So what is wrong? The election result was as predicted, so why so sad? Shocked, yes. The scale of the result is a bit of shocker, but maybe Nikuv is looking for future business. “Zimbabwe – poster child for Nikuv.” Zimbabwe – top of the list of satisfied clients.” “You think you got bad? Just look what we can do. Look at Zimbabwe!”

It is not unexpected, for many reasons. The biggest to me is the failure of the MDC. They failed to be change. They were the Ruling Party for five years, and what did they do with their parliamentary majority? They had the most seats. The power to elect the Speaker of the House. Seems they did all they wanted to do – just replace Zanu PF snouts at the feeding trough with their own snouts. But even that was not well done; they only got in five years of gravy train. Nice house for the boss though (has he called the movers yet?).

Did they learn how to service the electorate? Seems not. Six days before the election, I went to the MPOI public discussion. A neutral, a Zanu PF, and MDC were the speakers. Douglas Mwonzora, MDC, was scheduled to speak, but phoned just before. He could not make it, was sending someone else. Someone else never came! You would have thought, six days before the election that MDC would be falling over itself to get a chance to talk to the electorate. But no, they failed to pitch. They failed.

A week before the election, Tendai Biti complained that they could not campaign with POSA. However, one would think, as the ruling party of five years, they would have repealed POSA after four years. They failed.

Also in the week before elections, some Brigadier somewhere – Chegutu, Kadoma, Masvingo, Chinoyi – what does it matter, a ZNA Brigadier General in Zimbabwe threatens the locals (and all of us) that if Zanu PF does not win, they would go back to the bush and fight (as an aside, I would have loved to see one of those fat bastards sleeping under a tree overnight!) But, you would think, in five years as the ruling party, the MDC would have called to account some of the Generals for previous “treasonable utterances”, when they state who they will or will not salute. For a military commander to state he might disregard the nation and it’s constitution – treason! Failure.

The Urban Councils Act gives too much power to the Minister. Generally agreed to by all, but most especially by the MDC councils. So, did they change the Urban Councils Act? No. Failure.

To look forward, so now what are they going to do? AU and SADC have ‘let them down’. So, they will go to court. Great idea! And yet… have they reformed the Court system in their five years as Ruling Party? Failure. How do you (or anyone else with an IQ higher than a potted plant) think the courts will rule?

Well, those failures are in the past. And I think so is the MDC. Morgan has failed three times for President. Third time most unlucky! Don’t think he will be running again. He may get used a bit on his way out, maybe get one of the compromise cabinet posts offered to the former ruling Party by the magnanimous victor.

Other, future ‘end of tunnel’ lights. The security sector is stronger. It is proven above the law. It can beat the rap. It has been through the fires of hell, and emerged, better, stronger, brighter.

It has now been proven that legitimacy counts for nothing. Only power. Parliament is of no concern. And the next election will really be a non-event as it is proven that the electorate is not needed. It has been proved – they (the national rulers) do not need popularity, or the popular vote, or legitimacy. They only need power (physical and financial), and window dressing.

Well
the AU and SADAC have endorsed this strange charade!

Congratulations pour in from the region:
Zuma, after all his posturing, positioning and promises
of a position of morality and justice
welcomes the old liberation father back with open arms

A complete denial of the voices of the people
who lined up in trusting, peaceful queues
often patiently joining new lines in other places
as their registration areas had been changed
resignedly being turned away
unable to get transport

unwittingly validating this farce of freedom
lending a complete mockery to the democratic process

today is the tomorrow of our outrage:
‘how dare they ?’

seeking places to point our blame:
‘why haven’t ‘they’ done something?’
‘taken to the streets?’
‘demanded a re-run?’

voicing our self-condemnation:
‘ we Zimbabweans are always like this – we are so  passive’
‘we don’t stand together’
‘we can’t fight’
‘we should have known’
‘this time we had hope’
‘we are too tired to do this again’

and our fear:
‘there will be reprisals’  
as we hear the first reports of displacements of people from their homes

