Given that 31 July date for the Zimbabwe Election is illegal, will your party be nominating candidates tomorrow?

One of the titles I’m presently enjoying is Paul Collier’s Wars, Guns and Votes – Democracy in Dangerous Places (2009). The book makes important observations and one of the many nuggets goes: “If being honest and competent does not give you an electoral advantage, then the honest and competent will be discouraged. Crooks will replace honest candidates. One depressing indicator of such a process is that democratic politics in the countries of the bottom billion tends to attract candidates with criminal recorders…Evidently, one reason elected office is more attractive to criminals than the honest is that only criminals will take advantage of the opportunities for corruption. But there is sometimes a further reason: elected office provides immunity from prosecution” (27).

BOOM!

From a Kubatana subscriber:

Are schools Zanu PF polling bases? There were worrying developments across the country yesterday when school lessons were halted due to Zanu PF’s abuse of classrooms to conduct its primaries & forcing teachers to partake in the voting exercise.What’s so special about their primaries which caused this national impact? They must stop depriving students’ rights. Appropriate action by the Ministry of Education must be taken. Also security sector needs reform before election to avoid its details to take political sides as witnessed yesterday.

On Monday the ZANU-PF primary elections were held, which in a way should have been an example of how the 31 July elections are going to be, and if this is true, we really are in for a rough ride.

The process was chaotic with ballot boxes and papers arriving late in many of the constituencies, and in some cases prospective voters left without having voted. This chaos was worsened as some constituencies, such as Mutare central, ran out of ballot papers before everyone had voted. There have also been reports of violence and voter discrimination.

This is seriously worrying as this is just inter-party competition. If there are already reports of arson and violence then what will happen when more intense opposition is brought in? Elections sing the well-known song of violence in Zimbabwe, and, unfortunately, the preaching of “peaceful voting” has a hollow ring to it.

A recent news report says former Malawian president the late Bingu-wa-Mutharika chose Zimbabwe as one of the destinations where he could stash his cash, apparently under the guise of a Trust.

It did not come as a total surprise that he was “hiding” cash virtually everywhere under the sun under dubious charities even.

What came as a surprise was perhaps that he had chosen Zimbabwe, a country where other African despots have chosen to hide and have been welcomed as “friends of the government.”

According to Malawian news reports when Mutharika came to power in 2004, he declared that he was worth USD4.3 million, “but barely eight years into power – by the time of his untimely death in April 2012, his wealth had reportedly accrued to more than K61 billion (USD168 million).”

And then Zimbabweans are surprised why so many people are risking life and limb to contest as MP!

This is the way of the African political samurai: Stupendous wealth stands to be made, stupid!

Trying to beat the 24 June voter registration deadline for my area, I decided to sacrifice my weekend booze and social soccer and be a responsible citizen by adding my name to the voters’ roll.

My voter registration ordeal started on Saturday at around 7:37 am. There I was with my beanie and tracksuit on to beat the morning chill. Trying to be the early bird I headed to the community hall and during this time of electioneering, I came across a pickup truck full of young fellas waving the national colors heading the same direction as me. As I was about to approach the hall the cheering coming from the pickup truck became louder. I could see the young goons in the truck vigorously waving clenched fists at me shouting “Cde Cde zvamauya zvanaka!” I wasn’t going for a rally so how could they start chanting a song to welcome me, instantly granting war credentials to warrant a Cdeship title. By ignoring the gestures I was about to draw attention, so here I was clenching my not so strong fist not knowing that I was doing it with the wrong hand. Had these young fellas noticed that would have been another story? I comforted myself by putting the blame on God because He is the one who made me left-handed. The truck was not going to the community hall but rather heading to a nearby crèche where some primary election campaigns were taking place. I guess they assumed that I was dressed up for some toyi- toyi and I was a “Cde”. Well this Cde was on a voter registration mission and had these fellas offered me a ride to go to the registration center I was going to accept the Cdeship offer.

At the registration center a different story unfolded. I couldn’t believe the number I was issued. It was just 8am and already I’m number 287? I waited patiently and I observed the situation to see if it was worth waiting it out. It took me two hours to move 10 places and frustration was starting to creep in, so to kill time I joined a discussion, which was about the frustration people were experiencing at the slow pace of the registration. I moved another three places and by 12:30pm I could not wait any longer. I went home so that I could grab something to eat.

I decided to try my luck on Sunday. I thought I would take advantage of the fact that some people would have preferred to go to church but it was worse than I thought as I found myself number 348 in the queue. The queue was not moving and every now and then I could see people tagging along claiming they were in front of me. I got frustrated waiting and I also felt cheated. So desperate time calls for desperate action! In a matter of moments my number 348 turned into 48 as I tagged along like how the other guys in the queue had been doing since morning. I decided to stay low and move along with the commotion till I got inside and it worked. As I was about to leave the hall at around 330pm I tried to imagine if those at number 300 and something were going to be served, or whether they were going to resort to what I had done.

Or get frustrated and leave like what I did on Saturday.