />
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This is an important point that is a significant contributor to our continued suffering in Africa and in Zimbabwe.<br />
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Why?<br />
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Because, suppose the MDC wins and election and forms a government in the future. And ZANU PF supporters, all two or three million of them, take up the mantra that our institutions are captured. The Electoral body gets accused of being in the pocket of the winning party. As is the judiciary. The press. And anyone who disagrees is called the vilest names under the sun?<br />
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Do we honestly think that would make for a stable and prosperous country?<br />
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No. because half the population will believe that their numbers are more than the other side. And they have been cheated. All evidence to the contrary is cooked. Anyone bringing it forward is captured.<br />
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This, ladies and gentlemen, is how dictatorships are built and cemented. We should not allow it.<br />
<br />
Look, do you remember the 2012 elections in the USA? Do you recall that Obama, by all social media and even traditional media chatter, was not going to win that election? His first debate performance was abysmal. His support base was dissipating, with liberals who had supported him in 2008 disenchanted that he was not liberal enough. They were demonstrably moving away from him.<br />
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He won the election with less votes than he did in 2008.<br />
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We all remember Republican supporters taking to social media to accuse Obama of having rigged the election with the help of the "Chicago Mafia".<br />
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Mitt Romney, his Republican opponent, never bowed to these base instincts of his less savoury supporters. He accepted defeat and the country moved on. Trust in institutions was retained.<br />
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The problem in Africa is that Africans, including Zimbabweans, have accepted the worst judgements about themselves by the West and outsiders. They have accepted that they, in Africa, are corrupt thieves without exception. So they expect that the worst accusations about themselves are always true. They, the Africans, will always cheat. Will always steal. Are dishonest. And have no morals and ethics to speak of.<br />
<br />
They accept this about themselves and play it out in their own countries.<br />
<br />
So why should they complain when they go to Europe and America and are treated as though they, personally, now removed from Zimbabwe or Africa, are also carriers of these diseases? <br />
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Which takes us to the conclusion of all this:<br />
<br />
The way our leaders and our people are so ready to discredit themselves means that there will never ever be a legitimately elected leader of an African country, except maybe in South Africa and only South Africa for generations to come. Because whoever wins will be said to have captured all arms of state, even without evidence. And half the population in that country will believe it.<br />
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They will sabotage efforts by that elected leader to grow the economy, to fight corruption or do right by the people. Because doing so will provide a basis at the next election for accusing that leader of having failed because he or she is a thief, corrupt and every other thing under the sun.<br />
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This can only be stopped by the leaders themselves.<br />
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We will tell you this: if were running for office and we lost and we believed, like Gore did in his election, that we had been cheated, we would go to court. When that court ruled, we would praise it's balance and fairness and we would, like Gore, not seek to take our case to the Supreme Court and accept the loss.<br />
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Why?<br />
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Because we would be sending a message not only to our supporters but all future judges that we trust them to do right by our people. That we expect them to be upstanding and fair. That we would accept whatever they rule because we believe them to be the best embodiment of our values and our institutions.<br />
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We worry, no doubt at all, about the abuse of the responsibility of leadership we see at the moment in Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
Instead of building a better nation-state, we have been building cults in Zimbabwe and in Africa. Dangerously so. Our next post is going to look specifically at this, beyond this election and beyond the next one.<br />
<br />
We know it will not change anything, of course, because we now have a generation that does not think for itself but hands its brains over to leaders to be told how to think. A generation that does not critically look at matters but accepts whatever is fed to it by its chosen "leaders" like chicks in a nest blindly accepting morsels from their mother.<br />
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But it is important for us to state these things for the few who actually think. Because these thinkers are the leaders of tomorrow and they will help us build a better society by reading, thinking critically and accepting counsel.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1PwFAFF_BwptHw-tVkOojatyiKbsir56tAEF0cGTg-ytw6ORkJh_8Qhi8ou1cBJyA2YLDh0PZ-0iPHIQKAbUwo4ttXDiLuQ2I9aZJQrD-IOVU6ZCYvJINeDQYs3UWTYtZoRk2QaYGhALH/s1600/Pres.+Age+Limit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="862" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1PwFAFF_BwptHw-tVkOojatyiKbsir56tAEF0cGTg-ytw6ORkJh_8Qhi8ou1cBJyA2YLDh0PZ-0iPHIQKAbUwo4ttXDiLuQ2I9aZJQrD-IOVU6ZCYvJINeDQYs3UWTYtZoRk2QaYGhALH/s400/Pres.+Age+Limit.jpg" width="286" /></a></div>
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On 15 July this year, a full two weeks before the 2018 harmonised election in Zimbabwe, we warned on this blog that Nelson Chamisa was running a <a href="https://denfordmagora.blogspot.com/2018/07/is-chamisa-running-criminal-campaign-by.html" target="_blank">criminal election campaign by neglecting the parliamentary poll</a> and focusing only on his presidential ambitions. </div>
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ZANU PF subsequently won a two-thirds majority in parliament and there is now talk of them changing the constitution to make 55 the minimum age for anyone to qualify to run for the presidency of Zimbabwe.</div>
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You will find no sympathy here for the position the MDC finds itself in as a result of this.</div>
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When we wrote that article, we were insulted by the usual suspects, MDC and Chamisa cult followers for whom any constructive criticism of their cult leader is heresy. It bears repeating that not everyone who criticises you is your enemy. But the opposition in Zimbabwe believes it is all knowing, is guided mostly by its uneducated, shallow-thinking support base that can not think beyond its next hunger pains.</div>
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Nelson Chamisa and his supporters made this bed. They must now lie in it.</div>
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Our argument in the article of July 15 was that parliament is as important, if not more so, as the Presidency. Now here is proof. Nothing is going to stop ZANU PF implementing this policy because they now control the legislature as well as the Executive. </div>
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Nelson Chamisa and all his supporters bear criminal responsibility for this. We all know that ideas are not age-specific. If anything, younger, bolder leaders tend to have progressive ideas that move nations and organisations forward. But you need to have power in order to realise these ideas.</div>
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The ZANU PF move demonstrates what we were arguing here back on July 15: real power in our democracy is shared between parliament and the Presidency. </div>
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But Nelson Chamisa failed a leadership test by not impressing on his followers the need to make sure that parliament, at the very least, is balanced like it was in 2008. The results of the Presidential election show that Chamisa had enough authority and gravitas to influence his followers to also give him a good showing in parliament. </div>
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If the numbers of the Presidential poll had been repeated in parliament, ZANU PF would have no prospect whatsoever of passing this amendment into law. But now they are perfectly positioned to do this. </div>
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We repeat that you will find no sympathy here for the cries coming from the opposition on this front. They were warned and they accused those warning them of all manner of nefarious intentions and dismissed the concerns.</div>
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ZANU PF must now teach them a lesson. </div>
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We are actually glad about this development because, perhaps for the first time in our democracy since independence, it will force our citizens to abandon the politics of the personality cult and instead start focusing on policies and ideas. We must start voting for ideas and policies that move us forward and stop believing that an individual is the hope of a better future.</div>
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institutions will always be more important than cult leaders and we are happy that ZANU PF, of all parties, may now be showing the way by teaching the opposition this lesson. Nelson Chamisa will have the next 15 years to sit on the sidelines and think long and hard about the sort of institutions we should have as a country in order to strengthen our institutions and insulate them from the assaults of demagogues and cult leaders.</div>
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So, finally, we hope the opposition and its supporters now understand what governing means. It means much more than fulfilling the ambitions of one person to be President of the country. With teh majority that Nelson Chamisa and his supporters criminally gave ZANU PF on all fronts, the ruling party will now, perhaps, show that governing, <i>kutonga, </i> is about all the institutions of state. </div>
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Back in 2012, while the negotiations for the constitutions were being negotiated, we also warned against Morgan Tsvangirai's weak acceptance of the provisions in the new constitution for an Imperial Presidency. No one listened. Mugabe wanted an Imperial Presidency because it gives the presidency of Zimbabwe almost dictatorial powers. Tsvangirai and the MDC accepted this because they also wanted those dictatorial powers when they came to power.</div>
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Which is why you will also find no sympathy here for the opposition when the new President of Zimbabwe starts exercising those dictatorial powers given to him on a silver platter in a constitution negotiated and accepted by the MDC under Morgan Tsvangirai.</div>
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When all is said and done, one thing you can be sure of is that the opposition will not learn from this. As surely as the sun will rise tomorrow, they will again demonstrate this lack of leadership at the next election. </div>
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We will reming you of this when that time also comes. But you can be certain that it will come. Guaranteed.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj01Hp3YbYV9LyeJxGhRyiCymEToCApDb8n-n9fkBKZNeDeSFO-y6tXrr-ntle4_sfuLczVxvRhpVE5mECKgFqsE2jofO98nbFDMOe-RWpZUK0X-WTM5aeFzQGlCovddBLY1Cj5SX6fpZP_/s1600/MDC+Alliance+Election+Challenge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="675" data-original-width="1200" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj01Hp3YbYV9LyeJxGhRyiCymEToCApDb8n-n9fkBKZNeDeSFO-y6tXrr-ntle4_sfuLczVxvRhpVE5mECKgFqsE2jofO98nbFDMOe-RWpZUK0X-WTM5aeFzQGlCovddBLY1Cj5SX6fpZP_/s640/MDC+Alliance+Election+Challenge.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Jameson Timba, the man who mysteriously disappeared as Chamisa's Chief Election Agent on the day of the announcement of the election results, with Morgan Komichi claiming to be the Chief Election agent, is seen here in his trademark bowler hat on Friday as he filed the Nelson Chamisa's challenge to the election and their results at the Constitutional Court in Harare.</i></b></div>
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Nelson Chamisa's electoral challenge, filed this last Friday, August 10 2018, is so embarrassing that in any other court of law, he would have been fined for wasting the court's time, one Nelson Chamisa's own lawyers, Advocate Dali Mpofu, has allegedly told his comrades in the Economic Freedom Front of South Africa.<br />
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Mpofu is also the Chairman of Julius Malema's Economic Freedom Front. Malema has congratulated Emmerson Mnangagwa on his electoral victory and urged Nelson Chamisa to accept the results and move on.<br />
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Malema and the EFF are natural allies of ZANU PF and the two are in constant communication.<br />
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Our information is that Mpofu, in conversation with his comrades in the EFF, has made it clear that he thinks the challenge by Chamisa was simply an attempt to humiliate or frustrate Mnangagwa by having his inauguration postponed.<br />
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Mnangagwa and ZANU PF, however, had never really thought the inauguration would go ahead today, Sunday, 12 August 2018. Which explains why Vice President Chiwenga went ahead with a visit to Russia anyway on the day the court challenge was filed by the MDC Alliance team. He left before the MDC had filed its papers.<br />
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According to reliable sources within the ZANU PF administration, Mpofu alleged that even Nelson Chamisa is aware that his court challenge does not hold any water and will fail at the Constitutional Court.<br />
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"The real purpose of the court challenge is not to have another election nor is it to have Chamisa declared the winner," our source has Dali Mpofu saying, "Instead, the MDC (Alliance) made it clear that the entire purpose of the court challenge is to perpetuate the the impression that the election was stolen in the minds of Chamisa's supporters. They believe this is one way in which they can prepare for the next elections in 5 years time, by having their supporters so angry and motivated that they repeat the turnout in 2023."<br />
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The biggest fear within the Chamisa camp is that their support base will become demotivated and deflated after this defeat. This would lead to the familiar Tsvangirai syndrome, where opposition supporters never bothered to really to turn out in numbers because they believed that their vote would not count and ZANU PF would win by hook or by crook.<br />
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The challenge by Chamisa is two-pronged:<br />
