NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANISATIONS (NGOs), in conjunction with the MDC Alliance, are in a desperate attempt to discredit the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)’s recently held harmonised elections.
Singing for their supper, Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (CiZC) said the July 30 election ‘falls short of a credible process’.
“As CiZC, we hold the firm view that the Zimbabwean election failed the credibility test. We are on record that ZEC lacks credibility to preside over credible polls,” said CiZC in a statement.
This does not come as a surprise considering CiZC is a well-known quasi-political group spearheading the regime change agenda in Zimbabwe.
In addition, senior MDC Alliance official Tendai Biti this week called on all MDC Alliance supporters to reject the harmonised elections results and protest on the streets.
Biti said the party would release its own results if the vote did not go in favour of Chamisa.
He further called on all MDC Alliance supporters to reject the harmonised elections results and protest on the streets.
Chanting, “Zvikaramba toita zvenharo!” (If we fail we will do it by force), impatient MDC Alliance supporters marched to ZEC offices demanding the electoral commission to announce their president as the winner.
This was despite the fact that ZEC had stated that all results would be announced by August 4 as stipulated in the Electoral Act.
Violent demonstrations by MDC Alliance supporters later rocked Harare on Wednesday before the release of presidential results of the July 30 harmonised elections.
A spate of clashes spread on the streets of Harare with violent protesters hurling stones at law enforcement agents.
Police fired water cannons and teargas in an attempt to disperse the protesters, before the military intervened.
The clashes took place outside the headquarters of the ZEC.
Zimbabwean anti-riot police officers had to close the entrance to the Rainbow Towers where the election results were announced as supporters of the opposition party MDC Alliance marched towards the National Results Centre.
The opposition claim election results are biased.
However, in events strikingly similar to the repetitive cycle of violence in 2007, the current disturbances came at a time ZEC had announced 207 National Assembly election results.
The results announced by ZEC showed ZANU PF had won a two-thirds majority in the 210-seat lower house with 144 seats.
Chamisa’s MDC Alliance won 64 seats.
Analysts blamed divisions within the opposition for the low tally with Biti, on the other hand, saying their party would release its own results if the vote did not go in Chamisa’s favour.
The regional SADC bloc, in its preliminary report, said the campaign and election had “…proceeded in a peaceful and orderly manner and were largely in line with the Zimbabwean law.”
It called for any aggrieved candidates to “…refrain from any form of violence.”
On his twitter handle, President Emmerson Mnangagwa said:
“At this crucial time, I call on everyone to desist from provocative declarations and statements.
“Now is the time for responsibility and, above all, peace.”
It must be noted that the MDC is on record saying regime change will not be achieved through elections, but through mass protests and it’s imperative to revisit this narrative.
Before the formal launch of the regime change agenda, a US seminar to discuss the strategy for dealing with the ‘Zimbabwe Crisis’ was held at the US State Department in Washington DC on March 23 1999.
The seminar, according to Stephen Gowan, a Canadian-based writer, came up with the following strategies for removing ZANU PF from power:
Civil society and the opposition to be strengthened to foment discontent and dissent;
The opposition to be brought together under a single banner to enhance its chances of success at the polls;
Funding to be funnelled to the opposition through Western-backed NGOs;
Dissident groups to be strengthened and encouraged to take to the streets.
The seminar also resolved to fuel division between Shona and Ndebele people.
And since 1999, these five strategies were tried out but escalated after the July 31 2013 elections.
In 2016, a point plan strategy was formulated to get Zimbabwe on the international agenda.
Critical, civil society groups agreed, was the creation of pre and post-elections violence similar to what they created in 2008 and had the world’s attention on the country.
Just like any project cycle, this particular strategy was given a timeframe, from 2016 up to the 2018 elections.
This saw the August 2016 violent demonstrations which rocked the country with NGOs clamouring for the ‘winds of change’.
The demonstrations, which saw vendors encounter losses of up to half a million dollars, were organised through social movements such as #Tajamuka, #Thisflag, #MyZimbabwe and #Fearlessgeneration, among others.
Remember in July 2011, the founder and artistic director of the Harare International Festival of the Arts (HIFA), Manuel Bagorro, Joanna Powell, Tafadzwa Simba, Nixon Nyikadzino, Talent Chademana and Kerry Appel were sponsored by the US Government’s Office for Transitional Initiatives (OTI) through Casals and Associates, one of the agents through which USAID funds regime change projects, to study social media in Serbia.
Grant Number CAZ214 released
US$40 524 to Bagorro who took recruits to Serbia to give them training in the “…effective use of social media for transformation…” under the banner ‘EXIT festival.’
The grant agreement read: “Training will focus on providing the artists and activists with the critical skills and tools needed to mobilise for social change in Zimbabwe.”
Since then, attempts to undermine the authority of Government using social media have been intensified.
Last year, another meeting was convened by another quasi-political group masquerading as an NGO, Southern African Political Economy Series Trust (SAPES), in the capital and deliberated on the need to create the chaos.
“As International Crisis Group, we follow bloody crises around the world and Zimbabwe is not a crisis concern,” said Piers Pigou, International Crisis Group’s senior consultant for southern Africa.
“How can we get back Zimbabwe on the international agenda as a country in crisis as was the case prior to the 2013 elections,” asked SAPES Trust founder Mandaza.
To what extent will NGOs continue to prostitute for funding?
During the election campaigns, CiZC and colleagues were busy trading their souls to the devil; assuring donors they would ensure regime change took place.
A lot of NGOs were busy doing ‘fieldwork’, going around communities and ‘educating’ them on their rights to vote and that their vote was their secret.
CiZC thought doing this ‘fieldwork’ would bring in lots of voters (which it did) and hence mean a clear win for MDC Alliance.
Sadly, it was not to be because what they forgot was that MDC Alliance is only popular in the cities and not the rural areas where the majority of Zimbabweans are.
It was a serious gamble which the ‘social media’ informed them would be a certain victory for the opposition party.
Most of them have already started panicking because the donor ‘devil’ is ready to take his pound of flesh; and the drama has started.
Our investigations show that the US Department of State has been making huge deposits into quasi-political groups such as CiZC masquerading NGOs
The US Department of Sate made two separate deposits into a CiZC local account on January 23 2013 (US$264 684) and June 24 2013 (US$187 978,04) to finance the so-called ‘Feya Feya’ campaign which was designed to lure voters to the MDC-T under the guise of a campaign for peaceful, free and fair elections.
The British Embassy also joined the fray and availed US$156 000 on January 30 2013 and US$161 000 on February 13 2013 to CiZC for the MDC-T campaign.
On April 30 2009, Casals and Associates signed by Mike Staresinic under Grant Number CAS033 availed communication equipment worth US$20 110 to CiZC to ‘foster freedom of speech and assembly.’
The equipment included a public address system, three tents, four laptops, one desktop, a laser printer duplex and Microsoft office package.
Leading up to the July 30 harmonised elections, civil society organisations sounded vibrant enough to convince their donors that regime change was on the horizon in Zimbabwe.
Like their financiers, CiZC have a misguided idea about the environment in which they are operating.
The donors’ ignorance of the mental strength of the Zimbabwean polity makes them believe anything they are told by their puppets.
After all, these donors are from the same society that once believed Bishop Muzorewa’s UANC would defeat the liberation parties in the 1980 watershed poll.
Bishop Muzorewa’s UANC ended up with only three seats, the same number as the helicopters he had used during his election campaign.
The West, however, are still bent on effecting regime change in Zimbabwe to date.