If there was any doubt about Zanu PF’s determination to press ahead and force elections to be held this year, utterances Sunday by the party’s spokesperson Rugare Gumbo must put throw that doubt through the window.
Gumbo told this newspaper if the two MDCs refused to participate, Zanu PF would “run alone” and declare victory. What the party hopes to achieve by trying to force its way into power through such shameful means is a mystery.
Like happened in the June 27 presidential election rerun, no one will accept the result of such a sham election and the government, parliament and president, products of this scandal, will have no legitimacy at all.
So, if at all the one-party election takes place, it would be a futile exercise and a waste of money. It goes without saying that given Zanu PF’s campaign tradition, people will die, get maimed and displaced. All that suffering and misery would, at the end of it all, be for nothing.
So many motives have been thrown around for Zanu PF’s sudden rush for a snap election, including a scenario where the brewing succession storm inside the troubled and cracking party has been advanced as one of the major push factors.
But whatever reasons behind this madness, Zanu PF should surely realise the folly of going into an election without the agreed new constitution and without cleaning up the mess at the Registrar General (RG)’s Office and at the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec).
As MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai rightly said, until the new constitution is in place, it will not even be clear whether Zimbabwe will have a presidential system or a parliamentary system with a president for foreign policy and defence and a prime minister to run the government.
The Zanu PF line of thinking, that Zimbabweans must be held hostage and go for a violence-ridden plebiscite just because the party’s congress decided so in Mutare last year, is nonsensical.
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The politburo decision last week can also not be binding on other parties in the inclusive government and if Zanu PF is so keen on having an election, why don’t they go ahead and run as many primary and even secondary elections within their own party or call as many more congresses as they wish to re-elect their party leadership?
Given the odds against holding elections in Zimbabwe this year, especially looking at its funding — Zec says they need up to $400 million — it remains difficult to understand how Zanu PF hopes to go ahead with this election — even running against itself.
All logical indications are that there can’t be an election in Zimbabwe this year in which case the ranting from Zanu PF could be nothing but a deliberate ploy to keep the nation in a perpetual state of election fear, violence and intimidation.
The motive being to psychologically dominate the electorate’s mind with fear in preparation for the eventual real election.
Unless Zanu PF provided the funds needed to clean up the RG’s Office, finance the remaining Copac needs and deliver a new constitution, rid Zec of the multitudes of military men and women inside its offices and mobilise and make available resources needed to fulfil GPA-stated election prerequisites, they should not go about frightening people about an election that is not possible to hold.
