A country whose politics makes a tradition of tragic deaths through suspicious automobile accidents can only have very little to claim as an “open society.”

Zimbabwe’s roads after independence are littered with deaths of prominent individuals who everyone knows had become a pain in the ass of the oligarchs. These were individuals expressing their version of the truth as opposed to the “official” line peddled by spin doctors and apologists of the political establishment. The dead men’s crusades would be perfectly in order in any country that is not North Korea.

That this continues to happen long after independence where Africa’s liberation struggle was short-circuited and chaos-riddled by ideological wars defined by the U.S.S.R and the U.S.A and went on to claim anyone from Patrice Lumumba to Amílcar Cabral to Thomas Sankara, to Zimbabwe’s own revolution that ate its own children from Josiah Magama Tongogara to Sydney Malunga points to a political tradition that is inimical to the very ideals the “new democrats” purport to espouse.

In Zimbabwe no accident that claims a prominent politician is an accident at all. It is just one of those things we have come to accept.

What is disturbing is that despite this, it still remains the chosen modus operandi of eliminating perceived opponents.

This cannot be belaboured here, yet the impunity is troubling.

Small wonder that many people here await the day not of healing political wounds but a day of retribution where those fingered in these acts of political assassination will have their testicles squeezed in the people’s angry court.

That Zimbabweans have an “insider” tipping prominent individuals that they are targets of assassination only makes this more disturbing because apparently there is very little or nothing these people can do to avoid what is increasingly their inevitable demise.

It’s only recently that one “powerful” Zanu PF don said of Energy Mutodi’s claim that the don wanted Mutodi killed: “If I wanted him (Mutodi) killed do you think he would still be alive?”

As Karl Max once said about the French revolution, “History repeats itself, the first time as a tragedy, then as a farce.” The month of June synonymous with tragedy for Zimbabwe this time has brought in a new dimension shaping the political discourse of Zimbabwe.  The farce, which many would have anticipated, is just another tragedy repeating itself. It is not farce when citizens prepare to run away from their homes and neither it is comedy when you hear threats of war when you decide to choose the leader of your choice. The past five years of has been a bag mixed fortunes with tears and joy. Shop shelves, which were once deserted all of a sudden became flooded with goods though most of them were imports but the nation managed to survive up to now. At least we managed to survive after the signing of the Global Peace Agreement (GPA) in 2008 to witness the unfolding of another tragedy. Well the GPA is now in its closing episode but it remains to be seen who will claim credit for bringing hope to this nation which was on the brick of collapsing. To some this proclamation of an election date is a farce but to those who suffered during the winter chills of June 2008 will tell you it’s a tragedy. If history is going to repeat itself let it not be in the form of another coalition government.

Hey! Need a job? Want to work in the NGO/development sector in Zimbabwe? Check out the job vacancies below and apply today. If you want to receive regular civic and human rights information, together with NGO job vacancies and other opportunities like scholarships by getting our regular email newsletter, please email join [at] kubatana [dot] net

Group facilitator: International Business & Technical Consultants, Inc. (IBTCI)
Deadline: 21 June 2013

Summary
IBTCI is currently seeking a Zimbabwean national, Group Facilitator, for an Evaluation of USAID/Zimbabwe’s Agriculture Portfolio. The evaluation period of performance is about 10 weeks including about 5-6 weeks of fieldwork. This performance evaluation is a portfolio evaluation that will enable USAID/Zimbabwe Economic Growth Office to evaluate whether the portfolio design was appropriate and whether projects have and are achieving the desired results. It will also help inform the remaining implementation of on-going projects and future project design for follow-on activities.

Qualifications
-A minimum of a Bachelor’s Degree, preferably in marketing or communications
-At least five years’ experience in consumer market research or related fields
-At least two years’ experience in facilitating focus groups, conducting interviews, etc
-Individuals should be highly skilled in interviewing subjects from a lower socio economic background and drawing out information
-Knowledge of the social and cultural factors in agricultural development projects
-Prior experience on USAID activities or evaluations preferred
-Fluency in English and Shona and/or Ndebele required.

To apply
Please send an updated CV to: recruiting [at] ibtci [dot] com with the subject line “Zimbabwe Group Facilitator”.

No phone calls please. Only final candidates will be contacted.
IBTCI is an equal opportunity employer.

A comment from James, in Harare:

I feel the current exercise to register and inspect names is a project to hoodwink the outside. I also don’t trust ZEC and voters’ rolls that are run by Tobaiwa Mudede’s office becoz he is biased in favour of ZANU PF.

Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe stunned the nation yesterday by using the Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act to gazette amendments to the Electoral Act in the morning. And then he followed this up with a proclamation of election date in the afternoon, gazetting Zimbabwe’s Harmonised Election for 31 July 2013.

President Mugabe justified this action by claiming deference to the Constitutional Court ruling last month that ordered that Zimbabwe’s elections be held on or before 31 July of this year.

Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai immediately issued a statement rejecting Mugabe’s unilateral setting of the election date, calling it unconstitutional.

Indeed, according to Zimbabwe legislation distribution and analysis service Veritas, Mugabe’s actions are problematic (read illegal and invalid) for a number of reasons:

1)      According to section 31H of Zimbabwe’s old constitution which is still in force, the President was required to act in consultation with Cabinet in proclaiming election dates. Given that yesterday’s actions took everyone by surprise, he clearly didn’t do so.

2)      The Presidential Powers (Temporary Measures) Act, states that regulations made under the act shall not cover things which the Constitution provides will be covered by an Act of Parliament – The new Constitution requires that the new provisions for the Electoral Law be passed by Parliament, and not made by regulation in terms of another Act (like the Presidential Powers Act).

3)      The Electoral Regulations and the election proclamation have now both been gazetted on 13 June. So both have the same publishing date, that is, they were published simultaneously according to how government dates Statutory Instrument (section 20 of the Interpretation Act). If they were published simultaneously, the regulations “cannot be said to have had effect before the election was called. Hence, under section 157(5) of the new constitution, they must be disregarded.”

So, it would appear that the 31 July election proclamation is both unconstitutional and illegal. The trouble, of course, is how to enforce the law in a country whose President so flagrantly disregards it. This just makes things doubly worrying, however. As Marko Phiri pointed out yesterday, “if Mugabe can unilaterally call for polls despite Tsvangirai’s own earlier declaration that he holds the keys to elections, what is to stop him (Mugabe) from declaring himself a winner in the elections, or as he did in 2008 refuse to accept defeat.”

One of the books in my current reading list is The Trouble with Africa: Why Foreign Aid Is Not Working by Robert Calderisi. Riveting stuff. Calderisi writes: “ ‘Continued rule for half a generation must turn a man into an autocrat,’ thought Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes and author of The Great Boer War (1901), ‘The old president (Paul Kruger) has said himself that when one gets a good ox to lead the team it is a pity to change him. If a good ox however is left to choose his own direction without guidance, he may draw his wagon into trouble.’ ” Calderisi, a former World Bank senior official who for many years worked in Africa, then adds his own voice: “One wishes that later African presidents could be described so indulgently.”