Sunday 25 August 2013

Open Letter to President Mugabe

Your Excellency firstly, I would like to congratulate you on your resounding and thunderous victory in the recent elections. I hope it demonstrates the appreciation and trust that we the majority of Zimbabwean people, place in your leadership.

However, Your Excellency, I believe there are a few issues that you need to pay attention to charting the way forward. As a country we need to avoid the mistakes of the past.

Primarily, Your Excellency, I would like to advise you against including people in government who serve no purpose apart from trying to get rich as quickly as they can.

Mr President, I am not against people getting rich. In fact I would love all Zimbabweans to be as rich as possible. However if you allow a handful of people to get rich by skimming off, whether legally or illegally, money meant to provide services for the entire country, you will be allowing the impoverishment of the rest of us the people.

People should get rich from productive endeavours which expand the national pool of wealth rather than consumptive money grabs from national coffers which diminish the services available to all of us.

In a family of twenty has a pool of twenty bags of maize. If two members grab five bags for themselves, then the rest will be left with half a bag each and will quickly go hungry. Very soon the family will be at each other's throats fighting for the little that is there.

However if those members actually works to produce five more bags each and give one bag to the pool (pay their taxes) they will be richer at the same time the family more secure with 22 bags in the granary. If eight other members can do the same then the family will have ten rich people and a bigger pool of thirty bags in the granary.

Your Excellency, I am of the opinion that some of your appointees have mostly been grabbing from the national pool rather than contributing to it. Vari kungonokora mudura renyika, pane kuti varime zvavo.

Mr President, it is my considered and adamantly held opinion, that you need to focus on providing better services to the people of Zimbabwe. This will help you safeguard your legacy. Remember your legacy lies with the way the people perceive your leadership not the way party colleagues appreciate being rewarded with positions.

I know there is always pressure from those who have been by your side for a long time to be rewarded with positions. Your Excellency, I do not envy you the task, but I beg you try and convince them that the best reward, is through serving the people of Zimbabwe better, and being rewarded with their loyalty.

Your Excellency, be cognisant that since your colleagues have better access to you, they have ample chance to influence you to pursue their interests to the detriment of those of the people. Sir, you are the only one in a position to judge how to best balance all these interests, but never allow those of the people to come at the tail-end.

Mr President, I also beg you not to reward with positions people who lack expertise and knowhow and will hinder progress. May I make the humble suggestion that you appoint people who are competent in the areas they are required to manage. Above all Your Excellency, do not shirk to swing a very big boot against those who do not perform. Chuck them out.

Your Excellency, you success in creating a better country is the success of all of us Zimbabweans. I would like extend you my best wishes, knowing that your success will by my success as well, as a proud Zimbabwean.

Tuesday 20 August 2013

Why the US won't lift sanctions

The US government has come out in the open at last and made it clear that reforms carried out do not count for anything in terms of the sanctions they have in place against Zimbabwe.

If anyone ever believed that sanctions would be removed after free fair and credible elections, they were fooling themselves.

The main instrument sanctioning Zimbabwe is the Zimbabwe Democracy and Recovery Act of 2001 (ZIDERA). The full text of the act is found at the links http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-107s494enr/pdf/BILLS-107s494enr.pdf and http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/107/s494/text.

The provisions of the act are very clear, the Zimbabwe government is to be sanctioned from accessing international finance as follows
the Secretary of the Treasury shall instruct the United States executive director to each international financial institution to oppose and vote against--
(1) any extension by the respective institution of any loan, credit, or guarantee to the Government of Zimbabwe; or
(2) any cancellation or reduction of indebtedness owed by the Government of Zimbabwe to the United States or any international financial institution.
It is clear from the above that the provisions of ZIDERA are targeted at the Government of Zimbabwe, not a few individuals as claimed by some.

Throwing in the names of a few individuals is just a public relations exercise. Kufuridzira kwegonzo rakaruma.

The Act goes on to outline that the sanctions can only be lifted after
...determination made by the President that the following conditions are satisfied:
(1) RESTORATION OF THE RULE OF LAW- The rule of law has been restored in Zimbabwe, including respect for ownership and title to property...
In short, the spirit of ZIDERA is that, until Zimbabwe gives back white farmers their farms, sanctions won't go. Alternatively the Zimbabwe government should find money to pay 'fair' compensation.

I find it difficult to swallow the idea that poor peasants should be taxed to pay off rich farmers who got rich from abusing them in the first place based on race. The peasants also got poor from being dispossessed of their assets.

