In recent months there has been a continent-wide spike in reports of the abduction, shooting, imprisonment and harassment of journalists during the course of their duties across Africa, and it raises serious questions about commitments all these countries ostensibly made when they appanded their names to the Windhoek Declaration, for example in ensuring the safety of journalists and freedom of the press.

From Burkina Faso, that notorious land infamously known for the 1998 gruesome killing and burning of journalist Norbet Zongo, to our neighbor Zambia where “ailing” Michael Sata is exhibiting Robert Mugabe’s hyper-sensitivity to criticism, to our very own where one journalist answered a knock at the door of his home only to be brutally assaulted by enigmatic characters who are still at large.

In the Gambia, government has moved to restrict internet freedom, while in Gabon, government shut down newspapers critical to the State, and one wonders why it is that while others are celebrating the promise of online platforms and privately owned newspapers as the present and future of freedom of information and unfettered news production, some behemoths imagine they will succeed in stopping a revolution whose time has come, to borrow a phrase.

And indeed Zimbabwean journalists have said they fear for their lives during these coming elections, with one senior journalist actually advising junior colleagues that they should move in packs wherever they are assigned as there is safety in numbers.

Such advice is indeed very useful, knowing the treatment journalists have received even outside election periods.

But numbers of people armed with pens and notebooks are no match to numbers armed with sjamboks and cudgels!

And many of the countries who have seen a rise in the harassment of journalists, are typically having elections this year or in 2014, and they are the same regimes that are keen to see the legitimating of their governments by other countries be it the AU, the same AU that has made commitments to press freedom, or international community, but still do everything in their power to invite adverse reports by literally giving the press a beating.

And then these people get someone commenting that Africa is a dangerous place to work as a journalist, yes, viewing the continent through that prism of it being one huge homogenous space, and scream exaggeration!

But then, not everything has to make sense. It is okay when it only suits the mandarins in charge of “regulating” media space, and one will recall the “promise” made by Mahoso that private TV players will be licenced in 2103, only to have the same people condemning the appearance of 1st TV. What tosh!

Reflecting on the treatment on journalists in Zimbabwe, I recalled an incident reported a few years ago where a reporter from a privately-owned newspaper was assaulted by war veterans or Zanu PF activists (but then what’s the difference?) while “colleagues” from the State media witnessed it with unbridled glee and wondered if there is any hope for Zimbabwe’s media landscape to be a safe working space from 31 July to and beyond, but then this ain’t no time for pessism.

Zimbabwe’s CSOs have over the past 13 years or more been saddled with the Herculean task of highlighting government excesses and brazen breaches of democratic processes.

The long road has however inevitably inspired cynics to question their (CSOs) relevance if not to continue getting funding and blowing the moolah because poverty weary Zimbabweans have rightly looked up CSOs to lead or even catalyse the birth of a new nation, and as this logic goes, if it has taken them forever despite all the money they splash, they must be getting it wrong somewhere!

It is unfortunate therefore that the quest, like that of Zimbabweans and political parties yearning for a fresh beginning after a virtual one-party domination of political space has dragged for so long, and like Tsvangirai’s own for whom his delayed anointing has only given “the masses” ample time to scrunitise him more closely and ultimately doubting his capacity and competence. Time is such an ass.

Along the long way however, like typical fanatics who double their efforts and lose sight of their goal, the CSOs find themselves in a quandary of what happens after July 31 in the much awaited event that Zanu PF becomes history.

That is one of many thought-provoking questions raised yesterday by McDonald Lewanika, Crisis Coalition Director at a Food for Thought session at the US Embassy Public Affairs Section.

Because the CSOs have for long been criticized by the former ruling party as “running dogs of imperialism” who have turned social activism virtually into a million dollar industry, how they shape Zimbabwe’s post-Mugabe discourse has become a legitimate point to ponder, and for Lewanika, the fact that CSOs have morphed from their original ideal as “speaking truth to power” to unwittingly becoming more driven by the perks that accrue from that activism, it is a reality that their relevance becomes compromised.

However, as Lewanika pointed out, the success of CSOs in their agenda to hold State actors accountable and champion democratic transitions can in fact lead to their decline, which can be imagined as a post-Mugabe Zimbabwe.

And the same has been raised since the chaos began here concerning the media who stood vigilante in the “speak truth to power” discourse. What happens to them after Mugabe goes, and this is apparently asked in light of what is seen as skewed coverage that favours one political party.

One thing that Lewanika raised that made that self-criticism of a movement he is part of some kind of daring honesty was the issue of activists who have become no different from the State actors they criticize, for example telling Mugabe off for refusing to quit when the CSOs activists themselves are afflicted by the same delusions of seeing themselves as permanent faces of the revolution.

That some CSOs virtually have “life presidents” has been an irony lost to the anti-Mugabe crusaders and it cannot be dismissed that this has made their relevance questionable, what with characters like Jonathan Moyo ever on the ready with unsavory epithets.

