Hey, but this woman rocks. More fire Everjoice:

I will vote in 2018, not this year

I did not go home to vote today. I already knew my ‘candidate’ was not on the ballot paper. All of the ballot papers, Presidential, parliamentary, local government. She was not there. No, this had nothing to do with rigging, lack of identity documents, lack of adequate time to prepare or any of the logistical issues – before you consign my candidates’ absence to all the alleged stereotypical issues that everyone has been rattling on about. No.

My candidate gracefully chose to step aside. Walked away from this election – literally and metaphorically, because she knew that this was not that sort of election. My candidate figured out five years ago that the 2013 elections were never going to be about the issues or things she, myself and probably millions of other Zimbabwean women care about. She knew already, that this was merely an election to choose one man over the other. Yes. A man. Women like my candidate have been quite clear for some time now that it didn’t matter how clever, analytical, or clear they were about what the problems are in our country and what the solutions could be, they did not stand a chance. Their voices would get drowned out in this all male contest. And if we were ever in any doubt as to what this election was about, a young man representing MDC-T told us categorically on South Africa’s E-TV last weekend – “this election is not about VALUES”, he thundered, “all we want is to remove Robert Gabriel Mugabe”. I have never understood why or when it became necessary to pronounce his name in full like that? Interestingly the other contestants are now referred to in that way…’Morgan Richard Tsvangirai’ Hee hee. Is that supposed to give them more gravitas? (Or more curiously, referring to them by their totems/clan names. Each time this happens I have visions of their wives kneeling on the floor wiping their penises after sex). Let me not digress. We were told the truth. Or more accurately we were reminded. The message was broadcast across the region. Whatever little denial I had left was banished from my head. I cancelled my ticket.

Values. A concept that has largely deserted our politics and our people. Honesty. Integrity. Humility. Care for another one. Heck – just being a good person! We forgot what that means many years ago. It is now person eat dog and its owner. It is not just the political leadership who lack values. It is most leaders, from so called Civil Society, to religious bodies to even the family. Everyone just wants what is good themselves. The fanciest car. The biggest house. The largest amount of cash. The longest weave. The latest Apple product. The biggest Bible. Let us not forget this last one. The biggest fashion accessory of my people. This is what matters. How you get it is not that important. You just have to have it. In NGOs – that part of the population with which I am most intimately connected, we made sure we generated these material things from our vantage point. It started with us being the ones getting forex, trips outside Zimbabwe, (to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe), and the fuel coupons. This was back during the hyper-inflation period. Soon we got hooked onto these lovely things. We generated trips to Joburg and London. As Directors and Senior program staffers we made sure we did not miss the next per diem. If there was no per diem we threw such tantrums that the money just had to be found. Our donors did not disappoint. After all we were the leaders furthering the democracy and good governance agenda. Development? Rural development? Urban poverty? That agenda is coming later, for now we just needed Mugabe to go.

When the ‘crisis’ eased after dollarization, we struggled to keep up our lifestyles. We almost fell into the bottom 5%! We had to do something. So we generated more trips. The smallest altercation with a police officer became global news. Even if it was for an infringement of the road rules. We organized workshops, preferably after hours, or out of Harare, just so we could award ourselves the $30 per diem. Why we had to get a per-diem to participate in our own workshops I still don’t get. Actually I do. There is a name for it. Greed.

Greedy. Selfish. Now there are two words that define who we have become. At the top of the greed ladder are the ones who want to control all the diamond mines. In the middle the ones who fleece anyone fleece-able; the plumber charging an exorbitant amount to fix a mere broken pipe, the mechanic stealing car parts instead of fixing your car, the school teacher charging for extra lessons when she should have been teaching properly during normal school hours, and the home affairs officer wanting a ‘Coke’ to give your baby the birth-certificate to which she is entitled. On the same spectrum, the church leader/founder screaming around town in a 10 fancy- car- convoy while his congregants have not had a decent meal in many months.

