OUTSIDE LOOKING IN – A letter from the diaspora

Thirty years after Independence with the MDC snapping at his heels, Robert Mugabe makes a unilateral declaration that elections will be held in 2011 following a Referendum on the new constitution, even though the consultative process has been shambolic and is as yet incomplete. Apart from the fact that Mugabe had not consulted with his MDC partners in the Inclusive Government, he had not even told his own politburo. Confusion all round as voices are raised within the former ruling party that the country is not ready for elections, structures are not in place they argue. Up steps Didymus Mutasa with the following reminder, People forget that when we came from the bush in 1980 we had no structures but we still won the elections. It seems to have escaped Mutasas notice that thirty years have elapsed; times have changed and Zanu PF is no longer the ruling party. Mutasa admits that the party has not met to discuss the issue of elections but he adds, if the president says we are going for elections next year, so be it. Personally I am ready and will win anytime. Such arrogant self-belief is hardly justified by the disarray within the former ruling party but it was Solomon Mujurus comment that more accurately reflects the disillusion in the country at large with Zanu PF and Mugabe in particular. I think old age is catching up with the old man. Surely, how under the sun can he call for elections he knows he will lose. Its madnessif he loses he will dump all of us and even destroy the party

It is this last comment of Mujurus that best illustrates what has become increasingly obvious about Robert Mugabes character over the years. It is not the best interests of the country that motivates him; it is not the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe that he cares about, it is not even the survival of his party that most concerns Mugabe. He is motivated by one over-riding concern and that is self-interest. He will use every tool he can find to promote his own personal survival. If we are to believe reports in the media, his CIO agents have told him categorically that he cannot win an election, then why, as Mujuru asks, does he call for elections next year? Perhaps, like all dictators, he has come to believe the myth perpetrated by his followers that he is appointed by God to rule Zimbabwe for ever. The fact that real power is no longer in Mugabes hands but in the hands of the military as Roy Bennett pointed out last week, seems not to bother Mugabe at all. On the contrary, he can use the army to maintain him in office until he dies, just as they can use him to conceal the reality that Zimbabwe is being run by a military junta. With their help, Zanu PF will fight an election campaign marked by all the tricks we have come to associate with them: bribery in the form of food for work programmes, traditional leaders instructed not to support the opposition on pain of death, church leaders flattered and bribed to support the former ruling party, youth organizations trained in so-called patriotism and loyaltyand above all through widespread fear in the rural communities of what will happen to them if they vote the wrong way.

The political environment is poisoned with violence says Morgan Tsvangirai as he calls for free, fair and credible elections, the removal of CIOs and an updated electoral roll. With just eight month to go before possible elections, there is very little chance those conditions can be met without outside intervention. The SADC monitors will need to be in the country early in the New Year if the election is to be fairly monitored and supervised. As Karen Allen reported in a BBC piece on the situation in Zimbabwe, it is a gathering storm and in the middle of it an old man clings desperately to power and fights to the last against the elements, intent on surviving while all around him are lashed by the storm.

Yours in the (continuing) struggle, PH aka Pauline Henson