Unable to get the MDC to agree to polls this year, Zanu (PF) and its thugs, many of them in the uniforms of the state security services, have clearly decided to cause the unity government to collapse and force elections. We are not surprised! That is exactly what President Robert Mugabe meant when he declared not so long ago that Zimbabwe would hold elections this year – with or without a new constitution. But that Zanu (PF) would be so desperate that they would sabotage the coalition government in broad daylight and resort to terror tactics such as we have witnessed in recent weeks is truly shocking – even if nobody really expected Mugabe and his party to behave any differently.
Obviously the prize to be won another Zanu (PF) victory in another sham election – is just too big to be missed. Mugabe and his party are prepared to literally sell their own mother to secure another ballot under the present flawed Constitution.
From day one, Zanu (PF) never dreamt that the MDC, especially that of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, would agree to share power with them in a coalition government.
They were caught flatfooted by the MDCs decision to enter the unity government. What is worse, the former oppositions stubborn refusal to fall for the bait and quit the coalition at the slightest of provocations, has left them baffled. The unilateral appointments of Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor Gideon Gono, Attorney-General Johannes Tomana, ambassadors and provincial governors were all meant to frustrate the MDC into quitting the coalition.
The human rights abuses, political violence, farm invasions and looting of national resources, especially diamonds from Marange, that have continued since the formation of the unity government, were all part of a strategy to destablise the administration and cause it to collapse. Likewise, last weeks arrest of Energy Minister Elton Mangoma has nothing to do with fighting corruption – not when the people who looted commercial farms and are looting the Marange diamond fields freely roam our towns and villages.
The court-facilitated coup against House of Assembly Speaker Lovemore Moyo should be seen in the same light. It has nothing to do with ensuring a tradition of clean and ethical elections, as Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku would have us believe. Chidyausiku should first tell us why he saw no problem swearing in Mugabe as President after the sham election of 2008 before he can lecture us about clean polls.
Mangoma and Moyo were targeted simply because they are MDC. It is all part of a grand strategy to kill the unity government and force-march the nation into elections under the defective Lancaster House Constitution. And for Zanu (PF) to choose the week when Zimbabwe was hosting top local and foreign business executives, bankers, policy makers and investors to escalate their bid to take us back to the political chaos and economic lunacy of 2008 is a new low – even by that partys deplorable standards. Shame on them!
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga