A sit-in protest in Bulawayo by members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) in Bulawayo led to the arrest of 100 of its members. The protests were organized to push for devolution of power, an immediate release of the constitution and expose the disrespect to the late Vice President Joshua Nkomo whose statue is still to be put up in the city.

The police in Bulawayo arrested over 100 members of the Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) pressure group, as they conducted a sit-in protest on Wednesday calling for the immediate release of a draft Constitution. According to WOZA, many members in custody were handcuffed, which is a violation of women’s rights protocols.

Over 100 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) are in custody at Bulawayo Central Police station, many are handcuffed in violation of women’s right protocols. Riot Police ran wildly around the Main Street and 8th Avenue intersection on orders of their Officer Commanding Bulawayo who was present to demand they arrest members.

Lawyers have been denied access on three separate occasions. Those in custody include WOZA leader Magodonga Mahlangu, three minor children who are not members of WOZA and 3 breastfeeding mothers in custody. WOZA national coordinator Jenni Williams was not arrested.

Ten protests were due to start at 11am Wednesday 27 June 2012 but Riot police had already arrested 40 members and by-standers by 10:30am. Only 3 of the ten protests made it to the sit-in location will be the road surrounding the space where the memorial statue of late Joshua Nkomo should be.

Four additional protests were conducted after 11:30 am marching from the Statue to the Bulawayo Central Police station. Riot police were deployed to refuse them entry into the police station and threatened to beat them before dispersing them from handing themselves in.

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I watched a piece of journalistic buffoonery last night on Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s Economic Forum and wondered who approves this kind of crap to make it to people’s living rooms. By its very name, the programme discusses economic matters but here was this fat guy with apparent breathing problems inviting Zanu PF’s chief of spin to talk politics! This guy who must be standing in for the amiable Billet Magara asked what I figured gotta be some of the dumbest leading questions to come from the mouth of a journalist. Instead of using the opportunity to quiz Rugare Gumbo why his political party has a proclivity for ruinous economic policies, he asks questions such as “do you think voters will realise the mistakes they did last elections by voting for the MDC?”; “Reports say there is factionalism in your party. How true are those reports?” and it went on and on. I’m like “what the kcuf”? What has this got to do with “Economic Forum?” And this is a programme supposedly made not by ZBC hacks but by independent producers! Independent of critical thinking! So much for intelligent journalism.

Attorney General Johannes Tomana has rubbished recent media reports regarding the reappointment of Augstine Chihuri as Police Commissioner General by the President.

President Mugabe is the only person with the mandate to appoint or reappoint the Commissioner-General of Police and other constitutional bodies without consulting anyone except the Public Service Commission

Tomana uses a superfluous semantic argument about the legal differences between appointment and re-appointment in the constitution. Truthfully, he needn’t have wasted his breath.

The MDC is trying to exercise Subsection 20.1.3 (p) of the Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment (No. 19)Act, 2008 states that the President:

in consultation with the Prime Minister, makes key appointments the President is required to make under and in terms of the Constitution or any Act of Parliament;

Where “in consultation” is defined in Amendment 19 as meaning that the President is required to consult and secure the agreement or consent of the person consulted. In this case the Prime Minister.

However, Chapter IX Section 93(2) of the Constitution which deals with the appointment of the Police Commissioner General requires that any appointments to this position be made “after consultation with such person or authority as may be prescribed by or under an Act of Parliament”. In other words, the President may appoint, or re-appoint as his whims dictate.

In an audit of the Global political Agreement Dereck Matyszak notes that the MDC placed undue emphasis on gaining control of the Ministry of Home affairs which administers the Police Act. Given the number of lawyers amongst the MDC’s Party officials it is surprising that they were unaware that only the President and Police Commissioner General determine appointments within the Police Force, while the Attorney General may -Commissioner General to direct the Police Commissioner General to investigate criminal offences and he as the final say over  prosecutions. I’m sure that the MDC-T is very aware that the Attorney General, Mr Tomana, serves at the pleasure of the President.