Besides the land being taken, many had their cattle, the main item of wealth at the time, taken as well. Some were violently forced to labour for the settlers against their will. So the fair compensation option is unlikely to take off unless of course the source of the problem, the British acknowledge their responsibility and provide compensation for everyone who has suffered.

It is a fact that Zimbabwe's colonization problem started with a royal charter granted by British monarch to some of her subjects. That charter gave them the protection of the British empire while they abused and exploited the natives. Indeed when the natives tried to resist colonization, it was the British imperial army which was send to put down the rebellion in Mashonaland.

Of course a lot of other nice language about democracy, human rights, rule of law and so on is thrown into ZIDERA. All these other conditions are subjective conditions which can be adjudged to be met at any moment.

Look at Egypt. A thousand people have died during political violence but there is no EGYPDERA in the works. In fact, more guns for the generals doing the shooting are in the pipeline. Yet we have the Americans calling what is a straightforward coup of then elected president, a 'restoration of democracy'.

The bottom line is the the West are not going to help you make their kith and kin, and themselves, poorer. If one thinks seriously about it, is the West and going to abandon land and mineral claims so that one can hand it over to the Chinese? They will go kicking, screaming and scratching all the way.

And the ill-feeling towards land reform is going to last probably a generation or two. Look at us, our forefathers were dispossessed of the land four to five generations ago, but look at how emotional about it we still are. So Zimbabwe should work on the worst case scenario that sanctions will stay for some years more.

Of course the MDC provided a finger for those imposing sanctions to hide behind. Supposedly it is upon their word, and that of ZESN, that the sanctions are being maintained. Personally I don't believe that even if the MDC had sung ballads in praise of the recent elections, it would have made any difference.

The key issue is return of land. Of course any Zimbabwean in their right mind will not agree to a return to the colonial status quo.

Success requires hard work

Success requires hard work.

I can show you a piece of land and call it yours. If you then proceed to fall asleep, you might grow a beard longer than Rip Van Winkle's but you won't have any tall crops on that land.

Possession of assets, does not amount to economic success. You need people with the correct knowledge, skills and work ethic to produce from the assets. You might think that you can always employ people with skills, but believe me the politics of the workplace very quickly militate against the personal motivation the skilled people might have.

You end up paying high salaries for little output. As the initial success of the biggest technology companies shows (Microsoft and Apple for example) it is always worthwhile for the main owner to be an expert in the field of endeavour.

For business highly technical business to be successful the owners also need to have excellent technical knowledge. Owners with little knowledge are often no more than sources of harmful interference, and wasteful expense.

Government policies of the post independence era have firmly shifted ownership of assets into our hands, and a good knowledge base into our heads. It is up to us individual Zimbabweans to polish this rough product into its final lustrous glory. It is up to us to be honest, diligent and humble as we work for the success of our country.

We need to remember that the success we seek is not for purposes of showing off, but for uplifting our communities as well. There is no use in you having ten expensive cars in your garage when the road to your real home, not the fake one in town, is rendered unusable by gullies. Zimbabweans, we need to uplift our communities.

For an economy to be successful it also needs a market. For any country the biggest internal market is the state. If the state is taking its custom and purchasing power and exporting it like we have been doing for a number of years, local ownership of resources is entirely meaningless.

We used to have Dahmer employing locals. Now we don't because we decided to export our purchasing power for buses. We used to have Quest Motors and Willowvale Motor Industries. Now they are stuttering because we have exported our purchasing power for vehicles. The government was first to that with importation of luxury vehicles. The public soon followed with their ravenous appetite for Japanese throwaway rubbish.

Indeed during Gideon Gono's time at came to a point where we were printing money to finance foreign purchases for things as basic as chains and scotch-carts. That is what led to hyperinflation.

Yes sanctions are there and they took a bite of our industrial capacity, but sanctions are not what leads to hyperinflation. Otherwise the Cuban and Iranian currencies, also under Western sanctions, would have tanked a long time ago.

At the end of the day we should not be surprised at the low employment levels in our economy and the high success rate of the economies we are importing from. We are giving them work to do even where we could be doing the work ourselves.

One can only but marvel at how one of the smallest towns in South Africa, Musina,  has boomed because of the purchasing power of Zimbabweans. I have watched the town grow threefold in half a decade with my own eyes.

The governance culture needs to be one of serving the people not one of exercising authority over the people. We need to minimize red-tape at every possible opportunity to allow commerce to flow faster and the country better yields. There is nothing to be gained from making people wait for long times, doing nothing. Rather serve them quickly so that they can use their time for other productive ventures.

