Messages From Zimbabwe

The forthcoming elections are provoking considerable excitement, mainly over whether Robert Mugabe will survive the most serious challenge yet to his political hegemony over Zimbabwe. However, it seems very difficult to anticipate what outcomes there could be in early April. In part this is because the electoral laws need some clarification, particularly the apparent conflict between Section 110(3) and Paragraph 3 of the Second Schedule of the Electoral Act, and in part because of the very complicated political situation in Zimbabwe and the apparent splits within ZANU PF over whether Mugabe should remain in power.

Dealing with the first issue, Section 110(3) of the Electoral Act states that the winner in the first round of a Presidential election must have an absolute majority of the valid votes cast, however Paragraph 3 suggests that the Chief Election Officer has the power to declare as the winner the candidate with the “greater” or the “greatest” number of votes. Paragraph 3 of the Second Schedule is a hangover from the previous Electoral Act, and, if the principles of good legislative interpretation are followed – which may not be the case – then the substantive clause, Section 110(3), should prevail.

The relevance for this discussion is that Mugabe may fall back on what one commentator has called the “sophisticated” Kibaki strategy if he fails to get the absolute majority he needs. He gets the Chief Election Officer to declare him the winner, even if he only gets 49% or less of the vote – as long as he has more than the others – and then argues the toss in the courts, if the losing candidates feel that they can take this option. He can avoid the “crude” Kibaki strategy – of just getting himself declared the winner – by using the contradiction in the Electoral Act between Section 110(3) and Paragraph 3 of the Second Schedule.

However, elections are complex processes, and, whilst they are evidently about the transfer or maintenance of political power between parties, they are also about popularity, and it is popularity that gives credibility to the transfer or maintenance of political power. In the current “harmonised” elections, this means that credibility for the various political parties will come from having won both the presidential and the parliamentary elections, and with what kind of majority they obtain this win.

So, for Mugabe, it is essential that he and ZANU PF win both the presidential and the parliamentary elections with clear majorities. This will allow him to be sworn in by the Chief Justice, to demand the allegiance of the armed services and chiefs and to continue to claim sovereignty and forestall any external interference. If he were to win the presidency, but lose the parliament or have the opposition get a blocking third of the seats, as they did in 2000, he will have considerable difficulty governing, let alone convincing the world at large that he remains a popular leader.

Now, for the first time in Zimbabwe‘s history, it is not a foregone conclusion that ZANU PF will win, and we are faced with a multiplicity of contenders of real substance. We have four candidates for the presidential election, with three very substantial and plausible candidates. We have two major parties, ZANU PF and MDC, contending for the parliamentary, senate, and local government elections, but we also have a large number of “independents”; some of whom are genuine independents, and some of whom are supporters of Simba Makoni (a presidential contender) but probably owe their allegiance to ZANU PF. We also have many indicators of severe dissatisfaction with Mugabe within ZANU PF, but it is impossible to know how extensive this is and how this will affect the presidential election. Whilst the dissatisfaction with Mugabe can have very powerful effects on the presidential election, it would seem probable that this will not translate into dissatisfaction by the electorate with the party. ZANU PF “dissidents”, whether public or not, will want the party to win, but probably not want Mugabe to continue as President.

All of this suggests a large number of possible outcomes, which are dependent on a wide range of factors; the effectiveness of all the current vote buying, the success of rigging, the control of the electoral machinery, and, of course, the ways in which the electorate will vote. After all, elections are empirical events, and numbers count in the final analysis. So whatever the flaws, it will matter what the turnout looks like, and whether the numbers are plausibly distributed.

Focusing on all the factors that make up a free or flawed election is important, but if we focus on what can happen with the numbers, irrespective of the validity of the process, it is possible to see that these elections can have many different results. The table below summarises the possible outcomes, both presidential and parliamentary, and looks at these with regard to the major interest in these elections: will Mugabe stay or go?

NB. Please note that the scenarios below were originally in a tabulated format which, for transmission purposes, was impossible to retain. Hence, it has been converted into plain text. Anyone wishing to have the original table, please request from jag@mango.zw.

1. Mugabe wins: with real majority, rigged poll, “sophisticated” Kibaki option, or “crude” Kibaki option.

Scenario 1:-

?clear result

Presidential result – Mugabe wins with more than 50% Parliamentary result – ZPF gets 2/3 majority Risk to Mugabe – Safe

Scenario 2:-

?clear result

Presidential result – Mugabe wins with more than 50% Parliamentary result – ZPF gets 2/3 majority Risk to Mugabe – Vulnerable

Scenario 3:-

?clear result

Presidential result – Mugabe wins with more than 50% Parliamentary result – MDC (opposition) gets 50% to 2/3 majority Risk to Mugabe – in danger<

2. Run-off in Presidential election: No absolute majority for any candidate.

Scenario 1:-

Mugabe vs Tsvangirai

Presidential result – Mugabe wins

Parliamentary result – ZPF has 2/3 majority Risk to Mugabe – possible trade-off with Makoni faction

Scenario 2:-

Mugabe v Makoni

Presidential result – Mugabe wins

Parliamentary result – ZPF has 2/3 majority Risk to Mugabe – possible trade-off with Makoni faction

Scenario 3:-

Mugabe vs Tsvangirai

Presidential result – Tsvangirai wins with Makoni support Parliamentary result – ZPF has 2/3 majority or even no majority Risk to Mugabe – In danger

Scenario 4:-

Mugabe vs Makoni

Presidential result – Makoni wins with Tsvangirai support Parliamentary result – ZPF has 2/3 majority or even no majority Risk to Mugabe – Vulnerable.