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The first thrust is that the election should be nullified because of procedural defects. In other words, he is arguing that the process broke several laws and procedures.<br />
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Chamisa throws everything, including the kitchen sink, into this argument.<br />
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Justice Priscilla Chigumba's scarf is mentioned. The design of the ballot paper is also thrown in there. Failure to provide the voters' roll with pictures of voters is also part of the argument.<br />
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None of this will make a difference, however, because none of this constitutes a breach of the law.<br />
<br />
Crucially, Chigumba's pedantic observance of the law will actually save the day for her and ZEC in this case. The law says ZEC has sole responsibility for things like designing of the ballot paper, transportation and storage as well as security of the ballot paper.<br />
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The second prong by Chamisa is designed to throw doubt on the figures themselves as announced.<br />
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Problem here is that Chamisa does not have all the facts.<br />
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Take his complaint that the ZEC did not avail V23B forms to Nelson Chamisa and his agents.<br />
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Even if this were case, there is no law that this should be be done. That's because the law envisages a situation provided for at law: that the candidates and parties will have agents at polling stations and constituency collation centers to sign off on these figures. They are allowed to do this, but it is not a legal requirement, just a provision at law to enhance transparency and credibility.<br />
<br />
The fact that Chamisa did not have agents at most of these centers is not the fault of ZEC, nor is it grounds to have the election invalidated. His agents were supposed to be present, and to have signed these. Failure to do so in no way takes away ZEC's legal mandate as the <b>"sole authority" </b>with the mandate to do the counting, collation and announcement of the results, with no interference from anybody.<br />
<br />
Chamisa also tried to stop the announcement of the results by frustrating the process through his Chief Election Agents refusing to certify the results. This would have been fine if they were refusing to certify them on the basis of figures that they themselves had.<br />
<br />
But they did not have the results. They did not have figures.<br />
<br />
All they were trying to do was delay the process as they ran around the country trying to gather V11 and V23B forms that they had not managed to get hold of. One of Chamisa's own lawyers, Doug Coltart, son of former Education Minister David Coltart, was on social media asking the public to submit these under the guise of an MDC Alliance front called Citizen Manifesto. It was made to look as though these were needed for that organisation's public website, where they were collating these for the public to see.<br />
<br />
Even as they went to court, the MDC Alliance had in its possession polling station results for less than 400 000 people (or votes). Less than four hundred thousand.<br />
<br />
All the figures they have in their court challenge, Dali Mpofu is alleged to have said, are thumb-sucked. Plucked out of thin air.<br />
<br />
The alleged reading of the situation by Dali Mpofu chimes perfectly with Nelson Chamisa's own words before the vote took place. He stated that he would "pour sand onto the meal" if things did not go his way. Which basically means he would seek to be a spoilsport, not so that he could win, but so that there would be no perceived winner, achieving a "lose-lose scenario".<br />
<br />
The verdict of the court should be in soon enough. A decent interval is needed, obviously, so that people do not complain that the court "rushed to dismiss the case."<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2kxpkdvqzsmrQ_ZEx4wx6Gm-YkmjOFwa2uEueSVJvl3XsuRy3P4mFR8V-dRcP35JNFzddWzBirpm5WyQ0SmD7R8hqxPJH3wvyrtLjVTOSV9HBbqBLBP_RDU9NhxDaZA9sZyTJvJvLi433/s1600/MDC+Demo+car+burning.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="223" data-original-width="400" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2kxpkdvqzsmrQ_ZEx4wx6Gm-YkmjOFwa2uEueSVJvl3XsuRy3P4mFR8V-dRcP35JNFzddWzBirpm5WyQ0SmD7R8hqxPJH3wvyrtLjVTOSV9HBbqBLBP_RDU9NhxDaZA9sZyTJvJvLi433/s640/MDC+Demo+car+burning.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i><br /></i></b></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>A private vehicle burns after being torched by MDC protestors in Harare this past week, before soldiers moved in to quell the situation</i></b></div>
<br />
It is a common and ancient saying in Zimbabwe. Much like the english speak of cutting off one's nose in order to spite one's face: "burning the house down to flush out a rat".<br />
<br />
The situation in Zimbabwe is straightforward:<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa narrowly lost the election to Emmerson Mnangagwa. After this, he and Tendai Biti sent drunk youths into Harare City Centre. They were armed with stone, iron bars and fire. They smashed shops. They burnt cars.<br />
<br />
But the plan was much worse than this.<br />
<br />
The reason you are not hearing greater condemnation of government's heavy-handedness, the reason why some people appear "shocked" that the "world is remaining silent" in the face of this is simple enough:<br />
<br />
The government has concrete evidence that it has shared with foreign governments about the actual plan by Nelson Chamisa and Tendai Biti. And here is it is:<br />
<br />
They were going to cause this mayhem in all urban centers of Zimbabwe, stop the counting and announcing of the vote by invading the ZEC Election Command Centre.<br />
<br />
After that, they were going to go and occupy Parliament, Munhumutapa Building (the Presidential Offices in Harare) and other key institutions like ZBC. (This is why you saw army tanks guarding Parliament the day after the army illegally shot at the violent protesters, by the way).<br />
<br />
They would have refused to move until the authorities declared Nelson Chamisa the new president. There is evidence galore. And that evidence is the reason they are looking for Tendai Biti and other leaders of the MDC. The evidence against them is clear-cut.<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa, on the other hand, has been careful not be caught on tape or to write anything down that would link him directly to his actions (much like it was almost impossible for the Allies to link the Holocaust directly to Hitler because he was very careful about writing his orders down).<br />
<br />
The upshot, really, is that Nelson Chamisa and the MDC Alliance were preparing to burn Zimbabwe down in order to get Chamisa into State House.<br />
<br />
Zimbabweans, of course, have to decide whether it was worth it to burn their house down in order to get Chamisa into power.<br />
<br />
Amazingly, all this was being done with no proof whatsoever having been presented that Chamisa had won the election. None at all. The country was being burnt down just because Chamisa claimed that he had won and his supporters believed him. No proof, I repeat.<br />
<br />
He then asked his supporters to "defend the vote". What did that mean? It meant exactly what we saw happening: people out in the street destroying property and throwing missiles.<br />
<br />
The Zimbabwe government reacted and their reaction was over the top. (By the way, it is interesting that during the week that this was happening, Israel was also busy firing live bullets at Palestinian protesters over there in Middle East.)<br />
<br />
But Chamisa was determined to stage what he and Tendai Biti had coined "the people's coup".<br />
<br />
Demagogues are very good at this. And they are also very good at portraying themselves as the victims. Ask Adolf Hitler, the fascist who formed a paramilitary force before he became leader of Germany. The purpose, he said, was to defend his supporters against the attacks on their meetings by Communists and Weimar Republic government soldiers.<br />
<br />
That organisation, fueled by the oxygen of Hitler's popularity, intolerance and incendiary language, ended up masterminding the murder of 6 million Jews in concentration camps. The SS. It appears we have pretty much the same situation now confronting Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
Demagogues take advantage of irrational suspicions to weaken key institutions of the state, foment resentment and whip masses into hysteria by labelling anyone with a view to contrary to theirs "captured" or "bribed" or a host of others designed to dehumanise and discredit.<br />
<br />
The callous and illegal action by soldiers on the streets of Harare, captured on camera and beamed around the world, do nothing to diminish the culpability of Nelson Chamisa himself.<br />
<br />
He is in the process of building a personality cult. It's the most dangerous type of personality cult: one not coming out of any superhuman achievement or substance. The problem is that Chamisa appears to be believing that he is indeed superhuman. Can do no wrong. Always right. Morally superior.<br />
<br />
We should like to see someone ask Mr Chamisa and his supporters if he has ever made a mistake in his life. The answer from him and his supporters is no, he has never made one. He is Jesus. He is anointed.<br />
<br />
And when he fails to walk on water, they will blame his failure to walk on water on the water being captured and bribed by ZANU PF.<br />
<br />
So, to repeat, the situation in Zimbabwe has not been caused by a government that has allowed its soldiers to shoot at protesters, a government that is beating up people using its soldiers.<br />
<br />
What we have now is a government trying to to contain a violent "people's coup" premised on the lie that Nelson Chamisa won the election.<br />
<br />
Because they have an entire list of people who had been hired to coordinate and implement this chaos, the government is now going into the suburbs of Harare and other cities looking for the leaders of this illegal insurrection.<br />
<br />
<b>The reason why the world appears to be "silent" can also be put at Chamisa's feet. You see, having been caught out by international community lying about the results of the election, inciting his followers with his words, the world is now very suspicious of anything that the MDC Alliance says. The world is not being fooled this time around. They are refusing to believe and run with the well-worn victim role playing the MDC has been engaged in for a decade or more now."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
And that boils down to one thing: the world no longer believes Mr Chamisa and his party.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxc9mQNxpZWieoreGNJHhgCtulGO2_Ei6e9O8OTaTO917LfEYgtClG4cNvkfK-0QBO5JD4aUaSvw_laFghQ-Ah_21MiDdvZg_9Bx-EWw6a51yp4fDHSHunRF56EHPqdfrGTdfZ2Szx9BB0/s1600/Chiwenga+%2526+Mnangagwa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="600" height="425" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxc9mQNxpZWieoreGNJHhgCtulGO2_Ei6e9O8OTaTO917LfEYgtClG4cNvkfK-0QBO5JD4aUaSvw_laFghQ-Ah_21MiDdvZg_9Bx-EWw6a51yp4fDHSHunRF56EHPqdfrGTdfZ2Szx9BB0/s640/Chiwenga+%2526+Mnangagwa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Serious disagreements emerged within the government of President Mnangagwa immediately after the election observer missions' interim statements in Harare this week.<br />
<br />
Vice President Chiwenga reads the observer mission statements, especially the European and other Western powers utterances, as indication that there is not going to be any difference in the approach of the West to the newly elected government of Emmerson Mnangagwa.<br />
<br />
President Mnangagwa, on the other hand, is of the view that whatever criticisms are leveled at the country, its institutions and this election must be accepted as good faith criticism that should be incorporated into reforming key areas of the country that can make Zimbabwe a strong democracy.<br />
<br />
"Your strategy has failed," VP Chiwenga, we are reliably told, said to President Mnangagwa on Thursday this week. "It has failed. We open up more, allowing anyone to do what they want, Zimbabweans will think this is a sign of weakness on the part of government. They will never accept you. They can pretend, but they will do this only so that it becomes easier to destroy you. We can't allow that, we can't allow that."<br />
<br />
It is also dawning on insiders within the Mnangagwa government that VP Chiwenga's demand that the Defense Ministry be housed under him (the vice-president is also the minister of defense) and that he chairs the security cluster may actually not be helpful, but a complication.<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa agreed to Chiwenga's demands to control the security infrastructure because the then General insisted to the President that there was still a threat to the Mnangagwa government from embedded remnants of the old order, including G40 who could move to overthrow the new government.<br />
<br />
The agreement reached means that Chiwenga is still effectively the Commander of Defense Forces in Zimbabwe, even though he is nominally retired and now a vice-president and a Minister of Defense.<br />
<br />
Chiwenga's disagreement with Mnangagwa's policy of complete openess and continued pushing back of the boundaries of people's freedoms is based on what he sees as the agitation that Nelson Chamisa is engaged in. "He is abusing the free environment, akajaidzwa anotoenderera." Chiwenga is convinced that the West wants to hoodwink ZANU PF and the government into thinking that they are now more receptive to the Mnangagwa government just so they can undermine the ZANU PF government by encouraging Mnangagwa's continued opening up of political space in the country while at the same time whispering encouragements to Nelson Chamisa to unleash havoc, violence and disruption of government all over the country.<br />
<br />
The taking off the gloves, which happened earlier this week, was also informed by this thinking that there is no change from the West in how it will be relating to ZANU PF, so the hardliners in government are of the view that ZANU PF should also not change the way it has been relating all along to western powers.<br />
<br />
It is an increasingly dangerous situation at the moment in government, which the internationally community will need to address sooner rather than later.<br />
<br />
Simply put, the country is at a stage now where only the international community can help strengthen Mnangagwa's hand. failure to do this will almost certainly reverse all of the gains towards democracy that this country had gained under Mnangagwa so far.<br />
<br />
There is a ZANU PF faction that is now determined to retreat back into its shell, to fence itself off from the Western powers and rely once again, on looking east.<br />
<br />
Without showing any signs that his diplomatic efforts and policies are working, Mnangagwa will have no option whatsoever but to fall in line with the hardliners in the government.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5bEWZJ8Lggei4alUz6aP26RWtLNuHqOniO45xilpwoXHNy3HW5QCR3LM-mPLX_NiJRtLXo5V-xcZ4yOXQPMfLe_N_YGihpNZqQCSVrioZkUVGIrS8JMgLUNxPICDVsYpPS34b6sKPrKL/s1600/Mnangagwa+win.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="680" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZ5bEWZJ8Lggei4alUz6aP26RWtLNuHqOniO45xilpwoXHNy3HW5QCR3LM-mPLX_NiJRtLXo5V-xcZ4yOXQPMfLe_N_YGihpNZqQCSVrioZkUVGIrS8JMgLUNxPICDVsYpPS34b6sKPrKL/s640/Mnangagwa+win.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So, it is congratulations to President Emmerson Mnangagwa on winning the Presidential election. His party also controls parliament, which means there will be no excuse whatsoever for non-delivery. Mnangagwa now has his own mandate, in his own right, not one inherited from former President Robert Mugabe.<br />
