To Succumb

I am growing weak
As I write to you
Which might be for the last time
I feel strange

I am growing weak!
My joints feel like jelly
My vision is getting blurred
My feet are swollen
My fingers are painful
My mates tell me I smell strange

I am growing weak everywhere
My mind is clouded
My mind feels dizzy
My heart is losing its rhythm
My pulse is weak

Hunger makes weak
Hunger is getting the better of me
No decent meal
For months on end
I am growing weaker
As I write to you.

For the majority of us here
Food is a delicacy
Only for the rich and famous
Of which I am not one

Hope you do not visit my epitome
I am emaciated
I am getting weaker and weaker
Welcome to Z

WHICH WAY NOW

Another stalemate
Although I was very busy, to contribute to the ongoing election campaign in Zimbabwe, however I kept myself well up-to-date on the activities going on the ground. Just last night I had a long conversation on the reported violence and the implications of people not allowed to freely expressing their political inclinations. By and large there are people that still share social lives like drinking at the famous waterholes scattered across the country, discuss political issues and go home intact. However there are reports and indeed incidents of intimidation and actual harm, the most cynical part of this election runoff. There have been reports of fanatic groups from both side doing TOI TOI (jogging dance) on the streets with a lot of provocation and unruly behaviour. That kind of environment allows opportunists and hooligans to unilaterally exercise street justice should not be there
On the wider politics leadership, credibility and accountability, this environment set up by Mr Mugabe during elections is not new and I expect the opposition to come up with plausible plans to win such type of elections. I always feel that the opposition is letting down its enthusiastic supporters and the political climate. I always feel the MDC leadership runs the biggest opposition party as a pressure group. They have not gone beyond that and they always need to be persuaded to take part and finish competitions. The leadership actually wants to be led. It is my conviction that even if they did not campaign in this run-off they were going to win hands down. They got 47% and ZANU PF got 43% the 10% swing most of it coming from Matabeleland where ZANU PF wins the least. This would be job done, however there is too much selfishness and posturing in Zimbabwean politics. 47% of the voting population let down again and in that order the Run-off election is off, MDC wants the outside world to come and level the playing field before they can wear their suits to go into the arena to be voted for. Two months have gone by with this political violence and five days why did they not stop it earlier before all the reported deaths.

kingdom of the blind

The feeling of being in the wrong place at the wrong time runs high here. The current Zimbabwean politics is the wrong kind of politics in the wrong era. With a population of less than 6 million voting and taking I month to announce the results which the candidates dispute after all is the most weird thing in my generation. Why I say so is because Zimbabwe is still stuck with an octogenarian leader who has nothing to offer anymore and an opposition leader who has lost two previous general elections and failed to deliver on the third. I am talking about MDC-T is announced result of 50, something % to 43, something% for ZANU PF. No one really knows the truth because everyone refuses everyone’s result. In a country where everything has come to a standstill no food, no fuel, and no work that margin of win shows a flawed candidate. A situation where candidates have to be persuaded to contest a run-off, the cry baby syndrome. From the discussions that I have had with a few of my highly regarded gurus including Gumbo, Samanyika and mhofu in the city of kings, they are less than impressed and wonder who the advisers of Morgan are. They tell me this was the ground for landslide victory. In shona they have a saying that goes: Kana worova nyoka, rova musoro, ukarova padumbu ino kuruma. Literally translating to that when you want to kill a snake, hit it on the head, if you hit it in the middle it will turn and bite you.
Now if it were the real politics at stake, what could be the situation? I asked Gumbo. He told me that we could be talking about King Makers and swing votes and smooth and free campaigning without creating a leadership vacuum where people start slaughtering each other. There should be a swing vote of 10% from the losing candidate who really took people for granted euphoria that so him condemned to the dust bins of politics. Mhofu in city of kings however told me that the run-off is not going to change anything; his vote is going to go back on MDC-T. His rationale was that Mugabe needs to go and then get rid of Morgan in five years time. He does not have any confidence in the man. Such is the situation where people get stuck with politicians they don’t want. But mhofu’s theory is like a pepper spray we have seen it before when leaders refuse to leave.

Shenanigans

Where are the Presidential Results?
As I said earlier that some of the politians are going to get hurt, it shows on the results that were announced. Although it never ceases to astonish me as to how arrogant the Zimbabwe politicians are. The results are ready and waiting but no one want to announce them, how rude? The results should have been announced there and then. If the candidates have queries in any of the poll results they should follow the laid down law constitutionally to challenge and seek clarification on issues arising. How dare the government starts preparing for a re- run when the people who cast the vote do not know the result. This is the stubbornness of the Zimbabwean politician that I can’t stomach; they think they are above the low and absolutely corrupted with power. There is blatant and wilful non respect for the will of the people, the people should be commended for holding it together for so long. Things should move forward expeditiously. No to politically crafted chaos, No! People should freely chant their own destiny with or without the present genre of politicians who are dim witted and not visionary.

There is also another arguement running wild on the internet, follow is link

You Decide

On 29 th of March Zimbabwe went to the ballot box again and by the flag they will be judged.

When the whole becomes more important that the individual, when the whole carries the day, when the whole transcend creed, colour, sex or race, this is the time. The whole nation waits for the result of their ballot. Let no individual be bigger than the whole. What the whole decides the individuals should follow, be it Robert, Morgan or Simba see them as individuals. News of peaceful queues can only be more encouraging. As i write my brother shows me his red index finger from the ink of the ballot and it is obvious someone is going to get hurt but that is part and parcel of the game

Mugabe was caught on camera saying that he does not rig elections and cannot sleep with that if he did. Probably he has not slept for a long time then. He has also promised to accept the results even if he loses. The results are trickling in as we speak and indication is that MDC Morgan is winning(only a small percentage of vote have been counted so hold your breath) and their promise, a coalition government. What is the situation from where you are? Who do you think is going to win.

