Zim’s 2023 elections a lesson for many, including US
DESPITE rabid efforts to rubbish Zimbabwe’s 2023 harmonised elections, a comparison between how Zimbabwe handled its pre, the real election day and post-election periods, shows that many countries, including the United States, could learn a lot from the Southern Africa country.
Like or hate Zimbabwe, six months after the harmonised elections won by ZANU PF, we have all sobered up and can reflect intelligently and say, “after all, the election was properly handled.”
Unlike in the US where opposition leader Donald Trump has been persecuted left, right and centre ahead of the 2024 elections, Nelson Chamisa was never arrested. Not even once.
Trump has more than 38 counts standing as an albatross around his political neck Chamisa went in the race with nothing against him except his poor organisation and archaic political arrangement.
All opposition political leaders in Zimbabwe went into the elections with no cases to answer. Not that they were saints in Zimbabwe’s political game, but President Mnangagwa’s Government and ZEC handled everything professionally and without emotion.
This is how my story started: There are times when your spirits are low and you decide to go drinking in a quiet place.
You start drinking and suddenly something happens that makes you feel good and proud of your country. Everything changes.
I was very shocked recently when I sat in a bar in Brooklyn, United States with two elderly white Americans.
They called themselves the Rockies, whatever that means. One of them had been to Zimbabwe around the time we held our elections last year.
As soon as they discovered I was from Zimbabwe, they looked very excited and for a moment, I thought I was in for some roasting. But I was wrong. Very, very wrong.
Naturally we went into social issues; how US middle class and the baby boomers are suffering under Biden’s economic policies and then, as always unavoidable, we went into politics.
They quickly pointed out that Russia and the US were all going into elections this year; Russia in March and US in November. They called it a tale of two super powers, one progressive and one slumping into barbarism. They were clear they did not like Joe Biden.
Zimbabwe, they said, had done so well in last year, in the pre-election period, on the election day and the post elections period.
Trump has more than 38 counts standing as an albatross around his political neck Chamisa went in the race with nothing against him except his poor organisation and archaic political arrangement. All opposition political leaders in Zimbabwe went into the elections with no cases to answer
One of them swore and swore again and again, that the current Biden administration would as well learn how to run elections from Zimbabwe, if it really wants to run free and fair elections.
I felt too good and proud of my country, Zimbabwe. I never thought these hard core white Americans think Zimbabwe ran elections better.
He said opposition leader, Chamisa was never arrested in the run up to the elections, during the elections and after the elections. Up to today, he has not tasted arrest.
Instead it was Chamisa and other opposition members taking the Government to court, trying to create trouble and courting the international community against his own people.
In the US, Donald John Trump, they said, had so far been arrested several times ever since he announced the decision to run for re-election to the presidency.
“That boy, I mean your young man from opposition (Chamisa) was never arrested. Here DJ (Donald John Trump) has been arrested and is facing more than 30 counts, all to make him fail to contest the elections. Biden wants to totally shut him out.
“Biden is doing worse than what he accuses African leaders of doing. US had slumped into barbaric politics. Biden’s treatment of Trump and persecution of political enemies is from some primitive tribe . . . give me another tot.” One of them said with an accompanying rough cough.
After a round of tots, the discussion also shifted to Russia. President Putin, they said, was even more ideologically clear and more organised than Biden.
Even his treatment of the opposition in Russia is much better than what Biden has done on Trump. Biden and his team are even using proximity to state resources to dismantle Trump’s manoeuvres.
The US is no longer that huge and exemplary democracy that it claims to be.
There will never be free and fair elections in US in 2024. Biden is desperate to win, they said.
Biden and his allies, they said, paid a deaf ear on real important issues Zimbabwe did on its elections, the peace, the tranquillity, the non-violence under a bad economy.
“We followed Zim’s elections. I had just come from holiday in Victoria Falls. At first I was advised against going to Zim a few days before elections but I had no option. My busy schedule made it difficult to postpone.
“Zim did very well. Biden can learn from it. Everyone with an open mind can learn from Zimbabwe and especially Biden, His persecution of political opponents in unbelievable.’’
Up to today, I feel proud of Zimbabwe. I feel good about my country.
I now believe, and many people now believe that the attempt to rubbish Zimbabwe’s elections was a US plot to smuggle their puppets into power.
The elections in Zimbabwe were exemplary. ◆ e-mail:mavengati@gmail.com