<br />
But the margin with which Mnangagwa won means that the protestations from Nelson Chamisa and the MDC Alliance should now be taken seriously if Mnangagwa's new administration is to have credibility and legitimacy.<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa's approach was wrong this last week, as he sought to block the announcement of the results while he tried to double-check and tally the totals from polling stations in order to satisfy himself that he has indeed lost. Insistence on continuing to delay the result announcement because he disputed was not the main problem. It was his dishonest concealment of the fact that he was delaying the announcement because he was still double-checking and verifying. This led his supporters to think that ZEC was delaying the announcement just because they wanted to do so.<br />
<br />
A public statement from Chamisa on this would even have saved the lives that were lost this week.<br />
<br />
But that does invalidate his concerns.<br />
<br />
His concern is understandable. The margin just looks too flimsy. And when that margin is attacked with accusations, these have to be put to bed. If the margin had been bigger, from at least 53%, most people would ask Nelson Chamisa to simply accept the result and move on.<br />
<br />
But this is different.<br />
<br />
It is in the interests of President Mnangagwa, Nelson Chamisa and all their supporters that this result be verified, independently.<br />
<br />
It would also be criminal and treasonous for NGOs like ZESN to keep quiet. They were funded by international partners to put polling agents in every polling station in Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
People's lives are at stake, with some already have died. Which means there is moral responsibility on the part of ZESN, other opposition political parties and ZEC to make sure that they each publicly disclose what they got at polling stations and compare it publicly to each other's conclusions, ward by ward, polling station by polling station.<br />
<br />
Until this is done, <b>for more than 2 million Zimbabweans, what was announced today remains not an election result, but an opinion.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
There is no way, no way whatsoever, we can build lasting institutions, strong, grounded in the rule of law, unless ZEC and other partners immediately and urgently work to verify these results.<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Nobody should listen to the MDC Alliance only. And no one should listen to ZEC only.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
ZEC themselves should shoulder a large part of blame for where we are now, through their legalistic approach which fueled suspicion and set the wrong impression and narrative with a large part of the population.<br />
<br />
Their communication is atrocious, shocking.<br />
<br />
Their professionalism is not in any doubt amongst neutral observers. They all recognise that the appalling lack of empathy on the part of ZEC is born out of a too legalistic approach that approached this election with no heart.<br />
<br />
Why, if they were interested in protecting the integrity of the final outcome, would they not, for instance, issue a statement notifying the nation just prior to sending out postal votes?<br />
<br />
Things like that are basic, Communication/PR 101. It's a no brainer if one understands perception management strategy. Anticipate. Pre-empt.<br />
<br />
But that lack of communication skills led to a perception of lack of transparency.<br />
<br />
Indeed, they were right to not want to treat the Alliance as an exception, a special entity, especially when it was a new animal, whose support base could had basically not been tested, unlike the MDC-T, which could demand extraordinary attention because it had substantial numbers in the outgoing parliament.<br />
<br />
So ZEC chose to instead treat them exactly like Joice Mujuru's coalition, CODE, Elton Mangoma's Alliance, Dr Nkosana Moyo etc. Saying, for instance, that any issues the MDC Alliance wanted to raise should be taken to the Multi-party Liaison platform so that MDC Alliance agrees with other parties how to resolve these issues.<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa's skillful perception management appears skillful only because of the way ZEC responded to him. Even though some of his demands were ridiculous, when he trimmed them down to focus on the transportation, security and storage of ballot material, some concession should have been made.<br />
<br />
If ZEC had done this, we would not have a dispute right now.<br />
<br />
So, an audit can not be escaped. The contribution of ZESN and other players can not be escaped.<br />
<br />
We would strongly urge that, this time, ZEC involves the services of an independent external auditor as had previously been suggested to them. Resources to pay an external auditor may be problematic, but we should be able to get one of the international partners like the EU or DFID to fund the cost of this exercise. It is an exercise that will obviously involve all parties involved.<br />
<br />
There should not be a cloud hanging over Mnangagwa's triumph.<br />
<br />
If the President allows this take place, it will also demonstrate to all of us that the President and his party/government have taken us into a new era where we respect the opposition enough to address reasonable concerns they may have.<br />
<br />
And the need for an audit and verification is not only reasonable, but inescapable.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6b1zB-GJpjDhzkYAoMac57tam8qiaNIpP79zfKZ_n4StITzcwlH2Oh9QzqM1ahcymGhtg_2gpsIcv7_6nplpH5-6446pMU80xzc_5TMUq1-QhRXLpWgg7xtI-1untdRPPSmdZtKs9dmrH/s1600/Dead+Protester.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="573" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6b1zB-GJpjDhzkYAoMac57tam8qiaNIpP79zfKZ_n4StITzcwlH2Oh9QzqM1ahcymGhtg_2gpsIcv7_6nplpH5-6446pMU80xzc_5TMUq1-QhRXLpWgg7xtI-1untdRPPSmdZtKs9dmrH/s640/Dead+Protester.jpg" width="358" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6HW0Tzo8hG36T86cNMa37H87BjgCuaNuWbspwWJnEhbZr1nojdbx-DpYfrTjGG_C_y3OQVHftCaqCkxowWuei2o60Yp743UJgX2DoOPWLI7dmn8hXKLrWp5zyJmDzuY7azn0yjlYwgVXa/s1600/Another+dead+protester..jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh6HW0Tzo8hG36T86cNMa37H87BjgCuaNuWbspwWJnEhbZr1nojdbx-DpYfrTjGG_C_y3OQVHftCaqCkxowWuei2o60Yp743UJgX2DoOPWLI7dmn8hXKLrWp5zyJmDzuY7azn0yjlYwgVXa/s640/Another+dead+protester..jpg" width="360" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>These are some of the people reported to have been shot this afternoon when Nelson Chamisa supporters gathered in the streets to demand he be declared the winner of the Presidential poll, after the opposition MDC Alliance called for people to gather in the city centre and "defend their voted" before the official results are announced.</i></b></div>
<br />
The constant agitation by Nelson Chamisa, who keeps claiming he has won the election before results are announced has managed to get loads of crowds into the streets of Harare.<br />
<br />
First they were met by riot police as the crowds of hundreds of people tried to storm the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission National Command Centre at the Harare International Conference Centre. As they became more rowdy, blockading roads, burning buildings, the police remained restrained.<br />
<br />
That was when army trucks rolled into the city centre.<br />
<br />
The army had to fire live rounds, just now, apparently, because Tendai Biti has just said publicly that he and Nelson Chamisa will now shut down the country and burn down the ZANU PF buildings and all businesses that "fund tyranny".<br />
<br />
The protesters were demanding that all shops close down immediately. Enews Africa reported that they saw the protesters demanding that vendors shut down their stalls in the city centre. The vendors packed up and fled.<br />
<br />
There are unverified reports that one of the bullets fired in the city centre went through a high-rise building window and hit one of the office workers in that building.<br />
<br />
Protesters urged to get out into the streets by Nelson Chamisa and Tendai Biti had barricaded roads, started fires and were throwing stones. The police have been remarkably restrained. They did not beat anyone but simply blocked protesters from storming the National Election Results Command Centre.<br />
<br />
The protesters are demanding that ZEC announce results, <b>but ZEC is saying the law demands that Chief Election Agents for all 23 presidential candidates come to the ZEC National Command Centre, sift through all the polling stations results and verify and certify the results. Nelson Chamisa's people are apparently refusing to go to ZEC and go through the polling station results. Hence ZEC can not announce the results.</b><br />
<br />
For you to understand fully why we are where we are now and what is likely to happen, you need to go back to just before the elections, when Nelson Chamisa was saying that he would not accept results that do not declare him the winner.<br />
<br />
So, <b>why are we now seeing this heavy-handed response, especially from the military?</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
We can reveal that, after the Observers issued their statements this morning, the government, who are convinced that they have run the election in a commendable manner, decided that <b>there was no longer anything to lose."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>"It would appear we can never do anything good enough in the eyes of some of these international people," said a source in government. "There is no point in trying to be good guys anymore. Being good guys does not help. So we will teach Nelson Chamisa and his rowdy supporters a lesson they will never forget. Good behaviour was what we did, not for the international observers, but for our people. And we have a responsibility to maintain law and order. We will, from now on, not care what the internationals who have proven they only want an opposition win, have to say or what they do. The gloves are off."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
The government appears to think that there is not going to be any objectivity especially from the European Union and the Americans. They have bagged the endorsement of SADC/AU and the others.<br />
<br />
Clearly, they wanted the endorsement of the rest of the international community and are now convinced this will not come, so they do not care anymore, hence taking off the gloves. There is, says government, no reward for good behaviour when you are dealing bias.<br />
<br />
We can state with confidence that the next few days are going to be absolutely brutal.<br />
<br />
Watch your screens carefully at 8:30 this evening. There is very likely going to be a declaration of martial law because there is a strong sense in the corridors of power that the police are not equipped to deal with the violence that intelligence say has been planned by Nelson Chamisa and Tendai Biti.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfoYjPVHPcr9dJJNcALoqllURIrI-CCL1GnNTdeI96DwUpUz7_jPFf3c_IqCSPyG8O-42CGNijEzKhGFulNQgqXUk4Pi1HmSeE-zvszD2qOZTWROkpaRng8tCqNTPT6KYRfCsoRVHxYfD/s1600/Chamisa+Voting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="1023" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNfoYjPVHPcr9dJJNcALoqllURIrI-CCL1GnNTdeI96DwUpUz7_jPFf3c_IqCSPyG8O-42CGNijEzKhGFulNQgqXUk4Pi1HmSeE-zvszD2qOZTWROkpaRng8tCqNTPT6KYRfCsoRVHxYfD/s640/Chamisa+Voting.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
A proposal to elevate the office of the Leader of the Official Opposition to an official Office of State is now in jeopardy as President Mnangagwa went into the election without signing it off.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Aides to Mnangagwa suspect that the President feared the move could be spun by detractors to paint him as a man who was setting up a cushy office for himself in preparation for defeat at the Harmonised Poll of 2018. Hence it was left to be picked at the beginning of a new President's term.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sources in ED's office revealed that the matter has since been complicated further. Now that he and those around them know they have won the election, the President fears it would be misinterpreted as a sop to a man complaining about his victory being stolen". Which would distract from government business as it could embolden a beaten man to think the approach a sign of weakness. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Because of Chamisa's chosen strategy of agitation and threatening anarchy, this important pillar of the building of the Second Republic is now in jeopardy.<br />
<br />
The MDC Alliance President, who, we can confirm, has lost the presidential poll that he did not want to take place, is threatening to make Zimbabwe ungovernable if he is not declared the winner, prompting the government to bring water canons and police into the streets of the capital.<br />
<br />
Still pursuing his strategy of discrediting the elections in order to achieve a Government of National Unity, Chamisa is clearly unaware that President Mnangagwa has already ruled out the possibility of a repeat of the 2009 - 2013 Inclusive Government.<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa's approach to the Second Republic is actually quite progressive. Apart from reforms to the laws of Zimbabwe to make doing business easier, he is also intent of building what he calls "strong, independent state institutions that can outlast all of us". He is calling it the "British/Japanese model. The Japanese have such strong institutions, Mnangagwa points out, that, even when they were changing governments every single year for 50 years before Prime Minister Abe took over, their economy continued to grow into the second largest in the world after being destroyed during the Second World War. Government business is actually professionally run by technocratic civil servants who are not corruptible, making an actual government only a policy-making and policy-driving machine.<br />
<br />
In the United Kingdom, they have probably the strongest independent institutions in the world, which can not be compromised by a Prime Minister or any party in power.<br />
<br />
The Leader of the Opposition in the United Kingdom actually gets a government salary and perks, including government vehicles and state protection.<br />
<br />
When making important decisions that have a national impact (going to war, signing an international treaty or implementing society-shaping policies in the UK), a current UK Prime Minister will almost always either inform the Leader of the Opposition or consult him.<br />
<br />
There are also regular scheduled meetings between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, so the the opposition can table its thoughts and idea and seek ways to cooperate with the government for national good.<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa admires this approach very much and has even said out loud "Then after years, you know you go back to elections and thrash each other in front of the people, come back and do it all over again."<br />
<br />
I suspect the idea of creating the Office of the Leader of the Official Opposition will still go ahead, but it now not be announced at the same as Mnangagwa's new cabinet, which had been the original idea by the president.<br />
<br />
