Zimbabwe is abuzz with talk of elections and the referendum. It seems the electorate will have a very busy year ahead of them. I must confess that I don’t count myself among the electorate; I’ve never registered to vote.

I imagine I’m not the only youth aged 18 to 35 who hasn’t registered to vote. Neither am I the only one who isn’t remotely inclined. Answer me this MKD, ZAPU, ZANU PF and MDC-whoever, why should I bother to vote?

Voting is supposed to be part of a democratic process where, after much consideration of the available candidates, a citizen may choose one whom he or she feels most addresses their issues. But after much consideration of the candidates available to me, frankly, I’d rather not participate. I do want change; I do want to be a part of something greater than myself. I have high hopes for Zimbabwe, but I find that these hopes are often choked by the reality of my day-to-day existence.

Everyday I am confronted by a kind of lawlessness. >From the Kombi drivers, who know no rules, to businessmen who shamelessly ransom basic necessities citing mythological taxes. And what are my City Councillor and Member of Parliament, who promised me a return to the Sunshine City in the Bread Basket of Africa doing about this? Nothing. When I read about ministers who unashamedly steal in broad daylight, and get away with it, it begins to make sense, none of these people care about me, or this country.

Once when I was younger, and caught up in an idealistic fervour I did believe that I could make a difference. That my vote was my right, and that my government was accountable to me and anyone else who answered to mwanawevhu. I am wiser now. Promises are made, and when the dust has settled, and the slogan charged rallies have ended they are forgotten.

I’m sure the people who cast their ballots in 2005 were full of hope that an election would bring water to their houses, doctors to their clinics, cheaper food into the shops and teachers back to their children’s schools. It didn’t. In 2008 they were beaten for taking the trouble, and their situation became worse. Why then would I want to participate in a process that legitimises the illegitimate, gives power to those without conscience and seems to only bring pain and suffering?

I am young, but I am no longer idealistic. I watched with envy Obama’s election campaign, as scores of young peopled chanted ‘yes we can’ marching in the streets on TV. They felt a sense of ownership of their country that I did once. I know better now. This is Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, and should he ever win, it will become Morgan’s Zimbabwe, but it will never be mine.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network launched an observation report on the voters roll. In April 2010, ZESN undertook an audit to assess the quality of Zimbabwe’s Voter’s Roll. The research project sought to test the accuracy and completeness of the voter’s roll and to make recommendations for a cleanup of the voters roll.

In his remarks during the launch, Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network Tinoziva Bere said:

The people of this country and everybody concerned about the Voter’s Roll ought to have access to it, freely and easily. And any exercise in improving it or cleaning it, ought to be done publicly.

Observation of the Voter’s Roll was conducted using three tests: a computer test, a list to people field test and a people to list test. A systematic analysis of data obtained from these tests provides critical information about the quality of the voters than can inform efforts to improve the voter registration in Zimbabwe. Among the findings in the report were the following;

-    The list to people test revealed that 41% of registered voters were no longer residing at the address on the voter’s roll.
-    97% of respondents have not transferred to reflect the change in residential address against the 3% who had transferred to new wards.
-    More males (52%) were registered compared to females, who constituted 48% of the registered population. Population statistics for Zimbabwe indicate that women constitute 52% of the population. -    The computer test shows that only 18% of those registered to vote are youths aged between 18 and 30.

Among the recommendations ZESN makes to government and the Zimbabwe Electoral commission are the following:

-    Increase the transparency of the voter registration process such as deletion from the voter’s roll as the process is currently out of public scrutiny and the criteria for deletion is left to the Constituency Registrars
-    Voter education drives to inform citizens on the procedures for registration, transferring, objections, making claims and deletion of dead voters
-    Continuous maintenance of the Voter’s Roll is important to ensure that voters that have become ineligible to vote, for example by death, are removed in order to prevent over inflating the voter’s roll -    Voter registration must in it’s entirety be integrated into one office of ZEC and ZEC should have total control of voter registration and maintenance of the voter’s roll to ensure greater accountability for it’s state
-    Prioritise young people in the issuance of the national identity card to increase the numbers of young people who register as voters

In closing the launch, Jestina Mukoko of the Zimbabwe Peace Project said:

“I hope the media will note that ZESN has opted not to refer to the voter’s roll as being in a shambles but that they want to critically look at the various issues.”

This week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba. He was only 35 when he died, but in his comparatively short life, he managed not simply to help what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo gain independence from Belgium, but he inspired an idea.

Lumumba’s political career was not very long. He was Prime Minister of the Republic of Congo for almost three months before he was deposed in a coup during the Congo Crisis, and then murdered. The exact details surrounding his death are not clear, but the Belgian government and the CIA were implicated. In 2002 the Belgian government formally apologised to the Congolese people for Lumumba’s murder.

