“The peasant who cast his vote on July 31 created my victory. I am at his service. I am his emissary and servant.” Robert Mugabe

So does that mean we can all queue up at his mansion in Borrowdale with our empty buckets and get some water? Please.

Not many would have imagined that Mugabe would actually swear during his swearing in.

But then it has become customary fare that public events such as the inauguration always present a “too-good-to-be-true” opportunity to take jabs at anyone who does not find the old man’s politics likeable.

Yet it’s more than that: the inauguration, understandably boycotted by opponents who feel they were cheated, while appealing “So help me God,” was always going to be spliced with brickbats aimed at those Western countries who have condemned Zanu PF’s victory as a sham.

“As for the odd western nations which denounce our elections, we dismiss them as the vile ones whose moral turpitude we must mourn,” Mugabe charged, finding his element right there.

Even the Herald editorial, borrowing Biblical allegory with the headline “Desert is behind us, Canaan beckons,” could not resist that thread and commented: “We are fortunate in having the rest of the progressive world outside the evil Anglo-Saxon alliance of the US, Britain and its dominions Australia and Canada on our side.”

It’s the kind of stuff that gives you a hint of where we are going in our relations with the West, and we can expect more of that excoriation, yet of interest also is that even for ordinary Zimbabweans who feel cheated are invariably lumped with the West, and we already know how the MDC has been dealt with by the State media whom the MMPZ has accused of peddling hate speech.

But then, like a petulant child, the man could swear and get away with it, after all it was his party and no one could spoil it for him!

We know the exhortation that leadership comes with responsibility, and the next few months shall be watched closely as to where exactly we are going as a nation, and as the “new” president swore without any hint of irony: “The peasant who cast his vote on July 31 created my victory. I am at his service. I am his emissary and servant.”

Words are powerful constructs and we shall all be held to them.

I thought I’d share some of the feedback that we’ve been getting from Zimbabweans on Leonard Matsa’s recent article in which he suggests that Zanu PF didn’t so much win the election; rather the MDC don’t have a leadership and strategy capable of winning an election.

I have to respond to some of Leonard Matsa’s comments. I totally agree that the MDC leaders were sleep at the wheel of a ship that was steaming towards the rocks but I cannot agree that all the blame can be put at their doorstep. Our biggest problem was that we put our trust in the likes of the AU, SADC, ZANU, the Judges and assumed the honesty of our opponents. They did not realise the depths of desperation to subvert and undermine the whole electoral process that  ZANU and their government agencies were prepared to go to. The MDC cannot be blamed for the fact that the millions of people in Zimbabwe cannot be bothered to go and register. The MDC cannot be blamed for the appointment of partisan and devious people to the Registrar generals office so that those that did register were either excluded from the roll or deliberately put in some other constituency . The MDC cannot be blamed for the fact that Billions of dollars have been looted at Marange and diverted into the coffers of ZANU. Memory is a very short term thing, the people have forgotten what state Zimbabwe was in 5 years ago. The cholera, worthless money, poor service delivery collapsed infrastructure, hyperinflation and starvation have been forgotten by the people. The deprivations and suffering inflicted on the people by ZANU ineptitude and corruption over the first 28 years of independence cannot be blamed on the MDC. It appears that Zimbabwean people expected the MDC to fix all the hardships inflicted on them over a quarter of a century in the space of 5 years. They expected the MDC to do this with both hands tied behind their back and blindfolded. The real power was never in the hands of the MDC, the civil servants and local government officials have always been and still are manipulated and controlled by ZANU appointees and the MDC was and still is powerless to put a stop to it. The MDC’s biggest mistake and it will always be a scar on their reputation is that they were sweet talked into becoming a part of the GNU. The MDC in effect surrendered the mandate the people gave them in April 2008 through the control of parliament to recognise a president that stole the subsequent run off. The MDC leadership were then so arrogant and irrationally self confident that they agreed in 2013 to participate in the next flawed poll. My only hope is that the people of Zimbabwe never allow any of their future leaders (MDC or otherwise) to participate in any election without a completely level playing field and which is conducted and run by an honest broker. By participating in these last elections we have given Robert Mugabe and ZANU the legitimacy to claim “We were freely elected by a majority of the Zimbabwean electorate.” Everyone including the most die hard ZANU supporter knows that that statement is a complete fabrication. The people now have 5 years to decide whether they perpetuate the farce that is the ZANU government or find a new or existing leader that everyone can rally behind 100%.
Written by: John

Greetings! I am writing to express my profound gratitude for your featured article on leadership and democracy in Zimbabwe by Matsa. The article captured in a poetic way what most of us who are in the trenches for democracy’s sake have been seeing and watching for a very long time and now it has come to pass! The article is a balanced analysis that highlights our pain and betrayal without passing stinging judgement. I cant find a better way of saying what we have gone through as ordinary citizens than the way Masta has done. Thank you for your courage to publish this article and thank you to him for the inspiration he gives to the movement of those who pray to be delivered from evil! We are all to blame! and we are all pained! Peace.
Written by: Jimmy

