According to the Heal Zimbabwe Trust community update, a headman in Gutu West has threatened MDC-T campaigners that the ZANU-PF party is going to install hidden CCTV cameras in every house in the area. This is a scary threat for everyone (just look at the trouble the states got into when Edward Snowden decided to have his five minutes of fame), and for the MDC-T campaigners it must have been terrifying, but thinking about the logistics of this makes you snigger. They are saying a government, which can’t even provide power to its capital city for 24 hours is going to set up CCTV cameras? I would love to know where the funds for this one would come from, since apparently we don’t have enough money to complete our mobile registration. The threats that are coming out are ludicrous and completely unrealistic, and yet they have struck such deep fear into so many thousands of people who want something as simple as a peaceful and credible election!

Zimbabwe’s 2013 election is in 9 days time, and political party posters are papering the streets. As Bev Clark pointed out last week, Zanu PF’s tactic seems to be to plaster their posters on private property (and the occasional large rock).  Whilst clearly that has its problems, the MDC posters I saw this weekend covering up advertising for artisans and informal business people isn’t much better.

With formal employment being so scarce in Zimbabwe, many people have taken to informal employment, and advertise their services on trees. As this blog by Lenard Kamwendo demonstrates, key cutters, plumbers, electricians and more all find a place on Harare’s streets – and trees. If the MDC were serious about Jobs, Upliftment, Investment Capital and the Environment (JUICE) and the promises it makes in its 2013 election manifesto to tackle unemployment, you’d think it would be promoting these enterprising individuals, not covering up their advertising to further their own political agendas.

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.

I found a Zanu PF leaflet on Arcturus Road in in Harare East yesterday. I think it’s meant to be a serious political document but there are several Ha Ha moments worth sharing:

Apparently Zanu PF
a) has given us economic empowerment
b) youth empowerment
c) provided education for all
d) provided health for all
e) they’ve uplifted the position of a woman
f) are peace loving

Zanu PF will also never accept homosexuality.

They will also never accept something called beastialily (I think that’s a Polynesian cocktail).

Speaking of drinking, apparently Cde RG has taught us that clinging to generational unforgiveness is as foolish as drinking poison and waiting on someone else to die.

And, why should you vote for him? Well, he’s a job creator (apparently), we Zimbabweans enjoy human rights without disturbance, and Zanu PF guarantees economic prosperity.

Who writes this crap?