State of the nation

Hoping to appease voters, Chombo unilaterally ordered urban councils to write off all debts owed by rate payers. Dispensing with sorcery analogies, we are in danger of health disasters, arising out of failure by councils to maintain sewer systems, financial sector chaos, engendered by the failure of councils to service their debts. It is from rates that town councils meet bank loan repayments and provide services such as refuse collection and water purification.

These irresponsible populist decisions are exactly what one can expect from a party that came into office by bombing bridges and bazookaring petrol stations. Destruction was an effective method to achieve independence. But the war is over and the time is ripe for the country to install a government which is more about building and less about economic vandalism.

And while we ponder the correct government to select, we might also wish to consider this: Cabinet was disbanded and Chombo does not have ministerial powers.

Comrade Chinx

As the election race reaches the finish line, Zanu (PF) spin doctors have roped in the services of Dickson Chingaira, aka ‘Comrade Chinx’ of Roger Confirm fame, together with that man, the butt of every beerhall joke, Comrade Chinoz. Chinx, who is both famous for his liberation war songs and having his house demolished during Operation Murambatsvina, lends his vocal chords in a Bob campaign video, supported by the obligatory kongonya dancers, wearing the ’80s version of Mugabe on their party regalia.

In the past week, our great leader, bored with hurling insults at SADC mediator, Lindiwe Zulu and Chombo’s ex-wife, Marian, fired off a few jibes at homosexuals and exiled Zimbabweans.

Age erodes memory and it is easy to understand how a man of advanced age can quickly forget that it is the Diasporans that sent and continue to remit foreign currency after Zanu (PF) ruined the economy. Pensions for workers who retired pre-dollarization went up in smoke and most retirees survive on pity Pounds and sympathy cents from abroad, but Robert, gripped with amnesia, forgets this cold fact. As for the President’s anti homosexual utterances – at a time when Nobel laureate, Desmond Tutu, is calling for Africa to be more tolerant towards gays – one wonders why Robert is so aggressive towards homosexuals.

A gay revolution?

Does he imagine gay people will launch a revolution and ‘convert’ everyone, including himself, to homosexuality? Perhaps Bob despises homosexuality because it is a sin. Gukurahundi, Rashiwe Guzha, GMB scandals, Willowgate, police brutality. There are not enough trees in the Amazon jungle to manufacture sufficient paper on which to list the many evils that Mugabe let slide, since 1980.

One wonders why he can not ignore this one more sin. On Saturday, using the podium as a walking frame, Mugabe addressed the people of Bulawayo, as he always does, through an interpreter, when every man and his labrador knows Mugabe speaks fluent Ndebele.

Zanu (PF) again commandeered the national broadcaster to beam their rally live from Bulawayo. The pictures, rather oddly, seemed to alternate from full colour to black and white, giving rise to suspicions that some clever video technician spliced file footage to the live broadcast, in order to create the appearance of a well supported rally.

People in the audience, no doubt carted in from other areas, sat with only the narrow brims of their Zanu caps to shield them from the baking heat as Mugabe repeated the speech about the mistake of voting the ‘Western puppets’ into government in 2008.

Matebeleland, with its 20,000 Gukurahundi skeletons and its 33-year-old water crisis, listened as the veteran politician feebly punched the air with an arthritic fist, attempting to rouse emotions with manipulative references to their fallen fathers, Joshua Nkomo and JZ Moyo. Whether Matebeleland was moved will only be known on 2 August. Till next week, my pen is capped. – jera@workmail.com

Hired Vapostori

The election campaign has become like the Serengeti plains, with snarling beasts baring teeth and swiping clawed paws. In one part of the Serengeti, the fisted hands and booted feet of Robert and Morgan appear in a rolling cloud of broken teeth and dust. As that battle rages on, another fight, of latter day prophets, is taking place. Hoards of hired vapostori, purchased with land and diamonds, predicted Mugabe would win the July poll.

But if you believe facebook whistleblower, Baba Jukwa, Tsvangirai will be victorious. The man with a $300,000 bounty on his whistleblowing head says, according to Prophet TB Joshua, Grace will need to learn the delicate skill of balancing a bucket of water on her dreadlocked head, when she and baba vaChatunga relocate to Zvimba. The same prediction mentions a 9th of August inauguration. We shall see.

The African Union observer mission has arrived in the country, headed by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. SADC has also sent a team of 4,000 observers to witness the watershed election. Morgan Tsvangirai has expressed his worries of election rigging to the AU team. Tsvangirai alleges that, following the special vote for the police forces, several MDC ballot papers were discovered dumped in a bin.

Observers

He also informed the observer mission of the unimplemented media and security sector reforms, which were called for under the GPA. Other grievances were the insufficiency of polling stations in urban areas – regarded as MDC strongholds – and the use of farms owned by Zanu members as polling bases. Furthermore, Tsvangirai highlighted that while ZEC is under new leadership; its secretariat is the same one that withheld election results for over a month in 2008.

Meanwhile – and this might give credence to Tsvangirai’s concerns – ZEC has still not announced the number of police officers that voted in the special ballot. In the interest of fairness, President Zuma, at the Maputo summit, stated that the security chiefs, who have shown bias towards Zanu PF, should publicly declare their neutrality ahead of elections. If such an unlikely retraction is aired by the uniformed strongmen, this scribe will publicly eat a ZRP hat.

At the eleventh hour, Zimbabwe has secured the necessary funds to finance the coming polls. At the time of going to print, Biti had distributed $96 million, for which he stated that government had not ‘raped the economy, to secure the funds.’ Reading between the lines, one would be forgiven for assuming that there have been unreported cases of said rape in the past.

The constitutional court has allowed those that failed to cast their vote in the chaotic special ballot to vote on the 31st. The MDC had opposed the request for members of the police force to vote on 31st as, by law, those that are given the chance to vote in a special ballot are automatically struck off the general voters roll. Another concern is that there is the possibility of some civil servants double voting if given the opportunity to queue with civilians.

Alliance?

Welshman Ncube has given the strongest hint yet that he may be willing to form an alliance with the bigger MDC faction in the coming polls. Amidst the accusations of deception aimed at Tsvangirai, Ncube said he had not been approached and stated that he would never oppose an alliance with like-minded people to bring about change in Zimbabwe. In a previous feature, we used the analogy of smaller kids scurrying to their separate corners, in the face of an attack by the playground bully. Perhaps it is time to dispense with parables and speak bluntly: gentlemen, if you truly have the interests of Zimbabwe at heart, you will shake hands and combine your resources.

First TV has been launched and broadcasts on free-to-air decoders, previously the home for SABC channels that were disconnected on 1 July. There is no other way to summarise the arrival of the country’s first independent TV station than with three words: Just in time!

Till next week, my pen is capped.

Jerà

. Till next week, my pen is capped. – Jerà