As Lewanika put it, bureaucratisation has been the death of some CSOs because now the focus is on positions and the perks that come with those positions, and some activists could in fact be positioning themselves for co-option into the “new MDC-T government” after July 31!

But that can never be reason to change generals during the war, as Lewanika put it!

The struggle continues and July 31 high noon beckons.

David Coltart has complained about ZEC assuming the role of the Constitutional Court, something that sets it own precedence as we approach what many have written off as a poll that will have a disputed outcome – again.

Coltart was commenting on the special vote where ZEC says those who failed to vote will be allowed to vote on the 31st despite the Electoral Act saying those who applied for the special vote cannot vote if they missed that first opportunity.

The problem with these latest developments is that as long as there are disagreements on what course to follow, this only becomes yet another pointer of ZEC’s own poor preparedness for the poll, something which has been the major talking point ever since that Jealousy Mawarire fellow sprang from the wilderness like a locust eating and honey sucking savior.

The concerns Coltart raises are yet another example of how legal processes have merely become symbolic in this country where the rule of law has been an area of bitter contestation because one political party simply chooses to ignore what does not favour it.

In a functioning democracy, there is no doubt that disgruntled political parties would take their case to the courts, but here they know too damn well that they will be pissing in the wind. So what do they do? They go ahead and participate under protest! What a big joke.

Zimbabwe desperately needs all sorts of reforms, from not-so-bright judges, to not-so-bright military men to even death-wishing kombi drivers!

And the fact that the results of the special vote are still to be announced is telling enough and portends more chaos for the 31 July vote.

A curious response was given by ZEC spokesperson Shupikai Mashereni on being asked about the veracity of the special voter numbers given by Patrick Chinamasa who is “however, not the authority mandated to make such official announcements,” Newsday helpfully pointed out.

Said Mashereni: “You think the minister could have lied about those numbers? He is a minister.”

Well?

The fact that entrance into politics is now informed by financial rewards that accrue from that office more than anything else for me stands out as one the things that ought to inform how people will vote. But then, “now” seems a misnomer as public office has since independence always been viewed as a springboard to wild riches!

The bitterness that emerged from all political parties concerning who will present their respective parties is enough to point to the very bad turn issues of governance have taken in this country.

And many will readily say this is one of Zanu PF’s legacies that will continue to hound political space years for some time to come even with the coming into power of another political party.

True. Some say while Zanu PF extols itself for bringing independence (remember Chris Mutsvangwa’s SAPES outburst ), it should equally accept that it also institutionalized corruption, cronysim, thievery, where hard work is not a virtue.

I was puzzled the other week when a female MDC-T parliamentary candidate in Bulawayo said her ultimate goal is to become a government minister without any hint of sarcasm.

For one to actually say that openly does raise issues about why these people choose to enter politics in the first place.

It certainly has more to do with the perceived perks than serving God and country, and a person who harbours such ambitions will indeed punch their way into public office, no surprises therefore about the bloody nose some received during the primaries!

Another chap seeking re-election as an MP recently told the courts in a maintenance case hearing that he could not pay the monthly allowance his wife was demanding because parliament, his claimed sole source of income, had been dissolved.

And these are the same people who demand ridiculous allowances from the national purse, imagining that these resources are infinite. And they become career politicians.

That certainly should be a reminder to voters about politicians seeking their vote which these men and women must earn not just regurgitate condescending nonsense imagining they are dealing with an illiterate electorate.

It certainly is time voters interrogated issues, and the very fact that some of these political party manifestos are literally pies in the sky says a lot about politicians thinking voters will believe anything.

A wisecrack wrote during Soviet Russia’s communist years that in every hotel room in Russia there is a television, only the television watches you.

I recalled this when a I read about the presidential mouth, George Charamba, frothing over the announcement of 1st TV and that government was looking for ways to “cripple this pirate television broadcast station.”

These men would be comfortable having TVs that do the watching because their paranoia knows no bounds.

But then we already know that Zanu PF honchos love watching themselves on TV, warts and all – literally!

Zimbabweans surely know well enough what they want without relying on “hostile media” that “demonises” Mugabe and Zanu PF.

For God’s sake, these are the same people who extol Zimbabwe’s literacy but still believe that these same educated people cannot make up their own minds without coaching by the British and the Americans! That must be the ultimate insult.

And these are the same people, along with the permanently egregious Tafataona Mahoso who in 2011 infuriated Cont Mhlanga when he (Mahoso) said TV licences would only be granted in 2013.

Well, this is 2013!

To quote Cont: “I fail to understand that man (Mahoso) – where did he get his education from? He thinks we are so gullible and he seems happy to announce that after 31 years of having one broadcasting station, we still need two more years in that state. That is abnormal to say the least. After the announcements I wondered whether we were a normal country. We cannot go on having a single station and even other countries in SADC are taken aback by the way we think because in their countries they is (sic) not scared to have more operating stations. We are seriously abnormal if we continue to live like this.”

There you have it.