AMBUSHED

The nomination day is the day to watch as it was selected
very carefully by the regime and is a cunning part of the overall strategy
they worked out 10 months ago.What Zanu PF did when confronted in March 2007, with the demand by South
Africa that they hold the elections on schedule in March 2008 and that they
hold them under “free and fair” conditions, they convened the “Joint
Operations Command” and evolved a plan which they have been implementing
since then. Like all their plans it had one central objective – how to hold
onto power at all costs.First they resolved to smash the organizational structures of the MDC, then
they agreed to go along with the demands of Mbeki and the SADC but in the
conviction that they could manipulate this process and avoid dismantling the
system they had built up over the past decade which has enabled them to
determine, in advance, whatever result they thought they needed from the
election itself. Then finally, they agreed to take measures to reduce the
urban vote and bring the urban population to heel in the same way that they
had built up control systems in the rural areas.In retrospect you can now see clearly how these three basic strategies have
been played out. Three days after the JOC meeting in Harare, the leadership
of the MDC was beaten and brutalized in Highfield at a prayer meeting. Many
were hospitalized and two activists were shot and killed by the police.
Morgan Tsvangirai was beaten unconscious and partially lost the ability to
speak for a while. Since then thousands of MDC activists have been beaten
and driven out of the country. The MDC structures in many parts of the
country have been wiped out. The Party Headquarters has been smashed twice
with the loss of all records and millions of dollars of damage.The Regime has co-operated with South African mediators in the SADC process
but has dragged its feet and delayed agreement until the very last moment,
only to then turn around and say (disingenuously) that there was
“insufficient time” to implement the agreement so the planned elections
would go ahead under present conditions. When pressed to implement the
agreements reached in 8 months of discussions that were meant to have taken
three, Mugabe finally simply told Mbeki to get lost and that Zanu PF would
not implement the deal beyond the modest reforms already agreed and
implemented.Just to drive home that message Mugabe has in the past week simply brushed
aside the reforms already agreed, passed through Parliament and signed into
law. POSA has been used to stop normal political activity, the Independent
Electoral Commission is operating as if it was business as usual and
military and security officers are being used to manage the electoral system
in total violation of the new Electoral Act. Reforms in the registration of
voters and the voter’s roll are just being ignored. Now, they announce a
nomination date that makes it almost impossible for the opposition to get
its candidates registered for the poll.At the same time as this was going on, they launched the campaign to destroy
what was left of the independent business sector using as a pretext price
controls and “indigenisation”, a euphemism for extending Zanu control to all
sectors of the economy. In a ruthless campaign that resembles the farm
invasions that followed the Zanu PF defeat in the February 2000 referendum,
the State has arrested 40 000 businessmen, crippled the retail and wholesale
sector of the economy and announced the virtual nationalization of all major
industrial and mining companies. In 10 months at least another million
refugees have fled to South Africa and other countries. Only the most
determined and innovative have survived.Now the MDC faces the most crucial decision in its short life – do we run in
the election and what can be done about this total violation of the SADC
process?I do not know what we will eventually do but I have confidence in our
leadership, which has never let us down in making such decisions in the
past. Right now I am sure, that like me last night, they are not doing much
sleeping. We have been ambushed, well and truly by the Zanu PF and their
security cohorts and it does not help that the South African leadership is
in the same boat.I am being bombarded by e-mails saying that we should boycott the elections.
They say that if we run we give credence to the Mugabe regime and the
pretext that they are democrats. Its not quite as simple as that and that
might, in fact be one of the goals of the Regime in this exercise. The
tragedy is that the South Africans have not been willing, when it matters
most, to use their very considerable power to secure compliance from Zanu
PF. But we have no choice but to live with that reality.Why run when the odds are so stacked against us? In my view the arguments
are very powerful. In the first instance we have to ask what is the
alternative – violence and more killing? Zanu PF would love that and use the
violence to justify a clamp down that most African leaders would endorse.
The possibility of change will recede and it could be years before we are
again offered such an opportunity. We might even then be forced to retreat
into violence and many of us would not accept that as a means of change.We are not alone on this pitch – there are at least 5 other political
parties and although they are tiny and carry no threat to the regime, they
might be allowed to take a few seats and would give credence to the Zanu PF
regime that would follow. Most Zanu candidates would run unopposed and this
would give them an easy and defensible ride back into power. Again change
recedes and Zimbabwe becomes just another failed African State relying on
donor aid to feed an entrapped and impoverished population that does not
have the energy to oppose the regime.Then we must not forget a lesson we learned from the war – ambushes are a
great strategy if your opponent does not know what lies in store for him. If
you can discover your enemy’s strategy and location and timing for an
ambush, you can turn the tables on him and the result can be very
satisfying. It is just possible that we could do that.We need to get that nomination date changed – put back to where it should be
in March, then we need to combine forces and put up single candidates in all
electoral districts and most important, we need to control the final stage
of the ambush – the election itself. We must use the instruments we have to
ensure the poll is watched, recorded and reported on from every polling
station – without exception. I do not think we really need to worry about
what people will do with their ballots – they will vote overwhelmingly for
change, there is no alternative. What we have to stop is the false balloting
and the manipulation of the count.