After months of smear campaigns, of costly ‘meet the people’ tours and Mazoe orange crush trademark infringements, the Zanu (PF) ‘elective’ congress has come and gone. What a monumental anti-climax.
In keeping with its history of brute force – grabbing villagers’ chickens during Chimurenga, grabbing farms, grabbing doctorates, grabbing mines – Zanu (PF) hijacked our only television station, broadcasting all day an event that only served to inflate Mugabe’s ego. Over $2,5 million was raised from the 10 provinces and several head of cattle, together with enormous quantities of eggs, grain and milk, were literally flushed down the loo, all to announce we already know: Robert Mugabe has full control of the party and, with it, the entire country and first lady – we use the word ‘lady’ for lack of synonyms, because ladies do not hurl abuse in public – Grace now takes charge of her husband’s cheerleaders, known euphemistically as the Women’s League.
With the Mugabes now in charge of everything, we are inches from becoming another North Korea. Many will recall how it amused us to read about mad dictators from other lands. How we were tickled by Hollywood’s portrayal of Idi Amin. Zimbabwe has become the quintessential autocracy which, once upon a time, we thought existed only in the pages of history books or on the movie screen.