This morning I heard a guy say “Ah, that Chris Mutsvangwa is a hard headed fellow.” Pressed by a colleague who asked “What has Mutsvangwa done this time,” the first fellow simply continued, “Ah, he is just impossible!”

I sensed he was referring to Mutsvangwa’s performance at the SAPES Trust public meeting where the apoplectic Cde stormed out during proceedings because the audience and panelists did not take kindly to his comments that all of them should be grateful to Zanu PF for giving them anything from ministerial jobs to the freedom they presently enjoy.

The arrogance was galling.

It was classic Mutsvangwa having given the same condescending remarks live on national television during a debate on the constitution where panelists included Qhubekani Moyo (MDC-N), Jessie Majome (MDC-T), Blessing Vava and Job Sikhala.

Mutsvangwa simply dismissed them, telling them that they should be grateful to Zanu PF for giving them free university education, thank Zanu PF for ending white minority, else they would still be serfs in a white man’s world.

At the SAPES public meeting, the arrogance Mutsvangwa portrayed, and what incensed the guy I referred to above, only highlights Zanu PF’s perverted sense of entitlement and “ownership” of the country and its people.

You cannot own people as if you are some feudal lord, but then the dictatorship of Zanu PF only highlights that indeed the party is steeped in the feudalism of yore where it continues to see everyone as vassals!

How many times have you heard President Mugabe say “my people?”

I certainly ain’t anyone’s person! God’s YES’s, man’s NO!

But then good thing for the SAPES meeting that Paul Themba Nyathi was there to remind Mutsvangwa that he (Nyathi) fought for the country and he certainly ain’t Zanu PF!

There are many lessons to be drawn for Zanu PF arrogance. And these lessons are what the party itself will learn rather painfully!

Yesterday a friend made a remark that puts the coming polls into perspective.

He said surely Mugabe knows he is no longer wanted by the people of Zimbabwe, and even if he loses, he may still simply refuse to accept defeat.

I said, well, hasn’t that happened before?

And with a guy like Mutsvangwa fighting from Mugabe’s corner, we could sure still have a long way to go before we get to the Zimbabwe we want.

And again it does magnify the folly of these rushed polls, because Mutsvangwa and other so-called Zanu PF hawks seem to know they hold the four aces, and these are not hidden anymore! What arrogance.

Simba Makoni is not enigmatic. He apparently can be read like an open book. And this is the guy whose presidential ambitions President Mugabe once dismissed, calling the former finance Minister a “political prostitute.”

Recall that early this year, Makoni did invite Mugabe into a coalition which many are still trying to figure out how it was going to work.

Sometimes Simba Makoni does make statements that could easily have come from Idi Dada Amin who famously said “Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.”

Now he has withdrawn from the presidential race, and following accusations in the past that he was a spoiler effectively stealing victory from Morgan Tsvangirai’s mouth, his latest proclamation that he is willing to work with the same people he only yesterday said were worse than Robert Mugabe makes his chameleon persona something those he seeks to work with must certainly watch.

Makoni does give meaning to the aphorism “This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests.”

One does not need to use language borrowed from the Zanu PF hate speech lexicon, but can this guy be trusted?

Someone tweeted yesterday after Makoni made his BREAKING NEWS announcement that “His family, his only supporters must be disappointed!”

Some would say Makoni is looking for relevance, but that should not sway Zimbabweans from the bigger picture, and that is a tolerant Zimbabwe of which Zanu PF has been the antithesis.

The African Union (AU) is the backbone of Pan Africanism as reflected upon its formulation values and the dictates of its objectives that promote democratic practices, good governance and protecting human freedoms and rights in compliance with Internationally accepted standards. An African renaissance is only possible when the whole continent unites against bad political and economic practices and promotes institutions that ensure that the governed are the ultimate beneficiary of every country’s resources. These goals have taken far too long to be achieved even in the greater part of Africa because of our leaders’ hypocrisy and greediness. But in recent years, the long overdue dream of our forefathers has taking shape, in different forms but the root cause of all being the awareness that has arisen within the masses of people.
I should mention that it was very easy then for presidents and key political people in Africa to go up on big podiums and preach the gospel of Pan Africanism and at the same time reign with a heavy hand in their home country and still be regarded as Pan Africanists. In this computer age, tyrants and dictators in Africa are, and will continue to find it very difficult to use the same tactic of hiding behind the weakening membrane of sovereignty to terrorise their own people in the name of bringing ‘home grown’ solutions.