In the face of such a blatant daylight robbery
we easily slip back to where we started
a sense of despair
a place of fear
and fight and blame of team A versus team B
winner and looser
the good and the bad

back to seeking solutions from an old reactions
which birthed the source of the problem
a frustrated  call  to the young men and mothers and fathers
back into the fray
to once again be beaten and assaulted and imprisoned

but as tomorrow becomes tomorrow
we begin to see that situations around us have changed…
we are NOT the same
we are not back there where we were before

we have learned so much in this time

we have finally understood that political leaders and parties are not the source of our redemption
(for the abuse of power and abandonment of the people comes from the best of our heroes)

we have learned that poverty and violence, and witnessing of violence, is destroying our lives
and most particularly those of our children
inflicting on them the battle wounds of yesterday

today is the tomorrow
when we learn that it is us
who must take responsibility
no longer to wait for our recovery to come from the hands of unknown redeemers
to mend our spirits/our places/our spaces

and today
we remember that this work has already begun
everywhere …

this time was different
we have recorded every step of this unlawful process
we have voiced our findings and spoken our frustrations
we have used public media
we have written of the inconsistencies and travesties
spoken our truth
been heard across the world

this time,
we are different
for in the yesterdays of enduring the hardships of unemployment and displacement
we began to come together again as ordinary people
began witness our own stories
and heal ourselves and our communities

we have been to workshops learning of our civic rights/human rights/women’s rights/food rights
learned the language of conflict resolution and sustainable dialogue

we have begun to take care of our own AIDS victims
begun circles of support to take care of our orphaned children
begun community gardens growing organic vegetables

we have begun the work in small circles of disabled women recycling plastic into wonderful bags
and in large community circles with our leaders from across the ‘political divide’
circles where headmen no longer sit outside/above his people – but on the rim of the same circle
we have held dance days and community days
and  days with the youth from both parties
and we have seen that we have been able to cross the cracks and gaps and deep divides
that have disabled us

and seen ourselves grow into wider people
able to look at things from a longer perspective

perhaps today is the tomorrow we have been waiting for
as we walked  through the interminable grey cloud
learning there is no real A and B
but a mixed blessing of dark and light

looking for a way to live the responsibility of empowered people

looking for a way to walk into tomorrow

Hey, but this woman rocks. More fire Everjoice:

I will vote in 2018, not this year

I did not go home to vote today. I already knew my ‘candidate’ was not on the ballot paper. All of the ballot papers, Presidential, parliamentary, local government. She was not there. No, this had nothing to do with rigging, lack of identity documents, lack of adequate time to prepare or any of the logistical issues – before you consign my candidates’ absence to all the alleged stereotypical issues that everyone has been rattling on about. No.

My candidate gracefully chose to step aside. Walked away from this election – literally and metaphorically, because she knew that this was not that sort of election. My candidate figured out five years ago that the 2013 elections were never going to be about the issues or things she, myself and probably millions of other Zimbabwean women care about. She knew already, that this was merely an election to choose one man over the other. Yes. A man. Women like my candidate have been quite clear for some time now that it didn’t matter how clever, analytical, or clear they were about what the problems are in our country and what the solutions could be, they did not stand a chance. Their voices would get drowned out in this all male contest. And if we were ever in any doubt as to what this election was about, a young man representing MDC-T told us categorically on South Africa’s E-TV last weekend – “this election is not about VALUES”, he thundered, “all we want is to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe”. I have never understood why or when it became necessary to pronounce his name in full like that? Interestingly the other contestants are now referred to in that way…’Morgan Richard Tsvangirai’ Hee hee. Is that supposed to give them more gravitas? (Or more curiously, referring to them by their totems/clan names. Each time this happens I have visions of their wives kneeling on the floor wiping their penises after sex). Let me not digress. We were told the truth. Or more accurately we were reminded. The message was broadcast across the region. Whatever little denial I had left was banished from my head. I cancelled my ticket.

Values. A concept that has largely deserted our politics and our people. Honesty. Integrity. Humility. Care for another one. Heck – just being a good person! We forgot what that means many years ago. It is now person eat dog and its owner. It is not just the political leadership who lack values. It is most leaders, from so called Civil Society, to religious bodies to even the family. Everyone just wants what is good themselves. The fanciest car. The biggest house. The largest amount of cash. The longest weave. The latest Apple product. The biggest Bible. Let us not forget this last one. The biggest fashion accessory of my people. This is what matters. How you get it is not that important. You just have to have it. In NGOs – that part of the population with which I am most intimately connected, we made sure we generated these material things from our vantage point. It started with us being the ones getting forex, trips outside Zimbabwe, (to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe), and the fuel coupons. This was back during the hyper-inflation period. Soon we got hooked onto these lovely things. We generated trips to Joburg and London. As Directors and Senior program staffers we made sure we did not miss the next per diem. If there was no per diem we threw such tantrums that the money just had to be found. Our donors did not disappoint. After all we were the leaders furthering the democracy and good governance agenda. Development? Rural development? Urban poverty? That agenda is coming later, for now we just needed Mugabe to go.

