The Zimbabwe Situation

[Oneword]

Thanks, Uncle Paul!!

Look at the article "There but for the grace of God ...."" It is about Botswana now, but when you go deeper in to the causes of the possible dilemma, you will find that the same or a basically similar scenario could be played out in a number of our neighbours ... INCLUDING US!


I know too many Zimbos to revel in glee .... , but as they say: If the nut behind the wheel is unsound, the whole vehicle is imminent danger

[Oneword]

Remember, please:
I am the poster, the writer not!

Just what happened this past week? If you read the media (always dangerous) you get reports that say diametrically opposite things – a “Deal” is done says the Gazette, the “Talks a Failure” says the Independent and other South African papers. As for the local State controlled press – well that is just a sick joke. You are as likely to get the truth out of them as you are from a used car salesman.

But for all of that we have to try and sort out what really went on from all the nonsense being written and spoken. What we do know is the following: the South African mediators met with the negotiating teams this past weekend, a set of options were put before these decision makers, the MDC team accepted two of the three options with slight variations whilst the Zanu PF team was unable to come to any conclusion in the absence of Mr. Mugabe who was on holiday in the Far East.

Mr. Mugabe was visiting Hong Kong, Thailand and Singapore with his entourage and chief shopping aide, Grace Mugabe. We know that Mr. Mugabe was sent for, dropped everything and hurriedly returned to Harare to take charge. After a couple of days of consultations President Mbeki arrived with his team and went straight into discussions with the Zanu PF leadership. After several hours of discussion Mr. Mbeki saw the MDC leadership and then returned to the discussions with the Zanu PF team before leaving the country to return home.

The only public part of this process was a brief meeting with the media where the South African President said that the talks were continuing and that progress had been made. Neither the MDC nor Zanu PF made any public statement and the MDC leadership left the country for South Africa the following day.

The rest of us were just left in the dark with no clear statement on what had transpired.

I slept on the issue and decided to come down on the side of the view that despite all the leaks – a deal was done. There is simply no way that the President of South Africa, who has so much at stake in the process and for whom, for the first time in 7 years, has all his ducks in a row on this issue, would allow the talks to collapse and flounder. The question is therefore what sort of deal?

The rest of this note is conjecture – so you can take it or leave it, as it may not be accurate. My own view has been for some time that we are stuck with a March election. My guess is that nomination day is the 7th of March with the elections taking place 21 days later on the 28th of March. The elections will be in one day and some 2000 seats are up for election. Urban voters in the main centers may have 5 ballots to complete, in the other areas, 4 ballots. At issue is nothing more or less than the future of Zimbabwe as a State.

The devil always lies with the detail. I would agree with a senior diplomat who said to me some weeks ago “there is no chance of holding a free and fair election in Zimbabwe today, however we will watch the process carefully and if the outcome is one that we feel represents the views of the majority, we will accept it and move on from there”. A sort of resigned acceptance that SA has not achieved enough in the mediated talks but we have no choice but to work with the outcome.

Frankly I think the same thing applies to the MDC – we have little choice but to work with the gains made in nearly 8 months of tortuous and painstaking negotiations with a group, who from the very beginning were in no way sincere or committed to genuine change in the way our elections are run.

Change there has been – not enough to ensure a free and fair election, but is it enough to allow a free expression of the will of the people? Can we prevent the sort of fraud that has characterised the elections in Zimbabwe for many years and in Kenya just recently? Most would say no, but in my view the changes negotiated and now being implemented must not be discounted. They are significant in many ways.

The questions that remain are many – can we persuade eligible Zimbabweans voters to come out on the 28th and vote? Can we then protect their voice and make sure it is reported accurately and without manipulation to the national tally and then finally, will our society and administration accept the outcome? Those are big questions that only time will answer.

But for me I have always viewed this process as a struggle. It will remain a struggle right through to the end. My main fear in the past 18 months has been that we would not have an election. That the regime would simply back into its shell and with the support of the armed forces and corrupt business interests, administer the country via a military/Zanu Junta. Effectively a coup in all but name. That has not happened and one of the main reasons has been the continued belief that Zanu PF has done enough to win the election.