They use very sweet and noble words like ‘our solutions for our problems’, ‘no to imperialistic solutions’ but in most distressed and panic ridden states in Africa they are being used as shields to cushion the heavy hand from inquisition. In old days these were working disclaimers for them but the global village has now put them in the spotlight. In as much as they may try to re-engrave their self-torn names on the continental walk of fame, their true selves are always haunting and outweighing their verbal efforts. Gone are the days when presidents and security chiefs could afford to be two faced shielding their dark and ugly sides while upholding and celebrating an artificial image of good governance. Gone are the days when their own citizens would live in abject fear and repression, find ‘peace’ in those appalling conditions and never know what others out there are enjoying and how much freedom they are missing out on.

The tyrant’s evil deeds are now a click away from the world eye and blessed is this our generation; no matter how much they may try to victimise us from the urban centres of Harare to the deepest parts of the country and many others, the world is now in the know and there is not a single panacea that our murderers and their masters could now administer to redeem their battered images from the mud they dragged themselves in.

As Zimbabweans remain stunned by President Mugabe’s 31 July poll proclamation, solace apparently can still be found for those with a huge appetite for political intrigue in Baba Jukwa.

I trawled the social media platforms to get a pulse of people’s reactions and Zimbabweans were simply bamboozled. It gets more fascinating noting that even legal opinion on this has been diametrical, raising questions about the interpretation of the law by these learned men and women.

But that’s not a question to ponder considering our very polarized and very poisoned post-2000 body politic where lawyers have been dragged into the hate politics that continue to characterise the country’s political landscape.

On Facebook for example, Baba Jukwa explained that the decision came outside the ambit of Zanu PF’s own politburo, that Communist Russia inspired anachronism, and which is not a surprise considering that Simon Khaya Moyo says his party is not ready for polls even after the “shock” announcement by his own boss.

And thus it is that Zanu PF officials have always been described in pejorative terms, and many believe the party has an unhealthy infestation of hawks.

To mind comes Patrick Chinamasa whom Baba Jukwa reports is the man – alongside Jealousy Mawarire – scripting Zimbabwe’s latest political drama, a man so bellicose in his demeanor many believe he would have been comfortable as Idi Amin’s right hand man.

Idi Amin was a boxer you see and his bad temper is legendary.

Remember Chinamasa’s parliament punch-up with Bennet, or is it Bennet punching-up Chinamasa?

Or Chinamasa allegedly threatening to beat up a British politician?

Or Chinamasa going loco on BBC’s Hard Talk.

According to BJ who has become that fly-on-the-wall in Zanu PF’s innermost sanctum, there is already a grand plan to take over the levers of the state by the so-called securocrats after the elections which these military men are certain Mugabe will win.

But then that’s not breaking news.

Still, there obviously is no comfort in that, the question is: are Zimbabweans going to allow their vote to be raped by men who in a normal democracy would never win a legitimate election?

A gem that I came across from Baba Jukwa on Chinamasa having now become too powerful for his own good: “To those who have seen our news today (13 June) you should have noticed that the Minister of Justice can’t brief diplomats because he is not the Minister of Foreign Affairs. This was Chinamasa firefighting and take the fight himself because he did his things privately with the President.”

Baba Jukwa seems confident that Zimbabweans must restore their belief in the power of their vote, the question is: are his followers who avidly listen in on the reported disintegration of Zanu PF going to take his exhortations to the letter?

Cynics have already said if only the massive following could translate into actual voting not mere appetite for tabloid-like sleaze.

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.”

Mugabe’s giving people lots of time isn’t he?

DISTRICT-CHIKOMBA EAST, REGISTRATION CENTRE-WARIKANDWA SEC. SCH. Mobile voter registration started on Monday at Warikandwa Secondary School in Chikomba East at a low note due to poor publicity.