Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:28
PRESIDENT Robert
Mugabe and his vanquished Zanu PF are plotting to
storm back to power
through overwhelming force, it has emerged.
This came as government
stepped up deployments of army, police and
intelligence units countrywide to
campaign for Mugabe.
Reports also said government had ordered arms
from China to bolster
its depleted arsenal amid fears of anti-government
riots in the aftermath of
elections which Mugabe and Zanu PF
lost.
The crisis has raised the concern of the international
community,
including neighbours. Botswana is said to have put its security
forces on
high alert due to the explosive Zimbabwe situation on its
doorstep.
Well-informed sources said this week that Mugabe and his
loyalists are
pulling out all the stops to reverse their recent
defeat.
A series of meetings have been held countrywide by party
structures
since the recent politburo gathering which reviewed Mugabe and
his party’s
loss. This has raised fears of a violent political campaign
ahead.
Signs of violence are already evident in farm raids and
attacks on
opposition members.
The sources said Zanu PF would
pursue a multi-pronged strategy to
regain a majority in parliament and then
win the presidential election via a
run-off or re-run by hook or by
crook.
The fight back strategy includes delaying results to buy
time to close
ranks and reorganise; recounting of votes; run-off or re-run;
and a
carrot-and-stick approach, which entails the use of public funds to
buy
votes and widespread use of coercion to force voters to cast their
ballots
for Mugabe.
The sources said the Zanu PF strategy
included the following
calculated measures designed to achieve Mugabe’s
victory by fair means or
foul:
*delaying results to manage
Mugabe and his party’s unexpected defeat
while recovering from the electoral
shock and buying time to reorganise;
*demand for recounts of
parliamentary and presidential elections
results and possibly fiddle with
the ballots in the process to retain some
seats;
*deploy senior
party members, the war veterans and collaborators,
youth militias, security
forces, including army, police and intelligence
units, onto the ground
countrywide to campaign and mobilise the voters on a
massive scale by all
means necessary;
*mobilise overwhelming social and economic resources
to support the
bid; and
*seek diplomatic and financial support
outside to back the electoral
effort.
Sources said Mugabe wants
the presidential poll results withheld for
as long as necessary while the
party restrategises on what to do to come
back from the alarming
setback.
This means results are most likely to come out after the
21-day window
period for the presidential election run-off has elapsed this
Saturday,
according to the Attorney General’s interpretation of the run-off
clause in
the Electoral Act.
The AG has told government that
days for the run-off start counting
from the day of the “previous election”
— March 29 in this case. He said
even if the law implies that it would have
to be after the results are
announced the assumption of the law-makers was
that results would be
announced a day or two after voting.
However, other lawyers say the run-off follows after results are
announced.
The issue has created a potential problem which favours Mugabe
who can
decide to call for the run-off, using the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission
(ZEC) at his own convenience.
A group of opposition MPs are said to
be planning to make a court
application seeking clarification on the
run-off.
ZEC appears to be working with Zanu PF by giving in to its
demands for
recounts in 23 constituencies even though some of the demands
are illegal as
they were lodged more
By Dumisani Muleya
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:24
MOVEMENT for
Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai who has
set up camp in
Botswana due to personal security fears and to gear himself
for further
political battles in his bid to win power is expected back in
the country
today.
Sources said Tsvangirai is scheduled to address a press
conference in
Harare upon his arrival. The sources could not however say
whether
Tsvangirai was returning to Botswana or staying.
The
MDC leaders secured temporary asylum and a base in Botswana last
week after
meeting the country’s new president, Ian Khama.
Party sources said
Tsvangirai managed to secure a house, offices and
logistics from the host
country.
They said the MDC leader has also been loaned a private
jet which he
has been using to fly to meetings and conferences, although it
was not
immediately clear who provided it.
Tsvangirai
reportedly relocated to Botswana last week with his family,
security aides,
personal assistants and support staff. His main venue for
meetings is said
to be Johannesburg.
Last Thursday Tsvangirai flew to Johannesburg
for a meeting with South
African President Thabo Mbeki before flying back to
Gaborone the following
day. Prior to that, he was in Johannesburg on Monday
meeting ANC President
Jacob Zuma.
On Saturday he flew from
Gaborone to Lusaka for a Sadc summit on
Zimbabwe. After that he went back to
Gaborone.
On Monday Tsvangirai flew from Gaborone to Johannesburg
for a meeting
with the other MDC faction leader Arthur
Mutambara.
The two discussed ways of working together in parliament
where
combined they have a majority over Zanu PF.
Tsvangirai
has been planning his regional diplomatic trips, sources
said, from Gaborone
where he can fly in and out of the country without
hassles. — Staff
Writer
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:18
THE Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) has no jurisdiction to nullify
results of the March 29
elections after vote recounts, legal experts said
yesterday.
In
interviews ahead of Saturday’s expected ZEC vote recounts in 23
constituencies across the country, lawyers said the commission was not
empowered to unseat a previously declared winner in the legislative
elections even after a vote recount it emerges that he or she lost the
poll.
Harare lawyer, Andrew Makoni of Mbidzo Muchadehama &
Makoni, said
Section 66 of the Electoral Act says a declaration by the
constituency
elections officer or the chief elections officer shall be
final, subject to
reversal on petition to the Electoral Court.
“Nothing in Section 67A expressly provides for changing the previously
declared result of an election if a recount produces a different result from
the original,” Makoni said. “This could then be interpreted to mean that
only the Electoral Court has jurisdiction to unseat a previously declared
winner on the strength of a recount.”
Makoni said the section
does not in any way show that ZEC has the
jurisdiction to reverse a
declaration made by the constituency elections
officer. He added that an
elections officer cannot review his/her own
decision and results from a
recount can only be used as evidence in the
Electoral Court, which has the
authority to reverse the result.
“An electoral officer cannot
reverse the result as doing so will be a
reversal of his/her declaration.
Only the Electoral Court has that mandate,
but the new result can be used as
evidence in challenging the previously
announced result,” added
Makoni.
A constitutional law expert who insisted on anonymity said
Section 67A
contradicts Section 66 of the same Act, which says the election
officer’s
declaration is final and recourse can be sought only through the
Electoral
Court.
He, however, said that there were two legal
views to the issue as
provided by Section 66.
“A court will
have to decide on what happens after a recount as it is
not clear whether
the ZEC has the jurisdiction to unseat a previously
declared winner,” the
constitutional law expert said. “On the other hand the
recount will have no
purpose because even after the result is reversed, the
complainant still has
to go to court.”
Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human rights said that the
Act does not give the
electoral commission the authority to unseat a
previously declared winner as
it is silent on what should be done if the
recount reverses the result.
However, deputy chief elections
officer (operations) Utoile Silaigwana
yesterday said the commission has the
mandate to announce a new winner in
the event of vote result
reversal.
“Yes, we have the jurisdiction to declare a new winner if
the result
is reversed after the recount,” said Silaigwana.
He
said that the purpose of a recount is to correct mistakes and as a
commission it’s their duty to make amends.
“We did the same
when we corrected a mistake in which the wrong
candidate was declared the
winner in Mazowe South. In fact all the
candidates are aware of what will
happen after the recount,” added
Silaigwana.
Section 67A of the
Electoral Act permits any political party or
candidate who contested the
election to ask ZEC for a recount of votes in
one or more polling stations
in a ward or constituency. The request must be
made within 48 hours of the
declaration of the winning candidate.
After a request to the ZEC by
Zanu PF, vote recounts for all four
elections - local authority, House of
Assembly, Senatorial and Presidential
will be carried out in Buhera South,
Chimanimani West, Mutare West,
Goromonzi East, Zvimba North, Bikita South,
Bikita West, Zaka West, Chiredzi
North, Masvingo Central, Masvingo West,
Gutu Central, Gutu North, Gutu
South, Lupane East, Bulilima East, Zhombe,
Silobela, Gokwe-Kabuyuni,
Mberengwa East, Mberengwa West, Mberengwa North
and Mberengwa South.
By Lucia Makamure
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:11
SUSPECTED war veterans
and Zanu PF militia have revived liberation
struggle night vigils (pungwes)
in Mashonaland East as politically-motivated
violence spreads across the
country to coerce the electorate to vote for
President Robert Mugabe in the
anticipated presidential run-off against the
MDC’s Morgan
Tsvangirai.
According to statistics compiled by human rights
organisations, more
than 150 people have become victims of political
violence since the March 29
harmonised elections.
The Zimbabwe
Peace Project (ZPP) reported yesterday that war veterans
had established
“terror bases” in Mutoko South where villagers were being
forced to attend
day and night vigils.
“About 10 war veterans using a new B1800 and
two Toyota trucks, all
armed, are moving around Mutoko beating up people
suspected to have voted
for MDC Tsvangirai,” read the ZPP
report.
“They are forcing villagers to attend meetings during the
day and in
the evening with the help of Zanu PF youths who beat up
people.”
The ZPP said the ex-combatants had established torture
bases at Corner
Store, Kushinga, Jari, Nyahondo and Rukanda.
At
Mutoko Police Station, the ZPP reported, war veterans ordered
police
officers not to arrest Zanu PF members perpetrating violence in the
constituency.
“On Thursday, April 10 a police officer (name
supplied) said war
veterans visited Mutoko Police Station where they ordered
the member in
charge to call all police officers at the station for a
meeting,” read ZPP’s
report.
“They (police officers) were
allegedly threatened with death if they
arrested any of the perpetrators and
were also ordered that during the
run-off all police officers should cast
their votes at the office before the
member in charge.”
In
Mashonaland West province, the ZPP reported that four MDC members
sought
refuge in nearby mountains from a war veteran known as “Black Jesus”
and a
soldier identified as Thomas Ganure.
The human rights organisation
reported that in Marondera East three
houses were burnt down and people were
being assaulted by Zanu PF
supporters.
Last Friday three MDC
activists were heavily assaulted at Rapid Farm
and were being guarded by
Zanu PF youths so that they do not access
treatment.
The
victims were assaulted by war veterans.
The Zimbabwe Association of
Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) said they
had seen and treated 157 victims
of organised violence and torture.
As of Tuesday, the doctors said,
30 of the victims were still in
hospitals.
Women, according to
ZADHR, were the most affected victims as the
political tension predominant
in the former Zanu PF strongholds of
Mashonaland West, Mashonaland East and
Manicaland continued to soar.
The doctors said the “commonest
injury” was extensive soft tissue
injury of the buttocks.
“One
third of the patients are women, including a 15-year old girl who
was
abducted with her mother from her home, made to lie on her front and
beaten
on her buttocks. Her mother, who is pregnant, was similarly beaten,”
ZADHR
reported.
The doctors alleged that the suspected perpetrators were
threatening
medical staff in volatile areas not to attend to the victims of
political
violence.
The doctors appealed to other health
professionals not to selectively
attend to patients based on political
affiliation.
