Zimpapers Logo

Last time we looked at the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 20) Act of 2013 with its expanded Bill of Rights, we did not come across a right to put Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and hard won Independence on public auction by whosoever feels aggrieved by the State of the Nation.

It is also a well-documented historical fact that one of the most fundamental issues that made Zimbabweans wage the war of liberation against settler brigands was the issue of one man, one vote — the right to vote.

This is an intrinsic value in any democracy, which we started carving out in 1980, when we first universally decided.

Attaining national sovereignty also meant that we are masters of our destiny, capable of charting the course of our future as we see fit as Zimbabweans, without undue pressure from second and third parties. Thousands of lives were not lost, only for us to remain dependent on Britain and its erstwhile allies in the so-called international community.

Sadly, there are some among us who believe that every good thing for Zimbabwe must come from the West. They want them to think for us, while we remain implementers of their perceived brilliant superior minds.

Thirty-seven years into Independence, the West must remain the reference point; the West that only yesterday was denying us the rights contained in Sections 44-87 of the Constitution.

They would also want us to surrender the management of our electoral system to the very people who were denying us those rights.

As opposition political parties, the templates of their activities are designed in London, Washington and Brussels, and they don’t see anything wrong with that. Why then should they be trusted to handle issues of national interest, when we know that they are poodles doing their masters’ bidding?

On Wednesday, we witnessed once again how desperate they are to be controlled from London, Brussels and Washington, when the so-called National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) organised a “mega protest march” according to the private media, which became a monumental flop. They wanted to demonstrate against the Government for saying it would avail the $17 million to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to purchase Biometric Voter Registrations (BVR) kits.

These opposition political parties have since concluded that the 2018 harmonised election will be rigged, thus they want the United Nations Development Programme to take over that mandate of procuring the BVR kits.

What rank madness! Which countries are putting in the money that the UNDP will use to buy those kits, and why? The UNDP has assisted many countries in their electoral processes, but should it be at such a high and very delicate level? If the opposition wants them so much to acquire the material, then we raise serious questions about their intention and objectivity.

Isn’t this also what some would term as external interference in the electoral process of a sovereign state? It is the responsibility of the Government of Zimbabwe to fund a Constitutional process like the running of elections. Advancing arguments that the Government does not have money is neither here nor there, because they know and understand their Constitutional mandate.

They cannot surrender the country’s Independence, just because the opposition always thinks that when they lose an election, it would have been rigged.

If these NERA demonstrators had listened to British Prime Minister Theresa May and the MPs after the terrorist attack in London on Wednesday, they would have learnt a thing or two about safeguarding democratic values and national pride. Obviously, they did not!

ZEC has its job cut out in the Constitution, a document that was not drawn up by Zanu-PF, but is a culmination of the main political players in the country, and Justice Rita Makarau has always said they are ready, despite the challenges.

You also wonder how blinded some of these people are.

They look up to the US, but cannot see that it currently conducting a major probe on external interference on their November 8 election, as some, especially the Democratic Party believe that Russia interfered, resulting in Hillary Clinton losing.