Today is 26 August 2025, exactly two years to the day since the last election “results” were announced.
In any country, poll result announcement is always the most exciting, nay the ultimate orgasmic cusp of any electoral process. But Zimbabweans were shocked when ZEC nocturnally announced the results in the briefest of times at midnight on Saturday, 26 August 2023.
In just six minutes at midnight on 26 August 2023, the election management body had done the opening prayer, the opening remarks and had announced what it said were the Presidential election results.
All was over in just 360 seconds, perhaps the briefest electoral orgasm in the history of national elections in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in the world!
Of course, orgasms by nature are brief moments of ultimate excitement. But electoral orgasms are different because there are many figures to be announced and contexts to be explained hence electoral orgasms, or poll result announcements, are always expected to be more protracted than any other climax that may cross your dirty, cooked mind!
To this day, we are still to get the figures per polling station of the 2023 elections from ZEC.
The 2023 plebiscite was just a gargantuan sham, a monumental caricature of the noble and sacred notion of credible elections!.
Even SADC, which ED chaired until recently, issued a damning report in which it said the Zimbabwe election had fallen short of the standards enshrined in the country’s electoral laws, in the Constitution of Zimbabwe and in the SADC guidelines governing the conduct of democratic elections in the region.
When the election “results” were announced on 26 August 2023,, many Zimbabweans had expected a long narrative from ZEC to explain the context of the election, especially why the urban areas had been starved of ballot papers at the crucial hour and to provide actual poll figures, including figures per provinces, per district and per polling station.
Inexplicably, this did not happen, making the 26 August 2023 event in Harare the shortest electoral orgasm in the history of plebiscites.
In 360 seconds, the poll result announcement was over.
Welcome to the Second Republic!
Then on 4 September 2023 at his coronation at the National Sports Stadium that was snubbed by the majority of SADC Heads of State and that resembled a robbers’ conference, ED cut a forlorn figure as he mumbled through his inauguration speech whose litany of lies I will list down in this treatise.
Indeed, at his inauspicious inauguration on that day, Mnangagwa told several lies..
Today, on the second anniversary of Zimbabwe’s pilfered poll, I revisit that speech to point out just 12 of the many lies that he told to bemused Zimbabweans and the international community on that sunny day on 4 September 2023.
Lie number 1: We ran a free and fair election
The first lie ED told the world was that the country had just held a free, fair, transparent and credible poll.
He commended Zimbabwe for holding what he called a “successful, peaceful, free, fair, transparent and credible harmonised election.”
Verdict
Nothing could be further from the truth.
As confirmed by observer missions, notably the AU and the SADC observer mission reports, the election was far from credible.
Ballot papers had been delayed by more than nine hours in the urban strongholds of the opposition in a hugely flawed poll that the regional body said fell short in meeting the tenets of the country’s electoral laws, the Zimbabwean Constitution and the prudent electoral standards in the SADC guidelines governing democratic elections.
By stating that the country had just held a credible election, Mr Mnangagwa had simply told the world a blatant lie.
Lie Number 2: The will of the people will be respected
Mr Mnangagwa told the world at his inauguration that Zimbabweans had freely expressed themselves in the election and their will would be respected.
Verdict
Mr Mnangagwa, his party and his government did not respect the will of the people as he promised.
Soon after that inauguration, using a paid surrogate, one Sengezo Tshabangu, the regime went on to undo the will of the people by recalling hordes of elected MPs and councillors.
For parliamentarians, the plot was to give Zanu PF a two thirds majority which they had just lost in the election.
Lie Number 3: This is an auspicious occasion
Mr Mnangagwa described his coronation and the run up to it as a grand and auspicious occasion.
Verdict
The inauguration itself was far from being an auspicious occasion as it was held amid a lockdown of massive fear and intimidation throughout the country.
A newly-elected CCC councillor, Womberai Nhende had just been abducted and found bludgeoned while on 2 August 2023; Tinashe Chitsunge had been callously murdered by Zanu PF thugs in Glen View.
To this day, no action has been taken on the perpetrators of Chitsunge’s heinous murder.
