via Is Mugabe too old to rule us for another five years? | The Zimbabwean
“The Zimbabwean” would like to hear from our readers whether you think Mugabe is the right person to rule Zimbabwe for another five years. Please send us your opinions by
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To start the debate “The Zimbabwean” publish some comments written by Jonathan Moyo during the past few years.
“Zimbabwe urgently needs a new competent government with national and international goodwill under a new leader, not a reshuffled cabinet led by a failed and discredited sunset president who wants to cling onto power through mendacious means when he should be leaving office.” (October 29, 2006)
“The time has come for Zimbabweans in crucial national positions in government and related state institutions and within Zanu (PF) itself to realise and acknowledge without fear or favour that the problem is manifestly Mugabe.” (October 29, 2006)
“He simply does not want to become a living former president with weakened immunity liable to prosecution by his successor or anybody else in or outside Zimbabwe with a human rights bone to chew with him.” (October 29, 2006)
“A backdoor re-entry into power without the democratic mandate of the people through the polls is by definition not dignified.” (October 29, 2006)
“It is imperative that Zimbabweans from across the political divide do everything they can to reject Mugabe’s triple strategy of seeking to remain president for life outside the electoral process for personal reasons of protecting his immunity to the detriment of the national interest. (October 29, 2006)
“The end of executive rule has finally come for Robert Mugabe who has had his better days after a quarter of a century in power. That Mugabe must now go is no longer a dismissible opposition slogan but a strategic necessity that desperately needs urgent legal and constitutional action by Mugabe himself well ahead of the presidential election scheduled for March 2008 in order to safeguard Zimbabwe’s national interest, security and sovereignty.” (October 29, 2006)
Mugabe should go
“After 25 years of controversial rule and with the economy melting down as a direct result of that rule, Mugabe’s continued stay in office has become such an excessive burden to the welfare of the state and such a fatal danger to the public interest of Zimbabweans at home and in the diaspora that each day that goes by with him in office leaves the nation’s survival at great risk while seriously compromising national sovereignty.” (October 29, 2006)
“Mugabe has publicly demonstrated his leadership incapacity to make way for an able and dynamic successor by succumbing to manipulative tribal pressure.” (October 29, 2006)
“Mugabe now lacks the vision, stature and energy to effectively run the country, let alone his party. He is without compassion, maybe because he is now too old, too tired and not in the best of health.
His failure to visit stranded families left homeless and suffering from the irrational acts of his own government speaks volumes of his cold and cruel leadership style.” (October 29, 2006)
“Mugabe has lost influence and is now viewed with suspicion or cynicism or both by his peers in the Sadc, African Union and across the developing world where he used to enjoy considerable authority. Of course, Mugabe is still respected as an old man and he still makes very interesting bombastic speeches that are applauded for their entertainment value and which are full of sound and fury but signifying precious little at the level of policy and action.” (October 29, 2006)
Too tired
“President Mugabe is now too old despite his photogenic makeup, has become very tired, visionless and beleaguered. Mugabe remains in office not because he is in charge of the goings-on in the wider society but largely if not only because of considerations of his personal and family security in a world that is increasingly becoming hostile to former heads of state with unresolved human rights and corruption issues during their rule.” (August 17, 2007)
“Mugabe simply does not have the leadership vision and capacity to pull Zimbabwe from the woods. He is just not that kind of leader.” (August 17, 2007)
Irresponsible endorsement
“If President Robert Mugabe truly and honestly believes that he is a serious presidential candidate in the general election scheduled for March 2008 and that he can best govern this battered country until 2013 should he win, then he miserably failed to demonstrate that at the controversial Zanu (PF) extraordinary congress.” (December 24, 2007)
“Nobody in Zanu (PF) actually supports Mugabe’s candidacy. Everyone understands that it is wrong and the most telling statement in that regard is the holding of a sham special congress when a national people’s conference was in order.” (December 24, 2007)
Stomaching defeat
“If there is one sobering thing that can be unequivocally said about why the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) has scandalously delayed the announcement of the March 29 presidential election, it is simply that President Robert Mugabe did not win the election and is now desperately trying to steal the result through an unjustified recount because he does not have any prospect of winning a run-off or a re-run.” (April 13, 2008)
“The dissolution of the cabinet in March did not affect the embattled Mugabe who appointed it and who, even if defeated on March 29, is nevertheless empowered by Section 29 of the Constitution to unhappily continue in office until the person elected as President on March 29 takes over the reins of governance.” (April 13, 2008)
“The voters rejected Mugabe on March 29 and officialdom must unconditionally and graciously accept that electoral verdict in the national interest.” (April 13, 2008)
“Mugabe simply cannot win any election; not even one which is neither free nor fair in his favour. Mugabe’s days of electoral victories are irretrievably gone.” (April 13, 2008)
COMMENTS
mugabe is not ruling, JOC IS !!!
