I find it disturbingly tasteless that even before we hit the half year mark, there are already complaints about the President’s traveling habits.

To make it clear, what I find tasteless isn’t the news people reporting about the First Citizen’s globetrotting, but the First Citizen’s unbridled penchant for travel despite all the criticism over the years.

And because this is the first half the year, imagine then the other half of it. Imagine the First Citizen’s carbon footprint! Talk about money to burn!

An entourage of more than 50 officials to Japan next month, we were informed today and last time in another such jaunt, we are informed the number was somewhere near 100! And the numbers that joined the First citizen to Ethiopia for the African Union commemorations?

We recall that the same President Joyce Banda who has taken our President as her mentor, has previously vowed to cut back on international travel to cushion Treasury from what she saw at the time of her swearing-in as unmitigated profligacy by her predecessor. Interesting ain’t it?

You have to feel pity for the guy holding the nation’s purse whose favourite epigram has become “we eat what we kill.” Really?

It is always interesting, well, for me at least, that many leaders, African or otherwise, while apparently extolled elsewhere, are often “unwanted” and face harsh criticism in their own countries.

And this has nothing to do with the hiding-being-religion motif of a prophet being unwelcome among his own people. Far from it.

I have been thinking about this in the past few days that when our President was heaping praises on Zambian President Michael Sata for literally feeding Zimbabwe with 150,000 tonnes of maize, university students in Lusaka were protesting, taking to the streets demanding that their “crazy president” resign.

The students were protesting against something that resonates with Zimbabwe’s tertiary education students who however would never dare bum rush the streets in the manner seen in Lusaka.

That was not the end of it.

Jobless youths reportedly joined in the protests demanding jobs, and a comment attributed to one youth summed up the mood: “Let them come and arrest all the young people for speaking out on the wrongs that are beng done by the government. This is a government that has lost popularity so early and we cannot wait to vote them out. They don’t want to listen to people who voted for them and since they have closed their ears, we can take to the streets because that is the language they want to understand.”

One of the accusations leveled against President Sata was that he had become “arrogant and insensitive to the plight of the people.”

And we await here the day when students can get on their soapboxes and speak their minds about their wretched circumstances.

Yet because student activists will tell you there are spooks who sit through lectures pretending to be students, this has crippled any militancy you would expect from an impoverished aspiring academic.

But we read that President Sata’s response was typical of an African leader who is antithetical to the right to protest: LOCK THEM UP, he is alleged to have instructed cops.

That was not the end of the crackdown. Police have in past few days also locked up Zambia’s own protest poets for music critical to Sata.

The offending lyricist when translated went something like: “You were lying ‘Tata’ (old man). You promised cheap fuel; you said you will construct roads but you were lying as people are still sleeping in tunnels.”

We are in good company hey? Thanks for the maize.

A question was asked during an election reporting workshop concerning how journalists and civic organisations can report or walk the fine line between bringing knowledge to the people and not attract the wrath of the authorities who have criminalised voter education.

It highlighted the problem many have with the conditions that prevail as the country prepares for elections whereby while political parties are encouraging supporters to vote on one hand, and on the other institutions expected to play a role in ensuring that the same voters make informed decisions being fettered by the threat of imprisonment.

Anyone seeking to make inroads into remote rural areas for example to “educate” voters does that at their own peril, and it has to be queried how then a people known to have no access to radio, TV and newspapers are supposed to participate in processes they have no clue about.

It could well be a replay of the referendum where voters merely followed instructions from their political parties and vote for issues they have no clue about.

And because this is a high stakes poll, we can expect all voters to be denied by the usual suspects all the information they need to make informed decisions.

This buttresses the charge that rural folks are “instructed” or “persuaded” with brute force who to vote for, and we have already read about Jabulani Sibanda “frightening” villagers in Lupane, which is just the beginning of worse things to come.

Common sense would tell you that the period in the run-up to elections provides insight into the credibility of any poll, and Sibanda’s reported actions in rural Matebeleland only serve to cast more doubt into the country’s – or Zanu PF’s seeing that he is a Zanu PF functionary – commitment to creating conditions “ideal for a free and fair election.”

And because these rural constituencies have rather unflatteringly been labeled as “unsophisticated” they are seen as very malleable in the hands of political hoodlums, and it is here where an informed voter can take charge of their political circumstances and indeed political future.

Thus we hear exhortations from some quarters that the rural folks must remain docile and allow themselves to be herded to rallies but make their choices known inside the voting booth!

A famous Tony Namate cartoon back in the 1990s actually has a peasant woman mischievously winking as she puts her “X” on a candidate contesting against Zanu PF, and while such commentary did indeed help magnify the extent of what has become a post-independence millstone around our necks, Zanu PF has still been able to claim the vote, raising questions whether if at all rural folk “vote freely.”