“We call upon all political parties to cease the use
of intimidation,
violence and torture as a form of retribution or
victimisation,” the ZADHR
said.
The ruling Zanu PF lost control
of the House of Assembly in last month’s
elections for the first time since
Independence. Zanu PF won 97 seats
against MDC-Tsvangirai’s 99. The Arthur
Mutambara-led faction won 10 seats.
Zanu PF garnered 30 out of the
60 senate seats, while the
MDC-Tsvangirai got 24 and Mutambara the
remainder.
Independent election tallies revealed that the 84-year
old Mugabe, who
has been in office since 1980, lost the presidential
election to Tsvangirai,
although failed to garner the mandatory 50% plus
votes to assume office.
The Zimbabwe Election Commission is yet to
announce the result of the
election.
Meanwhile, the United
States government has condemned the recent spate
of violence by suspected
Zanu PF supporters against opposition members.
US State Department
spokesman Sean McCormack accused members of
Zimbabwe’s security forces and
supporters of Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF of
using violence and intimidation
after the presidential, parliamentary and
council polls.
“These
incidents appear to target individuals who voted against Zanu
PF candidates
during the elections,” McCormack said in a statement.
Urging
Mugabe’s administration to bring an end to the skirmishes and
uphold human
rights, McCormack said there was “no place for violence or
intimidation in a
democratic society”.
The State Department also warned American
citizens residing in
Zimbabwe of a “continued risk of arbitrary detention
and arrest” when
travelling to rural areas and high-density suburbs of
Zimbabwe.
In contrast, South African president Thabo Mbeki, en
route to last
Saturday’s Sadc extraordinary meeting in Zambia, told
journalists that there
was “no crisis” in Zimbabwe.
Police
spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena yesterday said perpetrators of
political
violence would be arrested.
“Our position is very clear, we arrest all
perpetrators of violence,”
he said without saying how many people had so far
been apprehended.
By Bernard Mpofu
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:08
NON-GOVERNMENTAL
organisations involved in humanitarian work have been
forced to suspend
operations in rural areas due to increased post-election
violence.
In an interview with the Zimbabwe Independent this
week, National
Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (Nango)
spokesperson Fambai
Ngirande said they were on high alert following reports
last week of the
deployment of the army to allegedly coordinate key
functions in the rural
areas.
“Humanitarian activity has come
to a virtual standstill given the
upscale in election-related violence in
most rural areas,” Ngirande said.
He said the establishment of
bases by war veterans and war
collaborators in areas such as Mashonaland
East and Mashonaland West had
created a politically volatile environment
which was not conducive for
humanitarian organisations to carry out their
work in line with
international principles and standards.
Ngirande said the organisations also feared for the safety of their
workers
based in the rural areas.
“We fear for the security of personnel
currently stationed in rural
areas given the long held assumption by
sections within Zanu PF that NGOs
are proponents of the regime-change
agenda,” Ngirande said. “We are
particularly concerned with election
observers who had been sent by Zimbabwe
Electoral Support Network as they
are the prime targets of election
violence.”
He said civil
society was in the process of establishing security and
protection
mechanisms which include access to legal and medical assistance
for victims
of the ongoing violence.
Ngirande said Nango and other civil
society organisations had since
embarked on a campaign to exert pressure on
the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission to immediately release the results of the
March 29 presidential
election.
The campaign also calls for the
demilitarisation of communities to
allow democracy to take its full course
in Zimbabwe.
It involves mass-based non-violent social actions such
as marches,
peaceful protests, petitions and dialogue with relevant
authorities.
The civil society organisations said they noted with
great concern the
absence of international election observer teams as the
electorate anxiously
awaits the presidential results and a possible
presidential run-off.
They said they would continue to urge a more
proactive United Nations
intervention to avoid a possible humanitarian
crisis emanating from the
failure to resolve the challenges stemming from
the elections.
By Lucia Makamure
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:05
AS Zanu
PF intensifies its campaign to win the anticipated
presidential election
run-off, the party has embarked on a restructuring
exercise to replace its
provincial leadership with war veterans.
The ex-combatants would be
expected to mastermind the party’s violent
campaign in rural
areas.
Sources in Zanu PF said the restructuring of the provincial
executives
was meant to purge leaders accused of failing to effectively
campaign for
President Robert Mugabe - widely believed to have lost the
March 29
presidential election to the MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mugabe and Tsvangirai, according to independent analysts, failed to
garner
the mandatory 50% plus votes to assume office, prompting a run-off.
The sources said the new provincial leadership headed by war veterans
would
work hand in glove with traditional chiefs to co-ordinate Mugabe’s
campaign.
Soldiers, the source said, had since been seconded to
some of the
country’s 52 districts and would supervise the Zanu PF campaign
strategy.
Provinces targeted for restructuring by Zanu PF, the
sources said,
were Harare, Bulawayo, Matabeleland North and South, Masvingo,
Manicaland
and Mashonaland West.
“The party agrees that
Bulawayo and Harare are beyond redemption,” one
of the sources
said.
“There is a general consensus that provinces like Masvingo,
Manicaland, Matabeleland North and South can be redeemed, while the party is
worried with the inroads and support the opposition MDC gained in
Mashonaland West where Mugabe comes from.”
As part of the
ruling party strategy, this week war veterans stormed
the Zanu PF
headquarters in Gwanda, Matabeleland South, and demanded a
meeting with
provincial chairman Rido Mpofu.
They reportedly accused Mpofu of
letting Mugabe down by failing to
campaign for him before last month’s
historic harmonised elections.
After failing to get a satisfactory
response, the war veterans
allegedly manhandled Mpofu resulting in the
police being called to the
headquarters to quell the violence.
Mpofu this week declined to comment on the fracas insisting that it
was an
“in-house” issue.
“The issue was in-house, it was not an attack,
there was nothing
serious that happened,” Mpofu said.
“We had a
discussion with the war veterans and that is how we operate
in the party and
if the police intervened maybe they had reasons for doing
so.”
Police in Gwanda confirmed the incident. The war veterans allegedly
said
Mpofu was no longer the provincial leader and announced that provincial
war
veteran leader, Leonard Mathuthu, was now in charge of the
province.
By Loughty Dube
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 21:02
INDEPENDENT presidential candidate in
last month’s elections, Simba
Makoni, will in August launch a political
party that will reportedly draw
some of its leaders from the Arthur
Mutambara-led MDC and Zanu Ndonga.
Makoni, who contested against
President Robert Mugabe, Morgan
Tsvangirai of the MDC and independent
aspirant Langton Towungana, is
believed to have come a distant third in the
presidential race.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is yet
to announce the results
of the poll, three weeks after it was held, although
Tsvangirai has since
claimed victory.
Reliable sources said the
national management committee of the Makoni
movement met in the capital on
Monday and agreed to form a party.
The meeting was chaired by
Makoni and was attended by the movement’s
provincial coordinators and
cluster convenors and fundraiser, former
Minister of Industry and Commerce
Nkosana Moyo.
Makoni’s spokesperson Denford Magora yesterday
confirmed the meeting
saying a steering committee had since been put in
place to spearhead the
formation and the launch of the political
party.
“Provincial coordinators reported that there is great
impatience
amongst the people all over Zimbabwe for the movement to
transform itself
into a proper political party,” Magora said. “As a result,
the process of
formalising the movement into a political party was kicked
off during the
meeting.”
Magora said it was envisaged that the
Makoni movement would be able to
hold a national convention in August,
should all the groundwork be completed
by then.
“It is here
that national office holders will then be elected and the
movement formally
inaugurated as a political party,” Magora said.
The meeting, the
sources said, set up a steering committee chaired by
Makoni and tasked it to
consult widely on the formation of the party for six
weeks before reporting
its findings to the national management committee on
May 28.
By
Constantine Chimakure
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:59
A BULAWAYO regional
magistrate last week declined to place on remand a
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission (ZEC) constituency elections officer accused
of tampering with
President Robert Mugabe’s votes in the March 29
presidential
election.
The move by magistrate John Masimba dealt a blow to Zanu
PF claims
that the presidential poll results were rigged in favour of
opposition MDC-T
leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Masimba criticised
the police for lack of professionalism in handling
the case.
Dismissing the state application to place Virginia Sibanda on remand,
Masimba said the state case was a shame and a disappointment given the way
it was investigated.
He said the police had no case against
Sibanda as they could not
substantiate the allegations against
her.
The magistrate ordered her immediate release.
Sibanda, a district education officer for Bubi, who was the
constituency
elections officer, was arrested together with other election
officers
countrywide on allegations that they understated votes garnered by
Mugabe.
She was charged with fraud and criminal abuse of duty
as a public
officer.
The state also alleged that she
understated votes cast for independent
presidential candidate Simba
Makoni.
Sibanda, the state alleged, publicly displayed and
published results
for wards 1 to 23 and deliberately left out results for
wards 3, 10, 11 and
17.
She allegedly posted results indicating
that the Zanu PF presidential
candidate President Mugabe had polled 6 268
votes instead of 6 979.But in a
sudden turn of events in court, the ZEC
district elections officer, Mark
Ndlovu, under whose supervision Sibanda
served, testified that she did
nothing wrong and instead said everything was
done after consultation.
Ndlovu explained to the court that
everything pertaining to the
results was in order and challenged the state
to produce evidence of any
anomalies.
He further indicated that
results of the polls were displayed at
Inyathi Command Centre and stated
that the police did not even consult him
to check their facts when they
instituted investigations into the matter
against Sibanda.
The
investigating officer, Detective Constable Tshabalala, under cross
examination from Sabelo Sibanda of Sibanda & Partners representing
Sibanda,
failed to justify why the accused should be placed on
remand.
Tshabalala told the court that the complainant in the case
was Officer
Commanding Matabeleland North, Senior Assistant Commissioner
Edmore Veterai,
but the defence queried why he was the complainant in the
case since the
election results have not been announced to the
public.
Tshabalala said Sibanda should be placed on remand since he
needed two
weeks to complete investigations as he was only assigned to the
case last
Monday.
He, however, was unable to answer questions
put to him and insisted
that Veterai was the best person to explain the
case. Masimba ruled that the
state could proceed by way of summons if it
gathers compelling evidence
against Sibanda.
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:56
THE outgoing Justice minister Patrick
Chinamasa has started looking
for a job amid reports that a fortnight ago he
approached the Advocates
Chambers intending to join them as an advocate, the
Zimbabwe Independent has
learnt.
Impeccable sources in the
legal fraternity said the former
attorney-general had expressed interest in
joining the chambers after he was
defeated in the House of Assembly
elections on March 29 in Makoni Central by
the MDC-Tsvangirai’s John
Nyamande.
Nyamande garnered 7 065 votes against Chinamasa’s 4
555.
“There is an expression of interest from Patrick Chinamasa to
join the
Advocates Chambers,” one of the sources said.
