So, clever Mr Mbeki has half succeeded in getting a lot of people, including the heads of state who attended the SADC emergency summit to actually begin to doubt whether there is a crisis in Zimbabwe. His immortal words “There is no crisis in Zimbabwe,” really left a lot of minds boggled.

What do you call a 37 year life-expectancy, an inflation rate over 165 000%, 85% unemployment, an education system gone to the dogs, intermittent to no supply of water and electricity, supermarket shelves that are literally empty and hospitals that can only prescribe paracetamol for all ailments? Moreover, in case you haven’t noticed Mr Mbeki, there are at least over 3 million Zimbabweans living as asylum seekers in your country. Is that not a crisis? Will that not somehow degenerate into a crisis?

Now look what you’ve done, even more sensible people are actually finding it hard not to believe a respectable man like yourself, yet you really misrepresented the situation going down here. This wait and see policy smacks of cruelty. How badly do you want the situation to degenerate before something can be done? How many times has SADC told itself it has learnt lessons from disasters of old like the Rwanda genocide or most recently, the Kenya political turmoil that saw many lives needlessly destroyed? Next, SADC is going to learn from Zimbabwe too, but only after deaths occur? It is sad to note that regional leaders cant seem to realize that if the situation in Zimbabwe fails to stabilize, it affects the whole region through the creation of economic and political refugees.

How will you live with yourself, with innocent people’s blood on your hands? I can understand if there really isn’t much you can do, but the least you can do is discard that distressing hear-no-evil, see-no-evil speak-no-evil attitude and probably keep quiet rather than calling a stain no stain.

Or you could at least encourage the ZEC to just tell us the presidential result already. It’s now so apparent your friend is going nowhere, so please, help make it official. However, it’s a consolation to know South Africans will not have such a hard time getting rid of their president.

In an earlier post I remarked on how the Zimbabwe dollar had devalued hugely on the parallel market in the run up to Zimbabwe’s ‘harmonised’ elections.

Who wanted foreign currency badly enough to pay hand over fist for it? The businesses and organizations whose foreign currency accounts (FCAs) had been robbed by Gideon Gono, governor of the Reserve Bank at the end of 2007? Hardly likely as there aren’t enough of these local businesses operating at sufficient capacity to finance a jump from paying 4.75 million to 65 million Zimbabwe dollars for 1 US dollar, in 8 weeks.

Funny how there was suddenly farm equipment galore to give away in the weeks before the election. And plenty of helicopter trips for Mugabe to address the nation at uncountable rallies before the March 29 elections. Seems there must be a connection.

Straight after the elections were held, the rate ‘plummeted’ for a week – down to 30 million to 1 US dollar.

Today, the rate is 85 million to the US dollar and rising fast.

So, what’s driving it back up again?

My feeling is that the regime is spending quadrillions on preparing the nation (especially the rural areas) for a runoff. Beating the rural population doesn’t come cheap. That kind of deployment requires fuel for transport, food for militias and army responsible for the beatings, extra wages – who would commit this kind of violence on their usual pay cheque?

Fuel & food are in short supply in Zimbabwe – but Zim dollars are easy to print – so our illegitimate government is the most likely to be driving the rate up.

Oh and don’t forget the innumerable times our one and a half jets have flown to and fro above our heads in the past week. That’s an expensive exercise in a country without foreign currency inflows.

I haven’t begun to talk about the reserves of tear gas they’ll need to be building up to ‘manage’ everyone when they wrap up their final subversion of the ‘harmonised’ election through re-counts and a runoff.

We need to put our heads together and work our how to starve the beast that beats us.

The egos of men are a dangerous thing. From the playground at kindergarten right through to affairs of state, a man’s ego can have a lasting influence, benevolent or damaging, that goes beyond the man himself.

Men’s egos are especially dangerous when they utter public vows that they may have to repudiate sooner or later. The ego demands that the public declarations come to pass rather than be repudiated by their originators or, worse, the unforgiving march of history. Once validated, a public declaration secures the ego of the man, makes him a prophet and makes him look strong before other men but especially in the eyes of his wife and children. The problem is greater, of course, when two egos collide. Because then, there are two groups of societies to face and … two spouses! That society could be a nuclear family, a board room, an extended family, a resident’s association, political party or even an entire nation! Sometimes, it stretches across two oceans like say the Atlantic and the Indian with consequences that reverberate in the land of the Euphrates and the Tigris. It takes a strong and unyielding uncle or child to pierce the egos of the two men with a timely word of truth, followed by wisdom which may or may not be received.

That wisdom was not received for Iraq because when you publicly order a head of state to leave a country within 48 hours live on CNN, you are far from being wise. That is why society invented the phrase ‘face saver.’ A face saver is designed to, privately, give a man and his ego a way out of the hole he has dug for himself with his very public utterances. For unless that happens, his ego will keep digging and quite furiously at that. If he is awarded a face saver, the man may go home and face his wife and say;

“I let them get away with it in the interests of progress.”

His wife will then smile sweetly and say;

“I know dear. You are such a strong and wise man.”

Then there is peace at home and, by consequence, peace for the rest of society.