When the ‘crisis’ eased after dollarization, we struggled to keep up our lifestyles. We almost fell into the bottom 5%! We had to do something. So we generated more trips. The smallest altercation with a police officer became global news. Even if it was for an infringement of the road rules. We organized workshops, preferably after hours, or out of Harare, just so we could award ourselves the $30 per diem. Why we had to get a per-diem to participate in our own workshops I still don’t get. Actually I do. There is a name for it. Greed.

Greedy. Selfish. Now there are two words that define who we have become. At the top of the greed ladder are the ones who want to control all the diamond mines. In the middle the ones who fleece anyone fleece-able; the plumber charging an exorbitant amount to fix a mere broken pipe, the mechanic stealing car parts instead of fixing your car, the school teacher charging for extra lessons when she should have been teaching properly during normal school hours, and the home affairs officer wanting a ‘Coke’ to give your baby the birth-certificate to which she is entitled. On the same spectrum, the church leader/founder screaming around town in a 10 fancy- car- convoy while his congregants have not had a decent meal in many months.

Most of us have, over the last decade forgotten what this clamour for change was about to begin with. For some of us it was as that political party person said – not about values. It was only about getting rid of Mugabe. He could never do anything right. Nothing that he said could ever be true, or good, or useful. And if the uninformed among us were to be believed, the man and his government had never EVER done a single good thing for Zimbabwe since his mother Bona delivered him. Mugabe and anyone associated with him were just bad because….they are intrinsically bad. Gone was the critical perspective. Even those of us who went through doors of UZ thanks to his social development policies did not ever want to be heard acknowledging it.

Across the street, our newspaper editor friends and journalists in the non-state media joined the ‘party’. Besides the entertainment good news, everything and anything that Mugabe and his party said or did was just to be trashed. Ditto, across the borders, and across the seas. Ours became the single narrative – MDC good, ZANU PF bad. Simple. No room here for nuance, or complexity. And we all know, to quote Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi ‘the danger of the single story’.

My candidate is not on the ballot paper because she would simply be hounded off the political stage by the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and violent political culture that pervades Zimbabwe. From a whole elder statesman who swears at a diplomat from another country and calls her a ‘street woman’, to the average Tendai and Senzeni, who take to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to abuse others using the most degrading Shona and Ndebele words ever seen in print! ZANU planted and cultivated this political culture, it got nurtured by other political parties, sections of civil society and ordinary citizens. In between the swearing at ‘your mother’s vagina’, it is hard to pick out what is at political stake and how the one whose mother’s vagina is better/cleaner/smaller,(or whatever it is one’s vagina is supposed to look like on public platforms), will do anything different.  Political violence and intolerance is certainly not the preserve of ZANU PF.

Zimbabweans should stop being driven by ideology and be more driven by economic pragmatism’, advised one economist on twitter.  For many days I have wondered what this meant. I guess it is in the same vein as saying this election must be devoid of VALUES. The economist should have said in simpler English, don’t think, just focus on making money. Be good capitalists and your problems will be solved. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, who gets hurt in the process or who you shove out of the way. My candidate is not on that ballot paper because she thinks too much about ideology. She worries a lot about what some of the choice phrases mean; attracting foreign investment (of what sort? To invest in what?); Reengaging the North/West (Because? How will we make sure we don’t lose power and control over our resources?); Attracting donors (so that they can support whose development?); Unlocking Zimbabwe’s wealth (so that it goes into whose pocket?);  Media freedom, (to promote whose rights and will black women in Mkoba township get to speak for themselves? On their rights?). See what I mean? My candidate asks too many questions. She wants to have conversations that are about ideology, values and principles. In the current atmosphere, she will not be heard. She might as well be speaking to herself and her few friends like me who make her helpful cups of coffee but aren’t enough to win her an election. She will not have an inch of space in the media. She will have very few NGO friends, religious ones, or media ones because that is not our language at this moment.