“He will
be required to submit it (interest) formally and it will be
considered by a
committee which will consider a number of things, but most
importantly
whether there is space to accommodate him.”
The sources, however,
could not be drawn to divulge more information
on what else they will need
to consider before coming up with a decision on
Chinamasa’s
application.
The committee, the sources said, was divided on
whether to accept or
reject Chinamasa’s application.
“The
committee is divided with some wanting to hire Chinamasa because
Zanu PF
will bring them big business, while the other group wants nothing to
do with
him,” the sources said. The Advocates Chambers is a pool of lawyers
who
offer expert advice and are hired by various law firms to take
instructions.
The Chambers’ members fall under the Law Society
of Zimbabwe (LSZ),
which Chinamasa last month said the government no longer
treats as a
professional body, but an opposition political
party.
Ironically, Chinamasa is also a member of the
LSZ.
“Regrettably, they are no longer a professional body and as a
Minister
of Justice I will no longer treat them as a professional society,
but a
political opposition party,” said Chinamasa.
Chinamasa
was the legal brains behind the government and the chief
architect of the
Constitutional Amendment No18 that saw the country
introducing synchronised
presidential, legislative and council elections.
He was Zanu PF’s
chief negotiator in the Sadc-initiated dialogue
between the ruling party and
the MDC.
Chinamasa was one of the first black lawyers in the 1980s
to become a
partner in Honey & Blankenberg, which at that time was a
predominantly white
law firm.
President Robert Mugabe appointed
Chinamasa a non-constituency
legislator and cabinet minister in 2000. He was
re-appointed to the same
position five years later.
In
September 2006, Chinamasa was cleared by a judge of trying to
defeat the
course of justice after he was accused of trying to stop
prosecution of a
witness, James Kaunye, from testifying in a case against
the Minister of
State for National Security Didymus Mutasa who had been
accused of inciting
public violence in the countdown to the 2005 general
election.
By Lucia Makamure
Zim Independent
Local
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:47
DOING business in
Zimbabwe is tougher than doing business in Iraq. At
least that is what the
World Bank says in its 2008 “Doing Business” report.
The report
ranks Iraq higher than Zimbabwe on the main indicator,
“Ease of doing
business”, with Iraq placed at 142 while Zimbabwe is a
distant 153 out of
178 countries.
The two countries are both tied at 107 on the
indicator “protecting
investors”.
Despite the exploding bombs,
war-torn Iraq has been doing much better
than Zimbabwe on almost all counts.
It was ranked higher than Zimbabwe in
most areas — licencing, employment,
registering properties and paying taxes.
Even its 2007 year-on-year
inflation rate was much lower than Zimbabwe’s
staggering 100 580%. Iraq
recorded an inflation rate of 65% during the same
period.
“It
has been a very difficult environment for us as the business
community to
work in this country,” said Zimbabwe National Chamber of
Commerce (ZNCC)
president Marah Hativagone.
“We have been living from hand to mouth
trying to get by in a hostile
environment.”
With critical
foreign currency shortages, price controls, declining
manufacturing and
mining capacity, soaring unemployment, policy incongruence
and high skills
flight, Zimbabwe smacks of the stuff most international
investors would
shun.
And they have done so and in the process, greatly reduced
their risk.
University of Zimbabwe (UZ) business lecturer,
Professor Tony Hawkins
said investors could not be blamed for avoiding
Zimbabwe.
“If you have record high inflation, a collapsing currency
and
inconsistent government policies that threaten to indigenise all
companies,
why would anyone invest in such a country? Investors would be
forgiven if
they fled and watched from a safe distance,” said Hawkins. But
for those
already with investments in the country, the economic environment
has been
an absolute nightmare, which has been worsened by the uncertainty
surrounding the country’s elections.
Amongst the setbacks
suffered by business has been the recent seizure
of funds in Foreign
Currency Accounts (FCAs) by the Reserve Bank to fund the
election and
grabbing of farms by war veterans which has also affected
confidence
levels.
“When investors see farms and FCAs being seized they tend
to hold on
to their money and hold it quite dearly,” said Harare-based
economist, John
Robertson.
“It is no different from farm
seizures, there can be no investor
confidence in such a
climate.”
The economic crisis has affected all and sundry,
including
organisations with an international footing and decades of
experience in
specific sectors. Their performance has been a far cry from
companies of
their pedigree and size.
International banking
giants with a foothold in Zimbabwe, Standard
Chartered and Barclays Bank,
performed rather dismally. So did local banks.
Standard Chartered
Zimbabwe posted a 2007 year-end after profit of
$13,6 trillion while
Barclays’ net income stood at $15,5 trillion.
This was only
sufficient to buy an average of nine houses in Harare’s
upmarket suburbs
last December.
At current rates, each bank’s net income would be
inadequate to buy a
single house in Harare’s leafy suburb of Gunhill. Other
companies have
experienced worse misfortunes, posting losses. The profits
have continued to
dwindle in value with each passing day, making it not only
difficult to plan
but also next to impossible to grow any
business.
Companies have pointed to an extremely hostile operating
environment
caused by “inflationary pressures”, shortages of foreign
currency and
erratic power and water supplies.
But Robertson
said it was abnormal for big companies like Stanchart,
CBZ and Barclays to
register poor results as they did for 2007.
“Ideally, they should
be making much more than that,” Robertson said.
“The trillions of
dollars they are making are worthless; in real
terms it is not surprising to
find that the value of their investments has
been declining in US dollar
terms.”
Not only have companies been shortchanged by the
environment, even
individuals have been victims with properties currently
undervalued. In
January 2007, a house in Avondale was worth $850 billion
(US$425 000 at the
prevailing parallel market rate).
Today, a
similar house in the same neighbourhood is worth $8 trillion
(US$114
000).
A house in Mufakose high-density suburb cost $120 billion
(US$60 000)
in January. It now costs $1,5 trillion (US$21 000). Economic
analyst, Daniel
Ndlela said running a business in Zimbabwe was next to
impossible and that
only big companies with external links could survive the
economic crisis.
“Big companies, which are part of international
conglomerates, have
survived,” Ndlela said. “They are waiting for things to
get right and are
not making any money by their standards; they are just
hanging in the
balance and keeping their heads above water.”
Zimbabwe’s manufacturing sector is currently producing at all-time
lows of
5% capacity utilisation.
Widespread food and basic commodity
shortages have set in forcing
businesses to import commodities.
The 2007/8 agricultural season is set to be the worst the country has
experienced since Independence.
Only 300 000 tonnes of maize
are expected meaning more food imports.
However, to import food and
other commodities, both government and the
business community need foreign
currency which is only available on the
parallel market. Government has
denied buying foreign currency on the
parallel market. Instead, it has
accused the business community of actively
dealing in this
market.
“We hardly have raw materials. We are forced to rely on the
parallel
market and cross border traders to survive,” said Hativagone, who
accused
government of also sourcing foreign currency on the parallel
market.
Ndlela said business was fighting against a predatory state
bent on
self-enrichment.
“The Zimbabwean currency is not
overvalued even by overvaluation
standards. That is a gross misstatement. It
is grossly misaligned and a
product of a distorted exchange rate. We have
class interests owing to a
predatory state preying on a national purse,”
Ndlela said.
By Kuda Chikwanda/Bernard Mpofu
Zim Independent
Business
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:41
ZIMBABWE has been
ranked 153 out of 178 countries in a 2008 World Bank
report on “Doing
Business” which looks at how regulatory environments
influence the
operations of business.
It was ranked lower than war-torn spots
such as Iraq, Sudan, the West
Bank and Gaza which were positioned at 142nd,
144th, and 118th respectively.
The report analysed 10 stages of a
business’s life which were starting
a business, dealing with licences,
employing workers, registering property,
getting credit, protecting
investors, paying taxes, trading across borders,
enforcing contracts and
closing a business.
The 10 indicators, which are used to analyse
economic outcome and
identifying reforms that have been successful and why,
are then factored
into the main index, “Ease of Doing Business” in which
Zimbabwe has fared
rather badly.
On starting a business,
Zimbabwe was placed at position 143, proving
that the regulatory environment
governing the entry of new businesses was
burdensome, according to the
report.
“Economies differ greatly in how they regulate the entry of
new
businesses. In some the process is straightforward and affordable,” the
report stated. “In others the procedures are so burdensome that
entrepreneurs may have to bribe officials to speed the process — or may
decide to run their business informally.”
This indicator is
calculated using data compiled on how easy it is for
small to medium sized
companies to start operations legally.
On dealing with licences,
Zimbabwe’s rank was a dismal 172 with only
Kazakhstan (173), Ukraine (174),
China (175), Liberia (176), Russia (177)
and Eritrea (178) behind
it.
The country’s track record on the issue of licensing has been
poor
following the controversial handling of Econet’s cellular phone licence
application in the late 90s and TeleAccess’ fixed line phone licence in
2000.
Zimbabwe’s rank on the index of protecting investors was
107 and
according to the report, this means the country has poor corporate
governance practices, high corruption and weak internal systems in most
companies.
“To document the protections investors have, Doing
Business measures
how countries regulate a standard case of self-dealing —
use of corporate
assets for personal gain,” the report stated.
Zimbabwe was also ranked 123rd on employing workers, 79th on
registering
property and 97th on getting credit.
However, given the time frame
of the report — from April 2006 to June
2007 — Zimbabwe could very well be
near the bottom in almost all indices,
according to economists and
analysts.
This follows government’s infamous crackdown on the
business community
in July last year when government forced businesses to
slash prices and in
the process forcing several businesses to
close.
Independent economic analyst, Daniel Ndlela said latest
research
showed that Zimbabwe’s ranking had worsened since June last
year.
“It is not a secret that Zimbabwe has done badly since then.
It could
be sitting very close to the bottom with just two or three
countries under
it,” Ndlela said.
Ndlela said the period from
July 2007 to date had been extremely
difficult for the business community,
especially small to medium size
enterprises.
Harare-based
economist, John Robertson said Zimbabwe had fallen to a
lower ranking since
June 2007.
“We probably have fallen to worse levels by now.
Furthermore, the
investment climate has been damaged by indigenisation plans
by government,”
he said.
Zimbabwe’s economic environment has
been described as hostile by both
the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce
and the Confederation of Zimbabwe
Industries. Manufacturing is at all time
lows of 5%, while mining is at less
than 15% of capacity.
By Kuda Chikwanda
Zim Independent
Business
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:38
ZIMBABWE’S economic meltdown may show signs of receding should the
political
impasse be amicably resolved.
The latest official inflation figure
for February is reportedly 165
000%.
Should the inflationary
pressure maintain its recent momentum till
year-end, then Zimbabwe’s
official inflation will be 2 017 000% by mid year
further worsening to 24
672 000% by year-end.
