A report in The Chronicle recounts a startling issue of lost cadetship application forms submitted by students at Lupane State University. The spokesperson for the university said they either got lost or misplaced at their Harare offices. I find it weird for an academic office to lose a bunch of 121 three or four paged forms. Before the students are asked to re-submit these forms investigations should be done to ascertain what happened to the forms they had submitted. I have always questioned the way universities handle the cadetship application process and reading this article brought back my dark cloud over this programme. For me there was always a lack of transparency. Being an orphan I thought I made it to top ‘A’ list of those credible but alas my application was turned down.

That then programmed my mind to feel that some local universities are structuring themselves to be ‘money making’ businesses thus having fewer students on cadetship will prove more viable for their business. They would rather do away with having to wait for the government to give them the disbursements for fees for students on cadetship and have students pay their full fees directly to them. University authorities find it much easier to chase away students who haven’t paid their fees in full at the exam entrance door than to drag the government to pay its cadetship dues to them on time. Thus on the universities’ end they are never keen to get more of their students on cadetship. On the other hand you cannot blame them since the government has failed to fulfill its mandate on the cadetship programme. But then if the government lets down universities and they in turn ‘punish’ students on cadetship what is being achieved at the end of the day? Every stakeholder involved in the cadetship programme should play his or her part because if this vicious circle continues we are killing the future of the nation.

This Valentine’s Day, join the One Billion Rising (OBR) Campaign which is sweeping across the world to take a stand against violence against women. Zimbabwe is rising, joining over 190 countries globally, and is calling on women – and the men who love them – to get involved in a road show event of dance and testimony.

Venue: Machipisa Shopping Centre, Highfields (Harare)
Date: Thursday 14 February 2013
Time: 11 am – 2 pm

For more information, send an an email to OBR at: obrzimbabwe [at] gmail [dot] com, or follow updates on the OBR Zimbabwe Facebook page

To find out more about OBR events globally, visit www.vday.org

Writing for the Mail & Guardian, Jason Moyo asks whether the MDC can still win the next election? Their call for change has worn thin.

A new constitution for Zimbabwe has been agreed on and now parties are looking to the elections.

So, what does Morgan Tsvangirai have to do to win this time? His biggest task will be to reignite the fizz of 2008, which has died down over disappointments in his party’s performance in government and his personal scandals. But there is hope for him yet.

This week, analyst Lance Mambondiani asked in an opinion piece: “Is it possible that we are experiencing a shift in the maturity of the voter, in which politicians are held to account based on their policies rather than their rhetoric?” Yes, but not enough. And as long as candidate quality and policy are still taken as secondary to removing President Robert Mugabe, Tsvangirai has a chance. His party can only win by targeting that “anyone but Mugabe” vote that has carried it for years.

The options on offer are stark: on the one hand, it’s a choice between Mugabe and Tsvangirai. The alternative is simply not bothering to vote at all, an increasingly appealing prospect for many.

Mugabe will run on his black-empowerment drive, promising rural communities near mining operations shares in the mines. Tsvangirai’s own economic policy, known by the acronym Juice, is vague at best. But lack of clear policy is not new to the Movement for Democratic Change and has never stood in its way before.

The MDC’s major struggle will be recreating its vibrant March 2008 campaign. The country’s economic collapse made Tsvangirai’s “change” platform far more appealing than Mugabe’s “100% empowerment” refrain. Tsvangirai ran a well-funded campaign, addressing thousands of red-card-waving supporters. Young people who had previously stayed away from politics came out to vote for the first time. There was a zest in the air, a great expectation that this time change was, indeed, coming.  In an unprecedented turn of events, the MDC was able to campaign freely in the rural areas. Having long been cordoned off by Zanu-PF militants, rural voters flocked to MDC rallies.

The results showed: Zanu-PF lost its parliamentary majority for the first time ever and Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe, although not enough to avoid the violent run-off that would follow.

Now, besides the mechanisms still needed to make the election a fair race, rediscovering its 2008 form is what the MDC needs the most. The events of the past five years have broken voters’ resolve: the violent 2008 election aftermath, the mind-numbing talks on the formation of the unity government and then its failure to bring about reform.

Although the economic growth of recent years is stalling, it is not as bad as it was in 2008, when hyper-inflation and food shortages bred deep resentment of Mugabe and drove desperate voters to the polls.

Tsvangirai will need to capitalise on Zanu-PF rhetoric that the party will revive the Zimbabwe dollar if it wins. The “Zim-dollar era” is a dark one for many and the MDC will need to play on those fears.

