Desmond Kumbuka: Of election madness and Zimbabwe’s quest for a saviour

By Desmond Kumbuka

Some call it the silly season, perhaps justifiably. Silly probably because whenever Zimbabwe prepares for an election, as is the case now, all manner of creepy crawlies emerge from the woodwork making all kinds of inordinate noises to claim the vote in the name of democracy.

Yes, democracy – that Greek invention that opened the eyes of the world to a profound dimension to human civilization – governments of the people, by the people and for the people.

But there is nothing Greek, or civilized about the crazy time we are going through right now.

The atmosphere is loaded, pregnant with weird spontaneity. Suspend disbelief to grasp some of the pronouncements Zimbabweans have to contend with. 

We’ve even had promises of bullet trains where no railway lines exist; spaghetti roads when existing ones a rutted tracks unfit even for ox-drawn carriages, village airports where aircraft may need to hop over jutting kopjes – all signifying instant economic transformation.

We must also believe in a magic wand to bring container-loads  of cash to the banks so we would no longer need to sleep in bank queues.  Trust that millions of jobs will instantly materialize, and we will all enjoy free health care and education.  Incredibly, even corruption will be vanquished and poverty eradicated. Everything that Zimbabweans so desperately long to hear. And believe too.

This is time to bamboozle the imagination of a traumatized populace. Monsters  turn into angels, rocks into pearls, blood into a sparkling elixir of life – the wailing of tortured souls  reverberates  like sweet music – for behold, an anointed  savior approaches  from this profusion of electoral  pandemonium.  And you my brother, miss not this golden opportunity to exercise your God-given right to vote – thus  rings the clarion call with incessant monotony.

Monstrous banners bearing images of contesting candidates, their oily smiles fixated  at capturing the hearts and souls of  a bruised  population,  suddenly emblazon  every  open wall space on dilapidated buildings and fence posts. Ageing Jacaranda trees leaning languidly over equally dilapidated roads and streets  are bedecked with sizzling regalia. Ahoy – it is election season in Zimbabwe – eyes, ears, minds preened  for the historic plebiscite.

It  gets even more interesting.

Suspension  of disbelief  foisted on the population as candidates outdo  each other in the manifesto stakes. They somehow feel  they have a  license to treat the electorate like inveterate retards who will believe in anything and everything.

The ruling Zanu PF  is telling supporters all their desires over  the past 38 years will suddenly be fulfilled  by the “new dispensation” despite the fact that the actors are the same ones from the previous one. Minus, of course, deposed dictator Robert Mugabe and his band of not-so-merry G-40 acolytes.

Political views in Zimbabwean parlance are not just about making promises that one has neither  the will nor the wherewithal to fulfill. It is mostly about being the loudest, and finding the choicest fibs and expletives to vilify and discredit opponents.

Truth is no object – you can even flatter your listeners by ascribing to them supernatural powers of anointing kings, and vanquishing villains. Outrage sells when competition is at its most intense.

This little diversion is in order.

Indeed, the July 30 poll is rendered all the more riveting by the absence from the ballot paper of the dour image of the founding father, Robert Mugabe and his long time nemesis, Morgan Tsvangirai of the Movement for Democratic  Change (MDC) who sadly passed away last February (May his soul rest in peace).

Meanwhile, 94 year-old Mugabe, with a sardonic smirk on his wrinkled brow, gazes upon the unfolding drama from the sidelines where events of November 15, 2017 consigned him.  A cruel twist to a long and illustrious political career that ended abruptly with not as much as a whimper.

 For the older generation – there is something surreal about the prevailing  scenario not unlike the 1980 independence elections.  The undisguised euphoria of a new dawn – a nation awakening from the stupor of a prolonged affliction of a deleterious  condition.  Mugabe had become something of a national curse – a malignant tumor on the soul of the nation which, although excruciating for many, Zimbabweans endured with remarkable stoicism.