Scenario 5:-

Mugabe vs Tsvangirai

Presidential result – Tsvangirai wins on own, or with Makoni support Parliamentary result – MDC (opposition) has majority or 2/3 Risk to Mugabe – In serious danger

Scenario 6:-

Mugabe vs Makoni

Presidential result – Makoni wins on own, or with Tsvangirai support Parliamentary result – MDC (opposition) has majority or 2/3 Risk to Mugabe – in danger

Taking the first scenario, which is predicated on Mugabe winning the presidential election, it can be seen that there are three sub-scenarios. Here it is assumed that Mugabe may have won (legitimately or not) and, of course, an illegitimate victory will probably be challenged by the losers, whether in the courts or by other political action. A clear majority is seen as questionable in all three sub scenarios as, on present evidence, it does not seem that Robert Mugabe is very popular anywhere in the country. But, notwithstanding the manner of victory, it can be seen that this victory may be accompanied by a series of different developments. ZANU PF could win the parliamentary elections with either a clear two-thirds majority or less than this. ZANU PF could also end up with less than a majority and even less than two-thirds.

In the first sub-scenario, Mugabe would be president and, assuming that his candidates of choice win their seats in the parliamentary elections, we remain in the status quo. He can govern, use his Presidential powers, make changes to the constitution, pass budgets, and keep the world off his back. Court challenges to his victory he can manage, as he has done before, by just dragging the process out interminably, and, providing the army continues its support, he can deal easily with internal dissent. His own personal safety would seem assured here.

In the second sub-scenario, Mugabe would not have quite the same legislative powers, and his credibility would be severely damaged by the demonstration that his party is no longer as popular as it appeared in 2005. He would also be vulnerable to parliamentary attack if ZANU PF dissidents were to start allying themselves with the positions of the opposition, and the fractures within ZANU PF might become more and more apparent.

The third scenario would leave Mugabe in obvious danger. If the opposition – MDC and independents – were to have either a majority in parliament, or more seriously had a greater than two-thirds majority, he would not be able to govern at all, could be vulnerable to direct personal attack by impeachment or the like, and his political credibility would be irrevocably damaged.

Furthermore, if his victory was not genuinely won, he would be in very serious trouble in this situation.

However, having three substantial candidates for the presidential election raises other possibilities, and the most likely is that no one gets an absolute majority in the first round. This seems very possible, given that Tsvangirai obtained 42% of the vote in 2002, and these were genuine votes.

Assuming some loss of popularity for Tsvangirai, it still seems likely that he would get about 35% of the vote. Makoni would then only need to get 15% for there to have to be a run off, and, given the reported dissatisfaction within ZANU PF for Mugabe’s continuation in power, this might be a little on the conservative side. A betting man would not agree with Makoni that he will get 70% of the vote, but it would seem a safe bet to suggest that he will do much better than a mere 15%. If the electorate split their votes between Tsvangirai and Makoni, then Mugabe might even go out at the first round, but this seems unlikely.

Thus, a run-off seems very probable and opens up many more scenarios, as was seen from the table above, none of which look very promising for Mugabe, and here the results of the parliamentary elections become crucial. It should be remembered that the run-off will take place three weeks after the parliamentary elections should have been finalised, so the balance of forces in the parliament will be known.

In the two sub-scenarios where ZANU PF has won a clear two-thirds majority in parliament, Mugabe has the possibility of doing a deal with the malcontents in the party. If he has to run off against Tsvangirai, he may be able to persuade the Makoni faction and others to support him, probably in exchange for a clear process of succession to Makoni. This will depend enormously on whether the ZANU PF malcontents will trust Mugabe to keep his word, and also on the support that they have already in parliament. Constitutional Amendment 18 provides for the election of the President by parliament, so succession could happen quickly, but whether the dissidents will trust Mugabe will depend on who the chosen heir or heiress is, and how confident they are that they can control Mugabe in parliament.

Nonetheless, these two scenarios do leave Mugabe vulnerable and having to bargain from a position of weakness, which will be an unusual experience for him.

The sub-scenario where the opposition has a blocking third in parliament is considerably less comfortable for Mugabe. In the event of a run-off against Makoni, he faces the clear danger that the opposition will throw their support with Makoni and he will lose. Even if he were to win, he would have all the difficulties in governing mentioned earlier, plus his own credibility would be seriously questioned due to the evident demonstration that he is not popular. He would also have great difficulties in making some sort of deal with his dissidents as electing his successor through parliament might be problematic: the opposition and the Makoni supporters would have much more power in determining the choice of heir, which would not suit Mugabe at all.

