MDCuk&ireland

Mugabe’s Brief Success – Zimbabwe
The little-known Presidential Travel Committee (PTC) includes some of the most creative minds in Zanu PF. Apart from top presidential aides, its members include senior officials from the Reserve Bank and the Finance, Health, Foreign and Psychomotor ministries, as well, of course, as the Central Intelligence Organisation.

The committee is in almost permanent session, alert to be convened at a moment’s notice when plans have to be changed suddenly. Then it’s a matter of brainstorming all night. One source told the Vigil: ‘Sometimes we don’t know from minute to minute where we are going or how we are to get there. But thankfully money is no problem.’

Such a moment occurred last week when Mugabe decided against going to the Russian city of Sochi for a youth meeting at which he was to be honoured for ‘fighting imperialism’. It was not because he is 93 years old that dissuaded him from going to the youth festival. It was because he discovered no one else would be there except kids. Grace could go instead.

It just shows how slickly the PTC operates that it was immediately able to discoverfrom the UN website that an equally obscure meeting was being held at the same time – this one in South America, where there was every likelihood of some grownups being present.

The PTC certainly struck gold – even if only briefly. The occasion was a World Health Organisation conference in Montevideo, capital of Uruguay (population 3.5 million) called to discuss non-communicable diseases. Official Uruguayan sources said 22 health ministers were to be there, along with officials from other countries (see: http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?o=rn&id=19553&SEO=world-health-conference-in-uruguay-to-be-attended-by-94-countries).

It was enough for Mugabe to fly there with 80 or so flunkies in Air Zimbabwe’s remaining Boeing 767.

Overawed to have an actual president at the meeting to shake hands with host president Tabaré Vázquez, the new WHO boss, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who was apparently installed to reform the organisation, had the inspired idea of making Mugabe an honorary regional health ambassador.

Corks popped among the PTC members, conveniently all there on the trip. The honorary post is a non-event but the dopey WHO boss. who seems to be unaware of what is going on in Zimbabwe, unfortunately made laudatory comments on health provision in Zimbabwe – currently reliant on donor-funding. The remarks were immediately derided by people around the world who knew that Zimbabwe’s hospitals are broke and lack medicines.

With one of the three Air Zimbabwe Boeings out of commission the two Boeings needed to take the delegations to Russia and Uruguay seem to have meant that a third aircraft had to be chartered to take Grace Mugabe to China where, for unknown reasons, she wanted to stop over on her way to Sochi (see: https://www.newsday.co.zw/2017/10/mugabe-grace-bleed-zimbabwe-dry/).
Source: Zimbabwe Action From https://tinyurl.com/ybyehv23 ... See more

Teclar Bandawe Being an ambassador of WHO, meant that Mr Mugabe is leading by example in his home country... but no he was being rewarded for his failures, for betraying theZimbabwe masses who voted for him in 1980. Thank you Zim Vigil, Rohr, MDC-UK and others for making noise, surely the world is listening, let's keep fighting & campaigning for the Mugabe regime to go!
Pasi neZanu-Pf
#goregistertovote ... See more

WHO's director-general says he consulted with the Zimbabwean government before deciding to reverse his controversial appointment.

