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Zim displays political maturity

By Dambudzo Mapuranga

A FEW weeks ago President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia, the current Sadc chairman, issued a statement calling on the West to leave Zimbabwe alone. He also called on those forces in the northern hemisphere to respect the democratic process in Zimbabwe.

President Mwanawasa scoffed at the notion, propagated by the West that for an election to be deemed free and fair in Zimbabwe, the opposition will have to win.

When addressing the situation in Zimbabwe, the pertinent question should be free and fair elections on whose terms and why? The amount of interest in Zimbabwe’s elections by the West illustrates how important our small country is to the Browns and Bushes of the world.

Zimbabwe is the radiant symbol of black self-determination that challenges the West on its hypocritical superiority complex. The issue on Zimbabwe has been and will always be on economic empowerment.

The politics of the Land Question in Zimbabwe have made this country what it is today. All was well in Zimbabwe as long as the blacks "knew their place" in the economic hierarchy. It is against the backdrop of the political economy of land that Zimbabwe has been labelled an "outpost of tyranny" by the war-mongering George Bush Jnr. The presumption that the elections will not be free and fair in Zimbabwe is not based on fact, but is a reflex that the West has developed on anything to do with President Mugabe and his Government.

It is quite clear that Zanu-PF will win the elections and this means that the West will again be missing out on investment and other opportunities in the country as the Government refuses to allow the neo-colonialists at the helm of America and Britain to have a free run of Zimbabwe’s resources.

It is this rejection of exploitation that motivates the West to be anti-Mugabe. Of course, the West’s stooges in the form of opposition parties and the now numerous NGOs have been quick to jump on the bandwagon as siding with the West means large sums of money for regime change projects.

"We want to keep an open mind on this . . . but the omens and early signs are not good, the odds are against a free and fair vote," says UK Africa Minister Mark Malloch-Brown.

Such statements are typical of British officials in their commenting on Zimbabwe. It is not every day that a great colonial power like Britain loses face on the international arena and the British do hold a grudge.

What they have failed to realise is that the people of Zimbabwe will not go back on their resolve to empower themselves.

Morgan Tsvangirai, who had been preaching high and low that he would return all land acquired by the government during the Land Reform Programme to the whites should he win the election, made a U-turn upon realisation that he faced political oblivion.

Tsvangirai has now denied ever making statements promising to return land to the whites. However, there is a certain video clip of him smiling ear to ear as white farmers signed him cheques to finance his campaign that is a thorn to his side.

If it is not the returning of land he promised the whites, then why were they contributing to his campaign? It is certainly not because the whites thought he would make a first-class President.

The yardstick of free and fair elections seems to vary depending on who is holding the stick and who is being measured. The Americans were among the first to congratulate Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki on his announced win in 2007 only to reverse their statement after it became apparent that they had miscalculated the reaction of the people of Kenya to Kibaki’s duplicity.

Kenya plays a central role to America’s so-called war on terrorism in Africa as it borders Somalia and Ethiopia.

The vast minerals and resources found in the Rift Valley are also a major attraction to American multinational corporations.

Free and fair elections are not that important when a government protects Western interests within its borders; they only become an issue when government policies run parallel to US and British foreign policies and interests. Protection of foreign interests is a major priority to the West vis-a-vis the well-being of people.

The rapid mushrooming of NGOs and civic groups in Zimbabwe over the past few years has not been because there is a humanitarian crisis in the country but because smart as Zimbabweans are, many have realised that the West is willing to give money to whoever comes out denouncing the country’s Government.

The continued utterances that the Government of Zimbabwe does not respect the rule of law, democratic principles and human rights are a major motivation for the West to continue pouring in funds to the opposition and various civic groups.

A quick survey of the economic status of those whose names appear in the who is who in opposition politics will reveal that some have gone through two or three passports within the last two years.

