2013: The year Mugabe oversees his last political drama

I often clash with some of my Facebook friends about the state of our country where they sometimes argue that Zimbabwe is normal country. Some of them say we are on the right path towards economic and political recovery, something that I very much doubt. Take for example the talk of elections. Our president Robert Mugabe was insisting last year that national elections will be held in March this year.

I fail to see how this is possible because as far as I am concerned, elections are only supposed to happen when the constitutional process is completed. As we stand today, the possibility of completing the constitutional process before March, as Mugabe wishes, is far from reality considering the deadlocks that are holding the process. To make matters worse, the country's coalition government is on record saying they don't have the money for electoral processes leading to the harmonised election and the election itself.

Even MDC-T's Tendai Biti's timing of having elections in October 2013 are becoming a wishful think because there is nowhere this can be achievable looking at the myriad of issues bedevilling the coalition government. Complexities of funding and general parliamentary debates require more time to deal with issues regarding preparing for elections. The whole purpose of the Global Political Agreement was to make sure that the next elections should be held under satisfactory and peaceful conditions.

Zimbabwe is far from being stable and moreover, these elections are only supposed to happen after a new constitution has been put in place. Already, there are rumours that Mugabe is considering having these elections under the compromised Lancaster House constitution, albeit with a new amendment, probably Amendment Number 20. It does not require a rocket scientist to phantom that this will be a huge source of dispute post elections. In my view, it will be foolish for the MDCs to agree to this arrangement because they will be agreeing to the fact that their time in the GNU was a waste of people's resources given how much was pumped into the constitution-making process. In other ways, they will be agreeing that they are after all the same as Zanu-PF which has for years, demonstrated half-baked ideas and deeds as far as national leadership is concerned.

Wasting time on useless things
One of the most bizarre things that I read about in the papers last year was that our Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai agreed to be appointed as a spokesperson for the GPA principals. I find this bizarre because all three principals in the GPA represent different ideologies and the whole appointment sounded as a trap for the MDC-T leader to say all the wrong things that Mugabe would want him to say. Moreover, there is no provision for the post of spokesperson in the GPA and many would start to feel that everything is becoming a plot by Mugabe to make sure he oversees political transition before his health fails him.

The fact that the very same meetings continue with the exclusion of the MDC's principal Welshman Ncube is just another addition of political chaos we are busy brewing. Last week, I wrote about how people see Ncube as a sell-out who is prepared to reject an electoral pact between MDCs. It is then difficult to understand how this pact will work if the MDC-T leadership finds it okay to sit in a meeting with Mugabe without the other MDC, something that was clearly explained by SADC leaders in their last Mozambique summit. I am not writing on behalf of Ncube but I guess we ought to remind each other where the disunity of the MDCs is stemming from.

National dress for a divided nation
Also last year, a proposal to have a Zimbabwe national dress was reported in the news and I am not sure how this is going to work. Zanu-PF politicians are busy trying to block national ideas of devolution of powers and I personally believe it will be a struggle to have a dress that will unify us yet we continue to reject wishes of the people. While many agree with land redistribution and empowerment laws, I believe the whole thing will backfire for future generations.

Last year, it was reported that villages in Gwanda area of Matabeleland beat up some miners in the area, accusing them of being of Shona origin exploiting their resources while they suffer. The government may wish to ignore these people's case as an isolated incident, but it will be foolish to completely ignore it because there are visibly signs that the war of land tribal controls is far from over. Many people in Matabeleland are complaining that after land was taken from the white farmers, it was given to people who have no roots in the area.

The same is being said about indigenisation and it's all happening with the approval of Zanu-PF and its supporters. If not corrected, we might see another tribal war if Mugabe goes as villagers will be feeling it is their time to correct the imbalances that were policy under Zanu-PF.

Lastly, it was reported recently that Mugabe, just like Gadhafi, is calling for a united Africa with one president. The idea is noble but the question of corrupt and unproductive regimes like Mugabe's in Zimbabwe will simply drive away the interest from other countries.

It was also reported that Mugabe is saying the West is planning to assassinate him; something that I personally think is an attention seeking strategy from a lonely old man who has run out of ideas. Mugabe's electoral dreams and his internal party politics matters of succession should not be taken serious as we all know there is nothing normal in Zimbabwe today for us to be even thinking about elections. But then of course, Zimbabwe is known for making the impossible absurd ideas possible and sadly, we have to keep watching Mugabe playing us.

As one of my friends put it, "Mugabe's proverbial survival instincts have turned the plot of stability that was expected in the GPA in a different direction - not that he will survive for long, but that he may oversee the last scene of his political drama."