The Mass Public Opinion Institute conducted round 4 of the Afrobarometer survey in Zimbabwe in May 2009. The purpose of the survey is to compare public opinion about various economic civic and social issues across African countries.

The survey was supposed to have been undertaken in 2008, but the political instability prevalent in the country at the time made this impossible. Further, the sample size is based on 2002 Census figures, which are projected to 2008 figures with consideration being given to issues such as mass migration and displacement.

Despite many criticisms at its formation the majority of respondents expressed a belief that the Inclusive Government was the best way forward. Added to that 57% of respondents said that they would vote for MDC–T in the next election, as compared to 10% for ZANU PF. The popularity of the MDC is also mirrored in the high approval rating for Morgan Tsvangirai and his work in the Inclusive Government. Interestingly, Mr. Tsvangirai’s job performance is viewed positively by members of both parties.

It may be inferred that hope was restored to the public because 71% of respondents expressed satisfaction with the way government was managing the economy. Despite this, day to day issues were also seen in the survey, with the majority of respondents ranking management of the economy as the most important problem facing the country. Second to this were the issues of unemployment and education. Interestingly, a majority of respondents expressed greater satisfaction with the current state of the economy as compared with other years including 2004, 2005 and most notably 1999.

Issues of contention which arose during the survey presentation included the survey sample being based on 2002 census data; the fact that more respondents expressed greater satisfaction with the economy in 2009 as compared to 1999 and what the terms ‘economic policies’ and ‘economic management’ meant to the respondents.

What is most evident from the survey is that the formation of the inclusive government has restored hope in people. While many acknowledge the challenges in their own lives, they are optimistic that the country’s fortunes are on their way up.

Only time will tell if this hope is well founded.

Nothing could have prepared me, or, indeed I believe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai and his entourage, for the shock reception and outright rejection of his message to Zimbabwean exiles living in the United Kingdom. Like the more than 1 000 Zimbabweans who turned up at the Anglican cathedral to listen to the Prime Minister, by 11am l was already at London Bridge, frantically asking for directions to the famous cathedral, not wanting to miss the opportunity to hear Morgan speak. I saw and greeted numerous familiar faces from home, and eagerly joined a group of women who spontaneously broke into song and transformed the meeting into a rally of sorts. Although invitations to the meetings had indicated that the meeting would start promptly at 12, when the clock struck 1 with evidence that Morgan had arrived, no-one complained.

When the Prime Minister arrived people packed in the cathedral jostled to catch a glimpse of Morgan and his team, and to snap away a photo or two on their mobile phones. The Prime Minister was scheduled to address the people and then have a question – and – answer session, all in time for meeting to end at 3pm. However, just ten minutes into his prepared speech, the Prime Minister was forced to abandone his speech and the pulpit due to jeering and booing from the crowd. The shock treatment of he received was triggered by his bold declaration that the unity government had brought “peace and stability” to Zimbabwe in the last four months. He went on to say, “let me state it here boldly that Zimbabweans must come home!”

His call on Zimbabwean exiles to come home was greeted by an uproar and spontaneous chants of “Mugabe Must Go!” To his credit, the Prime Minister attempted some damage control and said, “I did not say pack your bags and come home tomorrow, but I said you must begin to think about coming home.” But the damage had already been done. He further tried to portray the unity government as a success stating matter-of-factly that schools are open, hospitals have re-opened and, again, my favourite, inflation has come down from 500 billion percent to just 3 percent. In the brief question and answer session that, was also aborted, one woman asked the Prime Minister where ordinary people are getting the foreign currency to buy goods that are supposedly now in abundance in Zimbabwe. If the meeting had not degenerated into utter chaos forcing the PM and his team to leave prematurely, I would have wanted to pose this question to the PM: ” What is happening to MDC Director-General Toendepi Shonhe – who is languishing in remand prison?”

After the shock events, together with fellow Zimbabweans in the diaspora we immediately subjected the meeting to a post mortem to try and establish why events at Southwark cathedral had been so unfortunate. A colleague blamed the PM Tsvangirai’s advisors and speech writers – ” Morgan was not properly briefed,” he reasoned.” “His team should have warned him that people are unhappy with the unity government and they do not believe that MDC is an equal partner.” Another friend ventured, “Well, what do you expect for refugees, asylum seekers and failed asylum seekers who do not wish to return to Zimbabwe? They do not want to hear anyone telling them to go home.”

