THE chaos surrounding Zanu PF provincial elections following which the ruling party banned its members from celebrating presumed victories in internal polls has once again exposed that democratic processes are alien to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s party.
On Friday, Zanu PF political commissar Mike Bimha announced the winners of the provincial executive polls held last week in the 10 provinces of the country. A day later, he backtracked, saying the results would only be valid if the politburo endorses them.
Bimha’s pivot speaks to the perils of his job, a thankless task that often has no winners.
It is laughable that the elections, which were held for party members to choose their leaders, will not be decided by those who voted across the country, but at the Zanu PF headquarters.
The revelation that the election’s outcome will now be decided by the party leadership that did not oversee the election process, but has the power to overturn results, is hardly surprising given Zanu PF’s checkered history when it comes to polls.
It is disgraceful that a party that prides itself as the face of democracy cannot even declare results of its own internal elections and has to wait for Mnangagwa and his politburo members to huddle around a table who should “win”.
This shameful charade is sadly not limited to the ruling party’s internal polls which were fraught with violence, bribery and chaos.
Mnangagwa has, since coming into power, shredded the country’s Constitution overwhelmingly voted by the country’s citizens to strengthen his grip on power, particularly making the Judiciary, a key pillar of the State, beholden to him.
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The septuagenarian has been able to do so with the help of the pliant and unelected Douglas Mwonzora’s MDC-T outfit who, through a Judiciary-engineered process, has managed to barge into Parliament and Local Government offices and remove elected representatives in Parliament and Local Government.
The farcical nature of the ruling party’s recent elections is in tandem with Zanu PF’s democracy deficit in which even Mnangagwa’s succession of the late former President Robert Mugabe was not through a smooth handover of power through polls, but through the barrel of a gun.
Given the chaos that riddled the party’s elections and with the by-elections just around the corner, we should be worried, very worried!