And that is because Zimbabweans are truly a remarkable people. The euphoria of the July 30 plebiscite has aroused political passions never before witnessed in Zimbabwe since independence in 1980. Despite the peculiar circumstances, the coup de tat, which perpetrators chose to sanitize by calling it “Operation Restore Legacy” the result was welcomed with jubilation as thousands marched on the streets of Harare to celebrate the fall of Mugabe on November 18.

Even those that hero-worshiped him and eulogized him as the “one centre of power” in the  “revolutionary party” now admit his pervasive grip of all institutions of governance  rendered him untouchable. Cowards who cringed in his wake suddenly found their voices to denounce “the dictator” who had become “captured” by his ambitious wife. The old adage, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely, became symbolic of Mugabe’s rule.  

Those opposing or criticizing him did so at great peril to themselves. The mysterious and still unsolved  disappearance of  human rights activist cum-journalist Itai  Dzamara, among scores of others, remain a  sobering testament to  the fate of those who dared Mugabe’s four decades of iron fisted rule. But that’s a story for another day.

Back in the present, in this pulsating milieu, 1 652 Zimbabweans  from 55 political parties are contesting the 210 available National Assembly seats while an unprecedented 23 are gunning for the presidency in the 2018 elections.

It is not the intention of this discussion to de-campaign anyone, but an attempt to interrogate that which has inspired so many and given them the confidence to seek public office. It is an attempt to focus on merits and demerits of the ambitions of the candidates in a holistic and objective way.

Let us suppose the aspiring leaders –presidential hopefuls,  MPs, Councillors, the whole gamut, had to undergo an aptitude test to assess their suitability of the offices they seek would even a small fraction of them pass the test. Questions would, for instance, seek to show proof of commitment to public service, a track record of community involvement, basic numeracy to an average literacy level, and proof of well grounded understanding  of  key fundamentals of  informed governance.

From the patently ridiculous pronouncements many of them are making, do most of them have the slightest inkling or understanding of how governments operate?  Do they have basic knowledge of institutional dynamics in government administrative structures to be able to marshal the capital, human and other requisite resources necessary to drive a nascent  21st century democracy.  

One gets the sense that many of the candidates may actually have a romantic notion that power is all about  the occasional waffle in public fora  or in Parliament as the key criteria and measure of performance in the lofty offices they seek to occupy. How can the electorate be assured the men and women, well-meaning as they all seem, are not just seeking power for the sake of it.

Power without responsibility – as such was the fundamental  weakness of the Mugabe leadership modus operandi  where merit, experience and competence were subordinated  to the whims of political expediency.

When one talks of eradicating poverty, do they understand the sociological dynamics within which poverty thrives and what effective mechanisms are feasible to combat the scourge. The catastrophic failure of the condemned  Mugabe administration was precisely  a failure to grasp the basic tenets of effective  governance. To be charitable, one might say perhaps  more likely out of ignorance  rather  than by design, Mugabe allowed state institutions to collapse around him  with the consequence of virtually centralizing their functions in his office.

Government became a medium to rubber-stamp his decisions while leaders in the state institutions, stripped of any real power, focused on feathering their own nests resulting in run-down state institutions and run-away corruption at every level. Not surprisingly, many were quite happy to subsist in this miasma content to follow the leader in blaming their failures on so called illegal sanctions imposed by the evil West.

Therefore, in my view the greatest challenge for the Zimbabwean voters on July 30 is sifting through the bombast and dishonest rhetoric to identify genuine talent and conviction among the multitude of candidates. This is a lot easier said than done for a people emerging from a painful  history of electoral  skulduggery, violence, intolerance and opaque leadership.

Leading contenders, Zanu PF’s Emmerson Mnangangwa, with the advantage of incumbency, and MDC Alliance’s Nelson Chamisa, whose youthfulness and a clean past may stand him in good stead, may not necessarily be the best candidates for the high office. But as things stand, and if the numbers being bandied  around are anything to go by, they represent the most  likely choices Zimbabweans have.

 So it stands to reason that one of them may well be the  next  president of Zimbabwe.

The rest we can only entrust to divine intervention.

Desmond Kumbuka is a freelance journalist based in Harare and can be reached on [email protected]