For me, a more compelling explanation is one that points to a disconnect between messages by the MDC leadership and reality on the ground. It would appear to me that, if the message delivered by the PM in London is taken to reflect the thinking of the MDC leadership, then they are at serious risk of being completely out of touch with general membership and ordinary people. Perhaps to perfectly illustrate my point that the PM’s message is at odds with ordinary members in the party and views of the general public, the MDC has just published resolutions of an extra-ordinary national executive meeting of 23 June where they recommend that “the continued arrests, detentions and human rights violations be referred to the guarantors (SADC and AU)”.

It may well be true that a power-sharing government is the only game in town which should be supported. However, it does no-one any good to sweep critical issues under the carpet just to present a glossy and bright image of an otherwise white-washed tomb. The MDC may be exactly where ZANU-PF want them, doing public relations for ZANU-PF and in the process alienating traditional allies in civil society and slowly but surely chipping away at their membership base. Meanwhile, dubious convictions of MDC MPs are on the rise and the media remains muzzled.

If MDC dismisses the significance of events at Southwark cathedral believing that, after all, these people do not vote, and that the real masses are back home, then may recall the perfect shed well after the storm. There is no need to embellish and paint a rosy picture of a new Zimbabwe evidence is there for all to see that ZANU-PF is still up to its shenanigans.

A party meeting in informal settings. A club of some sorts. The party comrades are drinking whisky, except the party president, who is drinking fruit juice.

WALTER: It was humiliating comrades. I had to sit outside whilst that boy Tsvangson held meetings with all those western diplomats. Damn the imperialists. Who do they think they are?

BOB: Look at the big picture comrade: Isn’t Tsvangson busy telling the British that I am indispensible and irreplaceable. A few months ago he was telling the whole world that the country could only be revived if I vacated office. That boy is so spineless it is hilarious.

PATRICK: But shefu, they are still campaigning for the removal of Gideon from office that could seriously harm our financial standing. Those people campaigning for the removal of Gono don’t realize that whatever he did was under our instruction and calling for his removal is tantamount to calling for our own removal…

BOB: They would love to see us go comrade, they would very much love that. But with Tsvangson doing all the PR work and rigorous fundraising. We are very much safe in our positions. I wonder what the boy will say come elections time: MUGABE MUST GO.

JOSEPH: At in the meantime, we don’t have to pretend we give a damn about the land. We might not even have to cry crocodile tears over mass graves in Chimoi.

They all laugh long and hard.

To be continued . . .

I’ve been watching the unfolding events in Iran with quite some envy. The protests following what is regarded as a stolen election are impressive, more so because they’re taking place in Iran which is consistently described as repressive. Footage being shown on major news channels show what riot police are like the world over – vicious and uncompromising. Yet, 6 days on, protesters are still going out onto the streets making their displeasure known and felt, and forcing the Iranian authorities to display their repression in all its ugliness. Really, we Zimbabweans have no excuse for our apathy and our victim mentality. The lament that we’d be shot or beaten if we protested over our (many) stolen elections has become a pitying whine. People have been and are protesting repression all over the world yet we cower in our littler corner of the world. If we’d behaved differently; if we had taken the courage that sustains us in our homes whilst we “make a plan” quietly suffering the dictatorship of Robert Mugabe, and used that courage to spill out onto the streets in the vast numbers that despise the small dictator then we’d be experiencing something quite different from this odious, half baked political arrangement that we currently have. As John Githongo, the Kenyan corruption buster recently said . . .

Africans are the most subservient people on earth when faced with force, intimidation, power. Africa, all said and done, is a place where we grovel before leaders.

On Friday the Tree of Life team sat with parents from Epworth and Whitecliffe communities and heard about their fears  for their children.

This time last year
when the youth militia rampaged through their neighbourhoods in ‘preparation’ for the elections
the children went through the most terrifying ordeals one can imagine.
They were taken to the militia bases,
they watched their mothers being raped,
their fathers beaten and tortured
and they were beaten and raped themselves
they watched their houses being burned down
and their parents killed

the fabric of their lives destroyed

and a year later they still live in the ashes
with old memories haunting their dreams

Nothing has been done for the children

‘They visited hell’ said one mother who had her 8 year old son taken for 3 months
‘and they still live in fear – for it has not gone away
they are still training the militia for the next elections’

And then we began speaking of the healing
and of Chiyedza offering her skills in drama and counselling
to go out to the communities to help teach new ways of working
We heard people offer their small houses as venues
and their time to learn techniques of counselling
These people who have been stripped of their livelihoods
volunteering to help protect the orphans
and repair the damage
what little they had – they were prepared to share.