The other sub-scenarios, where the opposition has a majority or a two-thirds majority in parliament, place Mugabe in much more danger. A run-off against Tsvangirai, where the opposition already had a majority, could easily lead to a Tsvangirai victory, where the electorate sense an easy opportunity to get rid of him, and the poll might then become a test of his popularity only. Much the same could happen with a run-off against Makoni, but the difference here is that the opposition would not fear a Makoni presidency since they control the house. The key here is that even the rural electorate might sense Mugabe’s weakness and take the opportunity to shift allegiances, and this might not be so unlikely against the background of the economic crisis and the very palpable food shortage. Although the general trend in the rural electorate has been to vote for whom they think will win, and this has been so clearly Mugabe to date, the politics of patronage might well fall apart in the run-off situation where the rural populace get the notion that Mugabe will lose.

So, making the assumption that the process of the elections do not matter essentially, it can be seen that Robert Mugabe will only be secure in one of the nine scenarios outlined. Unless he can ensure, by either his popularity or rigging, that he wins the presidential election by an absolute majority, and that ZANU PF has an unassailable majority in parliament, all the other outcomes place him at risk.

Some place him at much greater risk than others, but in general the possibilities suggest that his days are very definitely numbered. And even if he were able to achieve the very first scenario, that he and ZANU PF win handsomely, it is evident that the political terrain has dramatically shifted in the past six weeks, and that a political transition of sorts is now happening. However, much will depend on the results of these elections, and many strange things can still happen.

(Source)

Retired General Solomon Mujuru turned down advances made by Simba Makoni to join his political project, saying doing so would divide ZANU PF and render untenable the career of his wife, Vice President Cde Joice Mujuru, President Mugabe has said.

Speaking in an interview with ZBC-TV and The Herald at the end of a star rally at Hama High School in Chirumhanzu District, Midlands, yesterday, Cde Mugabe said Rtd Gen Mujuru met him on Monday to make it clear that he was not in any way associated with the Makoni project.

”One who is talked about (as supporting Makoni) is General Mujuru. He came to me on Monday and said that when Makoni first came to him, he had in mind the formation of a new party, but he discouraged him and told him doing that would divide ZANU PF.

”He wanted to make it clear to me that he did not support Makoni at all. He said if he supported Makoni, imagine what the position of ‘my wife’, who is Mai Mujuru, would be? It would be untenable, so he said no. He said Makoni had an idea to form a new party, and he said: ‘If you form a new party you would be dividing the party, you would be dividing ZANU PF.’ That’s what he told me,” President Mugabe said.

There has been a lot of speculation, particularly in the privately-owned media, that Makoni had a lot of sleepers in ZANU PF who were content to lie low, and support his presidential bid from within ZANU PF.

Rtd Gen Mujuru was touted as the leader of the sleepers.

The speculation was fed by Makoni’s claims that he went it alone with the support of several ZANU PF “heavyweights”.

However, the only Politburo member to openly side with Makoni so far is Dumiso Dabengwa, who analysts say does not bring any value to the Makoni project since he was long rejected by his constituency in Bulawayo.

Turning to Dabengwa, President Mugabe said the man was automatically out of ZANU PF as he and not the Politburo, had decided his fate.

”He has already decided his fate, he has decided his fate, he is gone, he is gone.”

The Politburo meets on Wednesday next week, and among issues expected to top the agenda is the defection of Dabengwa to the Makoni project, which defection has been described by President Mugabe as a great betrayal of the struggle.

According to rules and regulations governing the conduct of ruling party members adopted by the Central Committee, any member of ZANU PF who decides to stand as an independent or joins another party automatically expels him or herself from the party.

The President said it was unlikely that there would be anymore defections from ZANU PF.

He said his campaign was a winning one, which was proceeding in an excellent manner.

Cde Mugabe’s star rallies have been highly subscribed countrywide, a development that forced the Western media, principally the AFP, to acknowledge Cde Mugabe’s popularity which they attributed to the synergies ZANU PF built with the countryside during the liberation struggle, and the fact that his message of empowerment resonates with the aspirations of the majority of Zimbabweans, over 70 percent of whom live in the rural areas.

Meanwhile, our Bulawayo Bureau reports that President Mugabe said the defection from ZANU PF by Makoni and former ZIPRA intelligence chief Dumiso Dabengwa does not mean that the ruling party has split.

Cde Mugabe was addressing thousands of people who attended his star rally at Mapanzuli Primary School, about 30km from Zvishavane.

“Since Makoni and Dumiso Dabengwa left the party, some people are talking about a split in ZANU PF. We don’t split.

“Hatibvarurwe pakati. Munhu anozvibvarura kana abuda pakati pevanhu,” he said amid thunderous applause.

Makoni and Dabengwa have claimed that they tried to institute “change of leadership” while in the party but ZANU PF officials have roundly dismissed this as untrue.

Cde Mugabe has described Makoni as a “political prostitute” with “an inflated ego” while on Tuesday, the President told ZANU PF supporters at a rally in Lupane that Dabengwa’s defection amounted to a “great betrayal of the revolution”.

Yesterday Cde Mugabe told ruling party supporters in Zvishavane to be committed to serving the party and respecting its rules and regulations as well as the leadership hierarchy.

He said Zimbabweans should always be ready to defend their independence and sovereignty as well as the gains that came with these.

(Source)

Zimbabwe‘s government sought on Tuesday to allay fears over a new equity law to give locals a controlling share in business ownership, saying it would not lead to expropriation of foreign-owned firms.

“This is not going to be expropriation,” Indigenisation and Empowerment Paul Mangwana told a news conference.