How World Woke Up To Mugabe’s Gimmicks
Indeed a terrible day at the office for President Mugabe's new de facto public relations officer - apparently George Charamba has taken a back seat following his dressing down by Mugabe’s wife for not being in tow when she is visiting her projects, or maybe because of the stench of Lacoste perfume that he was emitting.
It was playing out live on Jonathan Moyo's @ProfJNMoyo Twitter account:
Yesterday 13:00 there was a celebratory mood, the new Foreign Minister Walter Mzembi having come back from Uruguay with a trophy - Mugabe's appointment as WHO Ambassador:
A recognition of this kind as done by @WHO is by definition a recognition of Zimbabwe's strides in health services despite challenges!
16:00 Retweeted Psychology Maziwisa’s self-satisfied tweet:
Just finished an interview with the #BBC during which I emphasised just how proud we are that President Mugabe was appointed WHO ambassador.
19:00 In response to the WHO secretary general @DrTedros' saying, I’m listening (to social media outcry) I hear your concerns. Rethinking the approach in light of WHO values. I will issue a statement as soon as possible:
WHO values are not the exclusive domain of imperialists. They're inclusive. When "GOODWILL" is politicised, it loses its inclusive essence!
19:05:
WHO should be about the good health of ALL & not SOME of humanity. It would be evil for WHO values to discriminate against or favour some!
But Zimbabweans were now firing back, including one Nemuramba who said: Spare us the semantics. Mugabe has violated every bit of those values, how then can he be a WHO "goodwill ambassador"?
And Tweeter Handle Bla B who said: WHO goodwill ambassador appointment underlines new levels of Zimbabwe externalisation of corruption and rigging.
20:00 AProf Moyo's tone was becoming harsh:
While at it, how do stinking hypocrites like you characterise or describe a supersonic move from "thinking" to "rethinking"?
2130 He was now trying to say the rethink by Dr Tedeos was not a result of a social media outcry, but the UK government in its usual imperialist machinations against the democratic republic of Zimbabwe:
Demonisation of @WHO by UK govt for granting goodwill ambassadorship to Pres Mugabe is not "social media" by any stretch of the imagination!
2200 In reference to Downing Street statement condemning the appointment:
What an imperialist shame!
This morning 5:30am Lambasting a Dr Shepherd who said Moyo was patronising Zimbabweans by attributing everything to UK yet social media was awash with their protests:
Cde get real…. It's all clear. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to know WHO can dictate what to @WHO!
0540 He Responding to Twitter Handle Wamagaisa and others who reminded him that Zimbabweans don't need to be prompted by UK to know how bad the health system is and to protest the absurd appointment:
Some among us can pamper themselves for all they want. It's ok. But this @WHO "GOODWILL" matter is geopolitical. We all know WHO runs @WHO!
0840 The spin doctor started managing expectations, preparing for a negative outcome:
This is the position of the silent majority who are silent. A reversal will indeed mean that @WHO had a sinister plot in the first place!
0845:
(You) mistake a goodwill ambassadorship to a merit award when it's recognition & use of a credible voice!
0850 Following a barrage of Zimbabwean twitterers telling him that Mugabe had nothing to be recognised for and was not a credible voice on health matters because he and his ministers all shum the Zimbabwean health system:
So why did @WHO make the appointment if it is inconsistent with @WHO values? Fact is @WHO will lose credibility if it allows this bullying!
0922 Still trying to influence Dr Tedros’ promised Rethink and Press statement and now sinking to the gutter where he operates at his best, he fired one tweet off to Dr Tedeos who is the former Foreign Minister of Ethiopia:
You can rethink the APPROACH & make adjustments for the future but you cannot rethink the DECISION without losing ALL respect & GOODWILL!
1115 Now seemingly realising the inevitability of his boss losing the converted Ambassadorship, but still ignoring the majority of his Zimbabwean followers calling for withdrawal of the appointment,he fired off an irrational tweet.
And history will record that "UK's objections" were misrepresented by some charlatans as the views of the majority of Zimbabweans!
13:00 Dr Tedros tweets the letter firing Mugabe - probably the first time he has been fired. The last 37 he has been President of Zimbabwe:
“Over the last few days (only two) I have reflected on my appointment of H.E. President Robert Mugabe as WHO Goodwill Ambassador for NCDs in Africa. As a result I have decided to rescind the appointment.
I have listened carefully to all who have expressed their concerns, and heard the different issues that they have raised. I have also consulted with the Government of Zimbabwe and we have concluded that this decision is in the best interests of the World Health Organization.
It is my aim to build a worldwide movement for global health. This movement must work for everyone and include everyone.
For me, what is important is to build political leadership and create unity around bringing health to all, based on WHO’s core values.
I remain firmly committed to working with all countries and their leaders to ensure that everyone one has access to the health care they need.
We must build bridges that bring us together and help us move forward in our quest to achieve universal health coverage.
I thank everyone who has voiced their concerns and shared their thoughts. I depend on constructive debate to help and inform the work I have been elected to do.”
Zimbabwean media activists have got a small result for all their tweeting, facebooking, commenting and what have you. It is never going to be the same again, because now they know it can produce results. ... See more

Portsmouth Branch, strategising about next years election....

