By Wilbert Mukori- Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely! After four decades of rigging elections President Emmerson Mnangagwa is now claiming the party has the right to rig elections!

“Going forward, and as a country and Nation which is proudly African and sovereign, we shall be insisting on the principle of reciprocity when it comes to the practice of international election observation.

The time will soon come when we will not accept that condescending and even racist view of a pecking order when it comes to measuring electoral democracy unfolding in our sovereign countries, and which, in any event, is meant for our people,” argued President Mnangagwa in the Sunday Mail column.

When you know, you are going to rig the elections; you have failed to produce something as basic as a verified voters’ roll, will frogmarch voters to vote for you, etc.; of course, you will not want anyone to scrutinise the process.

Zanu PF’s vote rigging juggernaut is now unstoppable and the party has bribed the opposition to guarantee their participation no matter flawed and illegal the process get. The party has woken up to the political reality that party will not get political legitimacy if the process is judged to be flawed and the opposition is dismissed as lacking political credibility.

The recent Al Jazeera Gold Mafia documentary has portrayed Mnangagwa himself and his administration as dunderheads controlled by the white, Indian, Chinese and Russian Mafia Gurus operating in the country. Before the documentary the Zanu PF regime’s reputation was bad and now it is mud. Some of the African leaders who would have turned a blind eye to Zanu PF rigging the 2023 elections will now be forced to think twice about granting legitimacy to a regime of dunderheads!

“A pecking order with white super-dogs who must observe elections of lesser beings, on the one side; and black underdogs whose polls must be observed, passed or failed, on the other,” continued Mnangagwa.

“Nothing about our chequered colonial history justifies that false hierarchy; nothing in present international rules legitimises that presumptuous supremacy. The theory and practice of election observation must be on the basis of equality and reciprocity among nations. Anything less and one-sided diminishes and creates a deep sense of bruise and injury to our sovereignty.”

This is just nonsense! In a healthy and functioning democracy every stage of the election process is transparent and open for verification by all the election contestants, the media, the public and observers. Zimbabwe has never requested to observe any Western nation’s elections and had the request denied. What “reciprocity” is he wittering about!

In democratic nations, any election irregularities are dealt with by an independent judiciary. In Zimbabwe it is laughable that the Constitutional Court handled the 2018 election challenge when 8 months earlier the same judiciary had ruled the November 2017 military coup was “justified, legal and constitutional”!

The right to free, fair and credible elections is not just universal right; it is the very foundation of good governance. Zimbabwe is a failed state precisely because the nation has been stuck with this corrupt, incompetent and murderous Zanu PF dictatorship for 43 years and counting.

“Much worse, we reject as utterly racist and condescending this practice of making our proud and sovereign Nation an equal if not a junior of some Western non-governmental centre, institute or foundation. We are no one’s subaltern, least of all of some non-governmental organisation. Never again will we subject ourselves to such false, humiliating equivalences.

“We go to elections as sovereign nations, indeed as State Parties of the United Nations; its hallowed Charter makes all Nations equal, regardless of size and age, however these are reckoned or claimed. State Parties relate to each and to one another on equal terms, with respect, and strictly on the basis and principle of reciprocity. Going forward, only those Nations who invite us to observe their own elections in future will also be invited to do the same here.”

“One man, one vote!” was the rallying cry before independence. It was valued then as more than just a human right but as one of the key pillar on which good governance stand. Zimbabwe is failed state and in economic ruins precisely because the nation has failed to hold free, fair and credible elections since independence in 1980. The country has been stuck with a corrupt, incompetent and tyrannical Zanu PF dictatorship for 43 years!  

Only a dunderhead, drunk after decades of enjoying absolute power, would now think he has a right to rig elections and justify his foolishness on the grounds free, fair and credible elections are a threat the nation’s sovereignty!

It was foolish of us to have allowed the Zanu PF dunderheads to rule for even a day much less for 43 years. We have paid dearly for our folly and must now put an end to this madness. Zanu PF is rigging these 2023 elections and CCC are hell bent on participating in these flawed elections for selfish reasons. Our task is to denounce the flawed elections, show the opposition have lost political credibility and thus stop Zanu PF getting political legitimacy.

How can a flawed election process, so flawed it does not even have a verified voters’ roll, in which a discredited opposition participate for 30 pieces of silver produce a legitimate government?