Lumumba is an African icon because he stood steadfast in his belief that the African people had a right to determine their destiny without interference. At Congo’s Independence, the Belgian monarch made it clear in his remarks that he expected Belgium to play a leading role in the Congo’s future, and Lumumba stood defiant in the face of Imperialism:

‘No Congolese worthy of the name will ever be able to forget that it is by struggle that we have won [our independence], a struggle waged each and every day, a passionate idealistic struggle, a struggle in which no effort, privation, suffering, or drop of our blood was spared. We will count not only on our enormous strength and immense riches but on the assistance of numerous foreign countries whose collaboration we will accept if it is offered freely and with no attempt to impose on us an alien culture of no matter what nature’.

Lumumba understood then that while Congo, as did other African countries subsequent to that, had achieved political independence, it was yet to gain economic freedom. It was because he was a threat to colonial interests that sought to maintain their economic relationship with postcolonial African countries that Lumumba was enough of a threat to be assassinated. More than anything Lumumba struggled against “an institutionalised relationship between Africans and Europeans,” in all it’s forms, which facilitated the exploitation of Africans and their resources. As he did then Lumumba represents the idea of unencumbered self-determination, the idea that Africans can truly be free.

In an article titled Lumumba’s ideals and the symbolism of his life, Lyn Ossome writes:

Today due to greed powered by its own African neighbours, who under the watchful eye of the United Nations continue to fuel ethnic conflicts and amass far too many civilian casualties, the country lies in political, economic and social tatters. The paranoid miscalculations of the U.S. and its allies during the Cold War cost Africa many inspiring leaders and perpetuated conflict in a number of countries that have paid long and hard, among them Eritrea, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mozambique, and the DRC. In Sudan, a long civilian war robbed Southern Sudan of its economic soul for more than two decades, and the semi-autonomous region that stands poised to secede from its northern counterpart today is one that is desperately clinging to the hope of Pan-African solidarity and visionary, steadfast leadership. At the contentious heart of its secession lies its enormous mineral wealth, caught within the same cross-hairs of imperialist interests and intervening African interests against which Lumumba struggled until his death.

In a post titled: Democracy won’t help Zimbabwe, Mugabe is not the problem, blogger African Aristocrat share’s his thoughts on the regime change agenda:

It is tempting to believe that if we manage to dislodge Zanu PF Zimbabwe will immediately turn into a land of milk and honey. It will not. This is an inconvenient truth and will likely irk the many evangelists of hope that write in support of the opposition. Let us be reminded that these are the same people who just two years ago told us that billions of dollars in aid awaited Zimbabwe and would be speedily dispensed the moment Tsvangirai put his hand to paper and committed to a power sharing agreement. Following Tsvangirai’s participation in government, the reality has not be quite as colourful. Zimbabweans are still poor. Serious problems persist in the health sector. Not only so, all indicators point to a prolonged struggle ahead.

The greatest challenge we face when analysing the Zimbabwe situation is that of deliberate amnesia. The general consensus is that Zimbabwe should not have gone to war in the Congo. I agree. Zimbabwe should not have taken over white owned farms in the manner that it did. Again I agree. Gideon Gono should not have kept the printing press in an endless loop. This again is true. There is a lot more that could be said of Zanu PF’s mismanagement and errors of judgement in the past years. There is no defence, they messed up.

But this view is misleading. It assumes that people started suffering in Zimbabwe following the events just detailed. This is not so. The past decade has simply brought poverty to the formerly privileged. The majority of Zimbabweans had been living in these desperate conditions even when Zimbabwe was lauded as an economic success story. Let us imagine that all of this had not happened and we were back in the comforts of August 1998. Would Zimbabwe’s intelligentsia protesting so loudly. I doubt it.

But remember this dear reader. In August of 1998 millions of Zimbabweans lived in the rural areas. Millions of Zimbabweans ate bread only on special occasions and they considered basics such as jam a treat. These many millions struggled to earn a living tilling their land. Why was there no call for Mugabe to step down then? The Zimbabwean middle class seemed content to live in a country in which others lived in such desperation whilst they enjoyed the fat of the land.

What would happen if the middle was restored to its former luxury? Would they continue to call for democracy. I doubt it. In 1998 Zimbabwe was hardly a democracy, say the wrong thing and even then you could disappear. But people really didn’t care for democracy. They were comfortable.

I get distracted. I started by suggesting that democracy will not help Zimbabwe and that Mugabe is really not the problem. Those who think Mugabe is the problem view the Zimbabwean crisis as one which began only 10 years ago. This is untrue. The rural folk have always been in crisis and it has become a way of life for them. This is what explains their continued support for Mugabe. It often goes unmentioned that although the MDC won more seats in parliament in the free and fair 2008 elections, it is ZANU PF that won the popular vote. More people voted for ZANU PF than for the MDC.