Once inflation reaches such high levels as
Zimbabwe’s, it tends to
move at an accelerated pace. This is based on
current trends — price
controls, shortages, money supply and exchange rate
disequilibrium. It
should be noted that only three months ago, inflation was
around 20 000%,
now it’s 10 times higher.
Whilst price controls
and other strong- arm tactics can temporarily
delay the slide, the presence
of the black market makes it difficult to
contain inflation by simply
imposing price controls or threatening business.
A major policy shift will
be required to get Zimbabwe back on track.
It is difficult to
conceive how inflation can be stabilised first,
then reduced subsequently,
without political settlement. During the election
period, every province got
some ploughs, tractors, combine harvesters,
computers and a whole lot of
other goodies as is normal in our motherland
ahead of
elections.
The policy is: give now and pay later. So the full price
of such
unbudgeted expenditure will have to be factored into future
inflation, since
the money printing machines worked overtime ahead of
elections.
The inflation rate is, therefore, expected to worsen
before it can be
tamed.
This could get worse should there be a
run-off election, since more
money will be printed to fund that campaign as
well. The above inflation
forecasts could turn out to be very
conservative.
Price controls as an inflation busting measure have
created a new
problem — that of having driven up activities in the informal
market.
Zimbabwe’s formal sector has been shrinking at an alarming rate
since
everything is now available on the black market or
underground.
This trend has disastrous consequences for the fiscus.
Black market
activities are difficult if not impossible to tax. This means
the government
loses an important tax base which would have normally been
available under
normal circumstances.
This represents multiple
revenue loss since underground hustlers can’t
be taxed: no income tax, no
VAT and no sales tax.
Once the tax base starts eroding, it’s almost
impossible to re-cast
the net effectively to return to optimal revenue
collection through
taxation.
The tax system is central to the
public finance system. This is why
governments the world over try to please
taxpayers.
But once the nation relies on printing money, the
importance of
taxpayers and the tax systems is diminished. Any other public
finance
pattern that’s materially divorced from the tax system is likely to
result
in a fatal outcome such as unsustainable budget deficit or hyper
inflation
as in Zimbabwe’s case.
Given that Zimbabwe is at such
an important transitional period, it is
important that the tax base be
widened and strengthened.
This requires deliberate and careful
planning as many stakeholders are
likely to be suspicious of any attempts to
make them accountable in a manor
that does not show any clear benefits for
them.
Zim Independent
Business
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:33
MONEY supply (M3) growth continued on an
upward trend, increasing to a
new record of 64 113% in December last year
from 51 768,8% the previous
month, officials figures showed this
week.
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) this week said annual
broad money
growth recorded a 64 113% growth during the month of
December.
Largely contributing to the increase in broad money
growth were
increases in credit to the private sector at 177 043,5% and to
public
enterprises at 60 826,8%.
“Net credit to government
increased from $993,4 trillion in November
2007 to $118,5 trillion in
December 2007. Domestic credit also rose by 156
168,6% to $490,5 trillion in
December 2007,” the bank said.
Narrow money rose by 66 658,6% from
December 2006 to December 2007.
Quasi-money grew by 88,3% in
December 2007, indicating a decline from
142,4% recorded in
November.
Money supply is the total supply of money in circulation
in a given
country’s economy at a given time.
It is considered
an important instrument for controlling inflation.
The continuous
rise in money supply would further trigger inflation,
which is currently at
165 000%.
Analysts said the figure would be over 100 000% by
January due to
expansionary fiscal and monetary policies being implemented
by the
government and the central bank.
Last month the central
bank introduced higher bearer cheque
denominations of $25 million and $50
million.
This followed the $1 million, $5 million and $10 million
that were
introduced two months ago.
By Paul Nyakazeya
Zim Independent
Business
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 20:27
THE latest decision to review tax
thresholds twice in just over a week
shows government’s inconsistency and
denial over the real state of the
economy, analysts said this
week.
Statutory instrument 63/2008 was gazetted last Thursday
against public
disapproval of its short-lived predecessor, which was
gazetted at the
beginning of this month.
Legal experts last
week said the initial move to review the tax-free
threshold from $30 million
to $300 million was illegal.
The new statutory instrument reviewed
tax-free threshold from $300
million to $1 billion.
It also
slashed tax bands to seven from eleven.
However, the new tax-free
threshold is still below 75% of the
projected poverty datum line (PDL),
which according to analysts ranges from
$3,5 to $4 billion for a monthly
family basket.
Tax consultant Tendai Mavhima said while the
decision was a “welcome”
development because government had responded to a
public outcry, the
tax-free bracket was still insignificant.
“Based on the repealed statutory instrument, the decision is a welcome
development but looking closely at the $1 billion tax-free threshold, the
figure is still not substantial,” said Mavhima.
Mavhima said at
the current inflation rate workers will continue to
push for salary
adjustments that will eventually push their incomes into the
highest tax
bracket of 47,5%.
Workers earning $6 billion and above per month
are taxed at 47,5%.
Those earning $20 billion will be taxed at
60%.
Independent economic analyst John Robertson said despite
government
repealing the previous statutory instrument, the new tax-free
threshold was
still unattractive.
“It’s still not attractive,”
Robertson said.
“The figure is enough to buy five bottles of
instant coffee. They
(government) keep getting surprised by inflation — this
demonstrates that
government has lost in fighting inflation,” he
said.
Robertson suggested that it was ideal for government to
regularly
review the thresholds.
“An ideal tax-free threshold
would $10 billion this month, then $20
billion the next month,” Robertson
said.
“This would be in line with monthly salaries that are
increasing by an
average of one and a half times monthly.”
However, Obert Gutu, a Harare lawyer and MDC legislator, described the
new
development as “administrative bungling” adding that the government was
still ignorant of the economic environment.
“Since there is no
lawful cabinet presently in existence, it follows
that all those men and
women who are masquerading as cabinet ministers are
simply acting outside
the provisions of the Constitution of Zimbabwe,” said
Gutu.
“Any statutory instrument purportedly promulgated by a person who has
lawfully ceased to be a cabinet minister is null and void as long as such
statutory instrument was promulgated after the date of the dissolution of
the cabinet on March 28,” he said.
The government has insisted
that the cabinet is still lawfully
operating.
By Bernard
Mpofu
Zim Independent
Opinion
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 19:07
ZIMBABWEANS are
sovereign citizens because of the status that this
country got from its
forefathers like Joshua Nkomo, Jason Ziyapapa Moyo,
Leopold Takawira, Nikita
Mangena, Josaya Magama Tongogara and Herbert
Hamandishe Pfumaindini Wilshire
Chitepo among others after decades of
colonial and imperial rule that
started with the occupation of Zimbabwe in
1890.
In this
regard, no person no matter how powerful or cruel should
assume the role of
the sovereign in their individual capacity and for
selfish political reasons
as is currently happening in Zimbabwe.
During the Matabeleland and
Midlands disturbances, the 1990 elections,
the constitutional referendum,
the violent farm invasions, the 2000, 2002,
2005 and the 29 March 2008
elections, several ways have been discovered by
the leading politicians in
Zanu PF to deprive Zimbabweans of their sovereign
and legitimate right to
choose their leaders without coercion and violence.
In the long
run, Mugabe and Zanu PF are depriving Zimbabweans of their
sovereign
status.
With the deprivation of this status, Zimbabweans’
unalienable rights
of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are being
infringed upon by
one person who has assumed the role of sovereign on his
own and is supported
by a heartless and cruel lot.
The current
electoral impasse created by the desire of President
Mugabe to be the
sovereign without due regard to the democratic outcome of
the elections held
on 29 March in which he lost to the main opposition
Movement for Democratic
Change (MDC) brings me to the point where I question
the meaning of
sovereign and its origins.
According to the 6th edition of Black’s
Law Dictionary, a sovereign
is defined as, “A person, body, or state in
which independent authority is
vested; a chief ruler with supreme power; a
king or other ruler in a
monarchy.”
In the Zimbabwean context,
before the Second Chimurenga that brought
Independence in 1980, the British
Queen was sovereign and the Zimbabwean
people were her
subjects.
The war of liberation was supposed to have changed this
but Mugabe due
to his unquenchable thirst for power did not.
If
Zanu PF and its leader Mugabe were democratic, sovereignty was
supposed to
be transferred from one man to the collective body of the people
and he who
before was a subject of the Queen is now a citizen of the State.
However,
there has been no paradigm shift because Mugabe and his ruling
party have
refused to transfer sovereignty to the people of Zimbabwe.
In fact
Mugabe has extended imperial rule by assuming imperial powers
under a regime
of laws that bestows upon him powers similar to those of
monarchs in Europe
before the emergence of democracy.
Mugabe has become a native
imperialist who treats his subjects with
scorn and contempt worse than they
were treated under the late Ian Smith and
his predecessors.
I
contend that Mugabe has become worse than the colonial rulers
because during
the colonial period, the colonialists were able to change
power among
themselves.
Most critically, the colonialists following their
defeat by the
liberation forces, agreed to give power to Zanu PF without
further
bloodshed. But today, as I write, there is mayhem in the country
because
Mugabe does not want to accept the sovereign will of Zimbabweans as
expressed during the elections on March 29.
He treats
Zimbabweans as his subjects just like they were treated
during the colonial
period.
The electoral crisis in Zimbabwe could be best explained by
the
failure of Zanu PF and Mugabe to transfer the power that was gained
after
Independence to the generality of Zimbabweans. Instead, Mugabe largely
has
become a sole share holder in a company.
He has dissolved
the body of directors, and fired and arrested the
shareholders.
Until Mugabe realised that he cannot run a corporate organisation like
that,
he will never accept the electoral outcome because he argues that no
one can
elect him in his own company.
This scenario requires that the body
of directors meet with the
shareholders and come up with a decisive action
plan to recapture their
company from Mugabe.
President Mugabe
should realise that corporate governance ethics
demands that if a chief
executive officer of a company fails to safeguard
the interests of the
shareholders by promoting the company and their
investments, the
shareholders through the board of directors can convene a
meeting and decide
to fire or ask the chief executive to resign.
This is common
practice in corporate governance that Mugabe should
appreciate.
In the Zimbabwean case, the people of Zimbabwe who are the
shareholders of
the Republic went to vote on March 29 to elect a new chief
executive officer
of the country.
Other office bearers were elected in parliament,
senate and council
but the results of the chief executive are yet to be
announced because the
incumbent feels that the shareholders did not renew
his term of office
sufficiently enthusiastically.
President
Mugabe should realise and accept that in the history of
corporate governance
there are very few cases if any where a chief executive
officer refuses to
be fired but instead fires the board of directors and the
shareholders or
even goes further to beat them up.
However, what the board of
directors and the shareholders should do
when faced with such a situation is
to convene an emergency general meeting
where all interested parties in the
company, the major and minority
shareholders put their heads together to
deal with the defiant chief
executive officer and safeguard their
investments.
