THE August 23/24 harmonised general elections were brought to their logical finality with the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Chairperson endorsing them as “…exemplary and a major victory for democracy,” on Monday.
President Joao Lourenco of Angola, addressing SADC Heads of State at a virtual Extraordinary Summit, expressed satisfaction with the democratic way the elections had been held.
Indeed, the observations of the SADC Chair tallied with what most Zimbabweans witnessed.
This includes those from the opposition parties, like the puppet CCC.
The tranquility and orderly manner the campaigns were carried out was there for all to see.
Rallies were the order of the day, with CCC leader Nelson Chamisa addressing many more rallies than President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
Of course, as in any democracy, all gatherings allowed had to be held within the confines of the law.
The idea of harmonised general elections, which sees the President, House of Assembly Members and Councillors voted for simultaneously, is a brainchild of SADC.
And in the just ended elections, this was carried out to the letter.
There are those from CCC who claim that the elections were disputed.
But this does not hold water; for there is a provision that allows a grieved part to go to the courts to seek settlement to a dispute.
SADC and the rest of all the contesting parties in the just ended harmonised general elections are aware of this.
This includes the CCC reputed to be having many lawyers among its big guns.
After the window period, during which a party could go to the courts to seek redress elapsed, it was assumed that the election results and process had been unanimously accepted.
Noises emanating from where ever are of no consequence.
That is why the noises from CCC lying to its followers that SADC or any other body was going to organise a re-run of the August plebiscites have to be stopped forthwith. The SADC Chairperson has spoken, why continue giving your supporters false hope?
As we have noted before, the ‘findings’ of the EU observers, the Carter Centre and Dr Nevers Mumba of Zambia can be very misleading.
These are people who must have had a premeditated agenda, especially if we consider that the first two’s countries are puzzled by their failed sanctions on Zimbabwe.
Perhaps the inclusion of Dr Mumba to form a triumvirate might have offered a sinking CCC a straw to clutch on to in a desperate cause.
It is these defective findings the CCC is using as ‘evidence’ to persuade SADC to justify a re-run in a sovereign State.
SADC must have seen through the shenanigans of this unholy triumvirate for their Chairperson Cde Lourenco to emphatically give the harmonised elections a clean bill. For a political party to understand the democratic nature of the August harmonised elections, itself has to be run democratically.
For CCC, democracy is a strange phenomenon.
This is a party whose president, Chamisa, is an unashamed total dictator with his head on the emblem of the party.
He handpicks his executive in a party that is structureless and without any constitution. No wonder they are not even ashamed to tell the world that elections that are democratically run in their country are a ‘fraud’.
And yet, paradoxically, this is a party more than a year old and has not yet had an elective congress or any congress for that matter.
This is very different from ZANU PF which has democracy as part of its DNA.
The recent Annual National People’s Conference in Gweru is a typical example of democracy in action.
As the party maps out its strategy to achieve an upper-middle income economy by 2030, this is done with the party’s representatives in the open.
Ideas are shared and the party’s strategies are not left to be formulated by one person.
It is at party level that democracy at national level begins.
We are expecting a repeat of another democratically run plebiscite in 2028.