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Mnangagwa must stop telling lies on United Nations soil

September 27, 2018 Staff Reporter Opinion 0

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Dear Editor, Speaking on a CNN Interview in the United Stations while on his maiden trip to the United Nations General Assembly on 21 September 2018, Zimbabwean President, Comrade Emmerson Mnangagwa had the audacity to tell the world that “the entire period of the electoral process we didn’t have any, any disturbances….The only event which is regrettable is the one which happened 2 days after the elections”. Is that really so, Dear President?

What does our Dear President think the people in a ward in Buhera North who were threatened by William Mutomba Junior whose father was contesting in the parliamentary election will think about that statement? Maybe he doesn’t know what happened in his own back yard, or was he simply trying to deceive? William Mutomba threatened the villagers with all manner of retribution should a single villager in the ward vote for the opposition. Mutomba is heard loud and clear in the attached video threatening gullible villagers that the ruling party had a way of detecting how they voted, and said they should all get their names ticked when they get to the polling station to vote, and anyone whose name is found missing from that register will be severely dealt with.
And true to fashion, at one polling station in a rural constituency, a filming crew came across a Zanu PF agent named Norman who was recording people’s names as they came to vote as instructed by Zanu PF. Norman revealed to the filming crew that the instruction to rig elections that way was one which he could not deny for fear of his own life as everyone else complied with the instruction, and that this intimidatory practice was wide spread in the entire country. The second video attached says it all.

Honesty is a virtue which all leaders should possess in abundance. However, many leaders, are not honest, and that is a recipe for disaster. In the case of Emmerson Mnangagwa, if he really didn’t know these shenanigans used by his party to intimidate voters, then he is not even worthy being a Presidential candidate, for how can the world afford Presidential candidates who do not even know what strategies their party uses to rig or win elections.

In much as there was less violence in the 2018 Zimbabwean elections compared to previous years, the outcome of the elections is contestable given that they is abundance evidence of electoral malpractices. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has, however, maintained that the election was free and fair and everything was done above board at every opportunity he gets to talk about the election process for the just ended election, obviously to justify the victory he was given by the courts and not by the people of Zimbabwe as he was told right in his face by Dan Moyo of the Thokozani Khupe led MDC-T at a meeting that was organised for him on his trip to the United States of America to attend the United Nations Congress. That powerful statement by Moyo should certainly get President Mnangagwa to re-think his position regarding the fairness of the elections and tell a more acceptable story to potential investors, because once the investors doubt the truthfulness of your story, they cannot trust you, and they cannot commit.

The truth of the matter is that while the level of open violence was minimal, Zanu PF intensified its intimidation strategies in the rural areas, strategies that Mnangagwa and his colleagues helped develop under Mugabe. The two pieces of video footage that I have provided are just the tip of the iceberg. There is plenty more of video footage to prove intimidation and beatings of opposition activists that occurred, which can be produced for those in need.
Emmerson Mnangagwa is certainly aware that there was a High Court ruling which sort to bar the traditional chiefs from engaging in partisan politics because they were indeed – and Fortune Charumbira refused to comply with the High Court ruling. When he addressed a rally in Mutoko, Mnangagwa again  appealed to traditional leaders to support Zanu PF in the election against provisions of the constitution of Zimbabwe.
Unfortunately the ConCourt bench ignored this evidence of intimidation on the technicality that is was brought in late when they had earlier said the gravity of the matter required them to ignore the technicalities and consider the merit of the matter and ruled in favour of Emmerson Mnangagwa, but does Emmerson Mnangagwa really think that the opposition supporters all over the world will not share this evidence with the Governments in the countries they live in?   Does Mnangagwa ever stop to think of the implications to his credibility if the people he tells we had a clean election end up seeing the ugly footage of electoral intimidation and rigging? Does he ever care what implications that may have on the country’s economy?
Our President, Comrade Emmerson Mnangagwa is the worst enemy to Zimbabwe’s progress through turning a blind eye to electoral fraud and think that he can deceive the entire world that elections in Zimbabwe were free and fair. He could easily have chosen a more acceptable way to say the level of violence was much less and we are trying to improve things and could have easily got away with it, but his lies to the world now raises more questions than answers. What really is he trying to hide.

All progressive forces of the Zimbabwe who do not want election fraud swept under the carpet, including Dam Moyo who told Emmerson Mnangagwa the truth, should join forces and expose Mnangagwa for what he is to the world. I am playing my small part, and I hope everyone else does.

By Kennedy Kaitano




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