“We recognise that businesses that are already in existence will need time to adjust. There is going to be a lot of engagement and consultation and the time frame could be five to 10 years. There is no reason to panic.”

Veteran President Robert Mugabe, facing elections in March, gave his seal of approval last week to the indigenisation and economic empowerment act which requires locals to own a 51 percent stake in all firms.

Mangwana said the law was meant to benefit the majority of Zimbabweans who were discriminated against by colonial laws in the southern African nation that gained independence from Britain in 1980.

“Blacks were not allowed to open current accounts or start businesses. This is the time to redress that,” Mangwana said.

“The revolution is not complete until indigenous Zimbabweans own the means of production.

“Japan is owned by the Japanese, China by the Chinese… and Zimbabwe should be owned by Zimbabweans.”

He said prospective foreign investors will be required to identify locals to have joint ventures with and said the government would not be involved in their negotiations.

“The government will only be involved where a foreign investor says they can’t find a suitable indigenous partner,” Mangwana said.

“We will go to our database and match them with a suitable partner in their respective sector.”

According to the new law, investment by foreigners will not be approved unless a controlling stake is reserved for locals.

When it was mooted last year, the law raised fears among foreign-owned companies operating in Zimbabwe that they will lose control of their firms.

But Mangwana said on Tuesday the government can use its discretion to allow foreign companies to own more than 51 percent shares.

The law also provides for the establishment of an economic empowerment board to give loans to locals intending to acquire shares, start businesses or expand existing ventures.

Eight years ago, the government launched controversial land reforms which saw the state seizing at least 4 000 white-owned farms for redistribution to landless blacks.

(Source)

President Robert Mugabe has signed a new law requiring foreign-and white-owned businesses in Zimbabwe to hand over 51 per cent control of their operations to blacks. The new law is part of Mugabe’s election campaign strategy of what he calls “economic empowerment.” The strategy also includes plans to distribute tractors, generators, gasoline and cattle to black farmers who have resettled on white-owned land seized by the government since 2000. The moves comes three weeks before Zimbabweans vote in crucial presidential, parliamentary and local council elections. Mugabe, 84, is running against former finance minister and ruling party loyalist Simba Makoni, 57, and opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, 55. The March 29 vote takes place amid an economic meltdown – including a shrinking economy, rocketing inflation, shortages of most basic goods and collapsing public services – in a country once known as Africa‘s breadbasket.

Since the government began ordering the seizure of white-owned farms in 2000, production of food and agricultural exports has slumped drastically. Zimbabwe has the world’s highest official rate of inflation: 100,500 per cent. One-third of the country’s 12 million people received emergency food aid in January, according to UN agencies. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization predicted shortfalls in local harvests in coming weeks and said just 10 per cent of fertilizer needed in the last planting season is available to farmers. Since December, the Central Bank has spent at least US$43 million to import corn, Zimbabwe‘s staple food, from neighbouring countries, bank Gov. Gideon Gono said Saturday. The state-owned Sunday Mail said the new government program will put Zimbabwe “back at work” with state-of-the-art generators, buses, tractors, 300 buses, motorcycles and some 3,000 cattle.

“This equipment and implements now form a critical mass that should be deployed effectively so as to meaningfully uplift productivity levels,” the newspaper quoted Mugabe as saying at a ceremony in Harare on Saturday. No details about the cost of the equipment – funded by the state central bank, much of it in scarce hard currency – was provided. In the past, similarly free equipment mainly has gone to supporters of the ruling party. Mugabe blames the crisis on economic sanctions imposed by Britain, Zimbabwe‘s former colonial power, and its allies, to protest his land reforms. “This hate program by Britain and her fellow racists imposed unjustified sanctions on Zimbabwe in futile attempts to frighten us off our land,” he said. “They should remember we are not that easily scared away,” he said. The Economic Empowerment Act requires “indigenous Zimbabweans” to hold a minimum 51 per cent stake in every business and public company, and to have a controlling stake in every investment or company merger.

(Source)

ZNU 111 released. I stay with the bulletin theme. It allows me to cover so much more ground in a limited time…

It can be heard in the multiplayers in the right hand sidebar (of The Bearded Man blog), or here, whilst can also be downloaded from here.

Take care.

‘debvhu

Takavafira Zhou is a teacher who was tortured in Zimbabwe. Now he is in London for a rally demanding change. By Emily Dugan

One of Zimbabwe’s leading human rights campaigners has issued the world with a startling reminder of the horrific abuse and torture being suffered under Robert Mugabe’s regime ahead of the country’s elections in three weeks’ time. Takavafira Zhou, a trade union activist, was seized by government police two weeks ago and, while imprisoned, did not know if he would make it out of the torture chamber alive. Beaten to within an inch of his life, Mr Zhou was told to repeat the slogan “Robert Mugabe is always right”, and now he has come to Britain to preach the reverse. Still bearing the scars that are a testament to President Mugabe’s brutal rule, Mr Zhou is to defy his oppressors by telling protesters today at the Action for Southern Africa (Actsa) pro-democracy rally in Trafalgar Square of the human rights violations taking place in his country.