Indeed, and it’s going to be like that for a while. Isn’t freedom wonderful? Don’t complain about the cost of it, because your elders only wanted what was best for you.
Tsvangirai is too DULL and IDIOT to rule Zimbabwe! FYI….
I saw the man(Mugabe) on people of the south program, the man is so weak both physically spiritjallyand mentally. I don’t think he can rule Zimbabwe meaningfully for five minutes let alone the 5year term he cunningly took from Morgans grasp.
The man was literally sleeping in the middle of his sentences as he spoke. I used to respect him so much for his abilities, but now he has become a liability and an embarrassment to honest and reasonable Zimbabweans.
Old age has actually taken its toll on this once incredible man of wisdom. His problems are self inflicted and he will do anything go retain power. He wants to fall and die in office as president at all coasts. He will nevery know peace in this world.
May the Almighty God have mercy on his Saul that he be restored to a moment of his youthful brilliance that he sees his selfishness and do the right thing and step down. Kana huni ichiita utsi inobuditswa muchoto yonanikwa kufi iwome. Inozodzorerwa muchoto Kana yawoma. Huni Inonzi Mugabe yakabvira ineutsi kushikira pakupera. Zvino angova madota. Pane anokuhwidza moto nemadota here?
vi zvotoda Samatenga
Saka zvohwinyi iye achinzi garapo? Kuuraya muti unotema midzi! Midzi yake its JOC!
Well since the mechanisms of evil are in again…now its time they deliver and see if they can provide better services in the urban areas than what the MDC were trying to do. (full of doubts!) I suppose they will still blame these few travel restrictions as to the reason why there is no ZESA or safe water or for the pot holes. Zanu PF says they are better so now prove it!!!!!! For me…..you are better at stealing elections…you are better at violence…you are better at corruption. Time will tell the clock is ticking and age is going to get you soon….We wait to celebrate.
No he is just the right person who better…full of energy after all the hours he sleeps through meetings and knows everything thats going on despite his numerous trips to have his ‘ummm eyes looked at in Asia’ he is full of great new ideas….we have so much to look forward to what a great candidate……NOT!!!!!
The sad truth is even at his best the zanu muppet never had what it takes to run a modern functional state. Simply graphing the
economic parameters and the human development indices during his
tenure shows a consistent trend of decline in standards and of Zimbabwe’s standing in the global arena. You do not give credit to a manager who was not in control, and steadily wasted and
lost the assets he was supposed to be in charge off, this zanu muppet was simply a passenger on board. This explains the penchant for never ever taking responsibilty for the situation Zimbabwe finds itself in. It was always others to blame, the colonials, the apartheid regime, zapu and now the brits and the yanks! Any rational person would see the zanu muppet never had it, doesn’t have it and will never have it.
I agree that the Europeans, and I am one born in Africa (the white man), stole Lobengula’s lands, by offering trinkets and baubles to the King!
They then forced the Ndebele, later the break-away tribes, the chi’Shona and ‘Nyika into servitude, BUT –
had Mugabe had the foresight to rectify these wrongs with wisdom and humanity, Zimbabwe would be Great Zimbabwe again.
Ripping farms, businessehe s and investments from the ex-Rhodesians hands, was the wrong way to go.
I would have done it this way –
Take the ten-of-millions promised by the British in the 1978-9 Lancaster Agreement to pay off those farmers who had multiple and/or unused farms and those who were wanting to retire anyway.
That would have been over 60% of todays acreage!
These I would ‘give’ to the Indigenous People, but only after matching them with another white, experienced farmer for at least one year of agricultural training at Govt. expense.
Don’t forget that the Rhodesian farmer was considered amongst the best in the World. So USE them!
After that the two ‘farmer-partners’ would consult and advise one another, for the benefit of all!
Then I would do the same with mining, manufacturing, real estate, tourism etc: – form a ‘sharing of assets and responsibilities’ with the financial help of Govt. and Britain again.
This way, there would have been a peaceful transition, a sharing and a partnership amongst all the people making up “The Jewel of Africa”. This would have avoided land grabs, death and injury, plummeting food supplies, sanctions on ZANU-PF and Mugabe’s cronies, inflation, devaluation, collapse of the currency and economy and the rest of the horrors we have face under Mugabe.
What Mugabe and ZPF did was and is, a catastrophe!
“Cry, My Beloved Country, Cry”.
You all might wonder why I say I am a ex-white Rhodesian/Zimbabwean, with the ‘nom-de-plume’ I use.
When I was around 6-7 years old, my old friend and Cook “Jackson”, used to get furious at me when I cam home from the farm, working alongside my father, why!
Well,I was always so hungry, as growing boys are, so I would sneak up to the old Aga wood stove and lift the pot lids to see what was for lunch or supper!
After a while he named me ‘baas (sic) Chivula-ma-pot’ and it stuck. He also ‘adopted’ me in the African tradition, and had me visit his family on his days off, and attached his surname to me, Chivula-ma-Pot Tandaisi.
That’s my story!