But it’s a debate that will take forever as some have already opined that Zanu PF has never allowed defeat to stand in the way to claim victory!

It thus has become a well-worn cliché that access to information is the bedrock of all electoral processes and democracy, yet we find ourselves doing the same things over, and over but still expecting to get different results.

It is essentially because of this that some of the most vocal people you meet in the street criticizing the status quo go to the pub instead when other citizens join long queues under the blazing African sun to cast their vote!

Another issue to look out for again this year would be the spread of newspapers, which areas they reach as they seek to report about the pre-election climate.

Yet one thing that has precedence is the “outlawing” of certain titles from certain areas where reading a particular paper has in the not-so-distant past been a punishable offence with vigilantes using cudgels on fellow villagers for merely reading a newspaper of their choice.

To an outsider it sounds crazy, but this is what we can expect in the coming months, that is if it is not happening already.

30 April 2013

Harare International Airport

I was given a jolt at the check-in around 1500hrs when some dude said “nah mate we cannot let you through you gotta have a visa.” A flurry of emails between the WPFD organisers, and I’m back by the Internet cafe and the guy comes to me and says, “We have found a way to get around the visa thing. Since you are travelling through Germany you won’t be leaving the airport so, abracadabra, you can travel!”I be like, “Dude, that’s what I was telling you all the time!”

I am sitting at the Harare International departure lounge watching some TV and I’m like what the fuck, shouldn’t we be watching DSTV! But then I soon realize it would be deemed treasonous showing such content at a “strategic national treasure!” Somewhere in the distance I can hear “last night a dj saved my life” blasting from the radio and I be like wow, that gotta be some coincidence. I move to another end where I order a pint of lager and I sit in front of a screen showing BBC news.

Arrived in Zambia shortly after 1900hrs but departure was delayed due to some technical fault in the checking system, the pilot explained. Finally left at 2040 PM for Dubai. Bloody long, 5,793km to be exact … check out the entire diary here

An important book that takes a critical look at the state of democracy in Zimbabwe was published early this year and is an invaluable tool in assessing our political landscape as the country eyes elections later this year. Compromise or Compromised? An Assessment of Democracy in Transitional Zimbabwe published by the now defunct Institute for Democracy in Africa (Idasa) “is intended to set the benchmark for democracy to be measured against in the future” and “the hope is that citizens…can use the Democracy Index to assess and debate the state of their democracy” (p.1).

Kudakwashe Chitsike, who co-edits the book with Amy Eaglestone, writes that the “purpose of this book is to analyse the state of democracy in Zimbabwe since the signing of the Global Political Agreement” (p.2). It uses Idasa’s Democracy Index and scores each question addressed by contributors between 1-10:

1-4 / inadequate or falling short of the democratic ideal
5 / stable but insufficient
6 / stable and inadequate
7 / improving
8-10 / excellent and also close to the democratic ideal

It can only be hoped that as we approach elections, attitudes by political elites toward the electoral processes do change as scores in the Elections and Democracy Index did not inspire any confidence in these processes. For example the question “do all citizens believe that their vote is secret” scored 2 out of a possible 10! Then, “to what extent do citizens believe that the electoral system reflects the will of the people” also scored 2 out of a possible 10!

Chitsike explains that “this Index is different from previous democracy indices … as it looks at democracy in the perspective of gender… In Zimbabwe, participation in democratic processes for women is an uphill battle as the domination of women practiced at family level is carried into the public arena.” (p5).

This therefore is a welcome book especially now when the new Constitution seeks to mainstream gender and bring more female visibility to the country’s body politic. It is also a welcome addition to the body of knowledge of the country’s false steps to inclusive politics and democratic processes as it will be used a reference point for checks and balances in keeping vigilance on any false promises the political elites make to the citizens.

The book is divided into five sections, namely Participation and Democracy which scores a low 3.4 average, Elections and Democracy (2.9), Accountability and Democracy (2.2), Political Freedom and Democracy (2.9) and Human Dignity and Democracy (3).

The two editors and six contributors are drawn from diverse backgrounds that include human rights, law, development and their rich field experience offers refreshing insights into contemporary Zimbabwe’s political landscape. It will be a useful tool for anyone who seeks to steer the country from the opprobrium it has attracted in the past 15 or so years and make informed decisions that indeed seek to create a better Zimbabwe. It’s not too late.

Very fitting for Zimbabwe’s GNU, just replace Washington with Harare: “I once saw a snake having sex with a vulture, and I thought, It’s just business as usual in Washington DC.?” Jarod Kintz