Chamisa’s Agenda 2020 address to the nation

Restoring Legality and Legitimacy

The collapse of the people’s livelihoods, destroyed by the mashurugwi regime, is directly linked to and is a consequence of Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa’s illegitimacy and, arising from that illegitimacy, the illegality of the framework and actions of his administration.

It is now common cause that the 2018 presidential election was stolen. The most damning and unimpeachable evidence of the audacious electoral theft has been exposed to be in the report on the 2018 harmonised elections compiled by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and tabled before the National Assembly in Parliament on 27 June 2019 by justice minister Ziyambi Ziyambi.

This is a matter that must be of great concern to everyone, especially the voters who voted in the 2018 presidential election – not just the 2,6 million who voted for me – but all the voters who are committed to the holding of free and fair elections in accordance with the Constitution of Zimbabwe.

Section 67(1)(a) and (b) of the Constitution, dealing with political rights, provides that:

Every Zimbabwean citizen has the right—

(a) to free, fair and regular elections for any elective public office established in terms of this Constitution or any otherlaw; and

(b) to make political choices freely.

While the Constitutional Court made its determination of the application I initiated challenging the controversial ZEC declaration and announcement of Mr. Emmerson Mnangagwa, as the winner of the 2018 presidential election, and while we respected that decision as we disagreed with it, there’s now a new development after the case, coming from ZEC itself, which shows beyond any argument or doubt that the results of the 2018 presidential election were transmitted, captured and collated unlawfully, improperly and irregularly as to void the election and invalidate any result that was declared and announced following the unlawful, improper and irregular transmission, capture and collation of the results from the country’s 1,985 ward centres to ZEC’s national command centre in Harare.

The compelling evidence of how the presidential election was rigged by ZEC, is enough for anyone and all of the 2,6 million voters who cast their vote for me to go to court on grounds that their political rights enshrined in s67(1) of the Constitution were violated. There’s also now a clear and present basis for taking the matter of the 2018 presidential election to the African Court on Human and Peoples Rights. Such actions would be well within the BBI, as an expression of the people’s action to restore legality and legitimacy under the MDC’s Agenda 2020.

Those who say the 2018 presidential election should be forgotten about, and focus should now be on 2023, ain’t seen nothing yet. It’s them who should forget about covering up the giant 2018 election fraud. Especially now that ZEC itself has, perhaps inadvertently or even mischievously, come out with incontrovertible evidence that election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the law. So, first things must come first. There will be no 2023 election without resolving the 2018 election. Looking ahead to 2023, the most important electoral reform is the resolution of the 2018 presidential election. A critical and unavoidable starting point is the resignation of all ZEC commissioners and management team which is infested with seconded military, intelligence and police operatives, masquerading as politically neutral professionals when their remit is to rig elections for Zanu PF.

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