by Mapozho Saruchera
Addressing a press conference mid last week, MDC Alliance presidential candidate in this month’s harmonized election, Nelson Chamisa, rightly pointed out that without legitimacy and stability there can never be economic progress in Zimbabwe.
A few paragraphs later, it became clear that Chamisa was out to deliberately compromise the legitimacy of the next Government by making unlawful demands towards the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) with the aim of discrediting the forthcoming election. It also came out that he is working to ensure that the prevailing tranquil environment is disrupted by threatening violent demonstrations that would shut down the country – to borrow the opposition’s rhetoric.
Chamisa claimed that he was doing all the above for the voiceless Zimbabweans – a questionable assertion, taking into consideration that Zimbabweans have always had a voice through elections held at every five year interval since the dawn of the country’s independence.
By threatening to derail the country’s economic development through deliberately manufacturing evidence to discredit elections and cause violence – Chamisa cannot claim to stand for the people of Zimbabwe, as the latter desperately want economic development to escape the shackles of poverty which weighed them down in the Old Dispensation.
I do not claim to stand for or represent anyone, but I bet no Zimbabwean in his or her right mind would want to throw away their future so as to satisfy Chamisa’s ego. He should be made to understand that there is no provision at law that compels ZEC to involve political parties in the design, printing and storage of ballot papers. Chamisa should be reminded that the MDC T faction he now leads was among the political parties that negotiated the constitution we now use and ironically does not contain what he is clamoring for. That he took part in the selection of Justice Pricilla Chigumba to lead ZEC, although he now pretends to be unaware of Chigumba’s credentials.
Turning to the alleged anomalies in the voters roll, where 122 people are said to be using one address in Chitungwiza and less than 100 people are also said to share some personal details, be it National Identity numbers or birth dates. My question is – what percent of 5 million registered voters do these two figures constitute? Is the percentage big enough to influence an election result, let alone worth derailing the aspirations of millions of Zimbabweans for a better life and a thriving economy? Of course Chamisa is willing to die for the above, or is it just political grandstanding?
Elections will go on as planned because Chamisa is just one of the 23 contenders for the country’s leadership. So, as long as the other 22 candidates and God, are in it, who then is Chamisa to stop the election?
If Chamisa had a case, he could have approached the courts as he did in his fight for the party name against the leader of the other MDC-T faction, Thokozani Khupe. However, Chamisa is one of those people who have been making a living milking architects of the regime change agenda while exaggerating human rights infringements in the country – which explains why he is trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill.
To Chamisa, this month’s election is not about the wellbeing of Zimbabweans but his own comfort. He was able to make a trip to Israel for reasons best known to him while his stone broke party was begging from the electorate. Now he intends to embark on violent demonstrations so as to unblock money conduits that were recently plugged by the American Government – Civil Society Organizations (CSO).
