One would be forgiven to think that with Zimbabwe facing such difficult economic times, its elected leaders and parliamentarians would lead by example and encourage people to tighten their belts much the same way they also would be doing.
But there is an embarrassing type of betrayal that is on-going in Zimbabwe at a time when the country does not have any money in its coffers. At a time when alarm bells have started ringing as warning for food shortages.
At a time when the country is struggling to write a new constitution and hold elections to set it back on the right path.
Zimbabwean MPs have disgraced us and there is no other reaction required for their betrayal other than to kick those rascals out of parliament.
Do not think twice; let’s just do it, please!
None of those Members of Parliament should be returned to parliament this year. Now we know why so-called “sitting MPs” from all political parties were trying to avoid primaries.
The blackmailers and extortionists wanted another term of thieving and vice in parliament.
Times when we used to blame ZANU-PF for everything are gone.
The days when we used to wonder at the calibre of ZANU-PF Members of Parliament in our august house are pass├®.
Politicians are the same.
We have witnessed the political acrimony between ZANU-PF and MDC legislators. We have seen that these two groups can hardly agree on anything, not even the Constitution.
But we have recently witnessed how they easily agree with each other when it comes to extorting from the nation and making outrageous demands for services not rendered.
A Member of Parliament from Mr Tsvangirai party, of all people, moved a motion demanding that MPs be paid to go to their constituencies to explain the draft constitution to the people.
The support he got came from across the political divide.
Among the demands they are making is US $30,000 sitting allowance per MP. Last September they demanded almost US$8 million from the Constitutional Select Committee, a parliamentary body tasked with the drafting of a new constitution, after reportedly being ‘underpaid’ for the constitution outreach work they performed.
They have also previously demanded laptops, top of the range vehicles and increases on their salaries.
They are also demanding residential stands in low density areas of Harare.
MPs from all the parties are united in demanding from the nation money and items the country cannot afford. But even if the country could afford it, they should not be given a cent more than their stipulated parliamentary earnings.
The goodwill that the people of Zimbabwe extended to the MDC has now been abused to above the normal decay, parameters of whose corruption were set and are still maintained by ZANU-PF.
We, people authority, stand and watch from across the road and get dazzled by men and women in three piece suits, carrying bulky briefcases, driving fancy cars, each with their own bottle store, contemptuously walking into parliament as if they are going into a tomb to awaken Lazarus from the dead.
We brought them to this parliament and we now know that they are morons, for none of them echoes the voice of their constituency, whether they are ZANU-PF or MDC. They are all the same.
Since independence, ZANU-PF parliamentarians have always been party patsies with no mind of their own.
They were expected to echo their master’s voice and they obliged.
MDC lawmakers now march into Parliament and Senate of Zimbabwe, not to raise Zimbabwe from the dead but to snuff out Zimbabwe by joining in the looting.
I thought the MDC was more sanitized than ZANU-PF. I wished it to be because I knew and believed there is a better side to us than what ZANU-PF has shown us and the world.
How could they honestly demand money for doing the very constituency work they are already being paid to do?
We put our hopes in them and made the MDC an opposition party but now they are in government and we cannot tell the difference between the two sets of parliamentarians.
We must, of necessity, pause and take stock.
They want to be protected by their parties by being allowed, undemocratically, to by-pass primary elections so that they come back into this same parliament to continue extorting without giving anything back to the community or to the people who sent them to Parliament expecting full representation.
They are demanding four-wheel drive cars.
They want luxurious homes in towns.
They demand exit packages.
They want golden handshakes for doing nothing and demand to be paid separate amounts for doing the very job they were elected to undertake and for which they are handsomely paid.
I say, none of them should be returned to parliament.
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF set the sub standard for lawmakers when those who could shout louder and sing better praises to the Dear Leader made it up the ladder faster than greased lightning.
ZANU-PF always lowered its standards to accommodate anyone who could sing praises to Mugabe.
In the end, we were garlanded with charlatans for MPs.
As Mugabe’s praise singers, many among whom had begun to rot, walked all over the nation, the people started to wonder for amongst those MPs were decaying minds ÔÇô an ongoing trend which has also been joined by MDC parliamentarians.
The walking dead; we have been cheated again!
The MDC must be careful; they have already exposed many of their weaknesses and their propensity for luxury during a time of difficulties.
We can no longer afford to send people into parliament who end up selling our mandate for a jaunty trip to Europe.
I am disgusted by the MDC’s shifted priorities.
I am appalled that the MDC, born and nurtured by the people, now makes unilateral decisions that benefit only themselves, not the people they are supposed to be representing.
It is inexcusable that MDC parliamentarians are part of this rot, going into parliament to demand money not for their constituencies but for themselves. I expected them to set an example but how much could they do when their own leadership is doing the same thing?
ZANU-PF MPs copy Mugabe while, as we see now, MDC MPs are copying Tsvangirai.
All these people are not in politics to serve but to be served. Our nation is full of embarrassingly mediocre politicians, worse than the ever blundering morons in the African National Congress.
God have Mercy!