Why do people in the rural areas vote for ZANU PF? Certainly not for economic reasons, since 1980 Zanu PF has done very little for the rural man as an entity. The rural vote is based on liberation nostalgia and ignorance. This, I accept, is a vulgar generalisation of the rural electorate. But that is beside the point. What I am trying to highlight is that the rural folk have not really been shaken in their support for Zanu PF. The people in urban areas have. In the past decade it is those in urban areas who lost the most. Those in rural areas continued farming their land and living off it. They have complaints but nothing that compares to those of the city dweller.

Now let us come to the issue of democracy and Zimbabwe. I have done my best to explain how what we call the best years really where not the best years. The majority was living in squalor, out of sight is indeed out of mind. People call those days democratic. So what then did this democracy yeild for the average Zimbabwean? Very little, if we are to be objective in our analysis.

What we need in Zimbabwe are men of vision. Politicians and technocrats who have radical ideas as to how we can solve the considerable problems that we face. I admire the Cubans, their doctor : patient ration is impressive and shames many Western democracies. Their life expectancy is 77, just a year below the Americans. This in spite of the fact that the Americans have for years tried to strangle the nation through an unjustifiable embargo, even the menacing Iranians are not subject to such. Fidel Castro is many things unpleasant but he managed to inspire a people into an ideology. I need not say that his ideology is not entirely wholesome but there is much we can learn from the Cubans.

Apart from the impressive healthcare statistics the government has managed to create a food subsidy for ALL CITIZENS which guarantees them a basic food basket. That basket constitutes up to 70% of a Cubans daily intake, which is above 3000 calories. These are impressive numbers for a third world country.

We can speak of Brazil. It has come up with a genius food security strategy. City councils lease lucrative market stalls but set the pricing for anyone wishing to sell in those stalls. Sellers are then given land within the city to farm. The sellers are thriving and prices are affordable. The supermarkets are complaining as they continue to lose custom to the cheaper markets. The people are celebrating. I have simplified the Brazilian model but those eager for learning can easily research these matters.

I give these example not necessarily because they are a solution for Zimbabwe but because they are a radical approach to peculiar problems. What Zimbabwe needs is a government that cares for all citizens, not just those above the upper quartile. Zanu PF has had 30 years to prove itself competent. It has failed. Nothing in the MDC election manifesto infuses me with confidence that they will be any different.

South Africa is a democracy as is Nigeria. The poor in these countries are paupers when compared to the poor in Cuba. The poor in Cuba have easy access to healthcare. They will certainly live longer that the South Africans who perish at a youthful 50years of age or the Nigerians who die at a pathetic 47. The difference is not money. Nigeria [GDP $173billion] and South Africa [GDP $290bilion] both have much more money than Cuba [GDP $62billion]. The difference is not democracy either. Cuba is not in anyway democratic. So how is it that the poor in Cuba have it so good? They have a leadership that thinks outside Western textbook economics.

I am yet to hear the MDC or Zanu PF offer us anything in the way of such revolutionary policy.

The International Herald Tribune reports:

On May 5 2010, just after sunup, 750 militants surrounded Dr. Hawa Abdi’s hospital. Mama Hawa, as she is known, heard gunshots, looked out the window and saw she was vastly outnumbered.

“Why are you running this hospital?” the gunmen demanded. “You are old. And you are a woman!”

They did not seem to care that Mama Hawa, 63, was one of the only trained doctors for miles around, and that the clinic, school and feeding program she built on her land supported nearly 100,000 people, most of them desperate refugees from the fighting and poverty that has afflicted this nation.

Dr. Hawa Abdi might only have been a woman, but despite being threatened and held under house arrest for five days, she prevailed. Not only that; inspired by her defiance, hundreds of women in the refugee camp serviced by the hospital dared to protest. Their voices and those of Somalis abroad were heard, forcing the militants to back down, and, upon Dr. Abdi’s insistence, even apologize in writing.

I think we forget that courage is not the absence of fear; it is the ability to do what is right despite that fear. The news is full of stories of despair and injustice and people wailing that there is nothing they can do to change their world. But that isn’t true, one person, even an old woman, can make a difference.

I’ve been watching the first season of Sex and the City and, despite season one being more than ten years old, the money-power-sex issue is still one that goes unresolved.

In an episode titled the Power of Female Sex, the girls have the following conversations:

Samantha: Women have the right to use every means at their disposal to achieve power. Miranda: Short of sleeping their way to the top. Samantha: Not if that’s what it takes to compete. Charlotte: But that’s exploitation! Samantha: Of men, – which is perfectly legal. Carrie: So, you advocate a double standard. Women can use their sexuality to get ahead whenever possible, but men should not be allowed to take advantage of it? Samantha: No, I’m just saying that men and women are equal-opportunity exploiters.

Samantha: What are you getting so uptight about? I mean, money is power. Sex is power. Therefore, getting money for sex is simply an exchange of power.

Men have the money, women give sex in exchange for money, who has the power?