This in view is what the political parties, big and
small, civil
society organisations and those interested in rescuing this
country from
Mugabe’s uncontrolled insatiable appetite for power should do
as a matter of
urgency in order save this country from sliding into
anarchy.
The two formations of the MDC and those in the
pro-democracy movement
should stop involving themselves in parochial and
self-serving interests and
convene an emergency meeting where strategies to
deal with the Zimbabwean
problem are put on the table and democratically
executed.
The time for scoring points under the current situation
while one
person with a group of unschooled securocrats are holding the
whole country
hostage should be resisted and put to an end.
In
this regard, there is no person who is small or big but all
Zimbabweans in
their collective strength and wisdom in purpose can overcome
this sad
chapter in the history of our country.
Mugabe should realise that
his time is up and his continued abuse of
human rights will only strengthen
the position of those who want him to be a
candidate of the International
Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of
crimes against humanity. He should
as a matter of urgency order the soldiers
and other paramilitary groups to
stop committing crimes against people who
did not vote for him because it is
their democratic right to choose leaders
of their choice.
While
I appreciate that time has run out for Mugabe to repent, it is
worthwhile
for him to read Nicole Machiavelli’s The Discourses in which he
says that a
leader must leave a legacy to be remembered.
By Pedzisayi
Ruhanya
Pedzisai Ruhanya is a human rights researcher based in
Harare.
Zim Independent
Opinion
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 19:03
SADC leaders met in
Lusaka at the weekend to deliberate on the
political situation in Zimbabwe,
but still failed to reach convergence on
how to deal with the crisis
heightened by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC)’s failure to release
results of the March 29 presidential election.
The summit,
hurriedly convened by the bloc’s chairperson and Zambia
president, Levy
Mwanawasa, also failed to come up with a strategy on how to
resolve the
crisis.
More interestingly, political analysts noted, the regional
bloc denied
that there was a crisis in Zimbabwe despite that Sadc last year
appointed
South African President Thabo Mbeki to facilitate talks between
the
protagonists, Zanu PF and the opposition MDC, precisely in order to
avert a
crisis.
The failure by the ZEC to announce the outcome
of the poll has
compounded the political crisis that has been haunting the
country since the
disputed 2000 and 2002 general and presidential
elections.
The MDC’s Morgan Tsvangirai has since claimed victory in
the poll
against President Robert Mugabe, whose party last week said there
was need
for a run-off between the two after neither candidate managed to
secure the
mandatory 50% plus votes to assume office.
Last week
the ZEC claimed that it was meticulously verifying the
results of the
elections before making them public. It appealed to
Zimbabweans to remain
calm.
Eldred Masunungure, a University of Zimbabwe political
science
professor, said the Sadc meeting should have spoken strongly against
the
withholding of the results and also come up with a workable strategy to
end
the political impasse in the country.
“It is unbelievable
that Sadc came to the conclusion that there is no
crisis in this country,”
Masunungure said.
“The crisis is everywhere. Why was Mbeki
appointed a facilitator when
there is no crisis?”
The professor
said it was clear that there was no convergence among
Sadc leaders on how to
deal with Zimbabwe.
“The summit should have come up with a solution
to end the crisis. One
of the options the Sadc should have considered is the
formation of a
government of national unity that excludes Mugabe,”
Masunungure suggested.
“This entails having a transitional
government that would give birth
to free and fair elections after a
specified period.”
Unconfirmed reports from Zambia were that the
Sadc leaders in their
13-hour meeting deliberated on the proposal of a
government of national
unity, but failed to arrive at a concrete solution on
the matter.
The reports said some Sadc leaders were for a coalition
set up that
would see another presidential aspirant, Simba Makoni, joining
the
government as prime minister. Makoni reportedly enjoys the support of
Sadc
leaders who view Tsvangirai suspiciously.
But Tsvangirai’s
spokesperson George Sibotshiwe at the weekend said a
government of national
unity was not an option.
He was quoted by the international media
saying the MDC’s preferred
course of action was to “consider an inclusive”
government.
Sibotshiwe said a unity government suggested that there
was no clear
winner and the rival candidates must join forces, while in an
inclusive
government, “we are the winners, but we decide to invite various
political
parties”.
The inclusive government would comprise the
MDC, its breakaway faction
and Zanu PF, but would exclude
Mugabe.
Brian Ngwenya, another UZ political scientist, said it was
expecting
too much for anyone to think that Sadc would be able to deal with
Mugabe and
his government.
“It was rather naïve for anyone to
think and assume that Sadc will
rein in the Zimbabwe government,” Ngwenya
said. “Sadc is club of like-minded
people and at the moment I don’t see it
transforming into an organisation
that will take stiff stances and
interventions when member countries deviate
from its goals and
objectives.”
Ngwenya said the failure by the regional bloc to
recognise that there
was a crisis in Zimbabwe reveals the ineffectiveness of
the body. “Their
definition of a crisis is mind boggling,” he said. “They
want blood to spill
in the country for them to recognise that there is a
real a crisis.”
Ngwenya said Zimbabweans should engage in civil
disobedience to force
the ZEC to announce the polls.
“There is no
hope that Sadc will come up with any solution.
There is need for
civil disobedience, not necessarily violence. I
suggest that the people
should boycott national events like Independence
Day,” he said. “We need to
de-legitimise Mugabe’s government. We must tell
it that it has no will of
the people to continue in power.”
Speaking at the post-summit press
conference, Zambia Foreign minister
Kabinga Bande said there was no crisis
in Zimbabwe despite the absence of
results for close to three weeks after
the presidential election.
“We listened to the two parties (Zanu PF
and MDC). Both said there is
no crisis in Zimbabwe,” said Bande.
Bande’s words echoed those of Mbeki who had stopped in Harare on his
way to
Lusaka, telling journalists after meeting Mugabe there was “no
crisis”.
“The body authorised to release the results is the
Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission, let’s wait for them to announce the results,”
said Mbeki.
But the MDC secretary for international affairs Eliphas
Mukonoweshuro
described as unfortunate and an affront to Zimbabweans Mbeki’s
statement
that there was no crisis in the country.
“We are
amazed and flabbergasted by that statement from Mbeki. Mbeki
was once
mediator chosen by Sadc to broker dialogue between the MDC and Zanu
PF,
which means clearly that he had been sent by Sadc to try and see if he
can
put the political parties at the negotiating table to dilute the
crisis,”
he said.
“Now, for him to turn around and say that he was not
brokering talks
on a crisis is absolute nonsense. And I hope that Mbeki,
with the greatest
respect, made that statement when he was
sober…”
In a communiqué after its summit, Sadc urged ZEC to
“expeditiously”
verify and release the results of the presidential election
in accordance
with the due process of law.
“Summit also urged
all the parties in the electoral process in
Zimbabwe to accept the results
when they are announced,” the communiqué
read.
In a joint
statement released after the Sadc meeting, 41 civil
societies in Botswana,
Zambia and Zimbabwe said they had expected Sadc to
compel the ZEC to
immediately announce the presidential results and prevent
Mugabe and his
security personnel from tampering with the ballots.
The civil
societies said the regional bloc must have told Mugabe’s
regime to dismantle
the de facto coup in the country and apply pressure on
the military to hand
over power to a civilian government.
“And in the event that the
results show no winner of 50% plus one
vote, (Sadc should) set up a heads of
state team that will mediate between
Zanu PF and MDC in order to set an
election run-off time line,” read the
statement.
By Constantine
Chimakure
Zim Independent
Comment
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 19:31
IT was inevitable that
the South African press would have a field day
with President Thabo Mbeki’s
remarks in Harare last weekend: “Crisis? What
crisis?” he was reported as
saying in the abridged version.
Once again he looked delusional.
And, as when he denied the extent of
crime in South Africa or the role of
HIV in the spread of Aids, he deserved
the excoriating editorials that
followed.
Zimbabwe’s multi-faceted crisis is invisible only to the
politically
blind. And it is escalating with every passing
week.
Mbeki advised Zimbabweans to wait for the ZEC’s announcement
of
results. But South Africans would never put up with a delay of over two
weeks.
The same weekend that Mbeki and several of his Sadc
colleagues were in
denial, reports from Mudzi, Mutoko and Hurungwe, Zanu PF
strongholds where
significant numbers of people changed allegiance to vote
for the MDC,
revealed a pattern of retaliation and violence by ruling-party
supporters.
This is clearly an orchestrated campaign to reverse the
electoral
outcome.
It is perhaps the most serious example of
misrule in the country.
People are being denied their right to elect a
government of their choice.
Instead a wayward ruler is hanging on to power,
not because he has answers
to the country’s myriad problems but simply to
exercise power for its own
sake.
Yet Sadc leaders are looking
the other way. Mbeki ignored the violence
and coercion reported now from
Zimbabwe on a daily basis but repeated his
mantras about the rule of
law.
He even chuckled at Mugabe’s asinine remarks about Gordon
Brown.
Thankfully, his party no longer thinks the same way. The
ANC’s
national working committee on Monday urged the Zimbabwe Electoral
Commission
to immediately announce the results of the country’s presidential
election.
The committee said a run-off without the results of the March 29
poll would
be “undemocratic”.
Even Sydney Mufamadi, one of the
negotiators in the inter-party talks
and an Mbeki acolyte, thinks the
results should be released.
“There are parts of the elections whose
results are outstanding, and
Sadc, as you know, met on Saturday and Sunday,”
he told SABC. “At the end of
that meeting Sadc asked the electoral
authorities to release the outstanding
results.
That’s all
Sadc can do.”
Not entirely. It can condemn political violence. It
can condemn
electoral chicanery. It can stop being supine when one of its
members
unashamedly violates Sadc’s Mauritius guidelines on electoral
conduct.
That protocol requires member states to establish
independent
electoral supervisory agencies, not outfits suborned by the
executive.
The withholding of presidential election results so Zanu
PF can
manipulate the outcome is an egregious breach of both the regional
guidelines and Zimbabwean law. We are currently all prisoners of the losing
party.
Then there is that dossier. The ruling party appears to
have
manufactured a dossier said to have been authored by the
secretary-general
of the MDC and used the transparently false claims in this
document to
justify holding on to power.
Totalitarian states
have down the ages used similar techniques to
warrant their grip on power.
But rarely have they been so clumsy or so
obvious. And the government media,
knowing the document was false, dutifully
carried it.
Zimbabwe
is a state in which democracy has been suffocated. On March
29 voters tried
to make a difference. But given the resources of the state
and the
determination of a ruthless dictator to remain in office despite his
record
of failure, the odds were against them.
But the difference between
this year and 2005 is that the people of
Zimbabwe know there has been a
concerted attempt to steal the election.
Previously that was only an
assumption. And we have the performance of the
ZEC to thank for this
clarity. Nobody doubts it now. Just ask around.