They now reside in the leafy suburbs of Harare, drive posh cars, and most are overweight. It is these unscrupulous people who fuel the continued suffering of Zimbabweans. If the situation in Zimbabwe returns to normal they will be out of a source of income.

The continued impasse between the West and Zimbabwe is good for their business. One such culprit is Henry Olonga, infamous for his black armband. From the comfort of his London base he bad-mouths his country and fellow sportsmen in exchange for crumbs from the British high tables.

It is people like him who keep the hopes of neo-colonialists up that eventually evil will triumph over good and see Zimbabwe revert to the control of their kith and kin.

The Sadc electoral guidelines that Zimbabwe first applied during the 2005 Senate elections confirm that the Government meets the standard set by the region in order to ensure free and fair elections. These allegations of rigging that Tsvangirai and his backers fantasise about every now and again are nothing but just hallucinations. It is astounding that despite accusations of violation of rights, the opposition continues to field candidates in each and every election. This year the opposition in some constituencies actually fielded more than one candidate for each post.

Let us look at the last elections. At each and every polling station there are polling agents, observers and the various party officials. The measures taken to ensure that ballot boxes are not stuffed nor are the votes miscounted are quite extreme that there is no way anyone can rig the elections.

The only way to rig elections is if the National Centre plays around with the figures such that they do not tally with the original polling station figures, as is the case in Kenya. Now to this very day Tsvangirai and company have yet to arguethat all the figures announced in past elections did not tally.

Their argument has always been that Mugabe rigs and yet they have their agents at all polling stations in the country on Election Day. There was a voter registration exercise, which was extended after a call for an extension by the opposition and various civic groups.

According to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission public relations manager, Mr Shupikai Mashereni: "After elections, there will be verification of the ballot papers where presiding officers and polling agents would have to agree that the number of ballot papers tallied with the original numbers they would have counted, including the serial numbers, and both parties will have to sign for that before counting begins."

"My government shares the concerns expressed in recent weeks by a wide variety of organisations about the pre-election environment . . . and concerns that the violence of the past year will inevitably affect the campaign and election," says US Ambassador James McGee.

It is astonishing that in his letter to the people of Zimbabwe he refers to the American Declaration of Independence and that it says "all men are created equal" and lectures us on the responsibilities of government to the electorate.

Well, Mr McGee should have started by informing us that the Declaration of Independence he quotes as containing a fundamental principle of a democratic government was a document written by a group of white upper class men who at the time believed that only white men with property (means of production) had exclusive rights to be regarded as "men" and not women or, worse still, the animals they owned who were their labour referred to as slaves.

Mr McGee, address the wrongs in your house before you attempt to preach to the people of Zimbabwe about democratic elections, something your president, George W. Bush, has no respect for, or are you forgetting he stole his first term from Al Gore through dirty tricks?

The political violence that the West seems to be gleefully rubbing its hands waiting for is nowhere in sight. Instead, what we have is MDC Tsvangirai faction spokesperson Nelson Chamisa threatening violence similar to that which rocked Kenya these past months over the Kenyan presidential election if President Mugabe wins. Instead of McGee and company putting the leash on their puppets for uttering such disastrous statements, the diplomatic community sees nothing, hears nothing, and speaks nothing of opposition violence.

The people of Zimbabwe continue to grow politically and are displaying that maturity. This political maturity is what the West and NGOs do not want as it does not sustain the image they want to portray of the Zimbabwe Government which is that of a chaotic, repressive regime.

Already there is talk of such by some NGOs and civic groups. However, not one of them seems to want to come forward with the details of the incidents of these alleged crimes and their victims. It then leads one to believe that the reports are nothing but rumours being spread in order to create chaos during the election.

If there are crimes being committed, these groups should do well to inform the police instead of whispering here and there that the populace is under threat.

The elections in Zimbabwe will be free and fair and the people of Zimbabwe will not be manipulated by those whose perverse interests seek to revert Zimbabwe to a neo-colonialist haven.

l mapurangad@yahoo.com