My opinion is that Leonard Matsa’s article is spot on and presents the realities,Zanu PF started campaigning in 2009 hence the massive win. Written by: Gumbusai

Excellent. Many, many people are angry with MDC leadership but they do not really now why. Their anger is largely instinctual. This article will help folk articulate their anger. How do YOU get the people who will insist on leadership renewal to read this?
Written by: Richard

Yes, I support you. MDC has no leadership, its only that people of Zimbabwe are desperate for the so-called change. MDC should be honest and take responsibility of their mistakes and miscalculations not just to blackmail ZANU-PF with its clear policies.
Written by: Admire

You see now, this is why I don’t have birthday parties, anniversaries or any of that sort of stuff. More often than not parties actually prove how unpopular you are. Like you rifle through your addresses, email or other, and you figure yeah well how about her, even though you haven’t seen, never mind spoken to this person, in the last year. Take Mugabe for example. I mean you’re a President right. Not a new one either so you know quite a few folk, if you know what I mean. Then you have like a big Inauguration bash and barely any Important People come and the stadium fillers are made to smile with free fizzy drinks, T-shirts and some muzak to get the groove on. OK. So he had to do something. Poor guy. Must be bleak wondering where all the (real) love has gone.

Someone mentioned over the weekend that they are yet to meet anyone who is ecstatic about the July 31 poll outcome. The guy was kinda pissed off that everyone he met was complaining about what they sense are the tough times that lie ahead.

He was a middle aged man headed for Gokwe and like many people I have listened to since the poll results were announced, his was a story of a litany of hardships he has lived through over the years and according to him, the rural folks where his old mother lives remain a miserable lot yet are the same folks who “voted overwhelmingly” for Zanu PF.

He told me that at one time, he told them that he was no longer going to assist them with any resources seeing the way they choose to vote! He seemed to have a point.

I am also yet to meet anyone beating their chest about Zanu PF’s victory, but still meeting someone saying that they have not met any Zanu PF supporter in a rural area where Zanu PF won celebrating was very telling.

This man is one of many who have lost faith in the whole idea of elections and so-called democratic processes whose outcomes apparently do not have to reflect popular sentiment. So why hold elections then?

Many folks are just walking like zombies and their confusion and frustration is written all over their faces. And it ain’t nothing to laugh about.

Of course the usual fools will say in any election there are winners and losers, that SADC leaders have “endorsed” the poll results, that inauguration in definitely on this week, but then the very fact that this inauguration will happen against what appears to be muted excitement from the people who allegedly voted for the continuation of bad governance could well mean there are some people who are hell bent on seeing chaotic scenes of protest.

Haven’t we already seen protests as young disgruntled urban youths rightfully feel they have been violated?

And it is the kind of stuff that makes you believe this is just what someone out there is baying for, after all, this country is ruled by people who do not bat an eyelid telling anyone they do not agree with they will punch you in the nose or they are going to shoot you the same way they shot whites back in the 1970s. Some country this is.

You do not need to be a physician to appreciate that so many people are now traumatized by the poll outcome and these unhappy family men and women could well fill any PTSD emergency room.

One only has to browse through social media sites where posts show that Zimbabweans have increasingly become very religious in the aftermath of the elections.

And indeed Zimbabweans are leaving everything to God, the same God others believe has given them the mandate to rule till eternity.

Over the weekend, an old man pointed me to large swathes of land in the Ngezi-Mhondoro area and explained how the landscape has changed over the years, how large herd of cattle disappeared, how land lies fallow, how small-holders in Gokwe have abandoned cotton farming because the state purchaser of this commodity offered these “peasants” peanuts. Recall that Gokwe was once celebrated as home to “white gold” as communities made small fortunes as cotton farmers.

You could only wonder if he was talking about the same country celebrating the success of land reform despite the same country importing maize from Zambia!

But then I only needed to recall the misery of tobacco farmers who each year complain that they bring their produce to Harare where they spend nights out in the open only to be offered ridiculous prices.

Like the other man said, he is yet to meet anyone who tells a different story about making a living out of the land, yet this is one of many things that get so many angry recalling that all hope they had for a fresh beginning was stolen along with the election.

But then, like the MDC has been advised, we should (very grudgingly) all move on…

Political parties in Zimbabwe win elections in two ways: by mobilizing their own supporters and suppressing the opposition vote. With its origins as an armed guerrilla insurgency, Zanu-PF has always used both approaches, combining force and patronage to build a political base of “no-go” zones in the country’s rural northeast where the MDC cannot campaign. Absent deep roots in either the labour movement or business community, Zanu-PF long ago lost the allegiance of most urban voters. For its part, however, the MDC, with its undisciplined performance in the coalition government, failed to consolidate its early support among these same groups. It also neglected the need to rebuild its own organization and consummate a grand coalition with minor opposition parties.

More from Michael Bratton writing for Foreign Affairs here