From there he and his trade union colleagues will go to Brussels to lobby the EU commissioner for Human Rights to take action against the dictator. Mr Zhou says the time to act is now. “The suffering in Zimbabwe cannot continue for another day,” he said, on arrival in London yesterday. “International leaders are complicit in human rights abuses in Zimbabwe by their failure to provide a solution or to induce a solution in Zimbabwe. We really wonder why Zimbabwe has taken so long to get international help. In Kenya it did not take so long. Why?” Three weeks from today, Zimbabweans will be going to the polls, but Mr Zhou is not hopeful that the elections on 29 March will be democratic. “There will be no free and fair elections in Zimbabwe“, he said. “And anyone who says there can be is daydreaming.”

At the end of the month, the 84-year-old President will face two of his strongest opponents yet: his former finance minister Simba Makoni, 57, backed by ruling party rebels, and Morgan Tsvangirai, 55, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change. But many believe that even these strong candidates do not stand a chance against the closely guarded regime of Mr Mugabe and Zanu PF. Outside electoral observers are being brought in, but opposition party members say that these will be taken entirely from countries that Mr Mugabe perceives as “friendly” to the regime. Russia is the only European country to have been invited to monitor the elections while the majority of remaining observers will be from the Southern African Development Community (SADC) – a body which has already been criticised for dealing too leniently with Mr Mugabe.

Zimbabwe‘s Foreign Minister, Simbarashe Mumbengegwi, openly admitted yesterday that countries which had opposed Mr Mugabe would not be invited to monitor elections. “Clearly, those who believe that the only free and fair election is where the opposition wins, have been excluded since the ruling party, Zanu PF, is poised to score yet another triumph,” Mr Mumbengegwi said. But another Mugabe win would be far from a triumph for the Zimbabwean people, according to Lucia Matibenga, the vice-president of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, and an electoral candidate for the MDC in Harare. She has also seen the catastrophic effects of Mr Mugabe’s tight grip of power, and will stand alongside Mr Zhou in Trafalgar Square today. “I don’t see that we are preparing for free and fair elections given that violence is now institutionalised,” said Ms Matibenga. “I think particularly in the rural areas people will find it very difficult to vote against Zanu PF because of the threats made against them. Chiefs are paid by Robert Mugabe to use any means possible to ensure that their people vote for him.”

For Mr Zhou, the reasons for a democratic challenge to Mr Mugabe are compelling. The 40-year-old university lecturer and president of the Progressive Teachers Union has witnessed first-hand how the President’s clampdown on free speech has penalised innocent protesters. Two weeks ago the human rights activist was leading a group of teachers handing out leaflets in Harare to campaign against the country’s crippled education system when he was taken by Zanu PF militia. The leafleting had taken place dangerously close to the party’s headquarters, and within minutes of being discovered all the teachers were dragged into an underground cellar. Teams of 15 men used logs and iron bars to beat them. Mr Zhou and his fellow campaigners were battered – and some of the women sexually abused – with the iron rods, until they were left motionless on the blood-stained floor. “It was so terrible. I’ve never seen such thuggery; I’ve never seen such brutality,” said Mr Zhou.

When the beatings became so bad that three of his fellow-protesters passed out, the police became afraid and took them to hospital, where they remained under police guard for four days. Now the police are trying to charge them with criminal nuisance, but Mr Zhou says such a charge would be a gross injustice. “I don’t see what is criminal or what is a nuisance about trying to save the collapsing education system”, he said. Last month, he lost his job as a history lecturer at Great Zimbabwe University after submitting an anti-government paper. But Zimbabwe‘s universities have been closed anyway for several weeks now, as a jittery Mr Mugabe tightens his control on anti-government sentiment ahead of the elections.

When Mr Mugabe – a former school teacher himself – first became leader, there was hope that he would usher in a new era for education in Zimbabwe. But now, amid crippling inflation and government control, the schools lie empty and dilapidated; 25,000 teachers abandoned their posts last year, and a further 8,000 have left in this year already. The few teachers who remain have been on strike since January over poor pay and the introduction of untrained militia as teaching staff. “This militarisation is what happened in Nazi Germany or with Mussolini’s youth militia”, warned Mr Zhou, who says that the teacher Mugabe of the 1960s would not have let such atrocities occur. “The old Mugabe only wants his voice to be heard, but the young Mugabe wanted to hear the voices of the oppressed,” he said. Teachers now have a salary of just four million Zimbabwean dollars, enough for little more than eight bottles of cooking oil. Mr Mugabe’s soldiers, meanwhile are paid 2.3bn Zimbabwean dollars.

“When Mugabe was 28, he said: ‘If the government touch a cent of my salary I’ll box them,’” said Mr Zhou. “We don’t want to box Robert Mugabe; we’re saying teachers have legitimate demands that should be met by the government.” It is unclear what horrors will await Mr Zhou on his return to Zimbabwe next week but he says he will not be gagged in his attempts to hold back the dictator’s lust for power. “I am not afraid of going back,” he said. “I take casualties as part of the struggle and part of leadership. Zimbabweans must note that they can’t afford to stand on the touchline to watch a game they should be playing. Dictators do not willingly give up power, they need to be pushed.”

