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Fungi Kwaramba Zimpapers Elections Desk
A HIGH sounding storm that never was, maybe a missed opportunity to redeem itself and sell its ideas to the electorate.
Whatever, the plagiarised CCC manifesto that was launched in Bulawayo on Tuesday is a threat to the country’s Constitution and perhaps the most brazen attempt to hoodwink the populace.
From promising title deeds and electricity that has already been delivered to threatening to impose one religious view on the country, Mr Nelson Chamisa’s CCC manifesto has been all smoke and mirrors, failing to pique the interests of the voter, maybe in conformity with the party’s equally bizarre strategic ambiguity approach to politics.
The manifesto, apart from being a basket list, fails to demonstrate the CCC vision of improving people’s lives and livelihoods, fundamentally because it does not have the strategy of implementation, to make those promises a reality.
Wishful wish list
Mr Chamisa, whose party has brought so much agony on ordinary citizens through their unpatriotic insistence that Western imposed sanctions should subsist notwithstanding their detrimental effects and impact on ordinary persons, has a wishful list of scrapping examination fees, and instituting a universal national health service that, like most of the contents of the manifesto, was copied despite the fact that it has failed to take off even in developed countries.
President Mnangagwa’s philosophy of “leaving no one and no place behind” has been replaced by leaving no province behind.
Just a cursory look at the structureless party manifesto shows it has copied everything that Zanu PF has been doing and woefully fails to proffer any new ideas.
For instance, Mr Chamisa notes that the country does not have sufficient energy, and his manifesto talks of the rehabilitation and modernisation of Hwange 1-6 Power Stations, and the construction of Hwange 7 and 8 thermal stations.
But the projects, like Hwange 7 and 8, have already been commissioned and are contributing 600MW to the national grid, while some are at various stages. This exposes Mr Chamisa as an uninformed person who thrives on negativism.
On his shopping wishlist, Mr Chamisa also seeks to make sure that every Zimbabwean has access to broadband or Wi-Fi, making that a basic right without addressing how that can be met.
Outright plagiarism
Whoever was writing the CCC manifesto was unashamedly plagiarising ZANU PF’s manifesto of 2018, and unashamedly tried to pull a fast one on the nation by presenting programmes that have been implemented by the Second Republic or those that are being implemented.
It is an open secret that President Mnangagwa is implementing Devolution, not only to fulfil the provisions of the Constitution in Section 264, but also to achieve equitable economic development and equalisation for all Provinces, in order to make vision 2030 a reality.
Indeed the CCC so-called 5 point plan is based on plagiarised documents and rehashes programmes that are already in full swing having been implemented by the Second Republic.
Only the politically and socially blind will ignore the transformation, reconstruction, modernisation and reconciliation that has been championed by President Mnangagwa.
They also talk of advancing mining activities and making Zimbabwe a global mining leader, but then Zimbabwe is already a leader, currently chairing the Kimberly Processing Certification Scheme which has more than 80 countries including those from the West – the CCC handlers and supposed benchmarks of development in the myopia filled eyes of the country’s voyeuristic oppositional political set-up.
But that is not all. They wax lyrical about value-addition as if for all these years they have been dwelling under rocks, because week-in and week-out President Mnangagwa has been commissioning plants that are already ensuring the beneficiation of mining products.
Blind to the development that is around them, they talk of modernising the agriculture sector, when we have that programme in full swing and its results on display in increased production and productivity, encapsulated in the record wheat production and the export of grains for the first time after over two decades.
Zimbabwe is thus already ensuring global food security when quislings still fantasise about something which has since crystallised into reality.
Perhaps the works of Zanu PF have left the opposition bereft of anything to flag to the extent they clutch on straws in trumpeting achievements of the Second Republic as their grocery wish-list when that has already been delivered.
For instance, in the Education sector, they talk of reorienting the sector to focus on “leadership, entrepreneurship, good governance, sciences, technology, mathematics, research and innovation”.
They claim our universities will be transformed into research and innovation institutions but that is already resplendently on display in institutions of higher learning which now have innovation hubs and industrial parks.
Mr Chamisa has to be stirred from his slumber and see what is right in front of his nose, or maybe he has nothing to offer and seeks to offer that which is already in the offing.
A visitor coming from outer space would be pardoned to conclude that Mr Chamisa and the crafters of his manifesto just took everything from ZANU PF. They are offering practically nothing new to excite voters. Their monumental failure is a reflection of their party’s lack of a rooted ideology and even a constitution.
Thus what the manifesto does is that it shows the opposition is ideologically bankrupt and seeks power for its sake and benefits for its handlers, who are hand-holding them in the current campaign.
Theocracy or Christocracy
By agitating for a theocracy, overseen by Christians, a religion he purports to represent, and where he ties himself in tongues and knots, Mr Chamisa is trampling on the country’s Constitution, which guarantees freedom of worship, in Section 60.
Zimbabwe is a secular state and everyone must have that right to profess or proclaim that right without interference from the State, which Mr Chamisa seeks to do, when he says:
“We will restore Zimbabwe back to God in honour, values, faith, worship and praise. We will give glory to God for all our victories, successes and gains. We will restore the role of the church as the custodians and guardians of conscience, morals and ethics of society.
“The church shall provide a campus to Government, speaking truth to power. In this regard, we will create a special mechanisms, structure and institution to facilitate for the role of the church in governance. We shall dedicate nation, country, its people and resources to God for His glory. We will rededicate Zimbabwe to God and rebuild the alter, covenant, decrees and ordinances”.
Such an unconstitutional act belies dictatorial inclinations on the part of Mr Chamisa who seemingly suffers from a narcissistic disorder that is fuelled by messianic delusions.
This is because he seeks to frog-march everyone, traditionalists, Muslims, Buddhists and even atheists to the church. As Isrealmore Ayivor noted, in “Democracy; Everyone’s opinion is required! Autocracy; Someone’s opinion is the best! Christocracy; What Christ said is final!”
Mr Chamisa was either in a hurry to come up with a manifesto that he forgot his own declaration to turn urban areas, where his party rules unfettered, into so-called zones of excellency, only that he and his party have turned them into zones of uncollected garbage, rivulets of sewage and hotspots of medieval diseases. For this, he takes no responsibility and seeks to shift and foist blame on central Government.
Online Reporter