One really has to wonder about the Zimbabwe government’s airport highway project. First, there’s hardly anyone using the airport. Second, on my return to Zimbabwe last Thursday evening, there were no traffic lights working and there was very little street lighting. The current road does its job just fine. Pretty soon we’ll have a very big and expensive road and we’ll still have no street lighting or working traffic lights because Zimbabwe’s national power company can’t deliver.

Some fine minds at work in our government.

The non-working traffic lights on the night I returned were of course causing mayhem. Lounging in the dark at these intersections were details of two policemen and women clearly waiting for some political chef to make his or her way home from the airport. They stood idly by gazing at the traffic snarled up in front of their noses. But, imagine if they were caught directing traffic and Mugabe or Tsvangirai came motorcading through!

On arriving home I was greeted at the back door with someone waving a torch at me.

I was told that most days and nights there had been a powercut. Since Thursday I’ve had one day of power. The Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA) estimates our bills every month. Amounts are not based on actual useage. But do you think that they’ll take into account that as winter bites and they’re providing a third of the power they used to, that they will estimate their bills down. Ha. Fat chance. Instead our bills will remain the same, or in many cases, increase.

Bright sparks at work in ZESA? I don’t think so.

I thought I heard Walter Mupfanuchiya [sic] say, “for more news you can visit us on our website, mdc.co.zw.” I swear. The mind can sometimes let slip what lies hidden in the dark corners which we make strenuous albeit subconscious attempts to cloak. Something called the Freudian slip perhaps?

But anyways, when I saw him again cyborg-like reading the 8 o’clock bulletin the following day, I figured either my ears were playing tricks on me or Shamu and other mandarins had not been alert enough to catch this clincher. Or it could also mean they missed it because heck, they do not watch their own drivel!

Elsewhere, I had a chat with a female Botswana journalist who was puzzled why political parties that carry names such as African Christian Democratic Party, Christian Democrats, and other some such names with “Christian” in them and come blazing the trail as pro-lifers, preach the “political gospel” of the goodwill of Man, political salvation from political Devils, et cetera et cetera, do not produce any landslide win?

Her logic was simple. These are principles, virtues, ideals every human being firmly believes in, so why are these parties not popular as one would expect? Hmmmm. I extended the thread, but of course with no pretense to psychological interrogation, just common sense:

Why do bad men insist they are good?

Why does Zanu PF use violence on opponents when it already claims mass popularity?

Why do Tsvangirai supporters make good Zanu PF students by violently expressing their opposition to fellow “freedom fighters?”

Why does the MDC allow itself to disintegrate before it even tastes power as the only party forming government by pitting founding members against each other in congresses that are ostensibly held to showcase Tsvangirai’s democracy credentials?

Why do these African political parties that have invested years fighting the good fight for good governance allow egos into the democracy equation?

A guy parades his “popularity” among his party supporters when he is in essence contesting against someone he claims they are in it together punching from the same corner and still expects this “democratic model” to hold the centre together.

No wonder the “humiliated losers” have many a time decided to form their own political outfits and thus  begins the fall and fall into political obscurity. No wonder many believe rather ruefully that Zanu PF is here to stay. And no wonder political parties like those imagined by the Botswana journalist are always the type that emerge from the woodwork only when there is a poll looming.

A mind sure is a terrible thing to waste.

Andile Mngxitama, editor of New Frank Talk wrote a telling piece in the Mail and Guardian [25 April-May 5, 2011] titled “SA’s poor must shun the polls.”  Its basic thesis is that as South Africans got to the polls, “there is no benefit in voting for a hollow democracy that serves only the rich and elite.” His beef is that the ANC has little to claim for the people’s vote, and so does the main opposition the Democratic Alliance as the poor are still wallowing in poverty, years after the coming of democracy despite all the promises by the ANC.

It read like an analysis of the Zimbabwe situation. When analysts here call for the boycott of elections – usually because of political violence – Zanu PF is always quick to spring and label such calls as emanating from enemies of the revolution etc. It is interesting that as we will sooner or later have our own election, Zimbabweans are obviously asking themselves if it is worth the effort this time because of all the undelivered promises since 1980.

Yet others have said rather with an idealism that Mngxitama will do doubt dismiss that bad governments are chosen by people who do not vote. Still our history has shown since 1980 that even if people come out in their numbers to vote, they still manage to vote in a very bad government! The logical thing then would be not to waste one’s vote and simply stay away!

In our past elections voter apathy has ruled the day without any overt calls from any civic groups to stay away from the polls yet the people  are surely tired of voting for politicians only that they continue looting national resources. It is interesting in itself that calls to boycott elections have been directed at parties contesting against Zanu PF not the voters themselves who no doubt hold the leverages of power in any functioning democracy.

