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Constantine Chimakure
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF have been on a campaign to stampede the country into an election this year despite dismally failing to fulfil the Global Political Agreement they voluntarily signed in 2008.
Mugabe, Zanu PF chairman Simon Khaya Moyo and spin doctor Jonathan Moyo are among those that have declared that elections will be held this year without fail. It was also one of the resolutions made at the party’s conference last year.
Moyo has gone as far as saying that reforms can only be implemented after an election. Delivering a lecture on the political situation in Zimbabwe to officers attending the Joint Command and Staff Course at the Zimbabwe Staff College, Moyo said: “There are some who are saying reforms first and after reforms then elections. We see that in newspapers and other media platforms. This is a fallacy and an unacceptable fallacy to say you must have reforms before you hold elections. We must be confident to say it’s a fallacy and we cannot run a country based on fallacies.”
He added: “An election is a precondition for reforms, not to say reforms are a precondition for elections. If it were to be like that then we will not have any elections at all.”
These utterances are antithetical to the letter and spirit of the Sadc and AU-sponsored GPA which clearly stipulates the need for reforms before any election can be held. It is such pronouncements that demonstrate, in clear terms, Zanu PF‘s contempt for the GPA.
How Mugabe and Zanu PF think they can get away with holding elections without reforms boggles the mind. It is like winking in the dark; an exercise in futility.
An election without reforms is bound to be a sham election as the MDC parties will not participate leaving Mugabe to go it alone. If that happens Mugabe will lose the legitimacy he desperately seeks both regionally and internationally.
An election without reforms will be an insult to the guarantors of the inclusive government, Sadc and the AU, and Mugabe will lose friends who have stood by him and helped restore his legitimacy at a time he found himself in the political wilderness.
An election without reforms will result in the addition and tightening of existing sanctions. Mugabe could find himself facing sanctions from the United Nations leaving him even more isolated thanthe predicament in which he found himself in 2008 after the farcical presidential election re-run in June.
An election without reforms will also erode the gains made in the economy since the formation of the inclusive government. With instability and uncertainty, the country could plunge into economic chaos which will have a more devastating impact because of the absence of a national currency.
Worse still, an election without reforms couldbe a precursor to violence in the country much worse than the bloodshed of 2008. The bloodshed in 2008, which the MDC-T says claimed the lives of 200 of its supporters, was as a result of a deficit of reforms being prescribed by Sadc and AU. This is especially so in a country where the security chiefs have clearly shown they will support Mugabe by fair means or foul.
GPA facilitator and South Africa President Jacob Zuma should intervene to stop this madness before it gets out of hand and turns the country into a pariah state. He should also rein in recently elected and excitable Zambian President Michael Sata who has castigated the MDC-T and has stoked tensions by adding his voice to the chorus of elections this year.
Mugabe and Zanu PF will be committing suicide should they go ahead with elections without reforms. Forewarned is forearmed.
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