But whatever the
outcome, we can be proud that the people of this
country, in a democratic
contest, defeated an indelibly evil regime and its
dishonest
claims.
Its friends in Sadc may wish it weren’t so. But judging by
their
13-hour conclave last Saturday night, even they are beginning to have
their
doubts.
Zim Independent
Comment
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 19:25
THE
expression is often used glibly that freedom is never given freely
to the
oppressed but must be wrested from the oppressor.
Zimbabweans have
often appealed to the outside world to help us win
back our human rights,
our economic rights and our dignity. These appeals
have not worked because
we have as good as lost our political rights too.
In deciding to
vote for change, no matter how defective, on March 29,
Zimbabweans were
trying to win back their political rights in the hope that
all the others
would follow, as Ghana’s Nkwame Nkrumah once said.
The result was
inconclusive, part of it is still outstanding, but a
statement was made loud
and clear that town and country are united on the
need for change, even if
that means “leadership renewal” given that there
were constituencies in
which MPs won more votes than the sitting president.
The hoped-for
“change” is elusive, the powers in control of the
transition having chosen
to undermine and subvert the will of the people by
refusing full disclosure
on the results. It is a travesty of justice and an
insult on the people of
Zimbabwe that Zanu PF is busy trying to persuade us
to start thinking about
a re-run or a run-off without the courtesy of the
presidential
result.
It is a diversionary tactic which shows in blatant form the
deep
contempt in which the party holds Zimbabweans.
That is
before we can talk about the emotional, physical and economic
costs of an
election re-run so soon when the nation is still trying to catch
its
breath.
After what President Mugabe has done for this country, one
would have
expected him to want to pass on the baton to others, even if not
necessarily
a younger generation. There are many who were with him in the
bush who must
be getting impatient waiting for the “transition”. Time is not
waiting and I
believe even a founding president must at some point yield to
nature.
All this is closely related to the question I have often
asked about
the kind of legacy Mugabe wants to leave this country. Is it one
of peace or
one of war? Is he saying to those who want to succeed him “once
you get into
power you should never let go?” Is he saying only death in
office can ensure
his personal security?
These are legitimate
questions because Mugabe has a lot of reasons to
be afraid. His
post-Independence record has been bloody. We all can attest
to his “degree
in violence”.
What this teaches us is that a leader should never
overstay in power.
The more he stays the more errors and criminal acts he is
prone to commit
and the more he would want to stay on for his own personal
security.
Putting aside the other forces at play in the security
establishment,
the fact that Mugabe has such grave anxieties about his
personal safety to
subvert the people’s will as expressed in a popular
election must show us
the level of political intolerance which years of Zanu
PF tyranny have bred.
Leaders are afraid that they will not be
forgiven their crimes despite
all the good they have done for their
nation.
But Mugabe’s behaviour has the potential of a tragedy. In
defying the
people’s will, Mugabe is stoking more anger against not only
himself but
other less culpable members of his party and
government.
His behaviour is likely to precipitate violence which
could lead to
acts of vengeance and retribution against those seen to be
standing by him
as he thumps his nose at the electorate.
It is
an act which is bound to infuriate even those who were prepared
to forget
and forgive, those who believe in letting old wounds dry, those
who wanted
to ignore his ugly past in the interest of national healing and
progress.
It is my conviction that even at this very late hour
in our decent
into hell, our situation is still far less volatile than what
South Africa
was at the time of its first all-race elections in
1994.
It took a mature, “national” leadership to retrieve South
Africa from
the brink. The leadership vacuum in Zimbabwe has pushed an
otherwise
peaceful people on the brink, with no one able to see what is in
the best
interest of the country.
That is why I always have
reservations about external interventions. I
don’t believe that is how
strong nations or families are built. That should
be a function of the
political leaders themselves, whether they really
deserve that mantle or we
are deceived by caricatures and charlatans.
Foreigners can only
help where a commitment already exists towards the
wellbeing of the nation
over personal rivalry. Zimbabwe is overwhelmed by
the latter
spirit.
The national discourse is redolent with a sense of
grievance, revenge,
retribution, conquest and ultimately, humiliation of
rivals. It is about
triumph on both sides.
In fact it reminds
of how Mugabe was so bitter about being dragged to
the Lancaster House
conference, which he said deprived the Patriotic Front
of military victory
over the Rhodesian forces.
He said he would have loved to match
triumphantly into Salibury
without negotiation. It didn’t matter to him how
many more precious young
lives were wasted to indulge this triumphalist
exhibitionism. It doesn’t
matter to him today how much blood must be shed in
resisting the will of the
people. It makes a charade of any
election.
The call to duty at this critical hour is for pragmatic
leadership
from both Zanu PF and the MDC to make a vital decision on the way
forward:
will it be peace or peril?
Zim Independent
Comment
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 18:55
PRESIDENT
Mugabe last week declined to attend the hastily convened
Sadc summit on
Zimbabwe, held in Lusaka, which was attended by most of the
region’s heads
of state.
He stated that he saw no purpose in attending the summit,
on the
grounds that the agenda was to address the Zimbabwean crisis, saying
there
was no crisis in Zimbabwe, and hence no need for the summit to take
place,
let alone for him to attend it.
If the president
genuinely believes that there is no crisis in
Zimbabwe, then he is either
grossly mis-informed, or is astoundingly
oblivious to the realities, or
both.
In contradistinction to his contentions that Zimbabwe has no
crisis,
the actuality of the distressed country’s circumstances is that it
has a
vast plethora of crises, both political and economic.
In
fact, whilst Zimbabwe is inordinately lacking in most things,
including
having immense scarcities of food, electricity, health care
requisites,
foreign exchange, and much, much else, one of the very few
things that it
has a grossly excessive surplus of is crises.
Should the
presidential statement that Zimbabwe is not in crisis not
have been mere
politicking, but that which he believes to be so, then it is
disturbing in
the extreme that he should be so distanced and detached from
the situation
actually prevailing.
On the political environment, all stated
intents that the elections be
incontrovertibly demonstrated to be wholly
democratic, and totally free and
fair, have been completely negated by their
actual conduct.
As if it did not suffice that millions had been
disenfranchised,
robbed of their previous rights to vote, the voters’ roll
was in such
disarray that that state was even acknowledged by some of the
Zimbabwe
Electoral Commission (ZEC).
This abysmal state of
affairs was compounded by government’s careful
selection of international
observers to comprise only those whose bias was
such that any electoral
conduct would be deemed, and declared, to be “free
and fair”. Like
selectivity applied to the registration of international
journalists.
Reinforcing the electoral distortions, the state
media, which was
bound to accord equal space and time to the contesting
parties’ did so, but
all coverage of President Mugabe and of Zanu PF was
naught but eulogising
praise, whilst all that devoted to the others was
exclusively denigratory
and misrepresentative.
But that was not
sufficient destruction of any image that the
elections were genuinely free
and fair. Election results had been promised
to be released within three
days of closure of the polls but, more than a
fortnight later, presidential
election results had still not been released
and, instead, Zanu PF demanded
a recount.
This was simultaneous with calls for numerous recounts
of votes for
parliamentarians, notwithstanding that any such calls should
have been made
within forty-eight hours of completion of the counts, but
were actually made
more than a fortnight later.
The
inevitable conclusion of the populace was that the prescribed
forty-eight
hours were insufficient time to assure a rigged recount! Also
destroying any
image of credibility was that the supposedly independent
observers,
including South Africa, ACP and AU saw fit to declare the
elections to have
been free and fair, and to depart Zimbabwe, before the
vote counts were
completed, and ahead of announcement of results!
Thus, Zimbabwe
indisputably has a political crisis, with all
concomitant negative
consequences, notwithstanding categoric denials thereof
by President Mugabe,
and by President Mbeki, who is allowing his “quiet
diplomacy” to fail
horrendously, and in the process is regrettably
destroying his own
credibility.
However, as appalling as the political crisis is, it
is far from the
only crisis confronting the embattled Zimbabwe. The other
crises are many,
even if the President contends otherwise. They
include:
lPronounced poverty, impacting upon an overwhelming majority
of the
population.
More than two-thirds of the Zimbabwean
populace is struggling to
survive on incomes very markedly below the Poverty
Datum Line (PDL).
Most Zimbabweans are confronted with lives of
severe malnutrition and
under-nourishment, perpetual hunger, intense
ill-health, inability to fund
education, and are faced by numerous other
inadequacies including, for many,
a lack or insufficiency of housing. Surely
this is an economic crisis! But
the president says Zimbabwe is not in a
crisis.
The world’s highest inflation, exacerbating the immense
poverty which
afflicts most Zimbabweans.
Even citing belatedly
released, official inflation data, which
evidences inflation of over 168
000% to February 2008, the inflation levels
are horrendous, and are
comparable to the oft-quoted, cataclysmic inflation
sustained by Germany
from 1922 to 1924, which progressively soared to levels
in the billions of
per cent range.
Bearing in mind that the official inflation date is
based upon a
Consumer Price Index (CPI) which is founded upon allegedly
controlled
prices, and not upon actually prevailing prices, and upon an
out-dated, no
longer currently relevant consumer spending basket, actual
inflation In
Zimbabwe now undoubtedly is considerably in excess of 300 000%,
and steadily
is rising upwards. Surely this is an economic and humanitarian
crisis!
But the President says Zimbabwe is not in a
crisis.
lMore than four-fifths of Zimbabwe’s employable population
is without
formal sector employment. Businesses are struggling to survive,
in an
economic environment of ever-decreasing consumer purchasing power, and
lack
of export market competitiveness.
As a result, most are
continuously reducing the numbers employed, and
many are forced into
cessation of operations and total closure. New
investment is minimal,
primarily as a result of the horrendous economic
circumstances, but also
because government’s endless disregard for
democracy, law and order, human
rights, property rights, and economic
fundamentals, is an immense deterrent
to both foreign direct, and to
domestic, investment.
The
economy has contracted consistently since the turn of the century,
and
evidences no sign of an upturn. Zimbabwe’s economy in 2008 is less than
half
of that of a decade ago. Surely this is an economic crisis! But the
president says Zimbabwe is not in a crisis.
lScarcities are
gargantuan, be they of electricity, water,
agricultural and industrial
inputs, essential basic commodities. Far from
there being any sign of
imminent increased availability, all indications are
that the scarcities,
and the consequential discomforts for the populace, and
further economic
collapse, are intensifying continuously.
Surely this is an economic
and humanitarian crisis! But the president
says Zimbabwe is not in a
crisis.
More than a quarter of Zimbabwe’s population has fled to
other
countries, in a desperate endeavour to generate a livelihood for
themselves
and for their dependants. As a result, Zimbabwe now suffers a
paucity of
essential skills, including doctors, nurses and other skilled
health care
providers, engineers, teachers, accountants, and all other
skilled
disciplines necessary to service the country’s socio-economic needs.
Surely
this is an economic and sociological crisis! But the president says
Zimbabwe
is not in a crisis.