The other week Minister Obert Mpofu came to the rescue of debt-ridden Highlanders football club in Bulawayo, and the obvious question that emerged from the average dude – excluding the beneficiaries of the largess no doubt [something about looking the gift horse in the mouth] – was that where does a minister get that kind of money when these government officials have always complained to Biti that they are getting a pittance in the name of salaries. Even with the increment of ministers’ salaries a couple of months ago, would anyone be able to afford such magnanimity?

It is pedestrian to say it is abnormal for an African government minister to be poor, yet it has to be asked for how long will the people of Zimbabwe be used as doormats and blindly continue voting for men and women who have no regard for African laws of modesty but flaunt their obscene wealth, sagging bellies, ready-to-explode cheeks, right in front of impoverished voters.

The tragedy of it all perhaps is that we still find jobless energetic men and women in our midst doing the rounds coercing residents to join long queues under the cruel African sun to vote, claiming that those who are exercising their right not to vote are doing so at the bidding of forces hostile to the land reform project!

Watching Americans celebrate, particularly at Ground Zero, you would think that the death of this one man meant the death of all terrorist organisations, and that they – never mind the rest world in which American embassies and consulates are peppered – are safe forever. One college student is quoted as saying ‘Yeah it was right to kill him. He took down the [Twin] Towers. He was a threat to the security of our nation.” The US homicide rate is among the worst in the industrialised world, surely this is a more pressing matter than killing a man who to all intents and purposes posed a lesser threat to national security?

Bin Laden was summarily executed without trial. American security operatives effectively invaded Pakistan and killed a man. I’m fairly certain that this violates all sorts of international treaties and human rights conventions. Members of former president Bush’s administration say that water boarding, a controversial form of torture, was crucial in extracting information on Bin Laden’s whereabouts. I know for certain that this is a direct violation of the Geneva Convention. But these inconvenient rules and laws don’t really apply to the United States do they? While the former president Musharraf of Pakistan has raised his objections regarding the operation, the sitting president is doing his best to kiss America’s ass. His country needs aid.

Unlike the case of Saddam Hussein, images of whose dead body were mercilessly displayed all over the international media, there is a frightening absence of any actual evidence that bin Laden is dead. It’s difficult to understand how this can be so when the operatives who killed him were able to record the entire event for the benefit of Barack Obama. Are we really supposed to believe that after he was killed, not one single man or woman involved in ‘Operation Geronimo’ took a photograph? It is no wonder then that terrorist organisations are refusing to take Obama’s word for it. I wouldn’t either.

It’s ironic that bin Laden was code named Geronimo, after an Apache leader who fought against the United States and Mexico for pretty much the same reasons and bin Laden waged his war against the United States. I’m sure the American government at the time called him a terrorist too. In view of the lack of evidence for bin Laden’s demise, it is interesting that when Geronimo was eventually tracked down by American authorities he managed to live to old age as a prisoner of war.

So now that bin Laden is dead is the world really a safer place? Not really. And exactly what significance does bin Laden’s death have on the Muslim minority of extremists fighting a jihad? Will this single act stop them dead in their tracks and force them to realise that their cause is a lost one? Or will it just add more fuel to the fire? Possibly. It’s just another example of American imperialism. America has shown the same disregard for the sanctity of human life, sovereignty, and the international conventions that that she accuses third world dictators of having. And quite frankly, I’ll take Mugabe or Chavez over American hypocrisy any day.

The Youth Forum shares this invitation for feedback and debate:

A lot of media hype has been created around the election roadmap for Zimbabwe that has again been the centre of intense negotiations amongst negotiators from Zanu PF and the two MDC formations. The Youth Forum will in the coming weeks be hosting discussions and consultations among youth on whether Zimbabwe is really in need of a special election roadmap. This is against the background that SADC approved in 2004 principles and guidelines governing democratic elections. Other SADC countries notably South Africa and Botswana have developed sound electoral systems based on these principles and guidelines.

The Youth Forum contends that if properly and fully followed, these guidelines can lead to the holding of a free and fair election in Zimbabwe. Section 7 of the SADC guidelines clearly lays out specific requirements to guarantee credible elections by member states. The Youth Forum will therefore seek to give young people a chance to scrutinize both the roadmap and the guidelines and detailed analyses of both will be made to determine whether SADC is not going round in circles in facilitating negotiations over the current proposed Zimbabwe election roadmap.

Read the:

• Zimbabwe Election Roadmap draft
• SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections

And share your comments below or contact youthforumpublicity [at] gmail [dot] com with your input.

No major changes in the MDC’s leadership after their Congress. Chingoka re-elected Chairman of Zimbabwe cricket. Mugabe says the media in Zimbabwe should be objective. Tsvangirai promises $100 economy.

Sadly its not April Fools Day.