Wananchi,no surprise to any one ,our revered great and illustrious Con - Court has dismissed the Government s application and upheld 31 July 2013 as the date of elections. We respect courts.We shall always respect the learned ones.We respect too the cherished independence of our courts.We speak no evil against the bench. After we had made the point earlier that the application filed by that one called Chinamasa ,was so defective that any reasonable court ought to dismiss same. Of course nobody is naive and everyone in Zimbabwe knows that one plus one is not equal to two.The regime fools know one,more so its crude version known as the chaos faction.Those grandmasters of confusion. Of course every party has been operating on the basis that there would be an election in July. Once parties had done their primaries and filed their nomination forms ,I guess the date was academic .Speaking of our movement ,on Sunday 7 July 2013 all roads lead to Rudaka Stadium .where we will officially launch our campaign and unveil our manifesto.Thereinafter on a daily basis,its fire after fire. It is one thing to create the frantic and desperate situation that we have been forced to live with in the last three weeks and another to pursuade us that all is normal ,credible and legitimate.You can load mascara on a toad but it will always be a toad. Zimbabweans are not fools.They understand that legitimacy and credibility are key to a sustainable election .They know that no pronouncement or court judgment can white wash the fact that without reforms any election will be a farce.They know that at this stage the Con - Court judgment is a slap in the face to the imperator of a sustainable free and fair election in Zimbabwe . They know that these were political matters that required political decisions.They know that a dog by any other name will always be a dog. They know that ,they and not any else will be the true judge of what is right and just for themselves .And they shall speak .The people speak.They always speak. I know that the State Media tomorrow will be in an orgy .The incredible lack of strategic foresight and four dimensional thinking eludes my wisdom.Decisions are taken without proper focus and dimension.As if other people do not have a response and can not think.That you alone are the gods,that we all must lie down and be devoured prostrate . Wananchi ,that time is long gone.We are no one s poodles,let alone servants to the ruins of a regime,so exhausted ,geriatric and so comatose. So even in our readiness ,we will study,reflect and collectively speak. But let us reflect too on Maputo 9 June 2013. There the question,yesterday and now was wether Zimbabwe can go to elections without reforms. For me as I sat with others, in that cold conference room, at the Joachimn Chissano Convention Centre, this was the critical question that Sadc had to answer in their deliberations. Were they going to pander and succumb to a subjective political and constitutional agenda carefully engineered and planned by a minority few in Zanu PF? Or they were going to stand up for the people of Zimbabwe and assert the rights of the same, of enjoying a free, fair, peaceful and credible election, that is enjoyed by everyone else in the world? Right from the onset, Summit knew of the gravity of issues before it and the importance of decisions it had to make. An issue that had been restated by the Facilitator, President Zuma, in his report to Summit was that, “The challenge that we at this Summit face is to take up position that will bring the parties together in order to minimize these tensions and carve out a roadmap that is realistic, that meets the concerns of the different parties, and reassures the citizens of Zimbabweto through a process of accommodation.” Like a colossus, Sadc rose to the occasion and fought on the side of ordinary people in Zimbabwe. The communiqué of Sadc was a s follows, “… 8.3 Summit commended H.E. Jacob Zuma, President of the Republic of South Africa and the SADC Facilitator on Zimbabwe Political Dialogue for his efforts in ensuring the full implementation of the GPA in Zimbabwe. 8.4. Summit endorsed the report of the Facilitator and its recommendations which includes, among others, the following issues 1. Media Reform; 2. Upholding the Rule of Law; 3. The role of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC); 4. Election Date, Validity of Electoral Regulations; and 5. Deployment of SADC observers 8.5 Summit acknowledged the ruling of the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe on the elections date and agreed on the need for the Government of Zimbabwe to engage the Constitutional Court to seek more time beyond 31 July 2013 deadline for holding the Harmonised elections. 8.6 Summit urged the three parties to the GPA to undertake immediate measures to create a conducive environment for the holding of peaceful, credible, free and fair elections.” However, the detailed directives of Summit were as follows, 1) Government through the ministry of Justice is ordered and directed to make an application to the constitutional court following consultations by all political parties ,seeking to move the date of the election from the 30 July 2013 2) that the agreed amendments to the Electoral Act which had been purportedly been made into law by the President using the Presidential Powers(Temporal Measures ) Act be brought to parliament this Tuesday for debate and adoption. 3) that the SADC facilitation team and the troika team appointed in Livingstone sit in Jomic and not merely receive reports as demanded by Zanu PF 4) that an Inter Ministerial Committee be appointed to deal with implementation of agreed issues on media reform and the monitoring of hate speech in all media 5) that the security forces publicly state or restate their commitment to the rule of law, in particular their complete adherence to section 208 of the constitution. 6) that within the time parliament has remaining the parties negotiate and make the necessary amendments to POSA, AIPPA, the Broadcasting Act ,section 121 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act, etc. 7) that SADC observers be deployed immediately consistent with the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections 8) that any other issue and the implementation of the above be overseen by the facilitation team.” The message of the region was thus clear and unambiguous. The region wants free, fair, credible, legitimate and sustainable elections in Zimbabwe. The region is clearly tired of the Zimbabwean crisis and the endless meetings, on Zimbabwe, which normally run into the early hours of the morning. As President Guebuza, the chairman of Summit aptly put it, the region wants a Zimbabwe that can take up the task of development and that can take its place of pride on the continent. Guy Scott, the bullish and humorous deputy president of Zambia made the point that Zimbabwe and Zambia were inextricably connected and that if there was a problem in Zimbabwe, it would immediately affect Zambia. He made the point that it was important that a free and fair election happens in Zimbabwe so that Zambia would not find itself as the single host of the United Nations World Tourism Organization summit to be held in August this year. He also implicitly made the point that the ugly political situation in Zimbabwe was having a multiplier effect on the whole sub-region particularly in sectors such as tourism. In short, Sadc as guarantors and political curators of the GPA made a decision consistent with its position of finding a legitimate, credible, democratic, just and permanent solution to the Zimbabwean crisis. Sadc chose light over darkness, good over evil, the future over the past, development over underdevelopment and progress over regression. President Khama appositely captured this aspect of moving forward when he stated in his contribution on the subject of security sector reform by making the point that it was now 33 years after Zimbabwe’s war of liberation had ended and thus whilst everyone respected our liberators and security forces, the present war was now against poverty, underdevelopment and unemployment. Therefore to continue looking back in the past in militaristic lenses was not correct. Zimbabwe has to move on. So come this day ,not single resolution of SADC has been complied with.Can a regime so viciously trounce international law and exists as if it is above any form of restraint. How can international law in the form of SADC shield and protect its self against rogue states. Wananchi,we are at a fork.We the people must chose the right road to turn.What I know is that they will not force us into another cul de sac of attrition and confusion. The plan is to rush into an election ,that will be stolen and then invite us into the elite madness of another GNU.What crass madness, The people will not be betrayed. This economy is suffering .Zimbabweans are suffering.The crises can not be prolonged.The people want to deliver their knock out blow. Zimbabweans want to be free. The next few days will decide will decide our fate ,watch them closely.Every second is history . Zikomo
Posted on: Thu, 04 Jul 2013 22:29:08 +0000
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