COUNTLESS times we read and hear President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Zanu PF fundamentalists accusing pro-democracy activists and opposition parties of being used by Western countries to champion regime change in Zimbabwe.
Anyone who dares to criticise the government is regarded as a regime change agent.
The late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai went to the grave with that tag. Citizens Coalition for Change leader Nelson Chamisa is also viewed in that light.
Is regime change a crime? Regime change is something Zimbabweans have a right to, each time they go to elections.
It is enshrined in our statutes. Zanu PF must never fool us. We are entitled to regime change.
When we go to elections, we are given a choice — a choice to vote for a candidate we want to lead us — a choice which allows us to either accept or reject Zanu PF and its leader. We do not go to polls to endorse Zanu PF and Mnangagwa’s misrule.
Ours is a multi-party democracy. It is not a one-party State. That means any party, if voted into power, will assume State power. We hear many people being called agents of regime change simply because they are in opposition formations or have defected from Zanu PF.
Whether Mnangagwa likes it or not, regime change is coming in 2023. We do not need anyone to tell us to change this regime.
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We are tired of its violence, corruption, disregard for national laws and human rights.
Zanu PF and its supporters must not behave as if they have title deeds to run this country the way they want.
They must not talk as if they are the only ones with the keys to State House.
The 42 years of Zanu PF misrule have destroyed this country. When we cry for regime change, Mnangagwa must know it is because he has let the nation down.
There is nothing illegal about regime change. – Muzokomba villager
ED has perfected art of repressionTHE birth of Zimbabwe and many other African States came as a result of violent confrontations.
Negotiations such as the Lancaster House Conference took place after violent confrontations between the guerilla fighters and white supremacists. Among the issues at the centre of the Second Chimurenga was the land question, totalitarian rule by the whites and oppression of the black populace.
Images of the late former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Douglas Smith’s police officers unleashing dogs on black people were well documented by the media.
It is also important to note that the regime’s oppressive nature did not go unnoticed as Britain and the United Nations globally imposed sanctions on Rhodesia.
Fast forward to 2000 and beyond, Zimbabweans found themselves in a similar situation. The issue of land became the crux of the battle. Words like terrorists and puppets began to be thrown around with reckless abandon against the opposition; dissenting voices were and are still being treated with disdain.
Draconian laws such as Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act were promulgated.
As we speak, the government has gazetted the Private Voluntary Organisations Bill to silence “critics” in the NGO sector.
Citizens Coalition for Change rallies have been banned under a cloud. Just like what used to happen during Smith era, on August 1 2018, six innocent citizens were fatally shot at point blank for exercising their democratic right.
The so-called new dispensation has failed to cut the umbilical cord of oppression. It has become a replica of the Smith regime.
President Emmerson Mnangagwa has perfected the art of oppression, using violence and maintaining a tight grip on State machinery.
Given that most people in government fought for the liberation of the country against the oppressive Smith regime, we can safely conclude that leaders in our government copied the oppressive rule of the very system they fought against.
It is ironic that Mnangagwa is becoming a black version of Smith. As a generation, we have a generational mandate, a generational obligation to dismantle the system. We have to demand accountability, good governance and respect of the rule of law. There is much that unites us than divides us.
We should never engage in violence because that is what the regime we are fighting wants because violence is their turf.
They have survived and thrived through violence, that is their forte. But we are smarter than them, we are an enlightened generation.
Where they use weapons, we use ideas, the modern age has provided us a platform to meet, a convergence zone of ideas, where we share ideas and make our future and that of the generations to follow bright.
We have to be a better generation than the one which preceded us. We should not breed cult leadership because it has contributed immensely to the present catastrophe.-Mukunda Chitova
Chamisa must embrace KhupeI AM happy that MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe has joined the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC).
Those who are opposed to her decision because they don’t trust her are wrong, totally wrong.
Khupe is not rejoining any party, but joining CCC, a new party with no substantive leadership.
Even if Khupe had rejoined, what is wrong with that? She is bringing her supporters to CCC.
There are no permanent enemies in politics. Let us remember that Khupe was second-in command to the late MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. She is one of the remaining founding members of opposition politics in Zimbabwe.
She is even senior to CCC leader Nelson “Mukomana” Chamisa all the way until the death of Tsvangirai.
Khupe is human enough to object, to protest in any manner that excites her fancy. Left to his own devices, Chamisa would not object to working with Khupe. Khupe was not wrong to go to court to challenge Chamisa.
However, she may have been terribly unwise. Hers was a gut reaction imposed on her by circumstances. Those who are opposed to her because they don’t trust her have to realise one thing that one cannot trust even one’s wedded spouse in this world. Ubulawa ngowakho (you can be betrayed by a confidante). Even Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus in exchange for 30 pieces of silver.
Don’t succumb to passion in politics, please, whether in love or in hatred. It has been stated that Tsvangirai “appointed” Chamisa as his successor while on his death bed, through a third party, the leader of another MDC faction for that matter.
True or false, the fact is that Khupe was not there and, therefore, she was not going to buy that story just like that.
Let us analyse politics rationally, please. Notwithstanding the positives and negatives hitherto characterising their relationship, there should be no bad blood between the two.
The person to be not trusted is puppet Douglas Mwonzora.
Clearly his political life is in tatters if not kaput. – Martin Stobart