(Source)

One of Harare‘s most exclusive restaurants has been fined for overcharging the deputy information minister for a meal last year. Bright Matonga complained that when he came to pay for a meal and drinks at Amanzi Restaurant in Harare‘s plush Highlands suburb in June, the proprietors charged him at black market rates. Matonga’s bill came to US$97,11, said the official Herald daily. The restaurant converted the bill into Zimbabwe dollars but used the parallel market rate prevailing at the time of US$1: Z$100000. The deputy minister maintained he should have been billed at the official rate of US$1: Z$250. Amanzi Restaurant, with its plush gardens and water features, is a favourite with diplomats and foreign tourists. The outlet is allowed to bill foreign visitors in foreign currency but locals must pay in Zimbabwe dollars. President Robert Mugabe’s government artificially fixes the rate of exchange, which is usually way below black market rates. This week, while the government maintains US$1 is worth just Z$30000, the parallel exchange rate sits somewhere between Z$18-million and Z$29-million. Most traders, schools and health providers set their prices with an eye on the parallel exchange rate. The Herald said Amanzi was fined just Z$10-million, enough to buy two pints of fresh milk – in the unlikely event that milk is available.

(Source)

Shoppers in Zimbabwe no longer need worry about carrying their purchases home: the chances are that their groceries weigh less than the banknotes needed to buy them.

The Zimbabwean dollar tumbled to a new low of 25 million to a single US dollar today, just four months after breaking from the million barrier. With Zimbabwe dollars mostly available in bundles of 100,000 and 200,000 notes, a US $100 note now buys nearly 20kg of local notes.

Under Robert Mugabe’s economic meltdown, Zimbabwe has the world’s highest inflation rate of 100,500 per cent. Currency dealers say that political uncertainty ahead of presidential and parliamentary elections on March 29 is also encouraging people to hang on to their hard currency.

At the same time, they added, the central bank is pumping out Zimbabwean dollars to pay for election costs and buying greenbacks on the black market to pay for power, petrol and vehicle imports ahead of the elections.

The value of the Zimbabwe dollar weakened steadily against hard currencies throughout last year but its fall quickened dramatically in recent weeks.

With industry and production collapsing, Zimbabweans have become heavily dependent on imports of the corn meal staple and basic goods.

Until last year, the former agricultural power was self sufficient in canned and processed foods, household goods, soap, toothpaste, toiletries and other items now imported from neighbours Malawi, South Africa and Zambia and from as far afield as Egypt, Germany, Iran and Malaysia.

According to latest official poverty line data, an average family of five needs a monthly income US$35 to survive, even in poverty. But most farmhands snd other lower paid workers earn less than the equivalent of US$10 a month – and the formal unemployment rate is 80 per cent.

(Source)

This is the full text of journalist Violet Gonda’s Hot Seat interview with Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga from deputy secretary general of the Mutambara MDC. Priscilla alleges that Morgan Tsvangirai was bribed by ZANU PF Central Intelligence Officers to derail the MDC re-unification talks.

Broadcast 29 February 2008 on SW Radio Africa

FULL TEXT

Violet Gonda: On the programme Hot Seat this week I am speaking to Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga, the Deputy Secretary General of the Mutambara MDC. Welcome Priscilla.

Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga: Thank you, thank you Violet.

Violet: Let me start with the electoral environment in the country right now and with the elections around the corner, do you think they will be free and fair?

Priscilla: Certainly, we have never been under any elusion that these elections will be free and fair but what is getting clearer by the day is that these elections will actually be much more difficult and that the environment will also be much stricter than it has been or that it was in 2005. Because we are noticing that the police for example are stopping candidates from doing evening meetings. I know that Trudy Stevenson has been stopped from having her evening meetings and she’s currently trying to do a court petition at the moment. We know that people have been picked up for doing door-to-door campaign, they now have something ridiculous like a charge called Criminal Nuisance or something like that, and whilst we had amendments on POSA, that were supposed to create much more freer and better environment, the police are not taking on any of those things that they have put on to POSA. They are forcing themselves onto new meetings and wanting to sit into party meetings. They are not acknowledging the rules that you can have 15 people gathered without necessarily having to asking police permission. So clearly, you can see that ZANU PF is going to make this election much, much, much more difficult than it has been in 2005.

Violet: Clearly things are worsening and one would ask why participate in such an environment?

Priscilla: Well we have made it very clear, our formation has made it very clear, that we will participate in every election because we want to make the cost of the dictatorship expensive; we are not going to allow ZANU PF to have a free ride in anything in any form of election. We will fight them tooth and nail in anything that they will try to do; secondly we do not believe that just passing boycotts will make a difference. We need to show ZANU PF for what it is – a dictatorship. If ZANU PF allowed us to have free and fair elections there would not be a dictator, there would not be a dictatorship, so the very fact that they are behaving the way that they are behaving only proves our point and we will make sure that we make it clear to the world that when we say this is a regime that is not going to allow for a proper and easy transition of change over of power, then we need to put it to practice and we will do this every other minute and every other time there is need for a contest. We will contest them.

Violet: What about the issue of the Presidential race. Why did Professor Arthur Mutambara stand down in the Presidential race?

