lil somethin i put together last weekend peace
FROM THE TOP DOWN
Today marks the dawn of Zimbabwe’s first democratic election. I say this because in the previous election there was talk of vote-rigging and fundamental indiscrepancies which led Bob Mugabe to once again take power. The outcome of that election was a dark day for our neighbour.
Whoever emerges the victor in today’s vote will have the weight of the world on his shoulders. Because, to say the least, Zimbabwe as a nation lacks a socio political economical infrastructure, and this has led to a ma**ive backlog in terms the basic needs of the nation as a whole. Necessities such as fuel and foodstuffs have become hard to come by. Even to the point where fuel stations have resorted to sourcing petrol from black market suppliers. And we are told that teachers are forced to travel to neighbouring towns and prostitute themselves in order to feed their families. Their meagre salaries are just not enough. To what end?
An important lesson that can be learned from this fiasco is perhaps that no one leader should ever hold office for such a long period of time. Throughout postmodern African history, the notion that one is ‘president for life’ has proved disasterous every time it has been suggested. A political a**asination of sorts. By this I mean tha the power hungry dictator-type leadership traits displayed by some if not most of our current leaders cause them to expire in the eyes of their people and also, on another level, from the viewpoint of the international community. This course of action has proved fatal for many a past african leader.
In the heydays of the old South Africa one such leader was Lennox Sebe of the Ciskei. This homeland leader was in my view our own Bob Mugabe. I say this because although the majority of the people were sufffering, Sebe was bulding airports and buying planes which were never to fly. This in turn relegated Ciskei to the status of banana republic. The same can be said of Zimbabwe. Having travelled to Harare both before and after the previous election I noticed that a huge new airport had been built on the outskirts of the city while the city itself had the appearance of a state of emergency. Basic foodstuffs were just too expensive and accommodation and transport was unaffordable. This led me to believe that things already at that point needed to change. Knowing that one’s pockets are full of millions that can not even buy a loaf of bread is a joke in itself. However it is part of the harsh reality of a sinking ship.
While I am not opposed to his policies of giving land back to its rightful owners, what I do find dubious in Mugabe`s approach is the method to his madness. Perhaps he lacks proper advisers and PR people in his entouraage, one can never be sure. But one can only feel that he has attemped to achieve too much too soon. This seems to be agimmick to merely attract voters in any case. Seeing the economy fail to the point where they had to issue emergency money and such should have proved to the country`s leadership that things were getting out of hand. And another desperate measure was the operation in which the poverty-stricken were forcibly removed from Harare’s streets in an effort to make it appear as if there was little or no poverty in the country, so that the U.N observers could note this. This lacklustre attempt to ‘cook the books’ blew up in the face of the Mugabe regime. And unfortunately it cost people their homes and, dare i say , their lives were negatively affected. The second disaster was the one in which foodstuffs in the supermarkets were given away at ridiculous prices leading to a ‘free for all’ which in turn led to a domino effet of there being no food available in the stores up to now. In addition to this, the silencing of critics through taking away the press freedom led me to believe that Mugabe clearly had something to hide.
So on the dawning of Zimbabwe’s liberation, one can ony hope that things will go smoothly. Already the ridiculous has happened in the form of long-deceased white people’s names appearing on the voter’s roll. It has also come to light that the government has printed far too many ballot papers, causing people to already pre-empt the possibility of vote rigging. My personal take is that the opposition should take power and lead the country into a new era of nation building. If they fail to take power through democratic means, then another route must be found to depose the ageing despot. Uhuru
