Good day Mr President: By Moses Matenga
DEAR President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Your Excellency, the vigour and evident arrogance by which your administration is resisting by-elections and key electoral reforms ahead of the 2023 harmonised elections put paid to your claims of being a reformist.
We have noted of late how your regime elements get irritated by any mention of by-elections and give flimsy excuses while also getting agitated by any pointer to the democratisation of Zimbabwe.
It only confirms that there is nothing new about the dispensation but perpetuation of the same old twaddle we have endured for the last 40-plus years.
Top civil servants have chosen to join you in seeing ghosts and claim the West, particularly the United States of America, is behind a broad scheme to manipulate elections by training polling agents.
Your Excellency, party apparatchiks have made sensational claims that there was US interference in the politics of Zimbabwe and that a meeting was held on September 21, 2021, where two MDC Alliance officials approached the US embassy public affairs section in the capital with a request for assistance with the training and equipping of 50 election agents ahead of 2023 harmonised elections.
Presidential spokesperson George Charamba also warned the US embassy that it was skating on thin ice in the middle of the Savannah and this is not the first time a senior government or Zanu PF official has made such claims.
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They are in the habit of doing so when key issues are raised and it is a huge concern especially given that it is the majority of Zimbabweans whose rights are being trampled upon.
And this, coming when there is talk of engagement and re-engagement, is an own goal by your henchmen who need no reminding that there is nothing criminal about an embassy advocating for democracy.
Your Excellency, instead of frothing and fuming like the government officials have been doing of late, it is imperative for your government to democratise the country for the good of all and sundry.
All this blubbering further exposes the regime as being disrespectful of the constitution and remember you cannot silence a determined people who have been deprived of the right to suffrage for long.
Reckless attacks on foreign embassies, which make reasonable demands complicate relations and paint the country in bad light, something we do not need now, nor any other time.
Millions have no representation in Parliament and councils after recalls of MPs and councillors and the continued suspension of by-elections makes a mockery of democracy.
Your Excellency, the call for by-elections is not an American plot, it is coming from the majority of Zimbabweans and it is sad that you, who claim to be a listening leader, have suddenly stopped giving an ear to the masses.
Zimbabweans want by-elections and they want them now.
The excuse of COVID-19 makes no sense now especially when a lot of activities have been allowed to take place and that many countries have successfully held elections.