For the human resources and skills to run these enterprises we need to strengthen our local education institutions. However our local students have been having to prostitute themselves for sustenance while money is disproportionately poured into the foreign education of the children of high ranking officials and the well connected.

Yet all that counts for little because the proudly one hundred percent Zimbabwean educated people like me, still outperform most foreign educated people even in the countries where they were educated. Suffice to say the foreign education is not about quality but about prestige and bragging rights.

If quality was the main issue, it is right here on home soil. We are the ones destroying what we have through neglect. We are like a man watering another man's livestock neglecting his own.

We need to focus on our country and that should start in the highest echelons of government.

Wednesday 14 August 2013

Kudos to ZEC

I I would like to congratulate the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission on a job very well done.

Your system was so well organised and run that when a party official tried to tamper with the voting process you very easily caught him out.

Do not be disheartened by the attacks of permanent detractors and sore losers. Some of the permanent detractors cannot even run elections half as organised and transparent is the ones you ran.

Ms Rita Makarau and your team, please keep it up. You make proud Zimbabweans like me even more proud.

Please pass on my thanks to the multitudes of civil servants (teachers, police officers and others) who, I am proud to say, did an extremely professional job, and conducted themselves with immense dignity and poise. This is despite that they were working in probably the hottest political cauldron on this planet. I do not need to add, it shows that they have a diligent and hardworking culture.

I know you faced a tremendous amount of unsubtle pressure from enormously powerful international players to do everything possible to discredit a result they didn't want. However I am proud to say that you held your nerve and fulfilled your duty towards the Zimbabwean people immaculately, and impartially.

If it was up to me the expertise and integrity of individual members of the ZEC team would become very highly recommended in helping organize and observe elections throughout the region and Africa. You are indeed international quality experts at running elections.

Thank you very much.

Friday 9 August 2013

The MDC should concede graciously

The MDC has refused to concede defeat, even where allies like Lovemore Madhuku have advised that normally you do not contest such margins of defeat. This is a clear indication that there is little, if any, chance that their challenge will make any difference to the material outcome of the election.

If you were to believe what the MDC are saying in public, they were cheated and they want a rerun. It puzzles me as to why they would want a rerun while momentum is clearly with Zanu-PF. Chances are that in any election to be held with then next one to two years, Zanu-PF would win by an even bigger margin. Candidates who survived by the skin of their teeth like the Honourable Tendai Biti, MP would definitely loose.

I think the MDC know very well that they were beaten fair and square. The hue and cry they are raising is primarily to provide cover for their foreign backers to maintain sanctions.The second motive might be to try and give themselves more leverage, in a future government, than they deserve based on their weak electoral showing. I would not be surprised if they are aiming for a couple of places in cabinet, or at the very least, for a face saving post for citizen Tsvangirai.

On the sanctions issue, anybody who has read ZIDERA will know very well that the real reason for them is to try and punish those who threaten the wealth that certain groups of individuals acquired through violent and racist colonial subjugation. They have got absolutely nothing to do with democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe.

Indeed if the issue was democracy, certain generals who deposed an elected president would have been quickly sanctioned as well. Instead they are being showered with billions of dollars worth of weaponry as well as being lavished with money. Despite, their actions threatening the stability of an entire region. Contrast that with a leader who has diligently held elections on time every time being called a dictator.

The MDC's current predicament shows the danger of being funded by foreign interests. You end up being made to look like a fool trying to pursue entirely divergent and contradictory interests. Like a man trying to chase two hares running in opposite directions.

The foreign interests backing the MDC are primarily driven by the desire to own and control natural resources which occur within the natural geographical sphere of influence of the Zimbabwe people.

At the same time the people of Zimbabwe want to fully exercise their natural right to benefit from those resources. To maximize this benefit they need to have ownership of the resources.

The MDC ends up like a man trying to explain the benefits of eating meat to a goat, on behalf of a hyena. 'You see if the hyena eats meat, it will be very fat and strong and protect you from other hyenas.' The catch will be that the hyena has to eat you first.

If a man has got to take ownership of what is yours, use it to make money, then employ you, why not just start by you employing him?

More than a week after the elections, the MDC have failed to come up with the evidence to challenge the result in court. Yet they still refuse to magnanimously concede defeat and allow the country to move on. They are also providing cover for people who want to harm Zimbabwe using sanctions, to continue doing.