These are but a few of the many,
many grievous ills that presently
afflict Zimbabwe, over and above the fact
that Zimbabwe is increasingly an
international pariah, primarily only
befriended by other dictatorships and
non-democratic states, and by those
others as have also alienated the
majority of the world’s developed
countries.
Those ills are of such magnitude that they are gaining
ever-greater
proportions of inevitably national demise. Surely those ills
are all of
crisis proportions! But the president says Zimbabwe is not in a
crisis.
Really, Mr President! Are you living in a different Zimbabwe
from
that which is home to all Zimbabwean who have become the victims of
overwhelming, and ever-increasing, crises? The hard fact, albeit an
unpalatable one, is that Zimbabwe is in crisis — pronounced
crisis.
That must be recognised, and acknowledged, if Zimbabweans
are to have
any future, other than of never-ending misery and distress and,
for very
many, death.
Zim Independent
Comment
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 18:49
SO what were the
“circumstances beyond his control” that President
Levy Mwanawasa cited as
keeping President Mugabe from attending the Lusaka
summit?
“We
are very good friends and very good brothers,” Mugabe told the
press
following his meeting with Thabo Mbeki in Harare. “Sometimes you
attend,
sometimes you have other things holding you back.”
Like what? We don’t
recall seeing him performing any official duties
on Saturday.
And since when has he ever turned down an invitation to strut upon the
world
stage?
This was the politics of pique. Mugabe wasn’t going because
he wasn’t
willing to have his peers sit in judgement on him. His pride
proved more
important than finding a solution to Zimbabwe’s deepening
crisis.
Mugabe feared most what we can call a Camp David moment:
that
Mwanawasa would force him and Morgan Tsvangirai to shake hands before
the
world’s television cameras.
Mugabe wasn’t going to let that
happen. According to reports Mugabe
had flown into a rage during the meeting
with Mbeki calling the summit “a
show staged by Britain”.
The
heads of state spent 13 hours debating whether the Zimbabwe crisis
was a
crisis or not. Sadc couldn’t ignore what was happening, Mwanawasa was
reported as telling the meeting. But Angola and Mozambique worked hard to
let Mugabe off the hook.
However, this wasn’t the solidarity
show we have become accustomed to.
Why for instance would the
summit “appeal to ZEC to ensure strict
compliance with the rule of law and
Sadc principles and guidelines governing
democratic elections” if they were
satisfied Zimbabwe was already complying
with those guidelines? Only last
week the ZEC’s lawyer was claiming that it
may be “dangerous” for the court
to compel the ZEC to release the results
because it may not be able to
uphold such an order. So much for the rule of
law!
Despite
protestations to the contrary, what happened in Lusaka last
weekend is what
Mugabe had dreaded: Zimbabwe was in the dock. And its silly
dossiers no
longer find purchase on regional leaders.
Anybody reading Tendai
Biti’s supposed internal memorandum on how to
deal with the transition would
immediately recognise a forgery. Biti speaks
in legalistic terms when he
makes a statement.
He doesn’t speak in the language of Zanu PF
apparatchiks pretending to
be Biti. And would he, in all seriousness, want
to incriminate himself by
committing to paper the preposterous suggestions
contained in this document.
How about this for a give-away clue as
to where this memorandum really
originated: “In order to send the correct
political signals to both the
illegally resettled new farmers and our
international partners, all our
white farmers who are still in the country
have been instructed to visit
their former farms during the week leading to
the election and soon
thereafter to assess the level of vandalism and disuse
they have been
subjected to and therefore to give us some idea of the
amounts of money
required for their resettlement.”
It then
proposes that the white farmers phone the resettled farmers
“at odd hours”
to tell them they are coming back to their farms.
This of course
became the basis for the fiction Zanu PF began to
disseminate about white
farmers taking back their farms.
“The beneficiaries of Mugabe’s
land grab should quickly be made to
understand that their number is up,”
Biti is alleged to have written. “We
have also directed some of the
remaining white farmers in the country to
mobilise their workers to poison
cattle, slash or burn crops in the fields
and carry out many other acts of
sabotage on the resettled farms.”
Now who does that sound like?
Certainly not Biti. It sounds more like
those who actually do those
things.
Has anyone ever heard of a commercial farmer poisoning his
cattle?
Just last week there were reports of people claiming to be
war
veterans ordering dairy farmers to stop milking their cows.
But we liked the bit about ‘President Tsvangirai’ ordering the
disbandment
of “undesirable forces”.
“Any current members of the security forces
who wish to join the new
dispensation will have to reapply and must first
pass a rigorous vetting
exercise to establish if they have any lingering
loyalties to Zanu PF.”
This suggestion is designed to cause anxiety
in the ranks, no doubt,
but news that Zimbabwe will be getting “new
commanders for the Zimbabwe
Defence Forces, Zimbabwe National Army and
Airforce of Zimbabwe as well as a
new Commissioner General of Police,
Director General of the Central
Intelligence Organisation and Commissioner
of Prisons” is more likely to
inspire confidence than panic.
But once again the credibility of the document is seriously undermined
when
we read that: “As an interim measure we have secured the agreement of
some
selected reputable generals and senior officers of the former Rhodesian
security forces who are presently in Australia, Britain and South Africa to
take charge of our security forces.”
We had a good laugh over
that one. And the bit about repossessing the
tractors.
Those
responsible for this childish and frankly farcical document
should stop
insulting the intelligence of the Zimbabwean public.
The “Biti
Memorandum” is the biggest forgery since the Protocols of
the Elders of
Zion. At least we can be sure the original Biti would know how
to spell
Raftopoulos!
In addition to contriving stunts of this sort, Zanu
PF’s subterranean
moles have been busy writing letters to the Editor of the
Herald. We had one
last Friday signed by a “Prince Kahari”.
He
affected to be furious that radio stations such as SW Radio Africa
were
“making a mockery” of Zimbabwe and President Mugabe. Its staff should
be
stripped of their citizenship, “Prince Kahari” declared.
And where
was this super-patriot writing from? London of course!
The subject
of the recount is generating much emotion — understandably
given that the
ZEC appears to be making claims that it is unwilling to
substantiate.
The ZEC claims Zanu PF’s demand for 23 recounts
were considered by the
commission within the 48-hour window provided by the
law. But nobody
believes them.
No statement was issued by the
electoral commission about the
complaints nor were competing candidates
informed, Prof Welshman Ncube says.
But ZEC chair Justice George Chiweshe
says the commission met to consider
the complaints from mostly Zanu PF
losing candidates.
According to Chiweshe, “we sat as a commission
and considered them
(the applications)”. I can’t tell you when we did this
at this moment … we
received them, that is why we ordered recounts … we
didn’t have to tell the
world. Why should we? We are not obliged by law to
do that. Are you calling
me a liar?”
Ncube did not mince his
words. “The ZEC is acting in collusion with
Zanu PF and if they think any of
us will believe them when they are a gang
of fraudsters, then they can go to
hell,” he said. “They are such brazen
liars and they have had custody of the
ballot boxes for more than two weeks.
There is no guarantee that
they didn’t go back and tamper with the
ballot boxes, so the outcome of the
recount is a foregone conclusion.”
Ncube said Tsvangirai won a
clear majority, which was why the results
were not released.
MDC (Mutambara) secretary for legal affairs David Coltart agreed: “We
have
asked for proof the complaints were submitted within the 48-hour
period. The
delay between the expiry of the 48-hour period and the writing
of the
letters of complaint by ZEC is inexplicable, unreasonable. The only
inference one can draw from the delay is that the commission has connived
with Zanu PF and therefore acted illegally. One would have expected the ZEC
would immediately have notified all interested parties, but they took nine
days to do so.
This is a brazen subversion of the Electoral
Act.”
As Jacob Zuma said: “We have never heard of elections being
conducted
and counted and the commission not allowing the result. It is
unprecedented.”
Our question is, were heads of state in Lusaka
made aware of this
fraud?
Zanu PF must be asked: When you have
finished your rigging and
fiddling, what exactly are you going to offer this
country? More of the
same: more inflation, unemployment, and empty shelves?
The people spoke in
the election of March 29. You want to reverse that
verdict and might well do
so with the help of the ZEC.
But
everybody knows that the country rejected you. You will have to
live with
that knowledge but you won’t be able to turn the economy around.
It will
just go on getting worse and nobody will give a damn about your
conspiracy
theories.
You know things are getting bad when the public
prosecutor’s office
writes to you asking for stationery. Here is a letter
from the public
prosecutor at Mbare magistrate’s court.
“The
industrial action that had hampered our operations has since been
solved,
therefore we have started working tirelessly to ease the backlog
that was
created by such action. However, our office is facing serious
difficulties
in meeting our targets because of shortage of material
resources and as such
we are inviting donations of stationery from
well-wishers.”
Anybody prepared to help?
Then we had sight of another letter that
would have been better off
without a supply of stationery. It was from one
Kenyan lawyer to another:
“Your smart-mouth letter of 27 June
refers.
We find the contents thereof to be callous, in bad taste
and
calculated at imputing bad motives against our client and ourselves.
Needless to say that in view of the contents of your letter your client is
in the cave of Trophonius.
Her defence of privilege is hoist
with its own petard and cuts the
baby figure of the giant mass of things to
come. We have firm instructions
to file suit…
“About your
hoity-toity penultimate paragraph. This hard-heartedness
that borders on
inebriation and befuddled ardour that tickles the tongue of
vanity is
regrettable in the least. Remember that no one is insulated from
the
thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to and all the ills that men
endure in the sea of troubles.
The mind’s immodesty breeds the
desire of the moth for the star. Your
remarks are disrespectful and rekindle
thoughts of jaundice of the sole. The
least we can expect from this sudden
and quick quarrel is an apology.”
We don’t know whether he got one.
But it all goes to show that a
little learning is a dangerous
thing.
Finally we had the Venezuelans pitching in with their piece
of
literary extravagance on the occasion of their national day.
“For the Venezuealan historiography the celebration of the anniversary
of
this day has not been converted in an annual routine, neither in a civic
obligation, but in a feeling of a new native country, a small native
country, and great Hispanic-American native country.
“A new
start because on that day the people and armed forces rescued
the president,
democratically elected Hugo Chavez Frias, of a nasty coup d’etat,
forged
internally by those who with an ancestral way had enjoyed the
privileges of
the social exclusion…Of great Hispano-American native country
because this
gesture carried out by the binomial armed people’s forces which
was engraved
in an indelible way in consciousness of Venezuelan women and
men, was
inspired by the doctrine (in) international politics of
The
Liberator Simon Bolivar who thought for the South American mixed
race in a
great native country of republics without atomisation and big, not
by his
wealth and extension but by its justice and freedom.”