Put simply, the national mood on the day of his inauguration was far from being an “auspicious occasion.”
Lie Number 4: We have demonstrated that we are a mature democracy
Through the conduct of the August 2023 elections, ED lied to the delegates at his inauguration that the country had proven that it was a mature democracy:
“Our unparalleled conduct before, during and after the electoral processes is praiseworthy and will be an everlasting standard and benchmark as we continue to deepen and entrench constitutional democracy in our country,” ED told bemused attendees at his inauguration.
Verdict
Contrary to ED’s lie, the election was dismissed by SADC, the AU and even and other local observers such as the Catholic Bishops Conference, who saw the conduct of the Zimbabwe elections before, during and after the polls as falling short of democratic standards.
Instead SADC saw our electoral process as having dismally failed to meet the country’s and the regional democratic tenets in the conduct of elections.
How can a country that recalls elected MPs and councillors and fails to meet the requirements of its own laws in the conduct of its elections be described as a mature democracy?
Mr Mnangagwa simply spun a fib.
Lie Number 5: Nyika inotongwa ne Vene Vayo (A country’s citizens are at the nub of its governance system)
By Vene, ED gave the impression that the generality of the citizens are the true stakeholders in the national governance system.
Verdict
Under his tenure, we have since learnt that by Vene, ED is not referring to the generality of the country’s citizens.
Vene is a small clique of ED acolytes whose control spans across the vast sectors of the country’s economy.The personages in this despicable cast include shady characters such as Wicknell Chivayo, Kuda Tagwirei, the Mnangagwa family members, Paul Tungwarara, Obey Chimuka as well as that esoteric cast of caricature, among them Scott Sakupwanya, Uebert Angel, and others.
Those are the Vene or the real the owners of the country, not ordinary citizens as told by Mnangagwa at his inauguration.
In any case, ZECgate, Goatgate, Palmgate (the tender around the now wilting palm trees), Villagate and some such scandals have exposed the real Vene in this country; the parasitic elite behind the massive looting of the country’s vast wealth.
Now those are the real Vene.
Lie Number 6: I will respect the Constitution
In his own words, ED said at his coronation on September 4, 2023:
“Under this renewed mandate, I have re-committed to continue faithfully upholding and defending our sacred national Constitution and laws, with integrity and impartiality, leaving no one and no place behind.”
Verdict
This was a blatant lie.
In spite of his insistence that he will leave office when his term expires in 2028 as per the dictates of the Constitution, we have no reason to believe him..
Even as he insists on sticking by the Constitution, his 2030 choristers in the country, led by Daniel Garwe, Owen Muda Mcube, Ziyambi Ziyambi and others, continue to rally the party and the nation to the notion that the President must stay on regardless.
What makes some of us doubt ED’s sincerity to upholding the Constitution is his brazenly uncouth method in systematically decimating the democratic alternative in the country, notwithstanding the provisions in the sacred charter that we are a Constitutional democracy.
ED is also the same man who has violated the Constitution before by illegally extending the term of office of Luke Malaba, the Chief Justice to be the gatekeeper of his political interests in the judiciary.
Judging by what we have seen so far under his dispensation, ED is simply a Constitutional delinquent.
Lie Number 7: I will transform the lives of the people
At his coronation in 2023, ED pledged to positively transform the lives of the rural and urban citizens of the country.
Verdict
That this was a blatant lie needs no explanation.
The parlous lives of the country’s citizens as evidenced by a worthless currency, collapsed public health, public education, public transport and public sports infrastructure is enough testimony to ED’s blatant lie.
Lie Number 8: We will be food-secure in both maize and wheat
ED assured attendees at his coronation at the National Sports stadium that the country would be food secure.
Verdict
It turned out this was a lie as the country had no grain reserves in its silos.
Zimbabwe, a former bread basket in the region, was scrounging for donations for hunger alleviation last season, barely a year after his assurances of food security.
Government’s own lies on the food situation have also not helped matters.
In early January last year, barely 120 days after his food security lie, then Social Welfare minister, July Moyo, told journalists that 2.7 million people would need food assistance during the peak hunger period of January to March 2024.
