Mugabe's anti-Kalanga outbursts wont affect his party's election performance in Mat'land

President Robert Mugabe's recent controversial anti-Kalanga comments have not caused any sleepless nights for government spin doctors.After Mugabe's widely publicised comments,apologists in Harare including some from Matabeleland were quick to find a scapegoat-the overzealous and misguided Journalists from the private media.

Spin doctors,relax.Dont waste your energy on this one because there is nothing to spin.No sleepless nights trying to find the right words to shield our dear leader from the belly of the angry beast.

If an election was called today with political temperatures still high, Zanu-PF would still emerge victorious in Matabeleland. Those who live in the province know what I am talking about.

The ailing president's comments about the Kalanga will have no bearing at all on the poor electorate in the rural areas of Matabeleland. The government spin doctors are taking the damage control fight to the Journalists who covered Mugabe's media conference in Harare.

They accuse the so called misguided pro-opposition Journalists of reporting the president's remarks out of context.

The truth is the people of Matabeleland are a rare breed of human beings. They are like an abused wife who endures daily abuses from her monster spouse but still refuses to leave him. Such a woman would not listen to any advise from family members even when signs of danger are clearly visible.

Some of the abused wives don't get a chance to leave their matrimonial homes alive. When they finally leave their homes, they go straight to the ceremetery-victims of years of abuse by their husbands.The Ndebele and Kalanga communities of Matabeleland are not different from the behavior of abused wives.

Despite being brutalised,humiliated,killed and subjected to worst forms of tribal oppression by the same party, the Ndebele and their Kalanga allies will not stop voting for Zanu-PF. They are like people under a spell and need deliverance through devine intervention.

While briefing the media at  SADC conference in Harare, Mugabe described the Kalanga as uneducated and said they were the ones committing petty crimes in neighbouring South Africa- home to more than a Million Zimbabweans.

The inhabitants of Matabeleland have been voting for Zanu-PF since Joshua Nkomo signed a peace deal with Mugabe's party in 1987. In 2000 the region's inhabitants switched sides to the MDC but went back to Zanu-PF the following elections despite well known and documented human rights abuses still going on in the province.

Come election, those anti-Kalanga comments by Mugabe won't stop them from voting for his party.Believe it or not. Thats the reality on the ground.If you ask an villager in Matobo, Kezi or Plumtree about Mugabe's comments about the Kalanga,they would probably look at you and wonder what you are talking about.

Very few people in rural areas read private newspapers or listen to foreign radio stations for news.The only Zimbabweans from Matabeleland who are making all the noises about Mugabe's comments are the few educated activists who have taken to social media to vent their anger at the president.

For the ordinay rural folk in Plumtree or Kezi,its business as usual.Come elections you will find them in queues voting for Zanu-PF. For record, Zanu-PF does not force people to vote for its candidates. The party's youths do not move in villages carrying guns threatening the locals to vote for Mugabe.

The people vote for Mugabe and Zanu-PF on their own free will something that has surprised even leaders of the ruling party itself. The leaders do not understand why the villagers keep voting for them despite all the abuse they have subjected them to since independence 35 years ago.

When I visited Kezi sometime in early 2000, I met an old man (ikhehla) at Maphisa business centre.When I asked the old man why the people in the province especially in the rural areas kept on voting for the same party that has caused them so much pain since independence, the man paused for few minutes, then came his answer in Ndebele: "Mfoka Kunene,angazi ukuthi abantu be Zanu bawuthatha ngaphi umuthi wokusiloya sonke ama Ndebele lama Kalanga emakhaya.

The old man continued explaining to me: "Kuyacaca ukuthi asizenzi.Ukuze sikhululeke sekumele sidinge inyanga yabo eyabanika lowo muthi,siyincenge ukuthi isihlanzise ngoba abantu bakithi bayagula.Kodwa uma leyo nyanga seyafa,sisenkingeni mntanenkosi."

What the old man was simple saying was that Zanu-PF's hold on the people of Matabeleland is abnormal and equated it to a witchcraft spell that needs to be broken because they can't stop voting for the party.The Ndebele now have a reputation of rejecting political parties led by their own people.

Some of the locals would tell you they can't abandon Zanu-PF because Nkomo left them in it. Welshman Ncube, the leader of the other MDC knows well how it feels to be rejected by your own people you are trying to free from an evil oppressive government.

In the 2013 legislative elections,Ncube's party lost all the seats it held in southern Matabeleland to Zanu-PF. In the urban centres, the Ndebele and Kalanga people's party of choice is Morgan Tsvangirai's MDC-T led by Zanu-PF defectors.

Someone has suggested that the entire inhabitants of the region go for counseling because even when evil is in their homes, they won't see it or hear it. They are politically doomed.