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Alex T Magaisa 🇿🇼

@Wamagaisa

5 Apr

1. If there’s a phrase that must not be entertained by the MDC Alliance right now, it is the phrase “boycott by-elections”. Not when the opponents are doing everything to take you out of political spaces. Boycott is exactly what they want you to do; it guarantees an easy ride.

2. You might boycott when you have leverage, as when Morgan withdrew from the violent & farcical presidential run-off election in 2008. The costs of participating were higher than the costs of boycotting. Morgan had won the 1st round. Mugabe running alone afterwards was a sham

3. The opponent must know that there is a price to pay if you boycott. There is no price to pay for ZANU–PF or MDC-T if the MDC Alliance boycotts by-elections. In fact, the opposite is true: they have everything to gain, with the strongest party abandoning its strongholds.

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Alex T Magaisa 🇿🇼

@Wamagaisa

4 Apr

@ZECzim

1. It’s the illegality that bothers me. The @ZECzim Chief Elections Officer can justify the suspension of by-elections all he likes, but he should not use false legal grounds. I have explained why this is dubious before but ZEC insists on the lie. This thread explains the falsity

@ZECzim

2. The @ZECzim CEO Utoile Salaigwana cites section 86 of the Constitution to justify the suspension of the right to vote in section 67. This is a straw man argument they have created; that is, they have created their own argument in order to attack it & justify their position.

@ZECzim

3. The issue is not whether the right to vote is violated. If it were, @ZECzim could use section 86 and they would have cover. But that is NOT the issue here. They are dodging the real issue, which exposes the illegality & CANNOT be covered by deploying section 86.

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Alex T Magaisa 🇿🇼

@Wamagaisa

31 Mar

1. I hear a magistrate has convicted Makomborero Haruzivishe for allegedly “inciting public violence” sometime in 2020. Details are scant. But it was only a matter of time before the Mnangagwa regime started to convict & lock up political opponents. It will only get worse.

2. More disappointing is the scant media attention to this significant milestone. If my memory is faithful, this is the first conviction of an opposition official for “inciting public violence”. But I could only find the story in 1 major publication & only in 4 short paragraphs!

3. Apart from a passing mention of the state’s case, there are no details of the basis of the conviction. But this case is just the start of a trend of more such convictions. Mugabe largely used arrests of activists as a scare tactic. ED goes the whole hog. He convicts & jails.

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Alex T Magaisa 🇿🇼

@Wamagaisa

22 Mar

1. It all started in the village. Back in the day the lads ate from the same plate. Picking the meat, the climax, was a hierarchical affair, the eldest first and the rest by age. The eldest could delay to the utter frustration of everyone. But there was nothing you could do.

2. Sometimes the eldest delayed while he surveyed the plate to identify the biggest piece. Sometimes just because he wanted to delay. Power is a dangerous thing when it’s handed to the undeserving. The only qualification for seniority was age. That’s all.

3. One day, a lad who was visiting from the city broke the custom. Just a few morsels of Sadza into the meal he picked the meat ahead of the elder chaps. He swiftly took a bite. It was the biggest. There was pandemonium as the lad was accused of impertinence & other ugly things.

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Alex T Magaisa 🇿🇼

@Wamagaisa

20 Mar

@edmnangagwa

1. Zimbabwe’s President @edmnangagwa has turned Parliament into ZANU PF’s mini-Central Committee after facilitating the dubious expulsion of 48 MDC Alliance MPs from Parliament. While ZANU PF already had numerical advantage, the MDC Alliance MPs were providing critical scrutiny.

@BitiTendai

2. The @BitiTendai chaired Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was investigating corruption involving cartels linked to the regime and politically exposed persons. It had previously exposed corruption in another public program, Command Agriculture. Now it’s silenced.

3. Mnangagwa’s plan is to raze the only serious opposition party to the ground. This includes expelling its MPs from parliament, withdrawing deservedly earned public funding from the opposition party & diverting it to its lackeys while systematically harassing its leaders.

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Alex T Magaisa 🇿🇼

@Wamagaisa

18 Mar

Land & a bungling regime: a Short Story

1. It started with SI50/2021 issued on 26 Feb 2021. The decree sought to remove the Chilonga community from their ancestral lands to make way for DenDairy to grow grass for its cows. It promoted heavy resistance such as #boycottdendairy

2. A week later, government issued another decree, SI63A/2021. It changed the purpose of setting aside the land to “establishing an irrigation scheme” but retained the clause forcing the Chilonga community to depart permanently. We covered it in the BSR showing the illegalities.

3. On 16 March Government issued SI72A/2021, this time repealing the initial decree and removing the clause forcing the Chilonga community to depart permanently from their land. This is a big reversal of an unjust and arbitrary policy that disrespected citizens’ rights.

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