I will vote in 2018. My candidate will run in that election. The dust will have settled. I am optimistic that come the next elections Zimbabweans will put values back on the agenda. We will debate and be clear about our leaders’ political ideologies.  I see NGOs in another five years discussing and implementing human rights based DEVELOPMENT for all Zimbabweans– not just the heterosexual.  In the next five years, I want to have honest conversations about the unfinished business of RACE and RACISM. Honest conversations, inside Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe, rather than the current dishonesty that says it is one of the present male leaders’ sole agenda. It is still my agenda. By the time we vote in 2018, we will have a definition of democracy and participatory governance which is not just about personalities but about my favorite topic- street lights. Yes really. Streetlights. to increase safety and security for my granddaughters when they walk late at night in the township.

By 2018 we will have developed a new political culture, one which at the very least allows each Zimbabwean to speak, act, chose, and be who they want to be.  I will vote when my country and its women’s broken souls have healed. When we relearn how to just be what my mother used to call ‘good people’. Simply that.  I so wish that by the next election – Zimbabwe will have reverted to being a secular space. Jesus will be removed from the ballot papers and we will keep him off forever. As a black Zimbabwean woman, it is my deepest wish that this is the last election in which the only choices in front of us are ‘BULLS’, (their party’s words not mine!), and a bunch of great-grandfathers who have never heard the phrase ‘sexual autonomy and choice’.

Originally published on Everjoice Win’s blog

Posted by Everjoice Win at 8:50 AM, 31 July 2013

It was one of those things that get you both angry and surprised.

Empty polling stations; unemployed young men who hang around local pubs and are forever asking for beer alms saying voting is for suckers; short queues moving at a snail’s pace; bored polling agents getting animated seeing a single soul passing by; all this became part of the July 31 kaleidoscope.

And this was in Bulawayo, a city long known for its strong anti-Zanu PF sentiment, yet here were some people eligible to vote staying away, choosing instead to leave the country to the Fates.

Bulawayo has some 367,178 registered voters against the disputed 2012 census that put the city’s population at 655,675, but despite the widespread frustration during the voter registration exercise, some actually said they had no reason to vote as the poll outcome had been decided a long time ago.

While this kind of talk infuriated those who had braved the cold to queue and exercise this important constitutional right, the same chaps today feel vindicated!

Yet those who did vote saw it as The Coming of the long-awaited transition to a post-Zanu PF political dispensation and the stories I listened to bordered on the hilarious as folks firmly believed that their vote would indeed make a difference.

One chap told colleagues he was saving USD150, – a lot of money by any standard – to purchase a goat to celebrate “independence,” another, a man in his fifties who has a ready story to narrate about his torture by the Fifth Brigade during Gukurahundi, went home after casting his vote and blasted his stereo in celebration of what he saw as a sure Mugabe defeat; another bought a round of beer for anyone in the bar who was sitting next to the counter: that was the mood in some parts of Bulawayo, and the excitement was just fantastic.

And then I met some folks on Friday 2 August as it became clear that Zanu PF had bamboozled the MDC-T and it was like a funeral!

A chap I grew up with who has been flirting with mining said he couldn’t take it and was contemplating leaving the country; the fellow who had planned to buy a goat to celebrate an MDC-T victory simply said: sizafa sihawula – we will die poor. He was in no mood for the animated chit-chat of 31 July; men and women feeding their families as “flea market” trader said, “And we were only beginning to realise something out of this (flea market). We are facing tough times ahead.”

These folks did not need to explain the gloomy predictions of their economic future by referring to Erich Bloch or Tony Hawkings but know from experience where they are from and, with such frustration with what are seen as very flawed political and electoral processes that have come to define Zimbabwe, they are not cursing Tsvangirai and the MDC-T but a system thought to have allowed such incredible results.

Everywhere one went the sentiment was that this was a classic case of daylight robbery, and grown men could be seen literally drowning their sorrows by taking generous quaffs of bottles brown, green and other liver melting stuff.

Another asked between sips: “so this means another five years of Zanu PF?”

Yes.