The other factor is simply pride. Mr. Mugabe wants to defeat Morgan Tsvangirai in a straight electoral battle – make no mistake this is the modern equivalent of a 16th Century Jousting competition. He wants to hold an election that meets the minimum conditions that he can get away with and then manage his own semi dignified exit from the stage before things get completely out of hand.

Just look at the constraints on Morgan in this contest – he has been beaten physically, denied funding for normal political activity, restricted in all forms of normal political activity, the bookies are all Zanu PF lackeys and the crowd in the stadium is loaded with Zanu PF supporters. Traditional leaders who have been intimidated and bribed control the field, Morgan’s horse is denied food and water and his equipment is tampered with.

No wonder Mr. Mugabe is confident! But remember, this is still a contest to be won and lost. At least we are going to get our chance on the field. It is a risk, but one worth taking if this is all we have got. So my view is that we are in for an election and it is up to every one of us to get off our butts and make sure that this time, the real result is captured and reported. We sure can live with the result; I am not sure Zanu PF can.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 19th January 2008

[Uncle Paul]

Let us pray that the ZANU-PF regime will not steal another election and plunge Zimbabwe deeper into crisis. All the sgins are on the wall, and the realities as they exist on the ground in Zimbabwe do not auger well for a free and fair election. Let us pray Zimbabweans will come out in their droves and cast their vote freely, and that the result be respected by all. I have hope, but it is clouded by realism.

[Oneword]

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's hopes of cruising to victory at polls next month suffered a severe jolt Tuesday as his respected former finance minister Simba Makoni announced his candidacy. See: ZIMBABWE: Mugabe to face polls challenge from ex-minister

[Comrade007]

He'll face a daunting, uphill task. The Mugabe machinery remains formidable, and brutal. For example - and as expected - the Mugabe-controlled state media, especially its mouthpiece The Herald, while announcing his candidacy immediately tried linking him to the former colonial power Britain and insinuating that they and the Americans are his masters. The discrediting of Makoni has begun. Expect all kind of accusations, claims and threats from Mugabe and ZANU-PF.

The war veterans, again as expected, weighed in with threats: ""We are now going to campaign vigorously for President Mugabe. I feel sorry for Makoni, ayirasa. From today to the nomination date we will have finished with them. Mupanduki kana achinge apanduka anoziva zvinoita Zanu-PF."

The other fact is that Makoni's candidacy will further split the opposition vote. Now instead of one candidate, Mugabe faces 3 challengers in the person of Makoni, Tsvangirai and Mutambara. That can't be good for garnering enough votes to attempt and unseat Mugabe, with the odds stacked so high against the opposition in any case. It'll also be much easier to rig the elections.

How on earth can this even be close to a level playing field? What a charade, a cruel pretense this election will turn out to be - once again. It is clear: Mugabe and ZANU-PF would not win the popular vote in a FREE AND FAIR election, and they know it.

Know something else? Mark my words: SADC and AU will see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil. They will look the other way in the spineless, cowardly fashion they have done to date and put up no obstacles to Mugabe and ZANU-PF's return to power. Free and fair elections? What a laugh....except its not funny.

[Uncle Paul]

Members of the Southern African Development Community agreed that all elections in the region should feature:

* Political tolerance
* Freedom of association
* Equal access to state media
* Independence of the judiciary and electoral institutions.

It appears that, to date, none of the above criteria have been fulfilled in Zimbabwe. It's the opposite:

* The police continue to stop opposition parties from holding political rallies
* Opposition party activists remain at risk of being abducted, beaten and tortured by ruling party militias and members of the security forces
* Oppositino parties havelittle or no access to state media
etc...etc...

It is time for SADC to puts words into practise and do everything in its power to ensure that the above criteria are met, and salvage what little reputation it has left in the process.

[Oneword]

The British are usually compared to a bulldog.

SADC is (in this specific case) a dog of indeterminable parentage; it has no teeth, no courage and rolls over on its back at the first sign of perceived danger or threat.

Let's see if they can be true to (any) breed when they debate the fate of Campbell .......

[Comrade007]

Here's an interesting analysis by the great Bill Saidi of The Sowetan:

Could Makoni’s challenge to Mugabe be genuine?