But the World Food Programme (WFP) hunger map for 2023/24 published around the same time showed that 4.1 million people faced serious food insecurity.
Lie Number 9: We will set up agro-based companies in the rural areas
At his coronation in 2023, Mnangagwa said vulnerable districts and areas are now the critical focus.
He said rural development would be implemented at full scale through robust rural agriculture industrialisation models.
This, he said with the typical confidence of a certified liar, would result in the 35,000 villages country-wide, having productive agro-based companies, owned and run by the benefiting communities.
The programme, he said, would see a multi-fold increase in rural incomes and sustainable livelihoods.
Verdict
Two years after the promise, there is no sign of the groundwork of this massive and highly ambitious programme being rolled out in any of the villages in the country.
The pronouncement was just an old man telling his usual fireside, pie-in-the-sky yarns!
Lie Number 10: Our minerals will develop the country
ED said at his inauguration the numerous mineral resources in Zimbabwe must be sustainably exploited to leapfrog our industrialisation and development.
He said the lives of our citizens and the fortunes of our country as a whole would be improved.
“We expect nothing less,” he boomed.
He said the economy must realise maximum benefits from increased beneficiation and value addition.
His administration, he said, through the Responsible Mining Initiative, will ensure greater stewardship over our finite natural resources to benefit both present and future generations.
Verdict
As exposed in the Gold Mafia documentary, the country’s vast mineral wealth continues to be looted by ED himself and his acolytes, with no benefit whatsoever accruing to the ordinary Zimbabwean citizen.
All we have heard around our vast mineral wealth are ambitious pronouncements, with nothing tangible being done to benefit the ordinary citizens.
Seven years ago in 2018, government set what it called a US $12 billion mining output target.
Seven years later, nothing has happened and the Finance Ministry continues to present parlous budgets that remain a far cry from the mining target set up years back.
ED was simply regurgitating the usual lie while the rich and powerful spirit away the country’s vast mineral wealth for themselves and their families.
Lie Number 11: We will modernise our infrastructure
Mnangagwa promised to modernise all infrastructure.
Verdict
Public health, public education and public transport infrastructure have all but collapsed and nothing has been done to rehabilitate, let alone modernise them, except the construction of the VVIP pavilion for the political elite at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International airport.
Even the National Sports stadium, at which ED’s inauguration ceremony was held and where he made the pledge to rehabilitate national infrastructure, has been condemned and the national football team will this coming month “host” its home games in other countries.
What a shame.
Lie Number 12: We have achieved energy self-sufficiency
Perhaps the biggest lie was when ED told the world at his inauguration that his first five-year term between 2018 and 2023 had achieved energy self-sufficiency for Zimbabwe.
And he even said that with a straight face:
“During the last five year-term, my Administration delivered energy self-sufficiency to our country. Courtesy of our comprehensive, strategic partnership with the People’s Republic of China, Hwange Unit 7 and Unit 8 are now on stream,” he told attendees at his inauguration
Verdict
There is just no energy self-sufficiency in Zimbabwe and barely 15 months after this naked lie, it was showcased that it was lights out in government, both literally and metaphorically, when a power outage blacked out Mthuli Ncube’s national budget statement.
The citizens have persistently endured power outages, the only reprieve being the 72 hours that SADC leaders flew into Zimbabwe for their summit.
ED’s acolyte Wicknell Chivayo was paid millions for a power project he never delivered in Gwanda.
Otherwise we have perennially braved the usual noise that Hwange 7 and 8 had been rehabilitated, with no reprieve whatsoever to the country’s debilitating energy crisis.
Conclusion: Liars for ED
ED simply lied to the world and I have picked just 12 of the many fibs he told the world at his inauguration two years ago.
Mnangagwa’s legacy that he is firmly etching in stone is that of the most corrupt and most dishonest leader in history.
What is only left is for him to officially anoint a formal affiliate called Liars For ED to reinforce his penchant for perfidy, deceit and deception.
Luke Tamborinyoka is a citizen from Domboshava. By profession he is a journalist and a political scientist You can interact with him through his Facebook page or via the X handle @ luke_tambo.