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Your Figures Don't Add Up #DearRita
Judging by what Zimbabwe Electoral Commission says in the news item below it will take at least thee solid months with all biometric voter registration (BVR) machines operating at full tilt to register all the 7 million voters that ZEC says it is aiming to register.
Since September 14, by their own admission, they have registered about 11000 people in about nine days with about 70 machines - one per district plus several in urban centres.
The opposition should be wary about the whereabouts of the other machines, since they said 200 had been delivered, lest they are deployed in some unregistered station at the back of Tobayiwa Mudede’s house.
Their figures suggest that they registered about 1 220 per day, and if we divide this by the number of machines, 70, then each machine is registering about 17 people per day.
This tallies with social media observations that on one of the days last week, at about noon at Seke Teachers College, only the ninth person was being registered.
In fact our estimate is higher than ZEC’s own in this article, which is about was, 761 per day and which they say has since increased, though they don't give us their new daily rate.
But it is not possible possible that each kit has reached capacity to register an average 80 to 100 voters per day as ZEC claims.
That would be not just doubling, but about five times the current rate at which they are registering.
If anything, when the machines are now fully deployed in rural areas and areas that are difficult to access, with no electricity and needing to be set up, let alone the telephone internet communications, we should probably expect a reduced rate.
So if we gave them the benefit of the doubt and say each machine does an average of 25 people; this times 3 600 machines means that all the machines will be registering about 90000 voters a day.
And for 7 million voters, that would be 7m divided by 90 000 voters a day or 77 days. With 20 working days per month this gives us three and half months of voter registering only.
The maths doesn't add up for ZEC’s proclaimed period. The President would need to do another proclamation if ZEC is going to live up to it's pronounced goal of registering 7 million voters.
Besides this they would need time for compiling the registers, time for political parties to verify and other processes which suggest that we will be well into next year before ZEC can seven start compiling.
https://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2017/09/27/11-000-registered-to-vote-so-far-zec ... See more

The High Court on Thursday dismissed the MDC’s application seeking a proper rerunning of the on-going and chaotic voter registration proclaimed by President Mugabe.
The opposition does not know whether new servers were procured or whether the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is using the discredited ones which registrar general Tobayiwa Mudede said were broken down.
In the last election Mudede failed to produce the voters’ roll that was used in that election - itself sufficient reason to nullify the election, because the Constitution says that materials, including the voters roll, used in an election must be kept for several years in case of dispute.
There was a dispute and the courts ordered Mudede to produce the materials, but he said his machines were broken, and the Constitutional Court entertained that lame argument. So we were robbed.
Then when it came to procurement of biometric voter registration equipment it was agreed this would be done in transparent tenders with all interested parties allowed to check on the security of the data and the access, but this has again been ignored, and the President has gone on to proclaim voter registration dates without consulting other parties or confirming ZEC’s preparedness.
The High Court ruled that the opposition’s case was not urgent; one wonders on what grounds since the prejudice to the opposition is going on with every day that passes when voter registration is proclaimed but people are not able to go and vote.
What it all comes down to is that the ZANU PF government and its courts have no respect for their citizens, nor for their political opposition, nor their civic society.
We don't know where the biometric voter information that is being collected under the current exercise is being stored nor how securely it is stored.
And ZEC says it is starting training voter registration officers, yet the opposition does not know where they recruited them from, prompting the opposition to believe that ZEC and the regime simply want to discourage people from registering to vote so they give up and abandon voting altogether
MDC-T secretary general, Douglas Mwonzora, says the only option left is to mobilize citizens and stage street protests to peacefully demonstrate against the attempts to steal people’s votes, because this voter registration battle is where the war would be won against Zanu PF. ... See more

The biometric voter registration (BVR) system was rolled out throughout Zimbabwe's 63 district centres a few days ago but so far, the process has been painstaki...

No Robert Mugabe and ZEC Cannot Dodge This One
https://youtu.be/mv-86Z6x3ME

Zimbabweans have reached the end of their tether following the latest ZEC display of incompetence. See Linda Masarira's report here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1653314141394448&id=100001476351056
Well said Linda. We also believe that united we can demand that ZEC carry out all its obligations as per its undertakings with ERC ZESN CRISIS COALITION AND NERA, most of which is contained the MDC petition to be heard today at The High Court. If its rejected Tose Tojamuka!
Also this for further distribution, source Hwende: *BREAKING* *NEWS* *!!!!!!!!!*

Please be advised that ID and Birth Certificate Registration and replacement is now being done free of charge.
Changing of Citizenship (i.e from *ALIEN* to *CITIZEN*) is also being done *FREE!*
This is effective 20 September 2017 for the next 90 days.

For and on behalf of: Mashonaland West Provincial Elections Directorate ... See more

LIVE-MUGABE DODGES COURT, MDC FUMES