"We might actually destroy the institution if we launch it for a man with such student politics thinking. It would debase one critical pillar of the Second Republic, this Office of the Leader of the Opposition. Perhaps ED should wait implementing this until a more mature leader of the opposition emerges, so that national development can take place."<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_WfSqbb34ac8ZWfpBQmp06wdToEu7_CCyPVwrXhHXQ_WF89I5DrSr3_Ma3g-2YZzWmtZxBzBqrraocFv3qnRUerckyFdJWWj7LFbYj7rdLYriaT-71x-nIlrK-DdNCJx8Zz-rP2IJbYC/s1600/Voting+in+Zimbabwe+July+2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="1023" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik_WfSqbb34ac8ZWfpBQmp06wdToEu7_CCyPVwrXhHXQ_WF89I5DrSr3_Ma3g-2YZzWmtZxBzBqrraocFv3qnRUerckyFdJWWj7LFbYj7rdLYriaT-71x-nIlrK-DdNCJx8Zz-rP2IJbYC/s640/Voting+in+Zimbabwe+July+2018.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
By 2:30a.m. Monday morning, we are informed Vice President Chiwenga was able to relax on the basis that the election was pretty much in the bag.<br />
<br />
Was he correct? Let's break it down?<br />
<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa is almost certain to do better than Morgan Tsvangirai did in 2013, especially in the urban, peri-urban and growth point areas. But we are likely not to get anything resembling the 2008 results. No GNU is in the offing, unless it is on the Mnangagwa's terms, with Nelson Chamisa as a quarrelsome supplicant.<br />
<br />
The root of this scenario is the failure by the NPF and Thokozani Khupe to be factors in this election.<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa is doing better than most would have expected in the urban constituencies and wards. Nelson Chamisa has managed to consolidate the vote of the opposition around his presidential ambitions here. But the opposition numbers have never managed to overwhelm ZANU PF nationally, even when consolidated.<br />
<br />
It may not look like it, but apathy also played a part. Apathy? you ask. With a turnout of arounf 75%?<br />
<br />
That may sound impressive until you look at unlikely but very telling rural areas like Mt Darwin, Mai Mujuru and Kasukuwere's home province. Here, polling stations with registered voters of between 500 and 1000 registered voters are managing a 90% turnout. Of that turnout, as of writing this, there is not a single polling station in which Nelson Chamisa manages to go past single digits. In fact, in none of them is the Alliance president getting 50 votes. Out of over 700 votes, for instance.<br />
<br />
In fact, in one of the Uzumba, Maramba and Pfungwe polling stations, Chamisa managed to get only one, ONE, vote, while Mnangagwa collected over a thousand votes at that same polling station.<br />
<br />
Do you understand what that does to several polling stations in Harare or Bulawayo where Nelson Chamisa is getting a majority of 200, 300 votes. ED wipes out three of four polling stations in Harare with one polling station in the Mtoko area.<br />
<br />
Meantime, in the urban areas, even in areas where Chamisa is getting around between 300 and 500 votes, Mnangagwa is still routinely scoring above hundred. You see the maths?<br />
<br />
The ZANU PF organising strategy, which started during the war and which many have been scoffing at during these elections, is not dead. It appears to be delivering now.<br />
<br />
Mt Darwin and Murehwa should be telling for anyone wanting to look at trends. The excited opposition rallies in the rural areas were important for Nelson Chamisa, but not effective.<br />
<br />
Once you get past the Growth Points and urban areas where results are always quicker to get out, the real ZANU PF starts coming into its own.<br />
<br />
Laugh at "bussing people to rallies"? ZANU PF also busses them to the polling stations.<br />
<br />
Turnout is higher as well, there.<br />
<br />
Both sides of this divide were keenly, keenly motivated.<br />
<br />
So, in the interim analysis, NPF and G40 appear to have failed to convince a large number of people in ZANU PF to go with them and President Mugabe to the MDC Alliance.<br />
<br />
Do not also underestimate the power of the Mugabe endorsement in driving rural voters to Mnangagwa. How, you ask?<br />
<br />
Simple.<br />
<br />
The rural folk bore the brunt of Mugabe's reign of terror within ZANU PF if they so much as glanced at an opposition party. Now, here was a new leader who made sure they were not harassed or beaten. Meantime, the former leader has embraced the opposition. They still fear him and his grouping for their capacity for terror. Psychology says they have to rally in their numbers to the leader who has proven that he trusts them, will not beat them up or terrorise them. They have, by the weapon available to them, to make sure they stop the former Mugabe group from getting anywhere near power lest that new is used to take them back to the old days of terror.<br />
<br />
It explains the high turnout. These guys are turning out for their lives.<br />
<br />
The numbers we have seen so far coming out places like Mt Darwin and certain parts of Murehwa should be sending chills down the spines of Mnangagwa's opponents.<br />
<br />
ZANU PF, by all indications, has held on to its rural base pretty much intact.<br />
<br />
History, it looks like, is repeating itself.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnucVzZOByFUlVsBv28w0LCB2zbSd2uqxBIoUGn8b7TcJMBI91NwAezduaX-ly1AF023OqQyn7IC6THFBYQQ_5mbnYvyZ98-ww0LUYr3FXjehPO0yLqMaplj1n2bqn8jET-BEXEXX2EKu1/s1600/Grace+Bona+Mugabe+July+2018.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="651" data-original-width="1600" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnucVzZOByFUlVsBv28w0LCB2zbSd2uqxBIoUGn8b7TcJMBI91NwAezduaX-ly1AF023OqQyn7IC6THFBYQQ_5mbnYvyZ98-ww0LUYr3FXjehPO0yLqMaplj1n2bqn8jET-BEXEXX2EKu1/s640/Grace+Bona+Mugabe+July+2018.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Former President Robert Mugabe endorsing Nelson Chamisa today his Blue Roof mansion under the watchful eyes of Grace Mugabe and his first born, Bona Chikore.</i></b></div>
<br />
<br />
The choreographed dance between Nelson Chamisa and Robert Mugabe, which started on this last Saturday, came out in the open on Sunday. The two scheduled simultaneous press conferences in anticipation of each other's big reveals.<br />
<br />
It is a classic Jonathan Moyo move, designed for nothing else but to give the impression of momentum. What this move on Sunday telegraphs is an alarming state of affairs in the opposition camp.<br />
<br />
Because, you see, this is an extreme move. In other words, a last-ditch effort.<br />
<br />
One does not go broke unless one knows they have nothing left to lose. Desperate times, they say. Desperate measures.<br />
<br />
The strategy's risks are not lost on a man of the smarts and intelligence of Nelson Chamisa. Not at all. So, knowing this, aware of the fire-breathing electoral dragons that live down this road, Nelson Chamisa decided to take it anyway? Chauya chauya?<br />
<br />
Ask the actual people who are campaigning. Ask those who have trudging the streets of our cities and villages. The sentiment out there, which the Alliance was well aware of, is the reason why they think it was worth debasing itself between Saturday and Sunday.<br />
<br />
It was supposed to be this way.<br />
<br />
Choreographed to start with the presence of Sandi Moyo and Jealous Mawarire at the crossover rally. They had to be openly acknowledged. That was the price that had to be paid for a Mugabe endorsement. Even the language Chamisa chose: "the original ZANU PF". Those are words coined by Jonathan Moyo from exile, where he immediately started protesting that Mugabe should never have been ousted from power. He should have been allowed to be on ballot this year against Nelson Chamisa.<br />
<br />
So, considering the way Mnangagwa has run this election, peaceful, inclusive and free from fear, we then ask this: We all know if Mugabe was not ballot, there would be no observers in the country. We would not be anywhere near being embraced by the rest of the world again.<br />
<br />
Who then, would have been beating people up, brutalising them, threatening them, making see fire left right and centre?<br />
<br />
Who?<br />
<br />
It can't be Mnangagwa and Chiwenga. If they could not do that for myself, why would you convince me that they used to do for Mugabe?<br />
<br />
Which means it probably would have Professor Jonathan Moyo and G40 doing the dirty on Zimbabweans. They had already started by shutting down dissent in ZANU PF, expelling, threatening and (worse) anyone, who did not want "VaMugabe Chete Chete 2018".<br />
<br />
They would now be taking that intolerance, shutting down of dissent and spreading terror to the rest of population: <b>"Pasi nevanoti vaMugabe vachembera, hatichavada. Pasi navo"</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Anyway, we digress.<br />
<br />
Once the public endorsement was done, the embrace irreversible, the ball was in Mugabe's court. He had to be wheeled out and made to tell the world what we all knew. He would not support Mnangagwa and Chiwenga and their ZANU PF.<br />
<br />
<br />
Why agree to it? Because the numbers are not really looking good, apparently, for nelson Chamisa's Alliance.<br />
<br />
With two days to election day.<br />
<br />
Which left only the option of getting out the G40 barrel. And start scraping at the bottom of it for any votes that could make even a Government of National Unity a faint reality.<br />
<br />
This is one story that is infuriating those who had reposed their hopes in a Nelson Chamisa who squandered valuable inspiration time giving his supporters depression with talk of rigging. Migrating Xes, apparently. Chromatography, they said. The voter's roll, also. Something fishy there. Haven't quite figured it out. But doesn't smell right all the same.<br />
<br />
Scarfs. Caps. Adultery.<br />
<br />
We warned about this apathy that they are seeing now. Now they want to beat voters on the head with a comatose Mugabe to galvanise them into action?<br />
<br />
Of course its not working. The cost-benefit analysis on this emphatically points south. Down the poll pole.<br />
<br />
Professor Jonathan Moyo and other NPF doyens must shoulder a special moral culpability for pushing to drop the veil that had made this relationship plausibly deniable.<br />
<br />
And, of course, for Nelson Chamisa to embrace that strategy and was not madness.<br />
<br />
As we said: Desperate times.........<br />
<br />
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<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Birds of a feather?</i></b></div>
<br />
<br />
Whoever advised Nelson Chamisa to declare open support for Mugabe today at his crossover rally is evil. If it was Chamisa's own idea, well, then he has authored the burial of his own political career.<br />
<br />
People who marched in November last year to celebrate the fall of Mugabe are apparently supposed to cheer and be happy that Nelson Chamisa has decided that Mugabe is a good guy after all, his policies were spot on and should play a role in the future of the country if Nelson Chamisa wins the elections.<br />
<br />
Addressing the crowd at his rally earlier today, the last day of political campaigning as mandated by law, Chamisa directly said, Mugabe, "who was spurned and rejected is the one I will take and start a love affair with." In Shona, so that we have no doubt at all about his intent or his meaning, he said, "<b><i>Wacho anenge arambwa iyeye ndiye wandinotora ndodanana naye."</i></b><br />
<br />
Ok. This level of lack of judgement has us stumped. For the longest time, we really were convinced that all the talk of Chamisa being in bed with the Mugabes was just propaganda from his detractors. We thought the talk of his naming Grace Mugabe as his vice-president was just nonsense.<br />
<br />
But this turns the whole thing upside down. There is, after all, truth behind the talk that these discussions are in place.<br />
<br />
So, what is wrong with this embrace? What is wrong with Nelson Chamisa saying that he is now in love with Mugabe?<br />
<br />
Here's what.<br />
<br />
Mugabe, when he was in power, ran the most economically illiterate regime in the world. He did not believe that a country can actually be bankrupted by policies, famously saying, "Have you ever heard of a country going broke?"<br />
<br />
It was because he viewed government as a bottomless pit of cash to be tapped into. He believed that money literally grows on trees and in his world, the concept of fiscal discipline for a government did not exist.<br />
<br />
We are the second highest taxed nation on earth today because of this thinking by Mugabe.<br />
<br />
Whenever his ministers of Finance went to him to tell him that the government belt had to be tightened, his response was always to reject this approach and instead ask that Minister of Finance to find other ways to tax the population even more.<br />
<br />
So, we end up paying income tax before we get our salaries, which is fine. Then when we go to buy anything at all, there is VAT that we have to also pay out of the disposable income we have left after paying income tax.<br />
<br />
It does not stop there: at your bank, if you have a bank account, every time you withdraw, the government taxes you, everytime you used an ATM when cash was available, you also paid tax. And when they had exhausted all the cash and people started using plastic money, every time you swipe, you are also taxed.<br />
<br />
There is nothing, absolutely nothing at all, that you do, that is not taxed, because this is how Mugabe views government.<br />
<br />
Even when his government had completely destroyed infrastructure and you could not get water through your taps, he found a way to make money out of this, remember? If you decided to hustle, find money and have a borehole drilled at your property so that you could have water, Mugabe's government decided that, since you were no longer giving them money through taxes you paid every time you used municipal water, you now had to pay tax for the underground water you were drawing. We are not talking about the VAT and other taxes you paid for the borehole pump itself, the VAT you paid to the service provider who drilled the borehole etc. No. He came up with a special underground water tax.<br />
<br />
Roads had been completely destroyed all over the country because all the money Mugabe was getting from these taxes was used to feed himself, his family and his cronies. So, he and his cronies came up with the idea of convincing us that they should put up toll gates so that we pay to use these roads. The idea was to make sure the money was used to repair these roads.<br />
<br />
We had no problems with this as Zimbabwe, we are responsible citizens.<br />
<br />
But not a single road was repaired with the billions that we paid in toll fees.<br />
<br />
This prompted Mnangagwa to say recently, after he had taken over the presidency that his (Mnangagwa's) government was now getting money from ZINARA to repair and resurface our roads. Mnangagwa made the observation, "We wonder, where was all this money going before?"<br />
<br />
It was going to Mugabe and those who supported him and did not want anyone else to take over the country, not even Mnangagwa.<br />
<br />
Within the last few months, we have seen the majority of roads all over our towns completely redone and resurfaced. In Harare, Harare Drive is now a a smooth carpet. In the city centre itself, most of the roads are now completely redone.<br />
<br />
All this without asking donors or foreigners to fund a single kilometer of these city roads, because the money is coming from ZINARA. So, indeed, where was it going before under Mugabe?<br />
<br />
When people say Mugabe was dictator, what that means is that his word was final. It did not matter what his more level-headed comrades wanted, his will always prevailed. And because of the system of an Imperial Presidency we have, anyone who disagreed with him lost their job and got kicked off the gravy train.<br />