Racist cracks appear in South Africa

A disturbing story came out of South Africa a few weeks ago. In fact so disturbing that I had goose pimples all over when I read it. The parties involved had the guts to publish their video on the internet. I have the luxury of telling you a story that this incident reminds me of, for I strongly believe this is not an isolated event in the so called Rainbow nation where Truth and Reconciliation seems to mean Truth and Continuation. I was in a holiday mood on my way to Cape Town and was changing planes in Johannesburg when these two white women three people in front of me were refusing to be searched by Black airport security, they did not want to come in contact by black and the guards looked content with entertaining these individuals instead of removing them and let other passengers go on. In this era of terrorism this cannot be allowed. Yours truly caused a commotion by telling I as it is. I missed my flight in the end. When I read the article below I was not surprised there must be many more that go unreported. If the South Africans accept the world as it is, they will reach for the world as it might be.

Watch the Video

The video defended

As new racist cracks appear in the veneer of South Africa’s "Rainbow Nation", analysts say the country is feeling the effects of papering over its differences instead of tackling them head-on.Basking in the afterglow of a globally acclaimed transition from whites-only apartheid rule to democracy under black president Nelson Mandela, intolerant pockets continue to fester 14 years later. Last week, simmering tensions were thrust into the spotlight when a video made by four white university students, in which they lead five black workers through a series of degrading mock-initiation activities, was made public. The video shows workers — four women and a man — downing beer, dancing and participating in mock rugby practice, after which they are made to kneel and eat meat on which one of the students was filmed urinating. The home-made film ends with the words: "That, at the end of the day, is what we think of integration." The youths’ work was a protest against forced integration of black and white students in residences at the University of the Free State in what was once an independent Afrikaner republic. Jody Kollapen, chairman of the Human Rights Commission established by the constitution, said last week that Mandela had taken reconciliation too far — to the detriment of true transformation."We have been living in a dream world . . . believing we have overcome the most formidable of our obstacles," Kollapen said. "We hadn’t dealt with our past. Broader society never participated in a discussion about what the past meant for blacks and what the past meant for whites."Arts and Culture Minister Pallo Jordan told public radio the recording was "reprehensible, disgraceful" and had happened "despite the fact that these young people didn’t live under apartheid. But they are deeply infected with racism". In January, a 17-year-old white boy gunned down 10 black people at the Skielik informal settlement in the central North West Province — killing four, including two children, in an apparent racist attack. — AFP.

This is the Line up

Simba Makoni

Robert Mugabe


Morgan Tsvangirai



Simba Makoni to stand against Robert Mugabe. A new opposition leader emerged in Zimbabwe, former ally of Robert Mugabe said that he would challenge him for the presidency. In a surprise announcement in Harare, Simba Makoni, 57, a former finance minister and member of the ruling Zanu-PF party’s politburo, said that he would stand as an independent candidate in the elections due on March 29.

Simba Makoni will stand as an independent, his decision marks a formal split in the ruling party.
He blamed the president for Zimbabwe’s “extreme hardships” and said: “I won’t be in this campaign alone. There will be many of us, a great many of us. I am not an opposition party. I am not standing in the name of any party.”
Mr Makoni, who studied chemistry at Leeds University in the 1970s and took a doctorate from Leicester Polytechnic. His candidacy could herald a new era in Zimbabwe politics.
Mr Makoni was sacked as finance minister in 2002 when he tried to devalue Zimbabwe’s currency - which has since become worthless. The decision by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change to divide into two factions has opened the way for him to become the standard bearer of opposition to Mr Mugabe, who turned 84 on Feb 21 and has been in power for almost 28 years. Morgan Tsvangirai, formerly the most prominent opposition leader, has been discredited by the MDC’s collapse and is now widely distrusted.
One MDC faction, led by Arthur Mutambara is not running for presidency, has been secretly talking to Mr Makoni and backs him. If so, he would gain votes in the two Matabeleland provinces. Zimbabwe has the world’s fastest-shrinking economy, the International Monetary Fund estimates that inflation is 150,000 per cent - the world’s highest. The government only admits to 100,000 per cent. Mr Makoni is one of the few Zanu-PF leaders who did not accept a seized farm and bought his own. Almost uniquely for someone who served in the highest levels of Zimbabwe’s regime, he is also untainted by corruption.

New York Times

Fingaz

Professor Ken Mufuka

Simbamakoni.co.zw

mdc.co.zw

Is It Another Rwanda

kenya is up in flames after what seemed to be a democratic process ended up in the death of more that 200 people in post election violence. This is shocking! The people of Kenya managed to campaign for moths on end without this ugly violence swallowing this nation. What I do not understand is the mindset of one voter slashing off the head of another voter because of the choice they have made, please enlighten me. My man on the ground tells me that rigging of the election is suspected. To me rigging or no rigging the question still remains 'Does slaughtering of each other solve this problem?' The answer is an emphatic no, it only makes thinks worse. Where are the politicians now, those who spent months on end wooing these people to vote for them. They need to be there on the ground talking to these people to stop but no they have retreated into their security walled mansions-SELFISH. My heart is with those people that lost their lives when the Church they had sought refuge in was torched.

http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/01/01/world/20080101KENYA_9.html

http://politics.nationmedia.com/