We got this amusing letter in from a subscriber today. Maybe that’s what’s taking so long – Bob is still busy finalising his farewell speech.

Dear All

I am happy I finally got the words, courage and guts to write this note. It has been a great pleasure ruling Zimbabwe for the past 28 years uninterrupted, though I must admit that my new country and home is more comfortable than your old State House where Tongogara and Chitepo’s ghosts kept knocking the sense out of my head. Zvidhoma zvine nharo izvozvo! Bvunzai Grace!

I would like to thank all those who supported me during and after all those painful years, the Liberation War, the Matabeleland Chaos, the Land Reform, the Referendum, Murambatsvina and lately the Price Slashing. It almost turned nasty. I could have written more but I have reserved it for my new book, I hope I will release it before my next birthday. Please keep in touch and pray that this silly MDC doesn’t donate the country to Gordon Brown, and that 2008 be a great year for every Zimbabwean where ever they may be hibernating. I hear you have decided to prosecute Gideon Gono for all that he did to you. I didn’t know that guy was so afraid of me until I gave him a job at the central bank. He was also so fond of a certain Printer that I had to order another one for his new home in Borrowdale.

I don’t want to say much about the Politburo, but 1 thing for sure I miss you guys, except this gentleman who used to brag about Harvard University. He was so naughty! It’s always good to have a bunch of old men who can’t say “NO!”. The kids are fine but Grace is increasingly becoming rude. I will ask Kunonga to pray for her!

Till we meet again, may God bless you all.

Regards

Robert Mugabe

South African cartoonist Zapiro sums up what most of us have been feeling. How ironic is it that Mugabe, of all people, reckons this election was rigged. Who else could have rigged it but him?

Along with Bev and the rest of the team at Kubatana.net, not to mention the vast majority of our SMS subscribers, I’m impatient with this non-release of the presidential result from our March 29 election. It’s now 12 days since we voted, and the High Court judge hearing the MDC’s petition to force the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to release the results reckons that, maybe, if he exerts himself, he might have a decision by next week Monday about whether ZEC has to tell the people of Zimbabwe what the outcome our so-called democratic election.

Hundreds of our subscribers have been emailing and texting us with their frustrations, all of whom are gobsmacked at this interminable delay. What was the points of us all going to the polls if we’re never told what the result is?

For example, Brian, one of our subscribers wrote recently, saying “Still waiting. Why not wait some where visible?” We put this comment in our newsletter today, and another subscriber wrote back:

I for one absolutely agree with Brian. Let us go out there and wait somewhere everday. Simply got to the ZEC offices sit outside and wait. Nobody goes to work. We wait. I’m tired of the arrogance. Nobody should be allowed to mess with a nation’s collective voice, the ballot!

I couldn’t agree more.

So I was gratified to see WOZA, at least Doing Something, and not just sitting back and waiting. They held a demonstration in Bulawayo yesterday to protest the delay and to call on ZEC to release the presidential results immediately. Around 800 members held a peaceful protest, toyi toying through Zimbabwe’s second largest city to the steps of the Bulawayo High Court. The police, as they put it, arrived late (like ZEC), and only managed to arrest a few flyers and placards.

It’s about 3:45 in the afternoon and one of Mugabe’s jet fighters is buzzing our Harare skies. As much as I hate it my skin involuntarily goose pimples. It’s intimidating, it’s threatening and it’s a fucking waste of fuel. Here on the ground, we breathe in deeply, swallow our distaste and we get on with our work.

And, we have a laugh . . . Mugabe: R.I.P (Rigging In Process)

My Radox Stress Release bubble bath has run out, and so has my patience.

In no particular order, I’m fed up with:

a) vendors selling me over priced trays of eggs whilst I’m crossing the road
b) dead of night tsotsis stealing telephone cables rendering all phones kaput
c) my hunting dog waking me up at 4am, 3 nights in a row
d) civil society fear merchants who say Don’t Do A Damned Thing, or we’ll provoke a state of emergency in Zimbabwe
e) Mugabe
f) waiting

An old woman asked me the other day: “What is happening my son? When is the old bugger going?” I almost lost my step, but quickly recovered as it occurred to me that this was one election whole generations had not seen in a long time. But to have an old woman who has since retired from her vending outside the local pub and is looking after a brood of grandchildren asking about the hottest news story at the moment meant “the old bugger” had indeed stepped on the toes (some say hearts) of people who in the past would not have been bothered about the politics of this House of Stones.

Then I remembered the women who had been battered by riot police as they marched across the country taking the regime to task about issues ranging from starving children to sanitary ware to a new constitution. Some of these valiant women had indeed met their death as they marched for a better Zimbabwe, and it got me thinking. This old woman concerned about post-election Zimbabwe, and evidently concerned about her own future and that of her grandchildren, could easily be one of those many women who in the recent past took to the streets to have their voices heard. But by the belligerence we have seen and heard with the pugnacious veterans of the 70s bush war declaring once again they will not allow imperialists to take over the country, the poor old granny could just find herself on the receiving end of booted feet, clenched fists and spiked cudgels.

And for what? For daring to demand their inalienable right to choose the political leaders they want. Does this man ever sleep? If he does, we can only guess what he dreams about. But the granny proffers a clue about what SHE dreams about. She still has hope for a better Zimbabwe.