My neighbors were even amused when they saw me on the roof and one of them asked if everything was okay? Knowing where I work the old man living next door came to my place asking me if the new government has also rendered me jobless. This is one old man I sometimes chill with and discuss politics with though his only source of information is state news channels and to him independent news sources are imperialist mouthpieces bent on taking us back to the colonial era. He openly speaks of his allegiance to ZANU-PF and being a staunch supporter of President Robert Mugabe. Sometime back he said to me that NGOs should be banned because they are here to remove the government and cause chaos in the country. When the election results were announced he went on a drinking spree. He later shared his happiness saying the country is now back to the rightful owners and everything will be free starting from debt cancellation by the council. He even castigated Tsvangirai wasting taxpayer’s money by going to court to seek nullification of election results. I tried to remind him that he should just enjoy the remittances he is getting from his two sons working in South Africa and leave Tsvangirai alone. He seemed to foresee an increment in his pension along with pay increments for civil servants promised by the President in his speech during Heroes Day commemorations.

This was hell of a long political lecture taking place on a rooftop and to make it even worse we had to wait for electricity from ZESA so the we could continue to drill and punch some holes before I could escape from this election trap.

Political parties in Zimbabwe win elections in two ways: by mobilizing their own supporters and suppressing the opposition vote. With its origins as an armed guerrilla insurgency, Zanu-PF has always used both approaches, combining force and patronage to build a political base of “no-go” zones in the country’s rural northeast where the MDC cannot campaign. Absent deep roots in either the labour movement or business community, Zanu-PF long ago lost the allegiance of most urban voters. For its part, however, the MDC, with its undisciplined performance in the coalition government, failed to consolidate its early support among these same groups. It also neglected the need to rebuild its own organization and consummate a grand coalition with minor opposition parties.

More from Michael Bratton writing for Foreign Affairs here

Our hands full or not:
The same abundance.
Our eyes open or shut:
The same light.

- Yves Bonnefoy, in The Curved Planks: Poems

Critics have long said our politics is not issue based, and Mrs. First Lady seems to confirm that.

It highlights she not only has very low regard for Tsvangirai (she doesn’t have to: Tsvangirai wants to take her husband’s job!), but most importantly perhaps, the low regard she has for her audience.

The favoured phrase for many people would be “don’t insult our intelligence.”

Imagine expecting to swing votes by telling voters that you need a more photogenic fellow at State House! That would help in international photo opportunities!

You are simply implying that your audience has no clue about the real issues that seek to address their impoverished livelihoods, but such has been the nature of Zimbabwean politics, recalling the rather unpalatable comments by one “nationalist” and “national hero” that if a baboon stood for Zanu PF in elections, you vote for that baboon.

Surely Zimbabweans deserve better.

If ghosts can be found in the voters roll, it seems logical that the living can also be exorcised from the roll! And these stories are many.

Some are stories about people who want to vote but have no IDs, and efforts to get these important documents are being frustrated by all sorts of ridiculous red tape such as the person being told to bring parents, if parents are deceased, relatives with affidavits, if these relatives are buried deep in the rural areas, then that’s the end of it!

I watched a video of men and women yelling “they must tell us if they don’t want us to vote,” after trying for days to check their names and also register and couldn’t help must imagine that this is the kind of anger that is already known to exist by the people rushing the poll and their vote is as commonsense will have it, also already known how it will go!

It is thus increasingly becoming clear that many Zimbabweans will merely watch others exercise their franchise, and then we say bad governments are elected by people who don’t vote.

Now we know better: bad governments will make sure you don’t vote!

Zapu of course being a project that has not hidden that its existence is informed by politics of the marginalization of Matebeleland by Zanu PF since independence in 1980.

It is one of those outfits which while having legitimate concerns about how Matebeleland has been treated by Zanu PF bigoted hegemony in the past 33 years, it has failed to sell this dream of self-determination to likewise embittered Mthwakazians.

The massive inroads Welshman Ncube’s MDC has made in the region and indeed across the country is just but testimony that regional parties still have a long way to go as far as stirring national loyalties are concerned.

