OPPOSITION MDC-T leader Douglas Mwonzora this week decided to withdraw from the August 23 presidential race, citing an unfair electoral playing field he says is tilted in favour of the ruling Zanu PF party.
Mwonzora accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) of poorly managing the electoral processes leading to the poll.
“Zec has decided who should contest and who should be or not be part of this election. Discrimination of one party in a country by an electoral body is unacceptable. For that reason in terms of section 107 of the Electoral Act, I with the concurrence of my party, have withdrawn my candidature in this election,” Mwonzora said.
He also declared that he will not back any presidential candidate saying: “Why should we back someone to participate in a farce? There is no doubt that this election is not free and fair. The election management body has not displayed the required impartiality.”
This is quite a bold move by Mwonzora, which will definitely have serious and far-reaching bearing on how this year’s polls will be judged.
Mwonzora makes grave accusations against Zec, which, if proved, will definitely have an input on how the poll result will be viewed if the ruling party wins.
Mwonzora can be applauded for taking this bold decision to protest the unfairness of the elections in a country which has a record of having the most contested poll.
We, however, believe his decision not to back colleagues in the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe will seriously weaken the country’s opposition movement.
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Granted, Mwonzora has a legitimate grievance and his withdrawal is a very bold and emphatic statement.
But the struggle must go on and he should be in a position to back others who are still willing to take the bull by the horns by participating in the obvious “farce” of an election which “is not free and fair” because the “management body has not displayed the required impartiality”.
While we empathise with him on that score, we feel he should at least wish well those still in the struggle by voting for them since obviously he cannot vote for the ruling party.
His failure to back colleagues in the opposition or cast any ballot for that matter is as good as throwing the baby out with the bath water.
It is quite clear Zanu PF will gleefully accept the withdrawal of Mwonzora from the race because it strengthens its chances of winning the election, given what has already transpired at the courts where opposition candidates have been barred from participating in the election.
The opposition leader, however, still has some two weeks to make his informed final decision on this crucial matter, failure which colleagues will be forgiven for deeming him irrelevant and unreliable in the struggle for democracy post August 23.
Be that as it may, we believe Mwonzora is shedding crocodile tears after he pulled the rug from under the feet of democracy by going to bed with Zanu PF during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
While he is busy shellacking Zec for an electoral process that is in shambles, we believe he is doing the bidding of someone. He has done it before and has the capacity to do it again.