<br />
Human rights abuses? Mugabe boasted at a rally about telling the police to beat up Morgan Tsvangirai, declaring that he even told the SADC presidents this, <b><i>"Ndakavaudza (maSADC Heads of State) kuti, ehe, chakadashurwa. When the police say move, you move" </i></b>Translated, Mugabe, speaking of the beating up of Tsvangirai, said, "<b>I told the SADC Heads of State that, yes, Tsvangirai was thoroughly beaten up by our police. When the police say move you move."</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>So, </b>which part of this Mugabe philosophy, which part of this Mugabe history of tormenting our rights, letting his cronies in the G40 steal from us, licensing looting does Chamisa admire and want to bring into his new government if he wins?<br />
<br />
Which of all these disasters does he want to import into the policies and thinking of a new regime he will lead?<br />
<br />
And Grace?<br />
<br />
And to add insult to injury, we are being told that unless we support this disastrous pivot towards despotism and Mugabeism, Chamisa's friends in The American Congress will punish us as Zimbabwe by making sure we as a nation are sanctioned even more?<br />
<br />
We can state with absolute confidence that today, Nelson Chamisa waved his chance of getting elected President goodbye. He was on the road to losing this election already, but today, the anger I'm hearing from people who I know were supporting him guarantees his loss.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, it also means that his chances in parliament have gone up smoke. Which is evil, because, as we have always argued here on this blog, we really did need a strong, very strong, opposition presence in parliament to keep the Executive in check and guard against the temptation to stretch its luck on the part of that same Executive.<br />
<br />
We need a new opposition after this election. We definitely do.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUXPWAfPeSmpMYFeSgljgOQwaSFzZ1DZTbag0T1oXV9Z78HCYJIiRjddfTanfCDK_mjieNi-lLQARUV_EnZXmlSfSyiuOS7rnO72jCJajJzSia2LIcFUYVWDfq91JUWJDcczEMBvtKXa19/s1600/Mnangagwa+Russia+FM.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="1023" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUXPWAfPeSmpMYFeSgljgOQwaSFzZ1DZTbag0T1oXV9Z78HCYJIiRjddfTanfCDK_mjieNi-lLQARUV_EnZXmlSfSyiuOS7rnO72jCJajJzSia2LIcFUYVWDfq91JUWJDcczEMBvtKXa19/s640/Mnangagwa+Russia+FM.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>President Mnangagwa with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Harare earlier this year.</i></b></div>
<br />
<br />
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has spoken to Vladmir Putin in South Africa who promised to alert American President Donald Trump of what the ZANU PF government considers unfair prejudging of the elections by elements in the American Senate, specifically.<br />
<br />
We received this information earlier today.<br />
<br />
Both Mnangagwa and Putin were in South Africa for the BRICS summit, together with the Chinese President.<br />
<br />
The discussion with Putin was to discuss the various investments that Russia and Russian companies have committed to Zimbabwe, such as the Darwendale Platinum Group Minerals mining project. The Russians are also setting up a refining and smelting plant in the area. It was during the course of that discussion that President Putin asked about Mnangagwa's prospects in the coming election.<br />
<br />
The Zimbabwean leader responded by telling Putin that all indications are that he, Mnangagwa, is going to win a free and fair contest. He did say to Putin that in any election, even in American & Britain, there are elements in all parties that will go outside the law and misbehave.<br />
<br />
"But we believe we have shown our commitment to the rule of law by making sure the scattered incidents, whether by opposition supporters or by our own ZANU PF supporters, are quickly brought before the courts and dealt with without fear or favour."<br />
<br />
The Russian President was particularly interested in how Western observers would judge the election. Mnangagwa indicated in response that he is unsure, but if the observers were being honest, they would admit that he had bent over backwards to run an "open, inclusive and credible campaign. We have left the Electoral Commission entirely alone because we did not want to interfere, even to back up some of the small issues that opposition were bringing up because we are the government. If we were seen interfering in any way at all, there would have been an outcry that ZEC listens to instructions from the ZANU PF government."<br />
<br />
It was at this stage in the conversation, impeccable sources tell us, that Mnangagwa then told Putin that his information is that American Senators in the Foreign Relations Committee have already made up their minds they will not endorse the elections as free and fair or credible if Nelson Chamisa and the MDC do not win. "We know this and have been planning on this basis from day one," Mnangagwa told Putin.<br />
<br />
He did, however, say that he thought the verdict from all the other observers, including SADC, African Union and the European Union would be "a fair verdict. Whatever shortcomings they point out will be valid ones that will need to be addressed seriously and properly by a new administration. The American verdict will simply be one to justify a pre-conceived judgement."<br />
<br />
"We were pleasantly surprised," said our source, who was in the meeting, "when President Putin responded: 'I will also try and alert the American President to look objectively at the assessment of your election done by SADC, AU and other observers in order for him to make a properly informed decision after looking at all facts surrounding the election, not just what biased people in his country may have to say."<br />
<br />
As the engagement ended, Putin is said to have joked to Mnangagwa that he hopes the Americans and Europeans "do not embrace you too quickly, so that we get consolidate all these investments we are looking to make in your country first. You can give them the scraps and leftovers afterwards!"<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa is also said to be meeting with the Chinese President and the Turkish President, who wanted specifically tot talk about Turkish Airlines plans for Harare flights and to understand the challenges being faced in terms of repatriating airlines' funds out of Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbj86uKIYUYjDbgOzlNw0l0WaUM2RaYjax9fL68fEG8ac_njhAir8mJOpcq7z9uPs5Ea-JhBUYVvFVmwD9hyphenhyphenBa3BK9SFpmfH9vYPRlWsV6Tr8H2kldk8huCCDq8Aih1NGjdCZQyq49Zfyr/s1600/Alliance+Principals+%2526+Chamisa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="575" data-original-width="1023" height="358" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbj86uKIYUYjDbgOzlNw0l0WaUM2RaYjax9fL68fEG8ac_njhAir8mJOpcq7z9uPs5Ea-JhBUYVvFVmwD9hyphenhyphenBa3BK9SFpmfH9vYPRlWsV6Tr8H2kldk8huCCDq8Aih1NGjdCZQyq49Zfyr/s640/Alliance+Principals+%2526+Chamisa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
All the drama that Nelson Chamisa is currently engaged is completely unnecessary and utterly self-defeating. The MDC Alliance and all the opposition candidates are well placed to stop any supposed rigging without damaging the institutions of our country that are needed to make sure democracy endures and Zimbabwe becomes prosperous.<br />
<br />
<b>And stopping any potential rigging is so easy one now understands why most observers are now of the view that Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance are cry-babies who do not want to go elections at all for fear of a loss and to push for a non-elected GNU.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
ZEC has said that the Voters' Roll they gave out is clean, it has not ghosts on it. Chamisa and his people do not believe them. Fine. Skepticism is a good thing. But there is a better and more ironclad way to not only check this, but also protect the vote of Zimbabweans.<br />
<br />
Instead of insulting the ZEC Chair, alarming and demotivating his supporters will constant talk of a basically already-stolen vote, Chamisa, if his intention is really to make sure that the vote is free and fair, should do the following:<br />
<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Use the multi-party consultative forum to ensure that ZEC agrees and guarantees that each polling agent for each political party will guaranteed a seat at the polling officers' table.</b></li>
<li><b>Get a guarantee now that each voter will be verified by not only the polling officer but also by party polling agents. This means basically, the candidates' polling agents check the name of the voter who is about to be given his or her ballot paper on their copy of the voters' roll.</b></li>
<li><b>If the voter does not exist on the candidates' voters' roll, then there will be no ballot paper given to them for them to cast their vote</b></li>
<li><b>ZEC should be able to agree to this, because they have stated time and again that Chamisa and all other candidates have the final voters roll, verified by all registered voters.</b></li>
<li><b>Observers will be on the ground at the polling stations and their attention should be called to any incident where a person who is not on the candidate's voters' roll is said to be entitled to vote by the ZEC polling officer.</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
It is the most foolproof way to completely stop rigging, especially when we consider that the results will be announced per polling station. It will also remove the risk that "ghosts" will be able to vote on the day because the candidates' agents, observers and ZEC's numbers of people given ballot papers at that polling station will have to all be the same. They will also have to be same with the number of total ballots cast when the counting is done at that polling station.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This is a supremely important point to take note of, because those watching the elections are also asking this very same question. Asking why indeed, Chamisa has to create all this drama when he and all other candidates have the power to guard the doors to the ballot box, to ensure that only those on the roll, real, physical people with IDs that match the IDs that are on candidates' voters' rolls, get to vote.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So you also get the bonus of verifying that each person on the voters' roll that the opposition are suspicious about actually exists.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This could not happen in previous elections at all because Mugabe refused point blank to give the opposition the Voters' Roll. Just refused outright.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is the main reason why some of us would agree that there is reason to be very suspicious of the 2013 elections.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But the opposition have now been given this Holy Grail. So enough of this already, focus on building confidence in the election, making sure your supporters come out to vote.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
But no, Nelson Chamisa wants to continue with all this noise, embarrassing himself at SADC and at the AU.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is, for some of us, proof that Nelson Chamisa is not interested in a free, fair and credible election. Instead, all this points to the fact Nelson Chamisa is only interested in discrediting this election, in order to make his planned dispute credible, which will lead to loss of a legitimacy for the actual winner of the election if Nelson Chamisa is not the winner.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Has ZEC refused to do this?</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No they have not refused.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is now time to focus on this last mile to ensure that the election and the ballot is protected on the day. If the intention and the interest is in having a fair election, where those who are beaten are satisfied that they have been beaten fair and square, then this is the route that should be taken.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
So why are still talking about migrating Xs, wanting to see the ballot paper etc.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
ZEC should also commit to doing what they did during the printing, allow all players to pick a ballot paper at random soon after voting and compare them with the copies they were given at the printing observation, satisfy themselves that it is the same paper used in the final ballot and do any tests they want.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It is unforgivable to be condemning Zimbabweans to a future of poverty, isolation and laughing stock of the world for any one person's ego. <b>Criminal. Especially when there is such a simple, straightforward and watertight process that can still be implemented.</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
<b>I smell a rat. And the smell is coming from Chamisa's camp.</b></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<br />
<b><br /></b>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOF4z75vfQKV7I9qdoZVf3GrIaV_kpRY2SEoTZBvpURswsljPf_qGMXH0ESXhRpQXgA1UjBYKM84gBtVPjmoLRHYjtnHJXb43E0eikV3psJP1NiUkGmhZArejYQyTtyYwLpfp-12R3mZc4/s1600/Chamisa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="566" data-original-width="720" height="312" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOF4z75vfQKV7I9qdoZVf3GrIaV_kpRY2SEoTZBvpURswsljPf_qGMXH0ESXhRpQXgA1UjBYKM84gBtVPjmoLRHYjtnHJXb43E0eikV3psJP1NiUkGmhZArejYQyTtyYwLpfp-12R3mZc4/s400/Chamisa.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Observers say they are stunned at the complete absence of any strategy or campaign at the constituency level by Nelson Chamisa's MDC Alliance. It is a criminal neglect of a key pillar of his success as a presidential candidate</i></b></div>
<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa, the presidential candidate of the MDC Alliance so carefully and thoughtfully put together by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, is running an utterly criminal election campaign that focuses solely and almost entirely on his own personal ambition only.<br />
<br />
Chamisa has convinced all watchers that he does not believe in the Alliance he purports to lead.<br />
<br />
Evidence of this is scattered all over the electoral landscape like bodies on a battlefield.<br />
<br />
Parliamentary candidates for the Alliance have been neglected and their dejection is on full display around Zimbabwe, in contrast with the candidates of Khupe's MDC and Mnangagwa's ZANU PF. Even independents like Fadzai Mahere in Mt Pleasent are outgunning Alliance candidates in terms of energy, focus and popularity.<br />
<br />
The MDC Alliance has confirmed publicly that it is not funding the campaigns of their parliamentary candidates. They have to find their own money to print posters, buy and print t-shirts, hire venues for their constituency rallies and everything else they need to run real campaigns.<br />
<br />
Chamisa is concentrating on rallies. He is excited by the crowds he is getting at these rallies, which compare favourably to the crowds Tsvangirai used to get. But he forgets that Tsvangirai, a much more astute politician than Chamisa is proving to be, struggled to turn those crowds into votes, regardless of whether you believe that this was because of rigging or not.<br />
<br />
The merit of this approach is not the brief of this article. It has been said by a new breed of supporter for Chamisa, the most vocal and mindless followers we have seen in Zimbabwe since Robert Mugabe's followers, that this is a good thing because it means we will have MPs who have means in parliament, MPs who have enough money of their own and won't be tempted to steal from public coffers.<br />