I’m wondering what it will take for Zimbabweans to rise up and liberate themselves.

I’m hearing that the “brilliant and vainglorious” Mugabe has organised two of Zimbabwe’s most popular soccer teams, Dynamos and Highlanders, to play at Gwanzura Stadium during the Independence Celebrations on Friday.

A young man has written to Kubatana asking us to forward his “plea” to people to boycott the Independence celebrations even if they want to see their favourite soccer stars in action. But I guarantee you that the stadium will be full of Zimbabweans wanting some free entertainment even though they will be addressed by the man who has just stolen their vote.

Where are your balls boys? If you go to Gwanzura make sure to drown the old man out with songs of true liberation, jeer, laugh, invade the pitch but Do Something.

One of the great things about being part of a network of a wide variety of Zimbabweans is the comments and suggestions that we get at Kubatana.net. Here are some of the most recent ones:

Please if you can contact the MDC Tsvangirai. A recount must not be done. Who was keeping the boxes? Zanu can easily replace the boxes or open the old boxes and remove all the MDC ballot papers. When votes were counted all parties were present and they agreed but when the boxes were moved not all parties were present. – Andrew

It is clear that Mugabe and Zanu heavies do not want to relinquish power despite losing the elections. They will a lot of delaying tactics, counting on the docility of Zimbabweans. It’s no secret that Mugabe can steal our victory from right under our noses and Zimbabweans will just sit back and do nothing: Who wants to be shot down by Mugabe loyalists? What’s the way forward? We should avoid a situation that will force Mugabe to shoot us. Believe me; to Mugabe shooting to death tens of thousands of people to retain power is a walk in the park: He has done it before. So what should the people do? Should we wait patiently? For what? We should do something, but avoid the streets. As I see it, we do not have a legitimate government in power so we should stop obeying the government: Stop paying our bills, stop going to work. In other words make the country ungovernable until Mugabe relinquishes power, but by all means avoid the streets. At all costs.Do you catch my drift? – Shepherd

As we are going to have Independence day very soon on the 18th April, who is going to give the speech as a president because for now we are not having the president. And for the interest’s sake are there any preparations for the day. You know guys Zim is a funny country. – Melody

Let us go out there and wait somewhere everyday. Simply go to the ZEC offices sit outside and wait. Nobody goes to work. We wait. I’m tired of the arrogance. Nobody should be allowed to mess with a nation’s collective voice, the ballot! – Timothy

Its a pity this country is ruled by the army, no wonder why it has collapsed. Kusvika rini Mugabe achingozvuzvurudzwa semwana naChiwenga naShiri? – Felicitas

Could it have been a strategy by the government to introduce new tax bands at a time people are preoccupied with elections results. I realise that people are more keenly following the drama unfolding regarding elections without impressing upon ZCTU to make the proposed taxation levels an issue with government.Was it also a planned thing to introduce this issue when there is no sworn in cabinet. In any case, was it proper for a ‘cabinet minister’ to announce these taxation changes after dissolution of cabinet. So effectively we do not have any minister to address our issues to? I think I might be lost here. Advise me. – Alfonzy

The rollercoaster ride that has ensued since we cast our ballots in the March 29, 2008 “Harmonised” elections has left many of us dejected and demoralized.

We saw Zanu (PF) briefly lost for words as the magnitude of their defeat became apparent in the first few days of counting. Unhappily for us they have recovered their poisonous form and have now set their shoulder to the task of formally rigging the results.

Much criticism can be directed at the MDC(Tsvangirai), MDC(Mutambara) and Makoni camps for letting Zanu (PF) take a breathe and regroup. The fact that they have still not formed a coalition to resist Zanu (PF)’s determined attempts to steal the election is self-defeating.

As much as any of the opposition constructs may be able to lay claims to the most votes or the most integrity or the most internal Zanu (PF) support, none of them, on their own, is a match for the desperate regime that still clings to power.

What legitimacy does Robert Mugabe or his interim ‘cabinet’ have? None but that which we as a nation accord them by continuing to work through the discredited entities they have set up or influence.

• The High Court as evidenced by Justice Tendai Uchena’s reluctance to act swiftly in the face of impending electoral fraud is undermined and not worthy of our participation.
• The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission headed by High Court judge Justice George Mutandwa Chiweshe has acted in a manner that leaves no doubt that they are heavily biased towards Zanu (PF) and totally spineless.
• The police force set to guard the ballot boxes after voting day is notoriously partisan and inclined to ‘follow orders’.
• The Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings is Zanu (PF)’s propaganda umbrella for radio, television and print media and purports to inform the nation on the ‘truth of the matter’.
• SADC, epitomised by Thabo Mbeki, is a deaf, blind, mute construct determined to allow the worst kind of white collar crime – electoral fraud – to be perpetuated. They would have us believe that unless blood is spilled in volumes here, there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. In fact, their paucity of vision and leadership epitomises the crisis we have in Africa.

So here comes the hard part. We have to pool our collective imagination, stamina and determination to resist Zanu (PF)’s attempts to ‘claim’ these elections through their corrupt entities and efforts. As tired as we may feel, this time we have to beat Zanu (PF) at their game.