If Zimbabwe can’t even organise a National Census peacefully then what about the next election?

So Dumiso Dabengwa’s Zapu wants a dead comrade to be buried at the National Heroes Acre. The party has actually written to Zanu PF making the rather ridiculous request. But why? Zanu PF has it on record that the burial shrine is a members only hallowed ground, so what’s likely to change now? Perhaps it’s a case of making the usual necessary noises to heap more muck on Zanu PF that they continue denying kosher national heroes and vanguards of the struggle due recognition. But isn’t that known already?

You have to recall how many times Zanu PF has had to posthumously declare some long forgotten ex-Zipra stalwart a national hero after some botched attempt to ignore the dead hero’s “liberation war credentials.”

The wise leave natural justice to the gods, and Zanu PF has long dared the gods. In those same inscrutable ways this party may well just be burying itself alive.

Just thinking about Marko’s blog on the national census, have you noticed the large, full colour adverts about the census in our newspapers? The latest advert suggests that if you cooperate with the census process your participation will help ensure the provision of water … something that we haven’t had a consistent supply of for the last several years. You’ve really just got to wonder at the lengths the Zimbabwe government will go to with their propaganda on the one hand, and their heads up their arses on the other. I mean, let’s face it, the mismanagement of the economy and a politics based in patronage and self enrichment have been central to the erosion of the standard of living of the average citizen in this country. A national census isn’t going to remedy this. Kicking out all the useless politicians will.

You just have to ask yourself if any national project will ever escape the opprobrium of political interference. Now we read that the the feared spooks are taking over the Zimbabwe national census as Zanu PF proxies. Small wonder then some people have no problem giving false information to enumerators or simply telling off the enumerators like they would do to ZBC license inspectors. All this because members of the public think the CIO feeds this into data some database to monitor their political activities! People believe these things, and it is thanks to reports that the not-so-secret agents are doing the bidding of Zanu PF in the counting project for nefarious purposes. And who will be surprised if the census findings are disputed as we have seen in the past?

Okay. So maybe it’s the same world over. But I found the headlines from this weekend’s papers particularly depressing:

• Go to hell, Tsvangirai tells Generals (The Standard)
• Mugabe wants deadlock on constitution (The Standard)
• Armed forces averted coup, says Shiri (The Herald – Talking not about any specific or recent coup, but about a coup that might have been in the era of the rapidly collapsing Zim Dollar)
• COPAC Management Committee exposed (The Sunday Mail)

Is this really as pathetic as our politics is? Or is it just as good as our local press can do?

After enduring the pain of the Zimbabwe 2008 election violence residents of my constituency are yet to see the “change” we were promised by our Honorable Member of Parliament (MP). With an overwhelming victory in 2008 people thought real change had come. Like any other urban areas in Zimbabwe where poor service delivery is now the order of the day, Chitungwiza South constituency’s woes have been worsened by the recent Typhoid outbreak. Still reeling under the effects of the 2008 Cholera outbreak residents in my constituency thought our Honorable MP was going to do a noble thing by using funds he received from government under Constituency Development Fund (CDF) to sink more boreholes. Living in a town where rusty and slimy drops of water trickling from the tap are received with loud cheers and ululation doesn’t require a rocket scientist to figure out that a crisis is looming.

Water rationing is increasing by each day.

Children now spend most of their time helping parents to queue for water at the few boreholes donated by UNICEF. I wonder if our Honorable Member of Parliament is still living in Chitungwiza for him to understand these problems? I guess he also can’t feel the effects of bumps on most of the pot and ditch-hole riddled roads in this constituency because he was allocated a four-wheel drive truck by the government.  As a school headmaster and a former mayor for the town these problems should not be new to him.  Where and when he consulted residents on how to use CDF funds boggles the mind because the only time our Hon MP was seen addressing a public meeting was during a tour of the town by high-ranking officials from his party.

With nothing to write home about as a success story, it’s a pity that legislators like these would seek another term in office. Prepare to choose another career, or go on pension because the time for cheap politicking is over and your time is up Hon MP.