<br />
Perhaps.<br />
<br />
But the result has been almost complete silence and absence on the ground by Alliance parliamentary candidates.<br />
<br />
They are handing this thing to ZANU PF, Khupe's MDC-T and others.<br />
<br />
In our own area, the area where we live, our community sent out communication inviting all residents to hear from candidates for MP, Councillor and Senator for our area. The request had come from one of the parties in this election to get us all gathered so that they could pitch their campaigns to us. The community decided to invite all parties to speak to us.<br />
<br />
The MDC Alliance did not show up, not their MP candidate, not their councillor candidate nor their Senator candidate.<br />
<br />
Our neighbours are all asking the same thing: "Who is standing for the Alliance in our area? What does he believe in? Is he or she competent enough to be sent to parliament?"<br />
<br />
There are no answers coming through. This is a solid neighbourhood in Harare, traditionally overwhelmingly in favour of Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-T.<br />
<br />
Yet the ZANU PF candidate is very visible on the ground, Khupe's candidate is very visible also, as is the independent candidate. Neither of the two candidates who are running in our area for the Alliance has been seen. You get that? Neither of them has actually been seen at all in our area.<br />
<br />
Does it matter?<br />
<br />
It does because Nelson Chamisa is just one person, he needs an organisation behind him to constantly agitate and motivate his supporters. As is the case in all other national election campaigns in the world, your local candidate is the one who gathers people weekly, every weekend, goes door to door, explains the party programme and defends the presidential candidate on the ground, in his own constituency, educates people on reasons why he supports that presidential candidate, why people should vote that presidential candidate.<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa has completely neglected this aspect, focusing instead on the rallies he is holding in the country, including in rural areas.<br />
<br />
If one is a seasoned watcher of politicians and their campaigns, one would be forgiven for thinking thinking that the way Chamisa is campaigning means he is clearly not campaigning to win this presidential campaign.<br />
<br />
Instead, he is campaigning to build a profile, to elevate his status in preparation for the next election where he hopes to then clinch the presidency.<br />
<br />
Posters for Alliance candidates started appearing in our neighbourhoods only this last week. Even then, you have to hunt and actively look for them in order for you to notice them.<br />
<br />
No meetings are being held at all.<br />
<br />
<b>There are other reasons and complications as well, of course, that inform how this is unfolding and this is where Chamisa's omission comes to fore.</b><br />
<br />
The Alliance is not really a party, you see. It needed to be nurtured, strengthened, fortified as a homogenous entity with common interests, Tsvangirai had the skills for this, had he lived. Chamisa doesn't.<br />
<br />
The Alliance has no structures. It has no office-bearers in the communities of our country, who can organise meetings, organise door to door campaigns and the like.<br />
<br />
If a candidate for the Alliance wants to organise a meeting for his campaign and he is not from the MDC, what does he or she do?<br />
<br />
Does he go to the MDC structures?<br />
<br />
Problematic, that is.<br />
<br />
Especially if, for instance, you are from NPF, Mugabe's party, and you are running in, say, James Maridadi's Mabvuku-Tafara constituency.<br />
<br />
In that constituency, Maridadi, a sitting MDC-Tsvangirai MP, is quite popular. Very popular. He was one of Tsvangirai's right-hand men, being an official in the Prime Minister's Office, even, when Tsvangirai was Prime Minister.<br />
<br />
But Chamisa has now fired him from the party, publicly because he insists on running as an Alliance candidate even though the seat has been given by Chamisa to one of the other smaller Alliance partner briefcase parties.<br />
<br />
People in that area are against this and do not want to campaign for the person Chamisa has imposed on them in that constituency.<br />
<br />
The script is being repeated all over the country.<br />
<br />
The Alliance candidates who are going to win are going to do so against huge odds or because, like Chalton Hwende in Kuwadzana, they are aggressively pushing their campaigns.<br />
<br />
<b>And why is all this criminal?</b><br />
<br />
It is criminal because parliament is not an afterthought, it is the real battleground for the development of our country. The constitution of Zimbabwe demands that a president picks his cabinet from parliament, with only a handful (five or so) ministers allowed to be non-MPs. Parliament's main role will be to check the powers of the executive, which executive will always, in any country anywhere in the world, try to overreach its powers.<br />
<br />
Parliament is the guardian of the interests of all the people of Zimbabwe. It is supposed to protect both ruling party and opposition supporters' interests by making sure the executive plays fair, governs in the interest of the nation and not in its own interest or the interest of its own party only.<br />
<br />
Abandoning this responsibility is a politically criminal act by any presidential candidate.<br />
<br />
It tell us that the candidate intends to be a dictator, believes that he does not need a majority in parliament to govern effectively or fairly, that he will do what he wants and nobody will be allowed to question him.<br />
<br />
Because if he intended to govern constitutionally, he would understand that parliament has immense powers. Just ask Mugabe. A parliament that is hostile to you and your agenda as President can impeach you on the slightest excuse, as long as it follows the letter of the law (and not even its spirit).<br />
<br />
<b>Why would a presidential candidate ignore this aspect.</b><br />
<br />
The criminality comes from a myopic focus on the presidential campaign to the detriment of parliamentary poll. It betrays a narcissistic strain in Chamisa which is incredibly dangerous to the putative democracy of the Second Republic in Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
It is sabotage of the very real hopes that millions of opposition supporters have.<br />
<br />
So, if you want to understand the results that are going to be announced after the elections, the results that will almost certainly be endorsed by observers as a true reflection of the will of the people of Zimbabwe, come back to this article when others are crying about rigging and an uneven playing field.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHV9nCFc9coGxi2PH_kf-IegqBRXV9lJazTKQ3YsTBWb3PZs-RFE5cEj_WBjapxSQwVYxhnRKah_FVJ3aHWurOBsSqs1mScyhHdrDDpxir20aD5vF09Pau3h6-T3DgoE-Y6jRHUzTnplyX/s1600/Madzibaba+Mnangagwa.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="933" data-original-width="1600" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHV9nCFc9coGxi2PH_kf-IegqBRXV9lJazTKQ3YsTBWb3PZs-RFE5cEj_WBjapxSQwVYxhnRKah_FVJ3aHWurOBsSqs1mScyhHdrDDpxir20aD5vF09Pau3h6-T3DgoE-Y6jRHUzTnplyX/s640/Madzibaba+Mnangagwa.jpeg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
This qualifies as one of the top of the images from the 2018 Zimbabwean election.<br />
<br />
The various Mapostori Christian sects in Zimbabwe number more than a million. The Johanne Marange sect, whose Passover celebrations President Mnangagwa is seen here attending is by far the largest, followed by the Masowe sect.<br />
<br />
Now, just wondering: we all know about the rivalry between these two sects and the many others scattered all over Zimbabwe. Does this mean the other sects will now boycott Mnangagwa and vote someone else because they hate the Marange faction?<br />
<br />
Not entirely sure if all of them are registered to vote, but this sect has become a stomping ground for ZANU PF leaders and they have tended to support the ruling party. Getting this bloc to support you and vote for you is a prize coveted by every politician in Zimbabwe.<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa, seen here sitting right in the middle of the throng, sitting on the dusty ground like everybody else, has taken this to another level. Mugabe and Chiwenga have both attended gatherings of Mapostori before, but no politician has ever taken it to this level, sitting down and identifying with the massed gathering as one of them, bang in the middle of everyone.<br />
<br />
What has struck me about this election is the difference in styles by Nelson Chamisa and Emmerson Mnangagwa.<br />
<br />
All this has reminded me of one of Mugabe's famous witticisms, when he said he knew that some praying for his death, praying to God so that he dies.<br />
<br />
"Don't you think that I also pray?" he asked. "And don't you think that God also listens to me? Why would you think that God will listen to your prayers and not listen to mine?"<br />
<br />
It points to a fundamental human problem, especially for God-believing Christians.<br />
<br />
They have tended to ascribe their own prejudices, biases and hatred to God. They make the mistake of thinking that whatever they support is supported by God as well and whatever their foe supports is not supported by God.<br />
<br />
So they assume because they think so and so is evil, God also thinks that person is evil and they use that as the departure point for how they deal with their own lives.<br />
<br />
Some of us can not be bothered trying to read God's mind. Otherwise we would struggle to understand why Hitler even existed, was allowed to kill millions and inflict a lasting legacy of humiliation on the German people who innocently supported him as he rose to the leadership of their country.<br />
<br />
Or why God would watch as a Martin Luther King was assassinated.<br />
<br />
Which leads us to the current election: Both Chamisa and Mnangagwa invoke God in their campaigns and their lives.<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa sings hallelujah at his rallies. Chamisa says God is in it (and presumably God is not in Mnangagwa's campaign).<br />
<br />
It is going to be interesting to see who between them has read God's mind correctly.<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkcu3UjgYebfuQi9l0MuCSZHWzXPFwGlngmpkGTUljk4Ox-nPUCDBfcgm5vxzqNYb6GFw-DdGh2ohdrLRaka6qXcIDONS4gvxva1Gk73cY8Go4nYeqb73gBbtb17XwwWcQO6xxX-unXmn8/s1600/Chigumba+transparency.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="667" data-original-width="1000" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgkcu3UjgYebfuQi9l0MuCSZHWzXPFwGlngmpkGTUljk4Ox-nPUCDBfcgm5vxzqNYb6GFw-DdGh2ohdrLRaka6qXcIDONS4gvxva1Gk73cY8Go4nYeqb73gBbtb17XwwWcQO6xxX-unXmn8/s640/Chigumba+transparency.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>JUSTICE Chigumba, the ZEC Chair, briefing observers at the Harare International Conference Centre earlier today, doubled down on a trend of refusing or failing the transparency test. She is within the law on everything she has done, but ignoring the key test of transparency impacts massively on the credibility of this poll, to the detriment of whoever end up winning this election.</i></b></div>
<br />
We have always defended ZEC against the baseless accusation thrown against them by an opposition that is bent discrediting the election in the hope of it being declared not free and fair and thereby, hopefully, forcing a Government of National Unity with Nelson Chamisa as Prime Minister, but the needless lack of transparency by the electoral body is now wildly carvoting in sabotage territory.<br />
<br />
Take Justice Chigumba's briefing with Observers today at the Harare International Conference Centre.<br />
<br />
One thing that has raised alarm bells is her announcement that the electoral body will not be using indelible ink this time around.<br />
<br />
This is fine, it is their prerogative. But it is definitely not transparent or helpful to whoever is going to win the election when all said done.<br />
<br />
From reports by The Herald (who, unfortunately, appear to be the only ones really reporting on the ground to the shame of all other so-called media houses), <b>she did not say what they will now be using instead of the indelible ink.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
This is negligence of probity, if we want to be very charitable.<br />
<br />
Why is the ZEC Chair so intent on not demonstrating transparency? The opposition are right to ask what she and the Commission are hiding.<br />
<br />
Yes, there is the law and we will always defend her and her Commission against unlawful and vexatious demands such as the ones coming from the Alliance.<br />
<br />
But there is no law that forbids her from being transparent.<br />
<br />
Some us do know that there have been concerns around indelible ink coming from the 1980 elections. <b>Our parents inform us that back then, Mugabe's supporters were able to vote multiple times simply by using Coca cola to wash off the ink and turn up again to vote, at a different polling station.</b><br />
<br />
So that is a concern that could possibly be behind dumping indelible ink this time around (people may have found a way to remove it and ZEC knows may have been alerted to this). And yes, this would also explain why the electoral body would also be reticent about stating this in public.<br />
<br />
But there is neither legal nor moral law that forbids the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission from stating that they <b>1. The reason why they will not tell the public now what it is going to replace indelible ink. 2. Telling the public whether (and when) we will be informed of what it is that will replace the indelible, be it before or after voting.</b><br />
<br />
This, coming hot on the heels of the dog's breakfast that was the Ross Camp voting scandal yesterday, definitely adds to impression of not only arrogance but also impunity in the eyes of neutral observers like ourselves.<br />
<br />
It may be that ZEC is not doing anything shady or underhand. Our position and belief is that they are indeed running this election legally, and professionally. However, we can not say that they are running the process transparently.<br />
<br />
And transparency is key.<br />
<br />
If we follow the law but neglect transparency, we throw doubt on credibility. And credibility is a key pillar of the journey that will result in Zimbabwe emerging from isolation and being embraced by the international community as a sanitised nation.<br />
<br />
Why on earth would Justice Chigumba think that this pillar is dispensable? Why?<br />
<br />
This is a critical, critical election. Justice Chigumba clearly knows this.<br />
<br />
To quote Julius Caesar about why he had to divorce his wife, Pompeia, even though the courts had acquitted her and the young man who had transgressed Roman law:<br />
<br />
"<b>The wife of caesar must be above suspicion". </b>Or, as expressed more succinctly: "The wife of Caesar must be beyond reproach."<br />
<br />
We certainly would hope that this opaqueness if also not being displayed to the observers. We hope that reasons why and rationale is being given to them behind closed.<br />
<br />
