Under the cover of darkness
I woke this morning to find a missed call on my mobile from a “hidden” number. A small aside – I’m no fan of hidden numbers like I’m no fan of pseudonyms on letters to newspapers. I was a bit bummed out because I thought I might have missed speaking with a friend who has agreed to bring in an essential election item for me from South Africa – a bottle of tequila. Later on in the morning I got another call from a hidden number and when I answered it a woman said that she knows where I live and that she can come and find me if she wants. So I said, what do you want then? She never really said and I got the impression by the end of our faltering conversation that she might think that I’m having an affair with her husband. Rather that than being hounded by a fanatical member of the Zanu PF women’s league.
There’s a battle of election posters in Newlands Shopping Centre. Our space was first peppered with posters from Zanu PF. Then Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC posters sprung up in all their red glory. Simba was a bit slow to start but his bright yellow stickers and posters have jollied up the place quite a bit. However over the last few days the MDC’s posters are being torn down and replaced with posters of a very old looking Mugabe shaking his fist (yawn). I haven’t actually seen this happening, so it must be under the cover of darkness that Zanu PF is subverting other political parties political freedom in Zimbabwe. I wonder whether our police commissioner would arrest those tearing down MDC posters like he did this guy.
Zanu PF does however score rather high marks for putting various election related leaflets in my post box at home. It’s about the only post I get these days. In Harare East, Noah Mangondo representing Zanu PF describes himself as “the caring representative for all people” and “like Noah of old, this Noah will help you keep your head above the waters”. Yeah right, if only we had some water to flush our toilets and boil our kettles with, Mr Mangondo! But I do like the fact that Noah has given us his mobile phone numbers and his email address – what have we got from the MDC’s Tendai Biti? Zip, just an eyesore of an election poster with him looking very rotund with a very small round hat on his head.
I also got a post card from Zanu PF. I kid you not. The front had him pumping that old fist again and the back said that with Zanu PF “we are poised for total empowerment”. But maybe after 29th March we’ll get another postcard from Mugabe saying hi from Malaysia. I can hope can’t I?