‘Stolen’ election keeps Zimbabwe in chains

In any truly democratic country, an election would be invalidated if the ruling party arrested and intimidated opposition party members, introduced laws restricting free speech or banned its opponents from holding election rallies.

In any truly democratic society, the poll process would have been halted by an independent oversight body the moment large numbers of ballot papers were not delivered to polling stations in opposition areas.

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Yet, that happened in Zimbabwe in the recent elections. Therefore, we must conclude that country is not truly democratic.

Observers from the South African Development Community (SADC) expressed “serious concern” about whether the polls were free and fair – the strongest censure yet from a body which has, up to now, turned a blind eye to assaults on democracy in the region.

When Emmerson Mnangagwa tasted the fruits of that poisoned campaign, being sworn in as president in Harare yesterday, there were just three out of 16 SADC heads of state in attendance. Those three were the only ones from Africa to attend.

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Our president of was one of those three. His presence gave the South African seal of approval to the theft of yet another election in our northern neighbour. The soft, ingratiating approach has been our way to deal with the Zanu-PF dictators for years.

And we are seeing the results: as Zimbabwe continues to collapse, millions of its starving citizens are heading here.

Ironically, in giving the thumbs-up to Mnangagwa, Ramaphosa would have had the architects of white supremacy, from Hendrik Verwoerd to Ian Smith, spinning in their graves with delight.

For, effectively, Ramaphosa was saying that African people do not deserve the same standards of democracy that might be enjoyed elsewhere in the world. They don’t deserve equal treatment and they deserve to be abused by their rulers.

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Let’s hope he doesn’t start applying those ideas here.