Any roadmap that is crafted, or to put it politely, crafted with the help of the West, is a farce and a tool for securing Western interests.
Just like sanctions and their "democratic support" are inimical to not only fair electoral processes, the so-called roadmap seeks to tilt the playing field to the favour of certain players.
It is only logical that Zimbabwe rejects such mischievous moves, just as it rejects being a colony again.
The Herald
By Tichaona Zindoga
If to date there has been anything that makes the Sadc electoral roadmap for Zimbabwe as ostensibly drawn by South African President Jacob Zuma stink, it is the recent revelations that the British government is willing to fund it.
Last week, British Minister of State (Foreign and Commonwealth Office) Lord David Howell and Government Whip and Spokesperson for the Cabinet (international development and equalities and women's issues) Baroness Verna, told their Parliament that London stood ready to fund the roadmap.
The revelations come on the back of discomfiture with the recently held Sadc Troika Summit in Livingstone, Zambia one of whose resolutions entailed the regional body sending some oversight team to work on the implementation of the GPA with a view towards elections.
It will be recalled that while MDC-T reportedly agreed unconditionally to this, the Welshman Ncube-led MDC welcomed it, albeit with some reservations. Zanu-PF all but rejected the idea.
In fact, the whole Sadc Troika business torched a storm because of how it panned out procedurally and some of its resolutions, which were construed, and perhaps rightly so, as coming directly from a Western hymn book.
The revelations by the British, which are shared by much of the Western world and on paper meant to help achieve free and fair elections, seem more like the cat is out of the back.
Regime change agenda
There are several questions that are likely to issue from the benevolence of the Western world in funding elections in Zimbabwe.
The biggest one being, in Shona language, "Itsitsi dzeyi kugombera dhongwana rinozvinwira zvaro?"
Literally: "If a foal suckles from its mother, what's the point of milking the mother for it?"
In which case, there should be an ulterior motive behind such benevolence. There are a couple of sayings that seek to question such misplaced acts of goodwill as offered by Lord David Howell and Baroness Verna themselves representatives of the British Empire.
The same empire, slighted by 1980 and 2000, daily seeks to plot the downfall of Zimbabwe as led by Zanu-PF which fought the liberation struggle with other cadres to deliver Independence and the land reform which gave 300 000 families arable land which had been stolen from them.
Even more compelling, Zanu-PF is championing the economic empowerment of the majority blacks.
It will be noted that after 2000 Britain instigated her allies in the Anglo-Saxon world to punish Zimbabwe via a raft of sanctions that are defined as the Zimbabwe Democracy and Economic Recovery Act in the United States of America and the not-so-defined but similar measures in the 27-member European Union bloc.
The intent, the reach, the letter and spirit of these measures are as well-known as they were recently vociferously rejected when the country launched the national anti-sanctions petition campaign.
The flip side of the punitive and coercive measures against Zimbabwe and in particular Zanu-PF has been inducements and support for the forces that oppose and can undo the revolutionary achievements of Zanu-PF-led Government since 1980.
In a country that is as peaceful as Zimbabwe, and where, like most of the Sadc region, there is no history and experience of coups to unseat Western-hated governments, and where military invasion by the West is not a viable option, elections have become one big way to undo the gains of the liberation struggle, land reform and indigenisation.
This is where the West has come in with an avalanche of funds to create and bankroll parties and organisations (and there are thousands of them since 2000) to see to it that Zanu-PF loses power.
To this day, albeit with some close shaves, Zanu-PF has won all major elections since 2000 against western-funded and founded MDC, first as a singular party and this day split into two.
Predictably, not any one outcome of those elections has had the endorsement of the West (not that any is necessary) for the simple reason that their preferred parties and candidates have not won the power needed to deliver to their masters what Zanu-PF and President Robert Mugabe have deprived them of.
This visceral interest in Zimbabwe sees the British in particular and the West in general wanting to see an electoral roadmap that guarantees the victory of their preferred candidates.
This is not a secret. And their candidates do not have to win a free and fair poll: even one in which there are gross anomalies like those held lately in Afghanistan and Nigeria will suffice as long as Western interests are upheld.
In another instance, as in the likes of Saudi Arabia, there is even no need for an election because Western interests are in safe hands.
In Western terms, at least outside of their own systems, electoral democracy is one which secures Western interests.
Any roadmap that is crafted, or to put it politely, crafted with the help of the West, is a farce and a tool for securing Western interests.
Just like sanctions and their "democratic support" are inimical to not only fair electoral processes, the so-called roadmap seeks to tilt the playing field to the favour of certain players.
It is only logical that Zimbabwe rejects such mischievous moves, just as it rejects being a colony again.
The GPA roadmap
There really should be something worrying when outside forces seem too keen to craft the so-called electoral roadmap, and recognising the efforts of President Zuma, to the extent of trumping the role of mediation and facilitation accorded him by the so-called Global Political Agreement.
The same GPA, signed by Zanu-PF and the two MDC formations is but a roadmap in and of itself about various social, economic and political issues that the three parties identified and discussed for close to half a year until that day in September 2008.
Among other provisions it sets timelines for all political activities, including the very formation and the swearing in of what has come to be known as the inclusive Government.
Elections do come in as a factor as well, being first restrained for fear of poisoning the politics among parties but ultimately providing for the holding of general elections at which time the GPA would have subsisted its last.
In short, the GPA says that after the completion of the crafting of a new constitution and a subsequent referendum, there shall be elections.
Zimbabwe is on the constitution-writing stage which logically precedes the referendum and elections in that order.
Surely that should be a clear and unambiguous roadmap that was agreed upon by all parties.
And it is complying with a document nobody signed at gunpoint.
It is to be wondered what any other new thing can be added to this broad-based and comprehensive roadmap.
It cannot be about prevention of violence, which parties committed to; free or fair elections, which the establishment of an electoral body covered; freedoms or such rights, for there are relevant commissions; nor about seeing an election take place because everybody in the GPA seeks to achieve total power and as such ready for elections - or should be, if not prepared now.
In which case Zimbabweans cannot be held at ransom by any party whatsoever that does not make hay while the GPA sun shines.
Ultimately, any roadmap that comes outside of the GPA should not pave way for interference from outside, in other words enemies of democracy that seek to influence the process in their favour.
If Britain were to come in today apparently this far before elections, it will be logical for them to see the exercise through.
There are no prizes for guessing how it would see to it that its protégés would win at all costs.
In essence, and notwithstanding such an outcome, the very idea that Britain tries to extend its paternalistic influence on Zimbabwe as if the country is a province of Britain is very insulting.
Zimbabwe taught Britain democracy and elections for Zimbabweans by waging a protracted liberation war against the imperial power that sought to condemn the African to perpetual servitude. And it had its Western buddies in tow.
For that reason it is not acceptable to allow the recidivism of being a client state of Britain, America or the EU.
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