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RADAR
WE now know which candidates will be contesting in the July 30 presidential elections. We also know the favourites, but, except for one, even among or between the front-runners, we are not so sure about some of the political parties. Including something called an MDC Alliance!
Which exposes the levity with which the whole thing is being treated, especially the way the private media seem to indulge the view that ZEC should decide, through so-called electoral reforms, who wins and who loses this election.
Quite eerily, there are even suggestions that policy issues are not so important in the voters’ minds. What’s needed, it is insinuated, is a correct propaganda pitch. And we are talking about a developing nation where we are constantly reminded to focus on bread and butter issues. Of course, we take it as an admission that most of the political parties claiming they want to improve people’s lives are no more than pretenders; they have nothing to offer.
Even those with a semblance of support on the ground don’t offer an alternative to the ruling zanu-pf. They are happy to be substitutes, or worse. How does a serious political party get to nomination day without a name? What does an Alliance stand for? What happens the day after it wins or loses the election?
In fact, the answer is more straightforward when such a creature loses because it simply shatters into smithereens. It presents a more scary prospect when it has a chance of winning and there is all the evidence that the top prostitutes around the so-called Alliance share nothing in common except the desire for power and positions. Could that explain in part why there are efforts in some sections of the media to downplay policy issues at this late hour in favour of saccharine propaganda?
More evidence? Calls for electoral reforms are rising even after the Electoral Amendment Act was gazetted. Including by one Douglas Mwonzora on nomination day wanting amendments to the manner the names of presidential candidates are presented on the ballot paper: whether it’s first name or surname first. That’s part of the levity we allude to; the utter contempt for the voter. The focus on trivialities.
At the centre of it all is ZEC.
It’s late in the day. Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance posture as the more serious pretenders to the throne. It’s not our business to dismiss them. Instead we expect them to act and behave more seriously than the rest.
By now they should be out in the field explaining to Zimbabweans their utter failure to run a single local authority and what they hope to do better than zanu-pf in the countryside if elected into power. Surely, if zanu-pf is not allowed to blame all its economic challenges on Western sanctions the MDC-T can’t blame all its failures and corruption on Chombo and Kasukuwere.
These are critical policy matters to voters, not some hoary theories targeting only the ear. Or optics for TV viewers.
Sadly, there is a determined effort to find a plausible reason for losing elections; having failed to come up with alternative policies to zanu-pf’s after former president Mugabe quit the scene, it must be ZEC. The voters’ roll is the problem. It is the military that cost us.
The discerning voter will see through this subterfuge. Despite its own weaknesses, zanu-pf can point to solid achievements, from education to the historic land reform programme which the MDC rejected and opposed to the point of inviting foreigners to impose sanctions on Zimbabwe. More importantly, President Mnangagwa has radically transformed the national narrative from politics to the economy in ways that have unsettled a lot of the zanu-pf old-guard, founding that economy on the land the party reclaimed. The MDC is hoping to reap where it refused to sow.
Third, the discerning voter will compare which future is better: one under a volatile and unpredictable alliance of convenience and power or under a solid political party that already has a history of delivery.
That there are so many political parties and independents registered to take part in the next elections speaks to a revolutionary party accomplishing before elections what Chamisa holds up as a post-election wish – while in the same breath threatening to boycott the election.
They don’t want to be taken seriously, yet Zimbabweans see a sense of hope all around them beyond the transient inconvenience of cash shortages.
Online Reporter