This morning I heard a guy say “Ah, that Chris Mutsvangwa is a hard headed fellow.” Pressed by a colleague who asked “What has Mutsvangwa done this time,” the first fellow simply continued, “Ah, he is just impossible!”

I sensed he was referring to Mutsvangwa’s performance at the SAPES Trust public meeting where the apoplectic Cde stormed out during proceedings because the audience and panelists did not take kindly to his comments that all of them should be grateful to Zanu PF for giving them anything from ministerial jobs to the freedom they presently enjoy.

The arrogance was galling.

It was classic Mutsvangwa having given the same condescending remarks live on national television during a debate on the constitution where panelists included Qhubekani Moyo (MDC-N), Jessie Majome (MDC-T), Blessing Vava and Job Sikhala.

Mutsvangwa simply dismissed them, telling them that they should be grateful to Zanu PF for giving them free university education, thank Zanu PF for ending white minority, else they would still be serfs in a white man’s world.

At the SAPES public meeting, the arrogance Mutsvangwa portrayed, and what incensed the guy I referred to above, only highlights Zanu PF’s perverted sense of entitlement and “ownership” of the country and its people.

You cannot own people as if you are some feudal lord, but then the dictatorship of Zanu PF only highlights that indeed the party is steeped in the feudalism of yore where it continues to see everyone as vassals!

How many times have you heard President Mugabe say “my people?”

I certainly ain’t anyone’s person! God’s YES’s, man’s NO!

But then good thing for the SAPES meeting that Paul Themba Nyathi was there to remind Mutsvangwa that he (Nyathi) fought for the country and he certainly ain’t Zanu PF!

There are many lessons to be drawn for Zanu PF arrogance. And these lessons are what the party itself will learn rather painfully!

Yesterday a friend made a remark that puts the coming polls into perspective.

He said surely Mugabe knows he is no longer wanted by the people of Zimbabwe, and even if he loses, he may still simply refuse to accept defeat.

I said, well, hasn’t that happened before?

And with a guy like Mutsvangwa fighting from Mugabe’s corner, we could sure still have a long way to go before we get to the Zimbabwe we want.

And again it does magnify the folly of these rushed polls, because Mutsvangwa and other so-called Zanu PF hawks seem to know they hold the four aces, and these are not hidden anymore! What arrogance.

If this election is going to be based on accountability then all Members of Parliament don’t deserve a second chance to represent the people. Interesting interview on Zi-Fm led to some cursing and shouting of obscenities on radio by the Honorable Tendai Biti when he was asked what he used his US$50 000 allocation of the Constituency Development Fund for. If this were a face-to-face interview someone would have lost some front teeth as the Minister went haywire on a live radio program.

The outrage was sparked by a survey, which was carried out by the Harare Residents Trust, a lobby group based in Harare. Honorable Tendai Biti the Harare East Member of Parliament and also the Minister of Finance claims he still has around US$23 000 as a ‘balance’ in the account and one wonders why he didn’t just use the money to develop his constituency before the end of his term in office. I mean Harare East is not spared from road potholes and I am sure there are clinics, which need some medicine, or he could have just bought some chairs and desks for schools in his area.

By trying to shoot the messenger and dismissing HRT’s report raises some interest in what he used the other half of the allocation for?

The Cde Minister may have handled the nation’s budget but has failed to allocate US$50 000 in his constituency.

The kleptocrats in Zimbabwe are trying all recipes to redefine patriotism. It unfortunately can never be confined to doing as they please, as a don’t ask don’t tell, but it is exactly the opposite of that wish. Patriotism entails the liberty to exercise my rights for the good of my country rather than individuals. Maybe they should try to transpose patriotism with brainwash instead. A sellout is the greedy politician who exploits our resources only for the good of his clique and family.

Simba Makoni is not enigmatic. He apparently can be read like an open book. And this is the guy whose presidential ambitions President Mugabe once dismissed, calling the former finance Minister a “political prostitute.”

Recall that early this year, Makoni did invite Mugabe into a coalition which many are still trying to figure out how it was going to work.

Sometimes Simba Makoni does make statements that could easily have come from Idi Dada Amin who famously said “Sometimes people mistake the way I talk for what I am thinking.”