Tsvangirai’s personal scandals do not help. Those controversies showed that he, too, had built his own Mugabe-esque base of fanatical supporters. It wasn’t his fault, his lieutenants said – it was all some dark conspiracy. The scandals disillusioned many. The erosion in Tsvangirai’s support may not translate to backing for Mugabe or other rivals, but may simply keep people away from the polls.

In the previous election, many voters simply put an X against the name of any MDC candidate on the ballot. Nobody cared who the candidate was. But those voters now feel let down by corruption and lack of service delivery by urban councils run by the MDC.

There is little enthusiasm for the forthcoming election, which, including two referendums, will be the country’s eighth poll in 13 years.

A coalition against Mugabe would seem an obvious option, but it is unlikely. The bitterness between Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube, leader of the smaller MDC faction, runs deep. In 2007, an attempt to forge an alliance failed, partly because the parties could not agree on who would get certain positions in government if they won. In his autobiography, At the Deep End, Tsvangirai said Ncube and his backers never had any clout. They “were simply riding on my popularity, in the forlorn hope that part of it would rub off on to them”. Many Tsvangirai supporters agree. The two men trade frequent barbs in public, many of the insults eyeroll-inducing in their pettiness. Tsvangirai recently dismissed Ncube as a “village politician”, to which Ncube retorted that allowing Tsvangirai to lead would be like giving a cyclist a bus to drive.

So with no strong policy platform and little chance of an alliance, the only real game the MDC can play is the same one it has played before. The old “change” mantra is really all the MDC has – and it will be tougher to convince voters this time around.

I was not surprised when I read reports that ZimRights director, Okay Machisa, cried in court when his bail hearing failed to be heard at the High Court.

A lot of people who have never been through the same ordeal will just take it lightly. Every man reaches a breaking point in life regardless of how strong they are. To miss an opportunity for freedom breaks one’s soul. Words like “Further remand” coming from the judge or magistrate makes one go hysterical.

Let me give you a little preview what the day is like for an accused person on remand.

In the morning at 9am you get served plain porridge or brown water called tea with bread crumbs (donated leftovers from bakeries). In the afternoon its sadza and boiled cabbage, same for the evening menu. On a good day it’s sadza and boiled beans with some groundnuts. Bedtime starts at 3pm, not mentioning the time you sit in line to get counted. Your bed linen depends on how generous your inmates will be. You may get only two see-through blankets and if you have cigarettes you may trade for more, same as for the uniforms. Two cigarettes will get you a not so clean uniform.  If you are a non-smoker too bad because those cigarettes you would have traded will give you sleepless nights, as fellow inmates will be smoking stress out all night long. Visiting time is another moment of sadness because depending on your crime you will be in leg irons and handcuffed to another inmate. And if you don’t believe me ask someone who did prison time in Zimbabwe about the leg irons. If I tell you about the sanitary facilities you may miss your lunch.

Now this is the reason why Okay Machisa cried. He is in prison. His freedom is limited to between meals and bedtime. It breaks one’s spirit; it makes a grown man cry.

Ask the 45 of 2011 they cried too.

Yesterday Bulwayo24 published a story, which created some controversy on their site and some social networks. The article, Why it is risky to marry a Shona woman like Sheila Mutsenhu, was removed from the site after some few hours. I never got to read the article myself, though I wish I had. Here is a comment which was posted on the Bulawayo24 website by someone who had read the article.

I would like to complain about the tribalist hate speech that was published in the following article.

Why it is risky to marry a Shona woman like Sheila Mutsenhu (Article removed)

The author of this article chooses to parade his prejudices and ignorance and expose his own virulent tribalism rather than offer any meaningful discourse. Any responsible editor should not have allowed him a platform to air such irresponsible nonsense, or would have at the very least solicited counterpoints.

For the record women stripping in protest is not even part of Shona culture. Nor is it unique to Sheila Mutsenhu. I have witnessed several examples of it here in South Africa at service protests. Maybe the editor of Bulawayo 24 should look at the website (teealimodels.wordpress.com) or even this one (huffingtonpost.com) against the speaker of the United States congress.

Please understand that I am not advocating naked protest, but I am merely seeking to point out that Ryton Dzimiri’s views have absolutely nothing to do with his dislike for naked protest but everything to do with his tribal prejudices against the Shona. Naked protest has been happening all along including streaking at sporting matches but we have never heard even a whimper of protest from him.

The choice to make Bulawayo24 a site for the airing of tribalist hogwash is their editor’s choice. However they should not complain if others start making similar tribalist claims against one of their favoured tribes whichever that is.

Believe me such tribalist judgemental and prejudiced opinions do exist against all tribes in Zimbabwe. It is out of responsible consideration for others, that we often correct those who hold them.

Yours sincerely
Jupiter Punungwerecovery efforts.