Robert Nzara, a Zimbabwean living in South Africa, who had joined the rest of his fellow countrymen applying for passports, was assaulted last Thursday at the temporary Zimbabwe consulate at the Bellville Home Affairs office in Cape Town. Just when our neighbors in South Africa gave our fellow Zimbabweans a reprieve to regularize their stay to March 31, here we are busy fighting each other.  Read the story on the Sowetan website

I read online today that the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, and his alleged ‘lover’ Aquilina Kayidza Pamberi, have both denied the allegations that they were having an affair. Was this one of those “unfounded and baseless” stories to “besmirch the person and office of the Prime Minister”? Read the stories from Newsday here and The Standard here

Having a textbook on a desk in most schools in Zimbabwe is now deemed a privilege. Pupils have to scramble for the limited resources and in some scenarios the teacher’s copy is the only one available for use. However with the injection of 13 million textbooks being delivered to schools by the Ministry of Education the scenario is going to change. Hopefully along the way teachers will get a boost to their salaries as well! Read more from Voice of America

The statement below published by the Bulawayo Agenda will be a shocker to many Zimbabweans. If you thought traffic police were chasing after commuter omnibuses to get bribes to line their pockets you might want to think again . . .

Traffic police in Bulawayo have virtually closed all entrances into the city centre from the suburbs. Commuter omnibus crews had to drive around the city in a bid to gain entrance. Some commuters were dropped out of town as crews avoided being arrested by the police, who were on both feet and on patrol vehicles. Some allege that the police have been instructed to raise money for elections, which President Mugabe wants as soon as possible.

(Bulawayo Agenda is a civil society organisation that conducts advocacy on issues of democracy. It is committed to providing an apolitical platform for people to express their views and debate on matters that affect their lives. It has active chapters in Gweru, Gwanda, Plumtree, Victoria Falls, Matopo, Hwange, Binga, Nkayi, Lupane and Tsholotsho.)

The weekend’s media carried several articles regarding Afrobarometer’s most recent survey titled     Zimbabwe, the evolving public mood. Interestingly the survey reports that 70% out of a sample of 1192 persons responded yes to a question that asked: “Do you think that Zimbabwe should hold elections next year, that is, in 2011?”  The report also notes that relatively few people favoured deferring elections to a later date.

Of this the writer of the report theorizes: That seven in ten would-be voters are anxious to freely elect leaders of their choice, even in an atmosphere where security forces and party militias are again on the move, is testament to the impressive depth of Zimbabweans’ commitment to political rights.

That’s a nice thing to think about Zimbabweans, but I don’t believe it. The same survey reports an increase in reluctance to divulge political party preference and an increase in reported support for ZANU PF. Consider our last election, in which gangs of young men went about rural Zimbabwe beating and raping innocent men and women who were only rumored to support MDC. I don’t think these people are brave, or selfless, or committed to democracy. I think they’re scared.

ZANU PF may not be all-powerful in the low-density suburbs, or even in the rest of the city, but in rural Zimbabwe, it’s Orwellian. It’s difficult to be completely honest with an unknown person whose word cannot be verified. Anyone who has ever conducted a survey will tell you that people will tell you what they think you want to hear. And with a ruling party that bears an uncanny resemblance to Nineteen Eighty Four’s Big Brother its very difficult to shake the feeling that they’re watching you. The ‘thought-crime’ of harboring ideas in your mind such as democracy, the right to vote and secret ballots do not go unpunished.

Attending primary school was really tedious for me as a youngster. As Grade 7 pupils we had to be the first at school so we could write some tests before the teacher came. We were the last ones to leave too, in order to attend the remedial classes. We knew no holiday as most of it was spent at school reading and preparing for the final examinations.  My school’s hymn was, “The light that shines so bright”. However, in as much as we sang the school hymn with great energy and enthusiasm that could awaken the dead, we still failed to reach the top of the Grade 7 pass rate in the region.

What amazed me the most was the same school came tops for the years I spent in my primary education. Their pass rate was always high and you really wondered what teaching method was being used that other schools were failing to implement to achieve high pass rates. Word on the street had it that they opened the exam papers and gave them to the pupils before they sat for their final examination. Thus maintaining the same outstandingly high pass rate.

Today The Herald published a story that proves that headmasters and their administration might well do nasty tricks to get their pass rates high. In this particular story the headmaster (61) actually sat for different papers on behalf of six pupils. The accused headmaster had this to say in court, “The school development committee and parents had given me a last chance to improve the school’s pass rate and I agreed with my administration staff that we would help our best pupils to improve the pass rate”. Emmanuel Manokore of Nyamakate Primary School in Hurungwe committed this crime.

Now I am really wondering what that school did to keep tops despite all the efforts we made to try and beat them. Did they really open the examination papers? Or did the headmaster sit for examinations on behalf of the pupils?