It has now been confirmed that new members of the 9th Parliament of Zimbabwe will be sworn in tomorrow. That should allow President Mnangagwa to appoint the first Cabinet in the Second Republic to mark the official close of the election period.
It is indeed fitting that this phase of our democratic process should come to an end. The people of Zimbabwe spoke on July 30, 2018. They chose their representatives for local authorities, the National Assembly and President in the harmonised elections in which for the first time Zimbabwe had 23 presidential candidates.
They were all able to campaign unhindered, with President Mnangagwa pledging State protection for any candidate who felt unsafe, especially following the White City bomb attack in Bulawayo.
Whatever the misgivings and reservations of those obsessed with the negative, one thing cannot be denied: Zimbabwe had one of the freest, most open, fair and widely observed elections in its history. Observers were invited from all over the world. Once they were in the country, they had the freedom to move as they pleased and given the hospitality Zimbabweans are famed for.
President Mnangagwa lived up to his promise that there was nothing to hide and so election observers were free to criss-cross the country and make their observations. The truth is that so far there has not been any outrageous claims of either vote-rigging, vote-buying or interparty violence.
This was a complete departure from what the country had experienced since independence from British colonial rule in 1980. Tellingly, it was the first election in which long time ruler former president Mugabe was not a participant. His methods and those of his successor proved to be completely different, allowing for a hotly-contested poll between the now incumbent President and his closest rival, MDC-Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
That is how free the vote was. Except that there were Zimbabweans with other ideas about the electoral outcome. After it became clear that Zanu-PF and its leader were heading for a landslide victory, they decided to spoil it for everyone.
The post-election demonstrations and violence of August 1 in which six precious lives were lost were completely uncalled for. They were an act of utter malice which sought to sully an otherwise happy process and event which should have set a precedent for Africa. The glitches and discontents were very minor and condonable by any standards, which is why the evil mind behind the violence did not wait to challenge them in court, but opted for mob grandstanding.
That day of infamy is what is being talked about today more than the entire electoral period in which Zimbabwe shone light to the African continent that it is possible to hold free, fair, peaceful and credible elections if people put their heads together and have a shared vision about the destiny of their nation.
That day of infamy, when evil seemed to temporarily triumph over good, is what has delayed the swearing in of members of the National Assembly and the appointment of a new Cabinet. It is what has kept the country for so long in an apparent state of paralysis, in which the people of Zimbabwe are the biggest losers.
President Mnangagwa already had made clear it was time for Zimbabweans to come together as a family and that national focus should shift in emphasis from politics to the economy.
It was time to leapfrog the country's development after getting back its land.
That is the dream and policy initiatives we expect the new Cabinet to embark on as soon as it is selected. There is no time to waste. Zimbabweans expect performance.
We want to believe those still in denial about the outcome of the July 30 harmonised elections will regain their sense of balance and dignity to allow the nation to move on. The elections are over and past us. The reality must be accepted. That is what the people of Zimbabwe decided.