Most of us have, over the last decade forgotten what this clamour for change was about to begin with. For some of us it was as that political party person said – not about values. It was only about getting rid of Mugabe. He could never do anything right. Nothing that he said could ever be true, or good, or useful. And if the uninformed among us were to be believed, the man and his government had never EVER done a single good thing for Zimbabwe since his mother Bona delivered him. Mugabe and anyone associated with him were just bad because….they are intrinsically bad. Gone was the critical perspective. Even those of us who went through doors of UZ thanks to his social development policies did not ever want to be heard acknowledging it.

Across the street, our newspaper editor friends and journalists in the non-state media joined the ‘party’. Besides the entertainment good news, everything and anything that Mugabe and his party said or did was just to be trashed. Ditto, across the borders, and across the seas. Ours became the single narrative – MDC good, ZANU PF bad. Simple. No room here for nuance, or complexity. And we all know, to quote Chimamanda Adichie Ngozi ‘the danger of the single story’.

My candidate is not on the ballot paper because she would simply be hounded off the political stage by the sexist, misogynistic, homophobic and violent political culture that pervades Zimbabwe. From a whole elder statesman who swears at a diplomat from another country and calls her a ‘street woman’, to the average Tendai and Senzeni, who take to Twitter, Facebook and other social media platforms to abuse others using the most degrading Shona and Ndebele words ever seen in print! ZANU planted and cultivated this political culture, it got nurtured by other political parties, sections of civil society and ordinary citizens. In between the swearing at ‘your mother’s vagina’, it is hard to pick out what is at political stake and how the one whose mother’s vagina is better/cleaner/smaller,(or whatever it is one’s vagina is supposed to look like on public platforms), will do anything different.  Political violence and intolerance is certainly not the preserve of ZANU PF.

Zimbabweans should stop being driven by ideology and be more driven by economic pragmatism’, advised one economist on twitter.  For many days I have wondered what this meant. I guess it is in the same vein as saying this election must be devoid of VALUES. The economist should have said in simpler English, don’t think, just focus on making money. Be good capitalists and your problems will be solved. It doesn’t matter where the money comes from, who gets hurt in the process or who you shove out of the way. My candidate is not on that ballot paper because she thinks too much about ideology. She worries a lot about what some of the choice phrases mean; attracting foreign investment (of what sort? To invest in what?); Reengaging the North/West (Because? How will we make sure we don’t lose power and control over our resources?); Attracting donors (so that they can support whose development?); Unlocking Zimbabwe’s wealth (so that it goes into whose pocket?);  Media freedom, (to promote whose rights and will black women in Mkoba township get to speak for themselves? On their rights?). See what I mean? My candidate asks too many questions. She wants to have conversations that are about ideology, values and principles. In the current atmosphere, she will not be heard. She might as well be speaking to herself and her few friends like me who make her helpful cups of coffee but aren’t enough to win her an election. She will not have an inch of space in the media. She will have very few NGO friends, religious ones, or media ones because that is not our language at this moment.

I will vote in 2018. My candidate will run in that election. The dust will have settled. I am optimistic that come the next elections Zimbabweans will put values back on the agenda. We will debate and be clear about our leaders’ political ideologies.  I see NGOs in another five years discussing and implementing human rights based DEVELOPMENT for all Zimbabweans– not just the heterosexual.  In the next five years, I want to have honest conversations about the unfinished business of RACE and RACISM. Honest conversations, inside Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe, rather than the current dishonesty that says it is one of the present male leaders’ sole agenda. It is still my agenda. By the time we vote in 2018, we will have a definition of democracy and participatory governance which is not just about personalities but about my favorite topic- street lights. Yes really. Streetlights. to increase safety and security for my granddaughters when they walk late at night in the township.

By 2018 we will have developed a new political culture, one which at the very least allows each Zimbabwean to speak, act, chose, and be who they want to be.  I will vote when my country and its women’s broken souls have healed. When we relearn how to just be what my mother used to call ‘good people’. Simply that.  I so wish that by the next election – Zimbabwe will have reverted to being a secular space. Jesus will be removed from the ballot papers and we will keep him off forever. As a black Zimbabwean woman, it is my deepest wish that this is the last election in which the only choices in front of us are ‘BULLS’, (their party’s words not mine!), and a bunch of great-grandfathers who have never heard the phrase ‘sexual autonomy and choice’.