Western governments have said they are not going to lift sanctions because the MDC and ZESN claim the elections were not fair. Yet these are groups that a paid and sponsored by the very same governments. Obviously the groups are not using any sort of objectivity, but are trying to produce the best possible outcome for their paymasters.

I do not think Zimbabwe should be held to ransom by such groups. I hope they realise that the possible backlash from Zimbabweans will mean even less support for them. We do not exactly adore having hardships invited upon us.

Wednesday 7 August 2013

Why I think the Zimbabwe election was credible

The United States, Britain and Australia have called for an election re-run becuase of 'anomalies' in the voters roll, and they claim a large number of urban voters were 'barred' from voting.

If the voters roll is their main concern, then should never recognize elections in any other country in the region. Zimbabwe has the highest coverage of citizen registration in the region. Its voters roll though not perfect, has therefore the fairest representation of citizenry than any other country in the region.

Other countries including South Africa have got millions of people without even basic documents like a birth-certificate. If the voters' roll were to be the basis for judging the credibility of elections then those countries should be holding permanent reruns.

As for voters claimed to have been barred from voting, nobody has been able to tabulate tell us exactly, how why the voters were turned away. Nobody also is also telling us whether or not those voters eventually voted at other polling stations. The figures that are being bandied about are unsubstantiated thumbsucks like 'almost a million', 'maybe as much as 750 000'.

Mind you being turned away from a polling station does not amount to being barred from voting. Most people are simply referred to a polling station in the correct ward.

Take for example if you are a voter living in Highfield's Egypt Lines. You might turn up at Highfield High One School to vote. In past elections Highfield High One use to be in Highfield constituency and Egypt Lines (just across the road from it) in Glen Norah constituency. You would then be referred to Mukai High School about a kilometre (5 minutes walking distance) down the road. That does not amount to being barred from voting.

This is quite common in urban areas because of the higher population density and closer proximity of polling stations in different wards and constituencies as opposed to sparsely populated rural areas. People make a beeline for the polling station that is physically nearest to them.

So there is absolutely no anomaly in higher numbers of urban voters being referred to other polling stations. That does not amount to being barred from voting.

Anyway, what is the beef about? The MDC won in those urban areas didn't they?

If these countries are not going to lift sanctions against Zimbabwe it has got nothing to do with the credibility of Zimbabwe's elections. They are definitely far much more credible then the actions of the bunch of generals in Egypt to whom they are sending billions of dollars worth of weapons and money. And the situation in Zimbabwe is definitely far much more peaceful.

The only reason they are going to keep the sanctions is because they do not want to aid Nationalist, Afro-Centric and Pan-Africanist policies of Mugabe in any way. In the long run those policies are going to make the former colonialists, the wealth they now possess and whose claim to it is only on the basis of past colonial thuggery.

People often quote the results of the 2008 presidential election as evidence that the MDC was much more popular than Zanu-PF. That is not true. The MDC was neck and neck with Zanu-PF in the parliamentary election. They both had 46% of the vote, with Zanu-PF even slightly ahead.

That Tsvangirai was far ahead of Mugabe was in no small part due a secret campaign codenamed 'bhora musango' (shoot off target) by some Zanu-PF candidates to direct the presidential vote elsewhere. That is why Tsvangirai had 48% and Mugabe at 43% was 3% below his party's popular vote.

This time around the Zanu-PF slogan was 'bhora mugedhi' (shoot right between the goalposts!). Zanu-PF was now pulling as a unit. If Tsvangirai failed to beat Mugabe when some Zanu-PF members were campaign against their leader, how can people expect him to beat Mugabe now, when everyone in Zanu-PF had been whipped into line.

Besides, the arrogance with which he treated breakaway factions of his own party was a clear indication to Zanu-PF members who may have wished to work with him, that they better stick with the devil they know. No meaningful effort was ever made by Tsvangirai to reach out to these disgruntled Zanu-PF members and the MDC completely ignored the 'bhora musango' phenomenon.

How can people expect a party that fails to seize such opportunities to win.

Sunday 4 August 2013

Tsvangirai's loss was always coming

SADC and the African Union should stop entertaining dissatisfied minor political parties from member countries. Otherwise before you know it Renamo's Alfonso Dlakama will be demanding to meet SADC and the AU. If she were politically immature, Helen Zille might also demand to meet SADC and the AU.