In the beginning of the MDC-Ts formal relationship with ZANU PF Mr Tsvangirai has the opportunity to exert the authority of his office. He neglected to do so in favour of political expediency. MDC-T will of course cry foul to anyone who’ll listen over Chihuri’s inevitable re-appointment. They may even threaten to pull out of the Inclusive Government and throw themselves on the ground in front of Zuma and SADC begging that their boo-boo be fixed and the world made right again. They have only themselves to blame.

In concluding his introduction to the audit, Mr Matsyszak wrote:

No one should be surprised by the failure of the GPA to open democratic space. The chain of command over the instruments of state repression was unaltered.

SW Radio Africa (London) reports that ‘Hundreds turned out for the Global Free Zimbabwe protests’. The protests were organised by MDC-T in an effort to pressure the South African government and SADC to ensure that ZANU PF is forced to honour the Global Political Agreement.

Zimbabwe vigil organiser, Rose Benton explained to SW Radio Africa that the London part of the protests was ‘a very big success’. The Zimbabwean community in London is estimated to number 100 000 and is largely concentrated in London. An estimated 300 gathered for the protest there.

It is estimated that millions of Zimbabweans reside outside the country’s borders. However, globally, less than 1000 people participated. Success, I suppose, is relative.

As one half of government and a party to the GPA itself, I wonder at the naiveté shown by the organisers of the protests. There is no denying that ZANU PF has stymied implementation of the GPA. But after having fought for democracy for so long, I would have hoped that MDC-T might have formulated a different strategy that best utilises the tools they have at hand. Contrary to what the MDC-T would have Zimbabweans in the Diaspora believe, it is not entirely powerless in government. Combined all the MDC factions hold a majority in both houses of Parliament. Given these circumstances it is surprising that key provisions to the GPA such as amendments to POSA and AIPPA are yet to be passed into law.

Like ZANU PF, MDC-T has consistently failed to deliver on its promises to the people of Zimbabwe. These protests are nothing more than a mass diversion to take away attention from the real issues and dissociate that party from the mess it too has made of this transitional period. Moreover, MDC-T has gotten into the disturbing habit of looking for a big brother in its fight with ZANU PF. The MDC-T persists in appealing to an international community that is largely fatigued of the Zimbabwean situation and is plagued by its own problems. By doing so, MDC-T plays directly into the hands of ZANU PF who accuse the party’s leadership of letting their decisions be made by foreign ambassadors. Acquiring power is a struggle in itself, the difficulties of which should never be underestimated. No amount of hand-wringing and petition signing is going to make it any easier. After years of South African mediation and questionable sanctions, none of which have been effective in wresting power from ZANU PF, MDC-T really should know better. And if that party cannot hold its own, it shouldn’t be in the ring.

It’s a new year and it’s that period when people say all kinds of silly things and expect to be taken seriously. From ordinary Jacks to extraordinary Dicks, you hear them mouthing crap and you wonder what inspires this specialisation in crapology. Then you think, maybe they are exhibiting unbound elation that they made into the New Year when other people were not so fortunate. But then, is being alive reason to say silly things? So, imagine the response to the question, “Why are you being silly,” “Because I’m alive!” I am not just talking about the so-called resolutions for the fresh year which history has shown have become fashionable empty proclamations of nonexistent faith, but perhaps importantly I am inevitably referencing the political.

I heard the other day a Zanu PF (who else?) mandarin going on and on about how his party would open up the primary election contests where every Jack and Dick would throw in their hat. He obviously did not include himself, for if he did, it would mean he would also be welcoming challengers within the party to vie for the representation of the rural folk where voters have been taken for granted for 30 something years. But knowing these people and their history of violence where they have indeed become career politicians through means nefarious, the sincerity is suspect as rejection in primary polls automatically means “ABCya” to being part of that plutocracy that knows no shame. So why dice with “economic death” as it were if you can afford not to?