If not, there is no doubt whatsoever in our minds that<b> Nelson Chamisa, Emmerson Mnangagwa, Nkosana Moyo, Joyce Mujuru and other presidential candidates' supporters will all universally and hold ZEC and Justice Chigumba the authors of our misfortunes when and if our isolation continues as a result of an an election compromised by this lack of transparency.</b><div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCoBwbCuN3o-se-npmqFjfdCseXPGw80WnoQmyEjje2UT7oW7TM1mtLuahyphenhyphenDf_Nms_Cfi7O5rrovYVOjCdUmCt-HJSDDROyfSxWuDro_0ErHelpRnRIJBpVwdiPIfHQQLrVB85CHGlXsHs/s1600/Ross+Camp+Postal+Voting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCoBwbCuN3o-se-npmqFjfdCseXPGw80WnoQmyEjje2UT7oW7TM1mtLuahyphenhyphenDf_Nms_Cfi7O5rrovYVOjCdUmCt-HJSDDROyfSxWuDro_0ErHelpRnRIJBpVwdiPIfHQQLrVB85CHGlXsHs/s640/Ross+Camp+Postal+Voting.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b><i>Welshman Ncube of the MDC Alliance, at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo today, where police voted today in an incident made a scandal only by the fact that ZEC appeared not to know that ballot papers that it should be in charge of were now in Bulawayo, at a police camp</i></b> </div>
<br />
<br />
It is a blunder of monumental proportions, no doubt and we do not need to recount to you what transpired at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo.<br />
<br />
But just in case you have been on Mars today, here goes:<br />
<br />
An alert was sent to the MDC Alliance by a policeman at Ross Camp saying the policemen there were being "forced" to vote in the presence of their superiors and crying out for help. The Alliance immediately broadcast the alert across social media.<br />
<br />
The Acting Chief Elections Officer for ZEC denied that there was any voting taking place, saying he was still processing postal vote applications.<br />
<br />
Videos and images soon emerged showing that there had indeed been voting at that Camp and ZEC Commissioners scrambled to get onto social media and confirm that postal voting had indeed taken place at the camp and would be sent to the relevant polling stations on voting day.<br />
<br />
For a body whose credibility is under such serious assault, questioned so loudly, this behaviour only reinforces the charges of arrogance.<br />
<br />
Let us look at the substance of the process.<br />
<br />
Yes, indeed, postal votes are permitted by our laws. Yes, there is a timetable that was published to guide this process and most of those needing postal votes knew they had to have them with ZEC by Monday 16 July 2018. And it could well be that this is what happened today.<br />
<br />
But now we must look at the unwarranted destruction of their own credibility engineered by ZEC today.<br />
<br />
Certainly, in their shoes, under the current climate, we would have made a point of ensuring that, just as the finishing of printing was announced, we would also announce the starting of postal voting, just to be transparent. (The presidential ballot was specifically announced and we have not heard anything about the parliamentary ballot paper printing, making the allegations that those who voted at Ross Camp today also voted for MPs rather alarming).<br />
<br />
<b>Here then are the problems confronting ZEC about the way they have handled this particular matter, we can be sure, all Zimbabweans, supporters of all parties, are asking the following questions:</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<br />
<ul>
<li><b>How come the Acting Chief Elections Officer and the Commissioners were not aware that there was voting going on in Bulawayo today? Who then was in charge of that process if he was not aware?</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<ul>
<li><b>Was the Chief Elections Officer of the Commission aware that the ballot papers had been dispatched? If he was, is he still fit for that job if he failed or neglected to tell the Commissioners? Why did he/she not alert them of this process? Does the CEO have full, complete and autonomous executive authority to do this without informing the Commissioners? If not, who does? It was clearly not the Commissioners.</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<ul>
<li><b>How were the ballot papers transported to Bulawayo? By whom? When?</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<ul>
<li><b>Did the top brass supervise the voting or not?</b></li>
</ul>
<div>
Now, there is no need for observers for postal voting (embassy staff and others do postal votes and it would be impossible for observers to fly teams to all these places all over the world to observe the processes).</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Contrary to Tendai Biti's assertion that the Ross Camp incident was a violation of the Electoral Law in terms of setting up a Polling Station at a cantonment, postal votes are not cast at a polling station. For us to understand this, let us put it this way: </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
When you get your postal ballot paper, you can complete it anywhere: at your house, in your office, even in the bus. That does not make any of these places polling stations.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The real problem, however, is that, instead of distributing the ballot papers to policemen to fill in in private and then return, sealed, for posting to the relevant authorities, the police bosses at Ross Camp appear to have set up a room and forced all policemen registered for postal voting to cast their votes in a room at the Camp.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<b>Who gave that instruction?</b></div>
<div>
<b><br /></b></div>
<div>
To a neutral observer, this whole episode smells to the high heavens.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A full explanation is now required at the next briefing or sooner from the ZEC Chair. This incident goes way beyond the bounds of independence, unless of course, the intention within the Commission is to sabotage President Mnangagwa and ZANU PF by casting doubt on the elections and ensuring that they can not possibly be given an unqualified clean bill of health.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Failure to provide full disclosure will definitely compromise this election and taint it irreparably.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Of their own volition, the Commission will now, if we were offering advice, have to disclose the timetable from the time the ballot was printed, when it was shipped to Bulawayo, how it was shipped there and by whom, what instructions or protocols were dictated to the police in terms of how they should handle these postal votes, whether that protocol was followed or breached and, if it was breached, what action they recommend should be taken. If the protocol was not breached, how was it not breached.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
This will restore faith in the process.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance have been handed an absolute coup by how this incident has been handled by ZEC.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
All of sudden, their demands and their cries do not look alarmist anymore to the electorate. They have ceased to be cry-babies and only time will tell what impact this will have on the election itself.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Full disclosure is the only thing that will save the day here for ZEC and even then, we fear enough damage has been done to significantly taint the entire Commission.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
It may be impossible to restore the presumed integrity which, to be honest, the majority of voters in Zimbabwe had, until today, assumed that ZEC had.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCAkDb5spDFEOcb0RbjyAfdT0X7apkfNEXk21gsOUp9JCKNeoEsC1Nj7JyNFidzLAoDYdASJyuza_vANNlig2kMGWXNgN9H-M-oKR5mBogv2RNQvsbQg3Xw1c0TyMI9DedSxiWOBYxLw5v/s1600/Alliance+march+11+july+2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="607" data-original-width="1080" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCAkDb5spDFEOcb0RbjyAfdT0X7apkfNEXk21gsOUp9JCKNeoEsC1Nj7JyNFidzLAoDYdASJyuza_vANNlig2kMGWXNgN9H-M-oKR5mBogv2RNQvsbQg3Xw1c0TyMI9DedSxiWOBYxLw5v/s640/Alliance+march+11+july+2018.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
Things are getting very interesting now although I doubt Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance will be amused.<br />
<br />
It's stunning, I tell you.<br />
<br />
Although Nelson Chamisa believes he is going to meet Justice Chigumba tomorrow (Thursday July 12 2018), the ZEC Chair has decided that neither she nor her Commissioners will meet the opposition leader or any of his cronies.<br />
<br />
In a heated phone call today with Justice Minister Ziyambi, Chigumba threatened to seek a court injunction barring the Alliance from "harassing" ZEC and disrupting, interrupting and impeding the implementation of its mandate at law.<br />
<br />
The Justice Minister made it clear that he would not support that move, although he could not stop the ZEC Chair from proceeding with the action if she thought it suitable. He even went so far as to declare that his government would publicly distance itself from the move if it happens, just to register the position of government, since he could not order to proceed or not.<br />
<br />
After this, the ZEC Chair then made it clear to her Commission that there isn't going to be a meeting with the Alliance tomorrow, despite what they have been told or what they believe.<br />
<br />
Her position, which she has now crystallised even further, is simple enough:<br />
<br />
"ZEC Commissioners are at the apex of the independent structure of the Commission. It is improper for them to meet with a political party participating in these elections because that would be a breach of the principle of independence.<br />
<br />
There are other avenues that ZEC has opened up to political players in order for them to engage them and help the electoral process. One of these is the multi-party consultative forum, which is designed to help political parties achieve consensus on any issue that affects the process and is not governed by law. The Alliance will have to attend this forum, seek to build an agreed position with all other political parties and then bring an agreed position to ZEC, which ZEC will then implement."<br />
<br />
Outside of this, ZEC has taken the position that it will not meet any political party or candidate outside of the multi-party forum.<br />
<br />
They will not entertain any approaches, arguments or demands from any one political party or candidate. They will only entertain the multi-party forum, which it appears the Alliance has been boycotting because, according to ZEC, "they want special treatment." This special treatment, according to ZEC, will immediately raise concerns about their independence, so the Commissioners <b>will never do this, there will be no meeting, even if the Alliance marches to ZEC "every single day to the ZEC offices with all 5 million Zimbabwean voters in tow, it is just not going to happen."</b><br />
<br />
The ZEC Chair, I believe, has asked observers who she has engaged one question: "would you advocate that we violate the law or start introducing our own laws at ZEC in order to satisfy the demands of one party, which was involved in the process of crafting the laws that we are strictly following? Would that lawlessness make the election free, fair or credible".<br />
<br />
We are made to understand that the response she got emboldened her to pursue this strict path (she refused to tell government what the response she got was).<br />
<br />
So, in summary, folks, there will be no meeting at ZEC tomorrow, Thursday between Chamisa and the ZEC Chair or Commissioners. If Nelson shows up, then he is going to be very embarrassed because there will be no one to meet with.<br />
<br />
And, to round it all off, ZEC has made up its mind that it will not implement anything being demanded by the Alliance if it falls outside of the law.<br />
<br />
Basically, this means no monitoring of the transportation of the ballot boxes and ballot papers, no guarding of the storage facilities where the ballot papers will be kept. Basically, ZEC will follow the law by implementing the remaining process: <b>1. Announcing the number of ballot papers printed 2. Announcing when the ballot papers are dispatched 3. Announcing the source of the ballot paper as late as possible to avoid untrustworthy persons getting their own consignments and rigging the vote. 4. Counting and votes and announcing results.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
These are the steps left and they are all that ZEC will do, they will not do anything else, not one thing, outside of these steps, unless that thing comes via a multi-party consultative process consensus position.<br />
<br />
So, basically, we can say that this story is finished, ended. You will not hear anymore of it. The Alliance will continue making noise, yes, and they may even march again and again and again, but the state of affairs is <b>ZEC will, from today until election day, completely ignore the MDC Alliance unless they bring something grounded firmly in the Electoral Act.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
We are certain that even President Mnangagwa is not happy with this state of affairs!<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPYBiL9gIFPUSBQK5ylnuUadmCFKis2DNwKgwWKOTme0iBXaIVt1TM6AcGsRsqMVQ_hYWrFatA9qMorDSL5h2IlibHDRhumaIenJkHOYkLo2Pp3qYXuLhLX2lesOnwBIz2pSu4URa4BuFS/s1600/nelson-chamisa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="380" data-original-width="680" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPYBiL9gIFPUSBQK5ylnuUadmCFKis2DNwKgwWKOTme0iBXaIVt1TM6AcGsRsqMVQ_hYWrFatA9qMorDSL5h2IlibHDRhumaIenJkHOYkLo2Pp3qYXuLhLX2lesOnwBIz2pSu4URa4BuFS/s640/nelson-chamisa.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
According to sources close to the development, the reason we are seeing Nelson Chamisa going ballistic in the last few days is because of a message delivered to him by a representative of President Mnangagwa, whom he met this last week.<br />
<br />
The message was in response to Chamisa's repeated attempts to meet with Mnangagwa and the two letters he has sent asking for a meeting. The first one, already published, asked for the meeting as a "courtesy visit".<br />
<br />
The response to Chamisa has been that President Emmerson Mnangagwa will only meet Nelson Chamisa in the presence of Thokozani Khupe, who also claims to be the legitimate leader of the MDC-T.<br />
<br />
The visit last week from an ED representative was to update this position and the message, we are reliably informed, was:<br />
<br />
"We had hoped to arrange a meeting after the court case you had brought against Khupe and the other MDC-T. That court case would have settled who really is a representative of the MDC-T. Unfortunately, you have withdrawn your case against Madame Khupe, so the situation remains unresolved. Under the circumstances, it would be highly improper for a sitting Head of State to be seen to be giving you and your MDC-T faction preferential treatment by meeting privately with you. Doing so, as you would understand, would be tantamount to interfering in the affairs of your party and endorsing you as the legitimate head of the MDC-T when the matter has not been settled conclusively."<br />
<br />
Mnangagwa message goes on to explain that he would be quite happy to meet with Nelson Chamisa in the presence of not only Madame Khupe, but also all the other candidates currently running for President against him. "This way, we avoid being seen to be plotting in private against one party or the other. Every candidate matters in the eyes of the law and natural justice, so excluding them from the process would also raise issues that could complicate the aftermath of the elections we will hold on 30 July this year.<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa has responded, as he confirmed last week, by sending a second letter back to Mnangagwa, explaining why he does not believe that the meeting would be seen as suspicious by anyone other than Madame Khupe and her allies and that the national interest supersedes the opinions of a rebel member of the MDC-T.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyt7YnvEg7dkBqPQfPty0jdpGlV9V6kfcbbihUSllQkkhypFnol64tDVDsMqrKvXcgr5NXZ3TyCOer_GAz6IFgIbGbCFpr4AB455nUOEB_k5PU-Tav8MkyUsYFWs4pVdULWH_ZmKVGdAt5/s1600/Voting+in+Zimbabwe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="552" data-original-width="980" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyt7YnvEg7dkBqPQfPty0jdpGlV9V6kfcbbihUSllQkkhypFnol64tDVDsMqrKvXcgr5NXZ3TyCOer_GAz6IFgIbGbCFpr4AB455nUOEB_k5PU-Tav8MkyUsYFWs4pVdULWH_ZmKVGdAt5/s640/Voting+in+Zimbabwe.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