These organisations should also be mindful that the most noisome of these minor parties are the products neo-colonial experiments by former colonial masters, not genuine people driven movements. Who doesn't know that RENAMO was founded by Rhodesia and apartheid South Africa to destabilize Mozambique for supporting people driven liberation movements like the ANC, ZAPU and ZANU. Who doesn't know that the MDC was financed to the hilt by former colonial masters to try and starve off the definite loss of wealth and control of the economy, that is going to come with policies like indigenisation, restoration of land and resources to the colonially dispossessed black people.

Such organisations seem to have inherited the sense of entitlement and priviledge that was the hallmark of colonial behaviour. RENAMO have been threatening to go to war because they feel they are entitled to win elections in Mozambique. Similarly the MDC seem to think that they are entitled to win elections in Zimbabwe.

In 2008 there was an evenly split election in Zimbabwe which needed a coalition. According to reports, Zanu-PF was the first to approach the MDC to form a coalition. Largely because Tsvangirai had already skipped the country and was refusing to return to negotiate, Zimbabwe had to approach the country hosting him to facilitate negotiation, with the blessing of SADC.

An agreement was signed which was supposed to subsist for two years. Subsequently a number of afterthought demands, which were not part of the original Global Political Agreement, were made. Already it is an anomaly that SADC took these afterthought demands and treated them as if they were part of the original agreement.

SADC is a voluntary group of equal countries. None among them is the headboy of the group, upon whom there is a duty to foist instructions upon others. None, also, should  allow themselves to be the conduit through which former colonial masters can continue to try and assert dominance over former colonies.

Remember the SADC grouping was born out of mainly the former Frontline States, which were at the forefront of dismantling that last bastion of colonialism, apartheid South Africa. The founder nations of this group, among which is Zimbabwe, fiercely and jealously guard against restoration of colonial edifices in what ever form.

The MDC claims that they were cheated. Yet nobody is able to specify where and how the cheating happened. When asked to provide evidence of rigging at a news conference, all Morgan Tsvangirai could say was that he didn't believe the MDC could loose Manicaland because they were so strong there in the past. By the same logic Zanu-PF could claim rigging stating that they don't believe they could loose any election in Zimbabwe because they used to have 117 out of 120 seats in the past.

Based on the facts available now, not speculation and conjecture, it is the MDC which tried to tamper with the voting process. Their elections director Komichi has a pending case right now resulting from special vote ballots which had been tampered with and marked in favour of Tsvangirai. That case did not even arise from Zanu-PF complaints. The MDC were caught out by ZEC on their own.

The entire MDC political doctrine was based on mere hatred of one man. 'Let's get rid of Mugabe' that is all their message was about. In you asked them 'Then what?' there would be no clear answers. There was no clear vision of what they wanted to achieve for Zimbabweans. They had no core principles and values.

They effectively reduced themselves to a single use tool, like a hypodermic needle. If it works, fine, but you throw it away. If it doesn't work you still throw it away. They know they are a cannula which failed to find the vein and are on their way to the disposables bin.

Unlike Kenya, Zimbabwe's politics are not ethnicity based. They do not have an ethnic support base like Raila Odinga in Kenya which might have given them a chance to remain relevant. For one to remain relevant in Zimbabwe, one needs core principles and values in resonance with those of the people.

Coupled with the tendency of their leader to try and please whoever he is facing for the moment, the MDC's message has been confused and confusing. One moment Tsvangirai would be championing gay rights on BBC, the next he would saying he doesn't really support them.

I would also like to politely ask the MDC and their backers, to stop insulting the intelligence of Zimbabweans. They knew about Tsvangirai's weaknesses. They wrote about it in diplomatic cables. Thanks to Wikileaks we know about it. They witnessed the drama surrounding his womanising. They watched as Tsvangirai prevaricated and mumbled incoherent messages on major issues such as land reform and gay rights.

Yet if you go by the claims of unfairness now, it is clear they believe that every Zimbabwean is so dumb and stupid that they would ALL still vote for Tsvangirai despite these glaring faults. That is an insult upon the intelligence of a people who are the most educated in sub-Saharan Africa.

Would the Labour party go to election with a leader who had impregnated a young woman. A leader who would have tried to marry another, changed his mind and jumped into the arms of a third woman, all within six months. On top of it, all these women would be the daughters of prominent Tory peers. The leader would also have cavorted with a sexy French woman in the Bahamas, who would also be claiming she was promised marriage.

If going to election with such a leader would not work in the UK, why would the British government think it would work in Zimbabwe. That is unless they hold a condescendingly insulting view of the intelligence of the black people of Zimbabwe.