Originally published on Everjoice Win’s blog

Posted by Everjoice Win at 8:50 AM, 31 July 2013

It was one of those things that get you both angry and surprised.

Empty polling stations; unemployed young men who hang around local pubs and are forever asking for beer alms saying voting is for suckers; short queues moving at a snail’s pace; bored polling agents getting animated seeing a single soul passing by; all this became part of the July 31 kaleidoscope.

And this was in Bulawayo, a city long known for its strong anti-Zanu PF sentiment, yet here were some people eligible to vote staying away, choosing instead to leave the country to the Fates.

Bulawayo has some 367,178 registered voters against the disputed 2012 census that put the city’s population at 655,675, but despite the widespread frustration during the voter registration exercise, some actually said they had no reason to vote as the poll outcome had been decided a long time ago.

While this kind of talk infuriated those who had braved the cold to queue and exercise this important constitutional right, the same chaps today feel vindicated!

Yet those who did vote saw it as The Coming of the long-awaited transition to a post-Zanu PF political dispensation and the stories I listened to bordered on the hilarious as folks firmly believed that their vote would indeed make a difference.

One chap told colleagues he was saving USD150, – a lot of money by any standard – to purchase a goat to celebrate “independence,” another, a man in his fifties who has a ready story to narrate about his torture by the Fifth Brigade during Gukurahundi, went home after casting his vote and blasted his stereo in celebration of what he saw as a sure Mugabe defeat; another bought a round of beer for anyone in the bar who was sitting next to the counter: that was the mood in some parts of Bulawayo, and the excitement was just fantastic.

And then I met some folks on Friday 2 August as it became clear that Zanu PF had bamboozled the MDC-T and it was like a funeral!

A chap I grew up with who has been flirting with mining said he couldn’t take it and was contemplating leaving the country; the fellow who had planned to buy a goat to celebrate an MDC-T victory simply said: sizafa sihawula – we will die poor. He was in no mood for the animated chit-chat of 31 July; men and women feeding their families as “flea market” trader said, “And we were only beginning to realise something out of this (flea market). We are facing tough times ahead.”

These folks did not need to explain the gloomy predictions of their economic future by referring to Erich Bloch or Tony Hawkings but know from experience where they are from and, with such frustration with what are seen as very flawed political and electoral processes that have come to define Zimbabwe, they are not cursing Tsvangirai and the MDC-T but a system thought to have allowed such incredible results.

Everywhere one went the sentiment was that this was a classic case of daylight robbery, and grown men could be seen literally drowning their sorrows by taking generous quaffs of bottles brown, green and other liver melting stuff.

Another asked between sips: “so this means another five years of Zanu PF?”

Yes.

Feedback from On The Ground:

Dear Kubatana, What a disputed poll. The just ended poll was a sham, illegitimate, unfair & unfree. Firstly, intimidation & harassment of voters were rampant especially in rural areas by traditional leaders & war veterans. Most rural voters were forced to declare themselves illiterate particularly those suspected of supporting opposition parties or threatened not to go to vote. Also, the voter registration exercise was selective, intimidatory, ill-informed & short. Of concern was lack of voter education & inspection of the voters’ roll due to no or short time allocated to the two respectively. – Chikomba East

Is anyone wondering why the polling stations were kept open for 5 hours from 7 to 12 when most queues had disappeared by 7pm? Why not 1 hour or 2 hours if still queues? Does this add to the theory of the vanishing ink Nikuv style?

When we went to the polling station my name was missing imagine that I was told we can’t find it a lot of people failed to vote just becoz their names were missing in the voters role. WILL I EVER GET MY DESIRED JOB. I was shocked  knowing that maybe no change will ever come.