A spook or former spook, whatever his “official” title is, was reported to be challenging a scion of Zimbabwe politics, alleging the nephew of the president had done jack for the people. Predictably, the dreadlocked one struck back with the usual foul language, betraying his aversion for popular democracy. It would be interesting then if the guy fingered for “invading” Kuimba Shiri last year was rejected by the people during the primaries. Would he blame the MDC-T for his loss? He would he blame sanctions? I strongly suspect he would blame it on vote buying, himself knowing only too well of course how this works!

Then I also read the other day another day the MDC-N national organising secretary claiming the MDC-T was bent on turning the city of Bulawayo into some kind of Gehenna, citing policy proclamations by the MDC-T leadership in the city. He proffered all kinds of silly case examples, and I wondered why he was vesting the MDC-T with so much powers, the omnipotency of the gods. It was as if the MDC-T says jump and the people merely ask how high? Surely, does the MDC-T wield that much power over the people of Bulawayo that at the behest of Tabitha Khumalo and others, the city risks being turned into a sinner’s paradise? In any case, all Zimbabwean cities are faced with the same bloody issues whose authors are already known. Yet we have a chap who should know better seeing that he himself has no constituency he represents going on with the crappy political rhetoric “made popular” by such compatriots as Gabriel Chaibva, Jonathan Moyo, Chris Mutsvangwa, Godwin Nguni and many others who have made very self-righteous comments about the PM when they themselves have failed to call Mugabe’s bluff about extra-marital affairs and living with HIV within Zanu PF apparatchiks.

And you can bet your butt that as elections approach, we shall be subjected to even more silly crap from educated men and women in politics. But then hey, politics is by its nature elitist, excluding the voices of the ordinary folks, that’s why we have these petite bourgeoisie intellectuals saying all this kind of nonsense and expecting to be taken seriously.

It is a trait peculiar to politicians that evidence of abject poverty does not prick consciences in pursuit of their own happiness. The opulence flaunted by monarchs pales into insignificance when one recalls that monarchs are born blue bloods while politicians claim their wealth to election into public office ostensibly by claimed popular vote. Thus one has to think deep and taste the mood of very ordinary folks each time Zanu PF gets down to boogie in their annual shindigs. It is that time when the party that has claimed perpetual bankruptcy – both moral and financial – has its staunch loyalists lining up to make stupendous donations towards the hosting of these conferences. I have heard folks ask the moral philosophy questions such as why it has been found apt to give so generously to the party when constituencies claimed by the donor wallow in abject poverty, where that kind of wealth comes from, yet it also known how since independence, the line between party and the state has been blurred as Zanu PF used state resources as if they were their own.  And while other Zimbabweans curse, it has been baffling that other equally ordinary folks have taken these shindigs with such gusto reminiscent of the 1980 independence euphoria.

Saw some young men and women last weekend milling outside the Zanu PF offices in Bulawayo and a friend quipped: “do these people really believe in what they are doing?” But then it was a question that has been answered before: “as long sisidla” – “as long as we are we eating” – (getting something from Zanu PF). It has become one huge farce that young people thrown into the ranks of loafing by bad governance and “voodoo” economic policies can still proudly hold their heads up and claim their place within the party machinery, when at the same time they are not at it because they believe in anything it stands for but rather like vultures wanting to pounce and reap where they did not sow.

Every amoral young person who wants to be an instant money-bag and own a small mining claim knows they simply have to extol the virtues of Savior (some name huh?) Kasukuwere and they got it made. Forget hard work, forget scruples, coz these are virtues that do not apply here! What then are these young lions being bequeathed as a legacy they will one day have to pass on to other young lions? Should we start worrying then that Zimbabwe will have an unending cycle of bad people coming and going, seeing that any hopes of an MDC-T political dispensation remain but a mirage on the horizon?