Going by some claims the MDC took Zimbabweans for granted so much that one official is said to have boasted that even if Tsvangirai was caught committing murder, he would still win elections in Zimbabwe.

I would also ask the MDC's backers stop making all Zimbabweans pay for their misjudgement of Tsvangirai's character. They should accept Tsvangirai's obvious loss, and stop dishing out negative twaddle about Zimbabwe over it.

The MDC have always been a bunch of disparate opportunists either without, or with ultimately divergent core values. They were only united by their common belief that Mugabe was the only obstacle to their intentions. They forgot that the people of Zimbabwe themselves are the ones favouring the values Mugabe stands for.

Their defeat at free and fair election, unencumbered by economic sabotage, was always a given.

Thursday 1 August 2013

Zimbabwe Elections 2013: My Take.

A lot of people are talking as if I am responsible for the MDC's loss (if that's what is happening because I don't know the results). Yet I did not even vote.

A relative has warned me not to go to my rural home anymore. A friend says Zanu-PF should give me a diamond mine or make me the director of a parastatal. Another friend has told me 'wakadyiswa neZanu.' Yet I am not even a Zanu-PF supporter.

On the other hand, even if the MDC had won by 120%, it would not have changed my opinion that they are a bunch of dubious opportunists not worthy of the boots they were trying to fill. That is an opinion that I have held from the time they were formed.

Right now they are making a lot of claims about having been cheated. I am inclined to think it is part of a strategy to try and negotiate their way into government posts so as to stay in the money.

As usual the claims of cheating are speculative and not substantiated by hard evidence. Take for example the claim that there are people with the same name but different IDs registered at the same address.

For most Zimbabweans the 'address' is the village of origin. Take any Zimbabwean ID card and check, it is there. If you happen to have cousins, nephews and uncles also called Tapiwa (and we do have a tendency to name children after relatives) then it is quiet possible to have 3 or moreTapiwa Chimutis whose address is Chimuti Village. A lot of Zimbabaweans also use the houses of relatives as addresses because they are lodgers.

We have not even talked about totem based surnames like Moyo or Ncube. Get the Zimbabwe telephone directory and check how many pages those surnames covers. Unless your parents were to choose a rather exotic name like Welshman, you are likely to share a first name and surname with hundreds of other Ncubes.

Also remember that we Zimbabweans for reasons other than voting, sometimes register multiple times. When I was in primary school (1970s) I had three birth-certificates. I know of a cousin who once had 4 IDs until she was caught, triggering a big investigation at the registrar general's office. That was maybe 20 years ago. It is us ordinary people who duplicate IDs as we cheat and bribe our way through life, not politicians.

I am not ruling out tampering with the voters roll. But I wouldn't hold a press conference until I have done thorough and competent investigative work. I wouldn't hold a press a conference because I have seen two Thabani Moyos from Moyo Village. Or even two Thabani Moyos living in the same house in Harare. It could be grandfather and grandson.

As for voters turned away. Every party had polling agents at polling stations. Surely it was a simple matter to count the number of people turned away at each polling station and add the numbers to come up with a definitive figure, rather than to speculate on an overall figure that no one has any way of checking.

The MDC only have themselves to blame for wasting a good opportunity to get into power.

It is simply foolish to let people who grew up among the high rises of New York and Los Angeles, people who have never seen a tsombori, gwiredembo or dug for a fifi, to be your guiding light when you are seeking the votes of people who grew up doing these things.

I remember sometime ago I wrote that I will not take political advise, on Zimbabwe, from someone who has never been part of proceedings at a village court. Well the MDC did exactly that, borrow strategies and plans from New Yorkers almost word for word. They borrowed everything including the half-hearted attempt to champion gay rights. Now they are surprised that they are not winning elections in Zimbabwe. Hint, their strategy would have won them elections in Washington DC.

To me the election does not make much of a difference because the structural deficiencies of our governance system have always been unlikely to be addressed by either party.

First and foremost is the failure to collect revenue. The tax system has virtually collapsed with high income individuals in the informal sector largely untaxed.

Second is the excessive consumption of the executive. We have an excessively large executive branch, that is consuming far beyond the means of the economy. (http://punungwe.blogspot.com/2012/11/how-zimbabwes-economy-can-recover.html)

The MDC and Zanu-PF have been concentrating on throwing insults at each other and I never heard them addressing these tough but critical issues. Both parties focused on their traditional matakadyakare issues.