And that’s exactly why Ncube has vehemently dismissed all claims that his is a regional party (he was referred by Mr. Prime Minister rather unflatteringly as a “village politician”) and will not contest for any lesser position other than President of the Republic of Zimbabwe.

So when Dabengwa is quoted as inviting Ncube to join forces with Zapu it raises questions about how politicians seek to participate and sneak into national politics and what constituencies they purport represent.

It has become an increasingly manifest trait that while being aware of their waning political fortunes, or indeed their irrelevance to national discourse, some have seen it fit to ride on the backs of what are seen as popular political movements, and a guy like Simba Makoni quickly comes to mind.

He was himself endorsed by Zapu during the 2008 elections, but their relationship is not being mentioned this year, and the two, Mavambo and Zapu, are instead aligning themselves to parties that have established themselves as formidable challengers to the two-party politics Zimbabwe has come to know.

It is curious then how these parties seek to participate in moving the country forward especially at this juncture where everyone is seeing this as yet another opportunity to end Zanu PF presence on Zimbabwe’s political landscape.

4 tablespoons of dignity
A pinch of pride in Zimbabwe and the people outside of party politics
Half a cup of democratic processes
A splashing of reflection on the last decade
An ounce of foresight

I sensed he was referring to Mutsvangwa’s performance at the SAPES Trust public meeting where the apoplectic Cde stormed out during proceedings because the audience and panelists did not take kindly to his comments that all of them should be grateful to Zanu PF for giving them anything from ministerial jobs to the freedom they presently enjoy.

The arrogance was galling.

It was classic Mutsvangwa having given the same condescending remarks live on national television during a debate on the constitution where panelists included Qhubekani Moyo (MDC-N), Jessie Majome (MDC-T), Blessing Vava and Job Sikhala.

Mutsvangwa simply dismissed them, telling them that they should be grateful to Zanu PF for giving them free university education, thank Zanu PF for ending white minority, else they would still be serfs in a white man’s world.

At the SAPES public meeting, the arrogance Mutsvangwa portrayed, and what incensed the guy I referred to above, only highlights Zanu PF’s perverted sense of entitlement and “ownership” of the country and its people.

You cannot own people as if you are some feudal lord, but then the dictatorship of Zanu PF only highlights that indeed the party is steeped in the feudalism of yore where it continues to see everyone as vassals!

How many times have you heard President Mugabe say “my people?”

I certainly ain’t anyone’s person! God’s YES’s, man’s NO!

But then good thing for the SAPES meeting that Paul Themba Nyathi was there to remind Mutsvangwa that he (Nyathi) fought for the country and he certainly ain’t Zanu PF!

There are many lessons to be drawn for Zanu PF arrogance. And these lessons are what the party itself will learn rather painfully!

Yesterday a friend made a remark that puts the coming polls into perspective.

He said surely Mugabe knows he is no longer wanted by the people of Zimbabwe, and even if he loses, he may still simply refuse to accept defeat.

I said, well, hasn’t that happened before?

And with a guy like Mutsvangwa fighting from Mugabe’s corner, we could sure still have a long way to go before we get to the Zimbabwe we want.

And again it does magnify the folly of these rushed polls, because Mutsvangwa and other so-called Zanu PF hawks seem to know they hold the four aces, and these are not hidden anymore! What arrogance.

Recall that early this year, Makoni did invite Mugabe into a coalition which many are still trying to figure out how it was going to work.

Sometimes Simba Makoni does make statements that could easily have come from Idi Dada Amin who famously said “Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.”

Now he has withdrawn from the presidential race, and following accusations in the past that he was a spoiler effectively stealing victory from Morgan Tsvangirai’s mouth, his latest proclamation that he is willing to work with the same people he only yesterday said were worse than Robert Mugabe makes his chameleon persona something those he seeks to work with must certainly watch.

Makoni does give meaning to the aphorism “This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests.”

One does not need to use language borrowed from the Zanu PF hate speech lexicon, but can this guy be trusted?

Someone tweeted yesterday after Makoni made his BREAKING NEWS announcement that “His family, his only supporters must be disappointed!”

Some would say Makoni is looking for relevance, but that should not sway Zimbabweans from the bigger picture, and that is a tolerant Zimbabwe of which Zanu PF has been the antithesis.