Nelson Chamisa, it turns out, is playing straight into the hands of ZANU PF with his constant agitation around the voters' roll and the ballot paper.<br />
<br />
This was revealed to us yesterday, Sunday, 08 July, entirely by accident. We were not supposed to hear what we are about to tell you and I hope we will not get into trouble for it!<br />
<br />
ZANU PF, like the Republicans in the USA, the Tories in the UK and many other parts of the world, knows that one of the most effective ways to "rig" an election is to ensure that your opponents' supporters do not show up on voting day.<br />
<br />
It is called voter suppression. It is a micro strategy that the Republicans used in the USA for decades before the Dems and the Independents woke up to what was happening (and it involved manipulating local laws to demand the sort of ID documents the Republicans knew Democratic supporters were unlikely to have).<br />
<br />
Demotivating MDC supporters is ZANU PF's number one prize, and Nelson Chamisa and his crew are fueling it brilliantly, by ZANU PF's own admission.<br />
<br />
Here's how it works:<br />
<br />
The constant loud shouting about the Voters' Roll, pictures, ballot paper printing etc etc, is having the effect of making MDC Alliance supporters believe that the election will be rigged somewhat. They do not understand it fully but just hear their candidate complaining about losing the elections before it is even held, not matter what language is used around this issue by the opposition,<br />
<br />
This is the same ghost that Morgan Tsvangirai failed to recognised until his third election, when he started making the right noises to reassure his voters. And it contributed immensely to Morgan beating Mugabe fair and square in the first round of the elections, that reassurance and change in message.<br />
<br />
All this is being undone by Nelson Chamisa.<br />
<br />
The problem is that the vast majority of voters do not care to follow the minute details of these complaints and issues being raised.<br />
<br />
All they know is that the MDC Alliance and its candidate, Nelson Chamisa, are complaining about ZEC, that it is biased, that it is "working to deliver a ZANU PF win."<br />
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Whatever issue we had with Tsvangirai, he was intelligent enough to recognise the devastating effects of this on his support base and his voters and he corrected it the moment it dawned on him, but then forgot the lesson for the 2013 election as hubris set in.<br />
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Nelson Chamisa is actually proving incapable of recognising this and I pity the MDC supporters because a rookie is now in charge of their party and it looks like it will take him another three elections to learn what Morgan Tsvangirai did.<br />
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<b>ZANU PF wants Nelson Chamisa to make as much noise as possible about "irregularities" and "rigging". They want that message spread as far and as wide as possible. Because once that is done, MDC supporters will, as they have proven before, decide that their vote does not matter and they should stay at home on voting or do other things they enjoy with the holiday provided by Polling Day.</b><br />
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Make no mistake, the demands Nelson Chamisa is making are going to be satisfied by ZEC at some point. Mostly because this grandstanding by Nelson Chamisa has nothing to do with actually ensuring a free, fair and credible elections. His grandstanding is definitely about playing to the gallery of Observers, to ensure that there is a disputed election results after 30 July 2018, so that there can be a GNU.<br />
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So the demands will be met for the sake of observers.<br />
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But this will be delayed long enough to give Chamisa a rope long enough with which to hand himself.<br />
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The more he marches, cries about "rigging" and "lack of transparency", the more his potential voters get demotivated, decide that voting on the day just will not be worth it because whatever they do, their vote will be "stolen" anyway.<br />
<br />
This is an actual ZANU PF strategy. You may laugh it the way the Democrats laughed at the suppression strategy of the Republicans in the USA, but you will wake up to it sooner or later. And we dare say it is working to devastating effect, especially in the urban areas, where the fight and complaints are being amplified every single day by media that is read and watched by a combined total of around 4 million Zimbabweans, according to statistics.<br />
<br />
In the urban areas, it will result in the suppression of enough votes to matter. And in the rural areas, it is even worse: rural MDC supporters, as we have seen for ourselves, believe that they are so outnumbered that it is not worth the effort to get and vote on the day because their vote will not matter.<br />
<br />
Next, probably later on tonight, if you are interested, I am going to do another post looking at the criminal manner in which Nelson Chamisa is sabotaging his political Alliance, his party and the expectations of his supporters by the very campaign strategy he has deliberately decided to take. It is criminal from where we sit because of the damage it is doing to the progress of democracy in Zimbabwe. ZANU PF, even if they win, can not be unchallenged in power, they need to be kept on their toes and perhaps our only hope will lie in focused Independent candidates like the brilliant Fadzai Mahere in Mt Pleasent, who looks like she would really hound whoever gets in after July 30 and try to keep our fledgling democracy on the straight and narrow.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><script type="text/javascript"><!--
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5okTPK9rlMSKHF-rxYEE5N4yYxQoIIEGDFkr7Wv8B7tjPJfaFz-Y2IeYQijw6dTvlJkm3lbrCkrHYzVSUAB7sjPDwo1bzWtxeLTykpK8j0y7Regq_w7PX0G_qkk1r1cseVvr1ZHLUhZ12/s1600/international+media.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="675" height="342" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5okTPK9rlMSKHF-rxYEE5N4yYxQoIIEGDFkr7Wv8B7tjPJfaFz-Y2IeYQijw6dTvlJkm3lbrCkrHYzVSUAB7sjPDwo1bzWtxeLTykpK8j0y7Regq_w7PX0G_qkk1r1cseVvr1ZHLUhZ12/s400/international+media.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<br />
<br />
"Nelson Chamisa is embarrassing and Emmerson Mnangagwa is very very dull," is what one American journalist with an international news network put it to me when she called this morning to get an update on the election and sentiment on the ground.<br />
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It is a stunning turn of events, this complete ignoring of Zimbabwe's 2018 elections by international media.<br />
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For the first time since 2000, the international media (CNN, BBC, SKY, even China Global Television) are almost completely ignoring the Zimbabwe elections. Haru Mutasa, at Al Jazeera, is the only international journalist who is getting the story of this election out, but in very small drips.<br />
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Previous Zimbabwe elections were a daily fixture on international news platforms before. Mugabe's rallies were covered on a weekly basis from the week he started campaigning to election day. Tsvangirai was never covered as much but featured as a counterpoint to the fiery rhetoric of Robert Mugabe.<br />
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This time around, there is an almost complete blackout on the international airwaves.<br />
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Why?<br />
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Since Operation Restore Legacy, the world and the world media have taken the default position that the election results are a foregone conclusion: Emmerson Mnangagwa is going to win the election. This has led to the ridiculous situation where we saw Nelson Chamisa supporters, especially, accusing organisations like the BBC of having been bought by ZANU PF! Even CNN was not spared.<br />
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But that is mostly because Zimbabweans, an immature democratic people, prefer partisan press. They want their leaders to be swooned over even if they have done nothing to deserve being hailed or newsworthy.<br />
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But that is a point for another day.<br />
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The assumption by the international community that Mnangagwa is going to win this election would not have been enough to guarantee the ignoring that is currently under way by the international media. There is more to it.<br />
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<b>First, </b>the evidence on the ground pointing to an election free from strife, violence and abuse has made this election largely dull for the international media.<br />
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<b>Second, </b>both President Mnangagwa and Nelson Chamisa, the two main contenders, have proved to be immensely uninspiring speakers, nowhere near the calibre of Robert Mugabe who made any speech he delivered, no matter mundane, electric. Insults were peppered throughout, including insults directed at international leaders. Truth is neither Chamisa nor Mnangagwa are orators.<br />
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<b>Third, </b>there is a very strong presumption within the international community that these elections are going to be free, fair and credible, as promised by Mnangagwa, so the excitement is has been taken out of this whole thing. International media love controversy and neither Mnangagwa nor Chamisa has been able to create even a semblance of this.<br />
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Nelson Chamisa has failed completely move the needle of this election, which is the only thing that would have got the international community rushing to Zimbabwe.<br />
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He is the new dynamic here. He is the the unknown quantity and it is an incredible indictment that the world is not even remotely curious about him.<br />
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MDC Alliance supporters, who are mostly supporters of the old MDC-T, unfortunately, are doing to Nelson Chamisa what they did to Morgan Tsvangirai. A leader matures when his faults are pointed out by his own supporters. When he puts a foot wrong he is most likely to listen to his own supporters than to his opponents. It's just how humans are wired.<br />
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We know that there is no criticism of Nelson Chamisa in private or in public by his supporters.<br />
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When he embarrasses himself with Paul Kagame, for instance, and Kagame responds in the interests of not being dragged into Zimbabwe's internal election campaign, Chamisa supporters respond by hurling the crudest and most embarrassing insults at this respected African leader who has made his nation, Rwanda, the envy of the world and an example of what this continent can be.<br />
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<b>Look, in any country, there are vocal minorities on either side of the political divide. They use language like "we the people", "the people", "the majority" etc. They tend to be the loudest voices on social media and even in the media. They are extremists and they exist in both ZANU PF and MDC. </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>But, the vast majority are what political scientists have referred to as "the silent majority". They do not shout, insult or get excitable in public. This centrist majority is overwhelmingly large in most countries. Whether its America, South Africa or Zimbabwe. Which is why those who call themselves "independent" are the majority in the USA, South Africa and Zimbabwe.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>They will go and vote silently.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The biggest failure by the Chamisa Alliance of the MDC is their failure to speak to this demographic at all. Chamisa and his advisers have decided to appeal to their own support base's lowest common denominator.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>Mnangagwa? The President's messaging has been shockingly dull. True, he has the pulse of the nation correctly. His actions are overwhelmingly resonant and even in Harare, which we call home, people are noticing small things like the complete resurfacing of roads that had collapsed (Harare Drive, Enterprise Rd and many others). </b><br />
<b><br /></b>
But Mnangagwa's stump performance on the campaign trail is proving to be rather dull.<br />
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Which would have been a golden opportunity for Nelson Chamisa had he and his advisers decided not to appeal to the lowest common denominator in the MDC and opposition circles.<br />
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The truth of the matter is that Mnangagwa, through his actions and saying the right things (even in a rather dull manner), <b>is giving the majority centrist population of Zimbabwe a reason to try him and continue the tentative, although disappointing, steps towards normality and even prosperity, that he appears to be giving the country a glimpse of.</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
Nelson Chamisa, mostly through the amplification of the radical, hateful voices within his support base, is giving the centrist majority every reason to not only fear his ascendancy, but also dismiss him and his support base as an excitable, crude and juvenile element of Zimbabwean society that should be treated with extreme caution.<br />
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You hear this on the ground across the country, from Harare to Hauna. But just as an ardent Hilary Clinton supporter would not understand why anyone would vote for or support Donald Trump and how an ardent Donald Trump supporter would not understand why a "liberal" would vote for or support Hilary Clinton, so it is with Chamisa's MDC radical base.<br />
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Because they are still fighting a Mugabe ZANU PF and have failed to strategise for even an appearance of a changed ZANU PF, they claim not understand how anyone can support a party that has destroyed the country, the currency and the economy, ZANU PF. A party that has beaten up and tortured people.<br />
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Chamisa's main problem is that he has chosen to play to this minority gallery in his own support base.<br />
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Keep this post, because I am going to repost it after the elections, when people start asking questions about how the results we all know are coming could possibly have come about.<br />
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I suspect, as has happened with other elections, you will find this analysis right here on this blog being quoted again by all international media houses as they try to dissect an election that they have shown a remarkable lack of interest in.<br />
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