When I voted I took down the numbers of each of my voting slips. When the results came out in the Ballantyne car park pics were taken of the results sheets. I have compared my NA voting number to the list of book numbers they had written down. The NA numbers reflected numbers 06 35701 to 06 36700. But my number wasn’t there. Maybe these book numbers are not meant to tie into voting slip numbers! Can you enlighten?

There is a lot that remains to be said – some add “and done” – about the poll furore, but the most radical that I have heard is that the MDC-T is no longer the party that will lead Zimbabweans to the Promised Land.

I sat among some of the country’s respected senior citizens over the weekend as they mourned the death – once again – of credible elections and one thing one of them said rather angrily was that he did not want to discuss what went wrong but wanted to ponder the question: “what’s next?”

Indeed “what next?”

These are men who spoke fondly of Charles Chikerema, Authur Chadzingwa, men who recalled the politics of George Nyandoro, and exchanged stories about the bad turn the country took despite all the promise, and these elections became an opportunity to talk about the past, the present and the future of Zimbabwe.

One angry old intellectual said despite his loathing for Robert Mugabe and Zanu PF, he felt the country could do well with a new political party that would make sure to succeed where the MDC-T had failed, opining that Zanu PF had actually exercised some kind of selective magnanimity by “letting” some MDC-T candidates win and also extending the same to Zanu PF whom the revolutionary party “let” lose!

It was a strange conversation to be part of, but as one said, Zanu PF has no shame, yet I found myself musing over how all this anger being palpably felt across the country will be dealt with amidst concerns that what Zanu PF seeks is any excuse available to unleash the wrath of the security forces on civilians.

Yet one of these enlightened senior citizens was of the view that no soldier or policeman would act on such instructions to beat up any marchers because the same police and soldiers are fed up with the system that has taught nothing but hate and suffering.

This is disturbingly interesting considering the eagerness of the uniformed juniors to cast their vote during the special vote chaos.

I asked how the MDC-T lost Mbare for example, and an old professor said, “I know the guy who won for Zanu PF, he is a cruel man.” The response was loaded in that the old professor said nothing about the tactics that were employed to win but rather the kind of people who have been made guardians of our public life and space.

It was the kind of frustration with the election results that has you thinking, “If these old enlightened men are feeling this way, what of the younger people for whom this election was meant to provide a new beginning?”

One of the favourite occupations of many an analyst during the run-up to the poll was wide guesses about possible post-election scenarios, and like many such occasions, no one seems to have a clue about what’s likely to happen now that Mugabe has once again stunned everyone.

Besides the MDC-T changing its leadership, one suggested that Zanu PF had actually began destroying the MDC-T in that in forming a new government, it would invite some winning MDC-T MPs despite Tsvangirai’s position that these MPs must have nothing to do with a Zanu PF government.

And because we already know how eager everyone was to occupy cabinet posts during the GNU, this could indeed present problems for the MDC-T where its members appointed to cabinet positions through Mugabe’s magnanimity will see no reason why they should not take up the posts.

It then it becomes a matter of principle, but such appeals are always problematic in that such men and women sorely lacked when the GNU was birthed.

Meanwhile, like many Zimbabweans, the old wise men retreat to their own spaces and watch Zanu PF’s next move, because honestly, no one has a clue where we are going from here.

According to today’s NewsDay, the price of fuel has gone up from around $1.50 / litre for petrol to $1.70 / litre for petrol following last week’s election. It seems pretty hard to believe that this is what Zimbabweans were hoping would be the most immediate result of a Zanu PF win. If you haven’t already read it, check out the Zanu PF 2013 election manifesto. Since they’ve got such a resounding victory, they shouldn’t have any problems making good on their promises to develop, empower and employ Zimbabweans.

Update 6 August: Herald headline – Fuel price increase reports false: Zera

Zimbabwe’s dry winter months may mean that the veld fire danger is high. But the risk of people power exploding in the streets is low. The weather is cold, the sky is grey. Despite the MDC’s announcement that Zimbabwe’s 2013 harmonised election was illegitimate, it’s business as usual in Harare today.