Anyone with a half a brain can see these elections are different

We are in the height of campaign season in Zimbabwe. Hello! I said we are in the height of campaign season in Zimbabwe! Yet, where is the violence? Where is the chaos?

We are living in times of unprecedented peace and harmony. We feel security. We feel safe. What has happened? Could it be that despite the incessant complaints of Nelson Chamisa about ZEC that actually, these elections are different.

Let's have a look at some of the facts.

First of all. We are blessed with a plethora of candidates for every single position; including 26 candidates for president! Democracy is about choice, it is about representation, and we have these options in abundance during these upcoming harmonised elections.

Then there are the rallies. They have been 99.99% peaceful. Urban rallies have been incredibly peaceful. No police repression. No teargas. No ZANU versus MDC. We even had a ZANU president cancel a ZANU rally to allow an opposition rally! This really is unprecedented.

The opposition too have been allowed to rally and protest in the rural heartlands of ZANU. We all know how this would have ended in the old dispensation; with blood.

We are now free and open to debate the elections. Reporters can say and write what they want without fear of retribution. Tweeters can tweet! We can go on Facebook and tell the president what we think of him directly to his face. He even reads them and responds to the criticism!

At the same time we have hundreds of international observers and monitors here. From the US, Britain, the EU and of course the AU and SADC; our democracy is open for analysis, open for criticism. Again, such moves are unprecedented.

We have also had forensic scrutiny of the voters' roll including the removal of dodgy names or potential ghost voters. Court rulings have stopped chiefs from being involved in the election process, while judges have also finally decreed to keep school children away from rallies, so they cannot be used as political tools. The courts are finally free and independent, and politicians from all sides have chosen to accept their decisions.

Most importantly, we have peace. The only hints of violence we saw were in the primaries, most poignantly in the MDC, where Chamisa's vanguard went after poor Dr. Khupe and her followers.

So, it turns out that while no election process is perfect, we are clearly living in an entirely new reality. We have freedoms we could only have dreamed of. Debate is raucous and open. Rallies are free and peaceful. And the president is leading the country to elections with a constant barrage of messages focused purely on peace, unity, love and a new and free Zimbabwe.

With all the complaining we see in the newspapers every day from Nelson Chamisa, it appears that he has stopped campaigning about the issues. Now he only focuses on the process. This is a classic campaign of someone who is losing. With no hope left, he has chosen to attack the adjudicator.

Anyone with half a brain can see that in this new Zimbabwe, these elections are different.