The author of
this turgid text looks like a candidate for
speech-writer in the Office of
the President where he can wax lyrical about
big Bolivarian extensions. What
we don’t understand is why, when they both
have so much in common in terms
of populist demagoguery, Chavez eschews a
visit to the Mugabean Republic of
Zimbabwe.
In last week’s edition we said Bona Mugabe voted in
Highfield. In
fact she voted at Hellenic Primary School in Harare. Her Dad
voted in
Highfield.
Zim Independent
Comment
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 18:41
SADC
chair Levy Mwanawasa at the Sadc Summit in Lusaka at the weekend
said the
regional bloc could not put President Mugabe “in the dock” because
it was
unAfrican to do so.
“Sadc cannot stand by and do nothing when one
of its members is
experiencing political and economic pain,” said Mwanawasa.
“It would be
wrong to turn a blind eye,” he said, but added that the Lusaka
summit was
“not intended to put President Mugabe in the dock”.
As expected the regional leaders tried to stand by one of their own.
We did
not expect them to put Mugabe on trial because they are not a
court.
Also we did not expect the regional heads to spend half the
night in
Lusaka arguing whether there is a crisis in Zimbabwe or not because
there is
all the evidence of strife in this country. In the end, what was
apparently
being tested was the Southern African leaders’ ability to solve
problems and
their respect for the dignity of the people they lead in the
region.
The problem with African leaders is only believing that
there is a
crisis in a country when they see the evidence in the form of
blood flowing
into the gutter and corpses on the sidewalk.
During the systemic torture and murder of opposition supporters and
farmers
by Zanu PF supporters and state-sponsored hoodlums during the land
redistribution fiasco between 2000 and 2002, African heads failed to call
the situation then a crisis.
Mugabe brazenly tried but failed
to export this chaotic brand of land
reform because he believed he was a
trail blazer.
African leaders have a duty to protect the citizenry
from famine,
hunger, unemployment, privation, torture, and abuse, and from a
deliberate
attempt by the governing aristocracy to subvert the will of the
people.
More often than not, African leaders’ decisions, especially
on
Zimbabwe have been instructed by the fraternal bonds with the dictatorial
Mugabe and not the people of Zimbabwe.
Mugabe was not put on
trial in Lusaka and with it the real story of
Zimbabwe escaped discussion at
the summit. The legitimacy of our ruling
elite is one of the major reasons
why the country is where it is today.
The process of establishing a
legitimate government that represents
the will of the people has always
escaped scrutiny as regional leaders
pretentiously opined that the situation
in Zimbabwe is normal and is being
blown out of proportion by the
international press. But all leaders in the
region have a Zimbabwean problem
to contend with at their door steps.
They know about the
stratospheric inflation, the collapsed industry,
low economic indicators,
economic refugees within their borders. They are
aware that Zimbabwe is a
cancerous growth festering in the heart of the
region. They are aware of the
real cause of this state of affairs in the
region. It is the misrule of the
Zanu PF government.
President Mugabe does not believe there is a
problem in Zimbabwe. His
comrades have publicly endorsed the misrule and
joined our octogenarian
leader in celebrating this as a stand against
imperialism. This has helped
Mugabe to stay in power but has not in any way
benefited millions of
Zimbabweans the majority of whom now earn less than
US$15 a month.
Sadc’s commitment should be to the people of
Zimbabwe so that they
regain their dignity in the region. During the visit
to Zambia last week it
was embarrassing to see elderly Zimbabwean women
selling sweets and trinkets
on the streets to raise resources to support
families back home. There are
many like these on the streets of Gaborone,
Maputo, Blantyre and
Johannesburg.
Sadc leaders have a role
to play here in helping to right this
situation. We do not expect them to
tell Mugabe to leave office but they
must speak openly about the nature of
the crisis in Zimbabwe and be seen to
be actively making sure that their
colleague Mugabe is made aware of this
because sometimes he appears
oblivious of the fact that hyperinflation is
not a virtue.
We
have always said that this country requires a mediated internal
settlement,
notwithstanding results of any electoral process.
This is only
possible if Sadc leaders acknowledge that there is a
crisis here. In South
Africa this week the ruling African National Congress
broke ranks with
President Thabo Mbeki who at the weekend said there was no
crisis in
Zimbabwe. The ANC said the situation in Zimbabwe was “dire, with
negative
consequences for the Sadc region”. It said Mbeki must remain
neutral as a
Sadc mediator.
This level of discourse must resonate throughout the
region but Sadc
heads have to break the mould to actively show leadership
which translates
to positive change in Zimbabwe. That includes showing
Mugabe
that he is no longer the revered leader he used to be by telling
him
the truth about the failure of his governance.
Judgement On MDC Petition Shameful
Letters
Wednesday, 16 April
2008 18:46
PEHARPS I may be regarded partial at this stage of my life
but this is
one matter a judge does not need to think about and moreso to
take so much
time to dismiss.
The normal course of an election
is that it progresses from casting
votes, counting the votes and finally
declarations as to who has won or
lost.
Who can ever doubt that
in fact that was the clear intention of the
legislature in enacting the
Electoral Act? No one has the prerogative over
the results of an election
except the people who voted.
If there were any anomalies at all, of
such a nature as would affect
the pronouncement of the results; those should
have been raised during the
counting stage of the votes, with some officials
belonging to the aggrieved
political party refusing to endorse them by not
signing.
Once signed and forwarded to those with the responsibility
to announce
the results, the natural expectation of the due process of the
law is to
announce those results.
The fact that the results
were not published when they should is an
indication beyond reasonable doubt
that someone who was a party to the
electoral process had sight of those
results and proceeded to investigate
anomalies, alone, to the exclusion of
all others and thereafter told the
rest of the nation and participants that
there is need to do a recount and
all the rest.
I am shocked
that a court of law can make a finding on the basis that
the result cannot
be published before all anomalies are investigated.
And for the
High Court to buy that sort of argument without taking the
ZEC to task
smells of shameful interference and complicity between the ZEC
and Zanu
PF.
Benjamin Paradza,
New
Zealand.
--------------
Gono Not Convincing
Letters
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 18:37
ALLOW me space in your
widely read newspaper, even though I am
responding to a story that appeared
in a different newspaper which is the
Herald of April 11.
The
story covered an interview that took place between Dr Gideon Gono
and a
Herald reporter.
Even though the governor attempted to justify his
policy decisions in
the interview, I was not convinced of his sincerity
about tackling the
causes of the sinking Zimbabwean economy.
It
is evident that the main cause of the economic, political and
social crises
is lying squarely at the door of President Mugabe and Zanu PF.
However Gono
shamelessly states otherwise.
He however came close to revealing
this fact by mentioning the fact
that the unrealistic exchange rate of one
US dollar to 30 000 Zimbabwe
dollars was the fault of the Ministry of
Finance.
He also came close to outrightly condemning the latest
spate of farm
invasions without pointing out that they, as in 2000 are
stage-managed to
divert the people’s attention from other pertinent issues
to Zimbabweans.
Gono should learn to tell the truth and call a
spade a spade.
Zimbabweans are anxious to work in a climate of honesty and
transparency
which is exhibited in neither Robert Mugabe nor Zanu
PF.
The so called ‘Social Contract” is just but an example of Zanu
PF’s
inability to compromise and work together with others.
If
Gono is serious about service to this nation, then he should advise
his
employer President Mugabe to change his ways in governance issues such
as
the reluctance of ZEC, a body he appointed to release election
results.
This is symptomatic of all the bodies and institutions
appointed by
Mugabe and the root cause of the country’s economic, political
and social
crises.
It would be very inaccurate in my view to
say that Gono does not
comprehend the results of such policies to the
fortunes of this country.
They result in economic collapse and
isolation of unprecedented
proportions.
Stanely
Tapfumaneyi
Tapera,
Harare.
---------------
Cry My Beloved Country
Letters
Wednesday, 16 April 2008 18:33
ELECTIONS in most
countries including a growing number of African
countries give an
opportunity to ordinary citizens in general to have a
chance to express
their collective views through the ballot, a chance that
is not available on
a day to day basis.
Everyone has an opportunity to offer themselves
to the electorate and
the losers live to fight another day.
But
the recent elections in our beloved country seem to have widened
the
polarisation of sons and daughters of this beautiful country and I am
calling for all to humble themselves for the sake of Zimbabwe.
The political and economic situation we face today has laid eggs which
have
hatched into very dangerous intolerance and disillusionment threatening
to
tear the country into another Somalia and cannot be allowed to go
on.
One the one hand we have Zanu PF, a party made up of the old
Zanu PF
and the former PF Zapu. These are parties which fought not only for
political independence but also for fairness in the distribution of wealth
between blacks and whites and economic emancipation of the
“majority”.
On the other hand we have the MDC in my own opinion
capitalised on the
failure of Zanu PF to protect the aspirations of the
urban working class and
the restive young generation who wanted
change.
However, an opportunity arose for healthy and friendly
competition
which was supposed to take into consideration the aspirations of
the masses,
the founding fathers, the young and the future generations of
this country.
The masses expected that these parties ensured that
the future of this
country is guaranteed by a unity in the vision of a
better life for all
citizens bearing in mind that political parties come and
go as leaders also
come and go.
Now our country is at a
crossroads. People swear against one another,
husbands and wives beat one
another to pulp for holding opposing political
views. Those who had an
opportunity to go to political rallies during the
run up to March 29 will
bear testimony to the level of hatred expressed at
some of these gatherings
leaving us yearning to hear what parties stood for
and what they promised to
do for us after the elections.
God knows if there is any future for
this divided nation.
People are suffering in towns, in the
countryside, and in foreign
lands with no glimpse of a better tomorrow in
sight. Careers are at a big
halt, teachers and professors are competing with
crocodiles to find space in
the Limpopo River while we all watch as if
things are normal.
It is not uncommon for a medical doctor to sleep
on the floor
regretting the day they decided against becoming kombi drivers
yet
politicians are growing fatter and richer such that they can never
imagine
of a better tomorrow.
As if that’s not enough our
church leaders have taken sides to remain
relevant financially (of course
many now worship a god called mari),
whichever way the political tide goes
to thereby absconding their duty of
uniting the body called Zimbabwe. I
wonder if these fellows have ever gone
on empty stomachs for days or even
failed to pay fees if at all they have
children.
The time has
come for all to swallow our pride and come to a round
table for the sake of
that pove that used to slaughter their fattened cows
for the freedom
fighters during the liberation war, and those students and
workers who
jeopardised their education and careers for the Zimbabwe of 1980
to the
present day Zimbabwe.
Zanu PF and the MDC could never have lasted
this long if they had no
support from the suffering masses who they now
chastise.
The same sacrifice I am calling for was made by the then
Prime
Minister Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe in 1980 when he called on former
foes to
unite under a one Zimbabwe through the policy of reconciliation even
though
he had a majority in parliament.
Tendai
Madhanzi
tmadhanzi@yahoo.co.uk