‘For these children are the parents of the new generations’ they said

Utterly shaken we came out of the meeting
to the news that the years funding we had asked for
had been reduced to a bridging loan for 3 months

Throughout civic society
those groups who, on meagre budgets, have helped with the healing
and with gathering the orphans
the groups that help hold the dignity of the nation
are struggling to survive

“there is no money for Zimbabwe (global economic crisis/ unstable government/uncertainty/hold up in funding/etc.) sorry for that”

so we have to wait
wait for the children
a year
a lifetime

It is mid-winter
the leaves are falling
the grass is dry
beige-gold world  lit by the first crimson lucky bean trees
and filled with butterflies

A prominent human rights lawyer brutalised by security agents a few years ago put it beautifully: it is like asking a snake to have dinner with a frog. He was giving his thoughts on the swearing in of Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister in front of an unsmiling Robert Mugabe. Deadpan or just uncaring. You could almost hear him: “Let’s just get it over with. I have other things to do.”

That is how this whole thing is being viewed by many who have had to watch the country being messed up by the increasingly senile Founding Father even in the face of all odds being staked against him. In the streets you could feel it, in the pubs and commuter omnibuses you could hear it: no joy that finally one of our own is in government to take us to the Promised Land.

While thousands thronged the stadium to hear the Prime Minister speak after his swearing in, many who stayed home cursed. Mugabe rules! The refrain was loud enough even as the people walked about aimlessly, wishing they were in another land where they had jobs and able to feed their families.

That people have lost all interest in contemporary politics is a reality all too palpable. The folks talk about how they have been reduced to scavengers; the very scavengers as described a few years ago by the very man who today stands as Prime Minister. When he said it back then, he inevitably invited the acerbic tongue of the Founding Father and his doctors of spin. Even when that valiant Catholic prelate from Bulawayo Pius Ncube and the then executive mayor of the city Ndabeni Ncube reported people in the city were dying of hunger, the Founding Father was apoplectic. These people were in league with the Devil, never mind that the snake as used in Biblical symbolism is the Devil himself.

It is this and other things that has people cursing: why have this charade of a unity government with a snake? And this is not that snake in the grass that strikes while you are busy minding your own business.

People die of hunger and cholera and one man and his cohorts claim it is a silent genocide being perpetrated by imperialists. No one understands why this GNU thing had to happen. Politics as usual perhaps?

When Nkomo entered into that pact with the devil, his story was that he wanted to stop the violence, the killings, and the politics of hate that existed back then. Today however, I hear some people say what reason did the MDC have for joining the Zanu PF in government?

Some analysts say it was pressure from the toothless SADC leaders. Then if that holds true, the people here have every reason to say they were never part of this negotiated settlement in the first place. It was all African politics as usual that excludes the interests of the ordinary man, woman and child.

If an opposition political party can be pressured to enter into a coalition government with a losing party, then as logic would have it, the losing party can also well be pressured to leave power gracefully. Unless of course the losing party still controls the state apparatus of power and threatens civil strife if it is not given political space in the proposed government. They said it before anyway, them who claim to have fought the 70s bush war, that they are ready to take up arms and return to the bush and reverse any electoral outcome that favours the opposition.

We have heard it all before, a ruling party loses an election and it claims the winning opposition rigged the poll. What crap! But then Zimbabwe is just full of crap.

You just have to hear the people talk. No optimism whatsoever. Misery with a capital “M”.

Just this month alone, I know whole families who left the country for South Africa and these families have no clue what they will do once they get to the so-called “place of gold.” But their stories are from the same abject universe: “we need to send our children to school.”

A journalist working for a government-controlled daily also left for South Africa, never mind that he had no passport. He just had to leave, and according to him, he has no clue what he will do once he gets there. I recalled a cynic years ago who quipped, “I don’t know where am going, but I believe I’m in the right direction.”

And imagine all these people are fleeing just when a “new” government has been formed, so one has to imagine that this GNU ought to give people hope for a new beginning but then no one wants to stick around to find out how it pans out. What then? Turns out only the politicians know.