As Zimbabwe awaits the election results; the electorate should bear in mind that they have nothing to lose by being peaceful, while losing contenders should also appreciate the value of conceding defeat (for their own sake, their parties, and for their supporters).
“Good morning. It has been a hectic journey to 2018 elections. I concede defeat with dignity in Harare Central Constituency. Like I said earlier its either I win, or I learn. I have learnt a lot about political dynamics in Zimbabwe which I have fully documented,” read a tweet by Linda Musariri, Harare Constituency MDC-T (Khupe led) contender acknowledged.
Such acknowledgement exhibits very high levels of maturity which I commend MDC Alliance to humbly emulate. It is astonishing yet saddening that MDC Alliance President, Nelson Chamisa has forewarned anarchy in the event of a negative result in the just ended elections, “tozvidira jecha, we will not accept anything short of victory” were Chamisa’s very provoking words.
According to the Alliance, it would unleash an orgy of violence to make the country ungovernable if Zanu PF “steals” the general elections, despite proclaiming that the MDC had an anti-rigging mechanism which it had employed in order to curb Zanu PF’s purported rigging.
Honestly, MDC should give the electorate concrete evidence of the purported rigging or that is subverting the will of the people. Only yester year, the same MDC lost to Zanu PF and cried foul over rigging and manipulation of results, only to concede defeat years later acknowledging that Zanu PF hadn’t rigged, instead they alleged that they had intimidated people into voting for them.
So what assurance do we have that this election, the cry-babies will still not scout for pathetic excuses to justify their loss?
It’s rather unfortunate that the only language that the Alliance seems to understand is violence, which is obviously their best coercive weapon towards conformity to whatever they want.
Whilst it is common knowledge that MDC’s DNA is violence, the country shouldn’t be lured into anarchy merely because of a beleaguered party whose only source of dialogue is violence.
Thuggery and banditry is MDC’s middle name and their youths bear a traceable track record of MDC’s violent nature and beating up of leadership whenever they were in disgruntlement.
History can attest to Thokozani Khupe’s bashing, Elton Mangoma, Trudy Stevenson, only to cite a few.
There is a Shona idiom which goes, zvikoni zvikoni mimba haibvi negoshoro, implying that despite all the campaigning efforts (82 rallies), if voters decided to vote in favour of ZANU Pf then be it, it was just not enough to yield the desired positive outcome.
MDC Alliance’s desperation to win these elections is understandable, but not justified to sponsoring terrorism. The problem lies in MDC erroneously assuming that the country was ready for change, indeed it was, but it was brought forth in November last year, a situation which MDC decided to ignore, hence reducing their chances of an obvious win, like they had imagined.
Deranged MDC started off with boycotting countrywide by-elections in the name of wanting electoral reforms, to denigrating the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and its personnel for iniquitous practices and voting requirements.
Is the electoral playing field really not level if we have more than 6 000 election observers (regional and international) monitoring the elections in the country? ZANU PF will certain have to perform miracles to be able to by-pass all these people.
My plea to the electorate is to desist from any form of violence, especially in the name of any political party, it’s not worthy it!
