We have an election due in the next few months and yet our citizens face efforts by Registrar General Tobaiwa Mudede to disenfranchise voters who are perceived not to support Zanu (PF). There are an increasing number of reports of voter suppression and vote rigging to manipulate the outcome in favour of Zanu (PF). Even last Thursday we had our offices raided and motorbikes, which had been purchased to help party officials campaign in rural areas, were confiscated.
Catastrophic policies
Despite the lower house of Parliament unanimously approving the new constitution, which the people of Zimbabwe voted overwhelmingly in favour of less than two months ago, Zanu (PF) is attempting to ignore their commitments to the electoral and security sector reforms agreed upon in the GPA.
The catastrophic policies of Mugabe and Zanu (PF) have caused our people to suffer high unemployment and crushing poverty. Our infrastructure has failed and our natural resources are being pilfered by the corrupt political and military elite, preventing our government from paying the wages of those that do have a job.
Further, Mugabe’s agriculture policies have reduced productivity to such an extent we are now forced to import food and accept international food aid just to feed our children. Zanu (PF) and Mugabe cronies are even bastardising this food assistance, depended upon by over 1.4 million Zimbabweans, for political extortion and vote buying.
Meanwhile, less than a week after the commemoration of World Press Freedom Day, two independent journalists were arrested in Harare on charges of allegedly “publishing falsehoods” about high-ranking Zanu (PF) military leaders, an “offence” which supposedly carries a maximum 20-year jail term.
Soap opera antics
These arrests come the same week an MDC youth leader was jailed for allegedly calling Mugabe a “limping donkey”. At the same time, the Commander of Zimbabwe’s Joint Forces, General Constantine Chiwenga, resorted to labeling our democratically elected Prime Minister a “psychiatric patient”, a slur that was widely quoted in the state-controlled media.
There is no serious effort from Zanu (PF) to address the challenges facing our country. They would rather focus on cheap soap opera antics and politically motivated arrests. It is clear that Mugabe and his Zanu (PF) thugs are trying to deter the people of Zimbabwe from going to the polls and exercising their right to vote. I draw hope from the knowledge that they and the military securocrats are mistaken in thinking they can arrest or intimidate everyone. They are even more mistaken if they think they can hide the Register General‘s offices in communities across the country and get away with it.
The overwhelming majority of people want to vote for real change and real progress, though many, understandably, are fearful of the repercussions. If we stand together, they cannot arrest us all. They cannot disenfranchise us all. And they cannot intimidate us all.
We will be heard
We shall line up to register to vote, we shall be seen and we shall be heard. We can share with our friends and neighbours and loved ones that we will be voting and they should vote too.
We can bring change by voting for a party that brings leadership, change and respect, rather than theatrics and brutality. We can bring change by voting for a party that has a plan to bring economic and political reforms to Zimbabwe.
We have a choice in Zimbabwe. If we stand together behind the MDC plan, we can prevent another stolen election that robs the people of Zimbabwe of the country they so richly deserve. Collectively we can succeed, and together we will. – Mwonzora is MDC-T spokesperson and Copac co-Chairperson.
Post published in: Letters to the Editor