Feedback from On The Ground:

Dear Kubatana, What a disputed poll. The just ended poll was a sham, illegitimate, unfair & unfree. Firstly, intimidation & harassment of voters were rampant especially in rural areas by traditional leaders & war veterans. Most rural voters were forced to declare themselves illiterate particularly those suspected of supporting opposition parties or threatened not to go to vote. Also, the voter registration exercise was selective, intimidatory, ill-informed & short. Of concern was lack of voter education & inspection of the voters’ roll due to no or short time allocated to the two respectively. – Chikomba East

Is anyone wondering why the polling stations were kept open for 5 hours from 7 to 12 when most queues had disappeared by 7pm? Why not 1 hour or 2 hours if still queues? Does this add to the theory of the vanishing ink Nikuv style?

When we went to the polling station my name was missing imagine that I was told we can’t find it a lot of people failed to vote just becoz their names were missing in the voters role. WILL I EVER GET MY DESIRED JOB. I was shocked  knowing that maybe no change will ever come.

When I voted I took down the numbers of each of my voting slips. When the results came out in the Ballantyne car park pics were taken of the results sheets. I have compared my NA voting number to the list of book numbers they had written down. The NA numbers reflected numbers 06 35701 to 06 36700. But my number wasn’t there. Maybe these book numbers are not meant to tie into voting slip numbers! Can you enlighten?

There is a lot that remains to be said – some add “and done” – about the poll furore, but the most radical that I have heard is that the MDC-T is no longer the party that will lead Zimbabweans to the Promised Land.

I sat among some of the country’s respected senior citizens over the weekend as they mourned the death – once again – of credible elections and one thing one of them said rather angrily was that he did not want to discuss what went wrong but wanted to ponder the question: “what’s next?”

Indeed “what next?”

These are men who spoke fondly of Charles Chikerema, Authur Chadzingwa, men who recalled the politics of George Nyandoro, and exchanged stories about the bad turn the country took despite all the promise, and these elections became an opportunity to talk about the past, the present and the future of Zimbabwe.

One angry old intellectual said despite his loathing for Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF, he felt the country could do well with a new political party that would make sure to succeed where the MDC-T had failed, opining that Zanu PF had actually exercised some kind of selective magnanimity by “letting” some MDC-T candidates win and also extending the same to Zanu PF whom the revolutionary party “let” lose!

It was a strange conversation to be part of, but as one said, Zanu PF has no shame, yet I found myself musing over how all this anger being palpably felt across the country will be dealt with amidst concerns that what Zanu PF seeks is any excuse available to unleash the wrath of the security forces on civilians.

Yet one of these enlightened senior citizens was of the view that no soldier or policeman would act on such instructions to beat up any marchers because the same police and soldiers are fed up with the system that has taught nothing but hate and suffering.

This is disturbingly interesting considering the eagerness of the uniformed juniors to cast their vote during the special vote chaos.

I asked how the MDC-T lost Mbare for example, and an old professor said, “I know the guy who won for Zanu PF, he is a cruel man.” The response was loaded in that the old professor said nothing about the tactics that were employed to win but rather the kind of people who have been made guardians of our public life and space.

It was the kind of frustration with the election results that has you thinking, “If these old enlightened men are feeling this way, what of the younger people for whom this election was meant to provide a new beginning?”

One of the favourite occupations of many an analyst during the run-up to the poll was wide guesses about possible post-election scenarios, and like many such occasions, no one seems to have a clue about what’s likely to happen now that Mugabe has once again stunned everyone.

Besides the MDC-T changing its leadership, one suggested that Zanu PF had actually began destroying the MDC-T in that in forming a new government, it would invite some winning MDC-T MPs despite Tsvangirai’s position that these MPs must have nothing to do with a Zanu PF government.

And because we already know how eager everyone was to occupy cabinet posts during the GNU, this could indeed present problems for the MDC-T where its members appointed to cabinet positions through Mugabe’s magnanimity will see no reason why they should not take up the posts.

It then it becomes a matter of principle, but such appeals are always problematic in that such men and women sorely lacked when the GNU was birthed.

Meanwhile, like many Zimbabweans, the old wise men retreat to their own spaces and watch Zanu PF’s next move, because honestly, no one has a clue where we are going from here.