Priscilla: You will remember that from day one what Professor Mutambara always said is that we want to make sure that every vote counts. It does not matter how small that vote is, it does not matter who is voting but as long as that individual is voting against Mugabe, we do not want to ever sit down and say we wasted a vote. The only way you can make a vote count is to make sure that you have a one Presidential candidate. We’ve spent the last 8 months talking to our colleagues in the other MDC and had hoped that we’d reach an agreement to make sure that at least we would have one candidate from President to the lowest level and unfortunately our colleagues had a different thinking around what we should be doing and decided to pull out at the last minute. When Simba Makoni came into the race and because we still believed in the one candidate philosophy, we then decided that whilst we may not necessarily have an electoral pact with him, we will call upon our supporters and everybody else to make sure that they do put their vote on for Simba Makoni because he is standing against Robert Mugabe.

Violet: I will come to that issue about your alliance or the relationship you have with the Simba Makoni formation. But I want to go back to the issue of Professor Arthur Mutambara standing down. Does it not hurt your chances as the Mutambara MDC – does it not hurt your chances of representation when you don’t have a Presidential candidate?

Priscilla: Certainly not! We think it is stupid for anybody right now to think that if you have three candidates you can make it with those three candidates – and in that way I am talking about opposition candidates. All it would mean is that the more Presidential candidates you have, the less you have chances to win the Presidential race and in our thinking what we need in Zimbabwe right now is to make sure that we make use of the capacity and the resources that we have, and we believe that we should spend our energies and resources in making sure that we have enough Senators and enough Councillors and enough Members of Parliament to make a difference – when you need some kind of coalition of forces of the opposition. And that is what we are spending most of our energies on, instead of putting in energies on a Presidential race where you know by the mere fact that you now have three opposition people that are running the chances of actually making it in that race is pretty. And we have decided to actually be the ones who will say “we will pull out”, if only to enhance the chances of those that are staying in to be able to beat Mugabe.

Violet: Could it be said that Professor Arthur Mutambara knew he had no following and that your group was weak and that is why he opted for a parliamentary seat?

Priscilla: Well people can say whatever it is they want to say but I am sure that any person that has any form of brain would understand that just merely trying to run in a race and you already are three of you, would mean that you would divide whatever vote that you have. Whether he was the one who was going to have the least vote, for us it’s not important. All it means is that whatever votes he was going to get is a vote that could be added to another Presidential candidate who is fighting against Robert Mugabe. So it only makes sense to anybody to then decide that this is what we are going to do but he had also said “I still want to be a player, I will find a constituency, I will mobilise at a constituency level and I will make sure that the vote that I will get from that constituency level becomes a vote that adds up to the totality of the votes against Robert Gabriel Mugabe.” I think people should be concentrating much more on the principle, and the value and the need to begin to say, “this is not about Arthur Mutambara, it is about making sure that I become part of a group, part of an alliance that works against Robert Gabriel Mugabe, because for some of us this election is not about who becomes the best opposition leader. This is about how do we ensure the we enhance the chances for the people of Zimbabwe who have had so much suffering, to get rid of this regime and to get rid of Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

Violet: But on the issue of representation, you didn’t field candidates in many of these constituencies – whether it’s for the Parliamentary race or the Senatorial. Now is this an exception that you are weak and what is your game plan since you don’t have a lot of candidates?

Priscilla: That actually not true, that’s actually not true. In fact we fielded 65% of the places where we needed to field. And again our fielding has just not been willy-nilly, we literally have fielded in areas where we believe we have the potential to be able to make a difference. We do not believe that you can go and field a candidate in Umzumba Maramba Pfungwe where up until now we have not been able to hold a rally and attract more than a 1000 people in UMP. But in those areas where we have structures and we have work that has gone on we have actually fielded candidates. You’ll remember that when we did the rural council elections, again people asked us the same questions; “Oh the Tsvangirai grouping had fielded candidates in every other area,” but if you look at the results of those rural council elections – we had 41 they had 40 but they had fielded in more areas. So we will be able to see whether fielding in every other place makes a difference or making sure that you invest your resources, you invest your time in those constituencies in which you believe you have the capacity and the ability to be able to win. So we believe that in is close to 65-70% of the places in Zimbabwe we have fielded candidates and that’s where we are spending most of our time in. We are not going to waste our time in places where we know up to now we have not done enough work.

Violet: Since now you are not contesting in the Presidential race, have you now accepted that you are just a parliamentary opposition?

Priscilla: Certainly not. I don’t know where people are getting that from and the world over; you will find that people only begin to negotiate on particular leadership when they now have seats in their hands. It would be interesting and we may want to have these discussions after the 29th and actually indicate who has more power in the event that you are now discussing serious coalition within opposition forces. So anybody who is going into these elections and think they can have a clean sweep, are probably lying to themselves. Any opposition force that is going on right now should be going on with the understanding that any government that is going to be coming, is going to be a government based on a coalition, going to be a government based on issues of power sharing and perhaps at this stage that’s what Zimbabwe needs. We have had more than 28 years of a dominant party. We need to begin to dismantle that kind of thinking.

The reason why most other countries in Europe are successful is because you don’t necessarily have a one party that is dominant. It is dangerous it should never be repeated. Power rests in Parliament, power rests in Senatorial, power rests in local government and you can only begin to put yourself in checks balances if you do have that. Yes it is clear we have made up our minds, at this stage we are not necessarily running for President but you may be surprised that in terms of forming a coalition government we may actually be the political party that holds power and controls whoever becomes the President after 29th of March.