08 February 2008


If Simba Makoni and Ibbo Mandaza are trying to pull the political wool over the Zimbabwean voters’ eyes, then this has to be one of the most Byzantine plots ever played on any electorate.

Both men are dyed-in-the-wool Zanu-PF zealots. At one time or another, they prayed at the shrine of their leader, Robert Mugabe, the man whose endurance compares favourably with the nine lives of that famous animal whose curiosity proved fatal in the end.

Makoni standing against Mugabe in the presidential stakes next month? Die-hard Zanu-PF watchers are sceptical. This has all the ingredients of a classic Zanu-PF tamba wakachenjera ploy: never let your right hand know what your left hand is doing, or keep your cards so close to your chest that people will not see even your chest.

Makoni’s self-proclaimed ambition to challenge Mugabe has struck many cynics as rather unusual, to say the least. His political pedigree may be impressive, but his political skin may be something else entirely.

His first brush with Mugabe was when he was minister of finance, courageously insisting that if the government would not let him devalue the tottering dollar, then he would quit.

He did quit, but then lay low for quite a while, still belonging to the party, sitting in its all-powerful politburo.

Even when he announced he would try and beard the lion in its den, he still insisted that he would do it as a member of the party, for which he could be expelled – as another presumptuous young man, Jonathan Moyo, was a few years ago.

But Makoni’s profile is much more solid than Moyo’s .

His profile compares well with that of another young luminary in the region, Vernon Johnston Mwaanga, the Zambian politician who became an ambassador in his early 20s – at independence in 1964.

Mwaanga, like Makoni, was once touted as a politician destined for big things in his country. An American magazine predicted he would become president of Zambia, as others have predicted about Zimbabwe’s Makoni

Mwaanga rose to become foreign minister, again at a tender age, and distinguished himself. He had got that plum job after serving briefly as editor-in-chief of the government-owned Times newspapers, during which time I worked under him.

Today, Mwaanga’s political career has hit rock-bottom. His slight consolation could be that the man who clipped his wings, his former mentor – former president Kenneth Kaunda – has fared no better, ousted in an election in 1991 after 27 years in the saddle.

Makoni doesn’t belong to the largest ethnic group in Zimbabwe, as Mwaanga did. He is a Tonga, the largest group in Zambia.

Makoni is from Manicaland, and they number less than the Karanga and the Zezuru. Moreover, compared with the God-fearing Kaunda, Mugabe is something entirely different.

Some of Mugabe’s political scalps include Ndabaningi Sithole, Joshua Nkomo, Eddison Zvobgo – and Edgar Tekere, who is still alive.

Incidentally, Mandaza, Makoni’s facilitator, played Boswell to Tekere, publishing his autobiography last year.

Most hard-nosed analysts are wary of giving Makoni any credibility on the basis of his reliance on Mandaza . Yet, the fact cannot be denied that if Makoni still enjoys the support of the Mujurus – Joice and Solomon – then perhaps he could be presenting a definite challenge to Mugabe.

Still, most of the evidence is tilted against him. If he is not in alliance with the divided MDC, his candidature will hurt both Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara.

If that doesn’t play into Mugabe’s lap, then we must all have our sums wrong.

Sowetan - Columnists

[phelakuti]

no, sir. i have not begun to link the two as yrt---stupid and a particular race. all i said is why english even as it is causing so much demage. and why idolising the english culture to the detriment of other authentic heritages.

[Oneword]

Phelakuti,

Yesterday I wore a blue shirt and matching tie ..... because it suited my purpose. Today I will be wearing jeans and a T-shirt .... because it suits my purpose. On Sunday I will probably squeeze into a suit ... because it suits (pun not intended) my purpose.

I have many shirts, many ties, some suits, many shoes, even cuff-links and a bowtie or two. I wear the appropriate ones when it suits my purpose.

One of my suits is called "English"; another "French", etc.

Putting them on does not change the "oneword' inside them one iota. I am still me, even I I chose to be dressed in a "beshu".

So, collect as many suits, shirts, shoes, etc., as you can and use them when and where applicable!

Once you are out of them, you are still the person you were before - except that putting them on assisted you in some way or another to achieve the ideal, the aim or the result you needed to achieve.


Make sense???