Now he has withdrawn from the presidential race, and following accusations in the past that he was a spoiler effectively stealing victory from Morgan Tsvangirai’s mouth, his latest proclamation that he is willing to work with the same people he only yesterday said were worse than Robert Mugabe makes his chameleon persona something those he seeks to work with must certainly watch.

Makoni does give meaning to the aphorism “This is quite a game, politics. There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests.”

One does not need to use language borrowed from the Zanu PF hate speech lexicon, but can this guy be trusted?

Someone tweeted yesterday after Makoni made his BREAKING NEWS announcement that “His family, his only supporters must be disappointed!”

Some would say Makoni is looking for relevance, but that should not sway Zimbabweans from the bigger picture, and that is a tolerant Zimbabwe of which Zanu PF has been the antithesis.

Zimbabwe’s election is in legal shambles – But no one really seems to mind. Yesterday, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court postponed indefinitely Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s half-hearted application to have the Court’s 31 July election deadline extended. Chinamasa’s application came at the recommendation of SADC, which, understandably, was concerned that President Mugabe’s proclamation of a 31 July election date was done unconstitutionally, and set Zimbabwe up for an election which was illegal before it even started. Instead, the court will hear Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube’s applications about the need for an election extension tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Nomination Court is also scheduled for tomorrow, in which parties wanting to contest in the illegal and unconstitutional 31 July election will put their candidates forward. Zimbabwe’s political parties have had their primaries, fair, rushed or otherwise. According to David Coltart, the Movement for Democratic Change led by Welshman Ncube will nominate candidates tomorrow because “although 31 July election is illegal, we must contest.”

Attempts to get an answer to the question “Given that 31 July date for #ZimElection is illegal, will yr party be nominating candidates tmrw?” from the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai have yet to be responded to, but it seems likely they will also be fielding candidates at nomination court tomorrow.

But, on 13 June, Morgan Tsvangirai himself said of the 31 July election date: “As Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and the President of the MDC, I will not accept a situation where Zimbabweans will yet again be railroaded and frog-marched to another illegitimate and violent election.”

So – What does refusing to be railroaded mean, exactly, if it doesn’t include refusing to contest in an illegal and unconstitutional election? As Marko Phiri pointed out when the 31 July date was announced, “if Mugabe can unilaterally call for polls, what is to stop him from declaring himself the winner” (regardless of whether he actually won or not.

If you contest in an election which you know is illegal just based on the date for which it was scheduled and the way in which it was proclaimed, what leg do you have to stand on if you try and protest its legality later?

The economic crunch experienced in 2008 left many young people jobless as industries closed and relocated to other regional countries. The situation today isn’t much changed. One town reeling under the effects is Chitungwiza, where young people have not been spared. Some have resorted to vending to earn a living, but even vending is now so crowded. Chitungwiza is a dormitory town and almost 80% of people who live in this town commute to Harare for work. Trading is now the major source of income for those who can’t commute to Harare. Most young people found here are college graduates, bricklayers or traders.  A few who still have the energy have resorted to stone crushing to earn a living. This type of work is labor intensive. They use manual labor to crush big rocks to produce ¾ stones, which can be used as concrete for buildings. A ready market for these stones is already there because of new houses being constructed in Chitungwiza.

The stone crushers work on a small open space which council had abandoned because of the huge rocks, which made it difficult to put structures there.

A day starts with the burning of the rocks till they start showing signs of cracking. Some heavy pounding with big hammers follows resulting in the rocks peeling off into small chunks easy to crush using hammers. This type of work is very dangerous and one can lose a limb or an eye from the flying rock chips from the hammers.

Some of the stone crushers are skilled first class artisans in carpentry and some are builders. They got retrenched when the economy went up side down. Left without an alternative, stone crushing is now their only source of income. To make up a load these young men have to crush an average of 60 wheelbarrows worth of rock valued at US$150.

Working a normal day shift from 8am to around 4pm these young men feel at home when they are doing their work. Like one of them said, “I am earning an honest living and will only leave the quarry site when all the rocks have been cleared.” Most of them are married and they can afford to pay rents and buy food for their families.

I tried my hand on a few rocks but it was like hitting steel with steel, they even laughed at me saying I was weak. I was told with time they got used to the pain and they can crush stones every day.