Violet: Now tell us a bit more about this coalition because Professor Arthur Mutambara told journalists that he had made an alliance with Dr Makoni and I think I saw an article a couple of weeks ago where you were quoted also saying that you had formed this alliance with the Makoni formation. But Dr Makoni has been on the record, he’s been interviewed on South African radio saying that he is not seeking alliance. So what really is the relationship between your group and that of Dr Makoni’s?

Priscilla: Let’s just correct that. Professor Mutambara at the press conference did not refer to any alliance. I have not referred to any alliance. What we said at the press conference was that we were endorsing Simba Makoni as the Presidential candidate. Simba Makoni is standing as an Independent; he is not in alliance with us. We do not have an electoral pact, we have no agreement. We were seeking an agreement with our colleagues in the MDC because we have always been in one party. We were talking around issues of reunification. We have not discussed with Simba Makoni over issues of policy, over issues of ideology. We have only said for purposes of this election because you have three candidates – you have Robert Gabriel Mugabe, you have Simba Makoni and you have Morgan Tsvangirai. We were having discussions with Morgan Tsvangirai who refuted and said he does not want to be working with us as a formation.

You are then left with two Presidential candidates: who is Simba Makoni and Robert Gabriel Mugabe. We cannot support Robert Mugabe because we are fighting against the system of Robert Mugabe. Which leaves us with one candidate and that particular person has said, “I am standing as an Independent, I am willing to work with every other Zimbabwean who believes that I have the potential of being a Presidential candidate,” and we have said at a strategic level – because we believe this is somebody who is coming from ZANU PF, who has the potential of breaking down the institution of ZANU PF – we will endorse his candidature.

So at no point have we spoken about an alliance with Simba, at no point have we said we have an agreement or an electoral pact. We have said we are endorsing his candidature; it is like the Kennedys waking up in the morning and saying we are endorsing the candidature of Obama. You are merely saying I am asking every other person who believes in me and think they can vote for me, that when they vote for me, they can also vote for Simba Makoni. But you are not necessarily saying I am going to be standing up and talking of the policies of Simba. It is not our mandate, we hold no brief for Simba Makoni but at this particular point in time given the candidates that we have for Presidential he is the candidate that we have endorsed.

Violet: Some will ask that how is it you will still endorse a man like Simba Makoni who refuses to say he is against Robert Mugabe and refuses to publicly condemn what the system has done. Does this not worry you that you are endorsing such a person? How would you answer that?

Priscilla: Again it is not true that Simba Makoni has said he is not against Robert Mugabe otherwise he would not be standing against the man. He has said his politics is not about fighting individuals and I think it is a good policy. It is a change to the concept that when you go into an election and you are opposing an individual you should be seen as particularly an enemy to this individual. It is a change of that culture and a change of language. I at a personal level appreciate that we have got somebody who is beginning to make a difference between being an opposition or a competitor to say I am against you. You are never against an individual. You are merely at that time a competitor for a particular post. So let’s clear that.

What he has also said is that he would have preferred under normal circumstances to be able to hold a contest with Mugabe within the ZANU PF because he believes that his leadership in ZANU PF has led to the kind of disastrous policies that are in ZANU PF, but because he was not given an opportunity to do so precisely because that system has become undemocratic – he is doing it outside the system. That he believes there are people who are within ZANU PF who still believe that ZANU PF is a good party but are against leadership things of Robert Mugabe and certain policies that are being undertaken within that political party. Who still supports him? And I think it is right for somebody to be that open and to be that frank. If ZANU PF had given him an opportunity he would have wanted to change ZANU PF and still contested under ZANU PF but he was not given the opportunity to do so and he is now doing it as an Independent. It’s actually nothing wrong with doing that.

It is exactly the same as somebody like Jacob Zuma. If he had not been given the opportunity to be able to stand in the ANC and challenge Thabo Mbeki, if he had then gone out and said I still believe in the ANC, I believe it is a revolutionary party but because it has not allowed me as Jacob Zuma to be a contestant in the ANC I am now forming a political party or I am standing as an Independent. How does that make a person a bad person? I don’t understand.

Violet: Priscilla it’s known that your group has shadow structures on the ground in Zimbabwe and it appears that Dr Makoni has none or no structures at present. So are you his surrogate structures now or rather, what is he getting from your endorsement?

Priscilla: Precisely not. What is sad about Zimbabweans Violet is that we have become such a sceptical nation that even when the opportunities are provided to make a difference, we spend so much time being negative. For me what Simba Makoni did this time is the most brilliant strategy that anybody in ZANU PF has ever thought about, because if you get out of the system you do not inherit the structures of ZANU PF. If Simba Makoni had gotten out and said I am forming a political party, it would have been difficult for him to inherit some of the structures that are in ZANU PF. So in fact, what the structures that Simba is using for himself are ZANU PF structures. So you literally have two parties within one. You have a Simba Makoni side and you have a Robert Mugabe side. What does it mean? It means you have the best strategy of destroying that particular institution. The reason why opposition political parties have failed year after year is because we have always been operating from outside of ZANU PF and not necessarily eating ZANU PF from within. And what Simba Makoni is attempting to do -whether he will be successful or not successful – but for me it is a beginning of something that we need to have if we are going to destroy the institution of ZANU PF. And not one person can give me an example of any African Political party where you have been able to deal with it without finding ways of dismantling it either by having some people from within the system eating out of it or by having people within the system beginning to challenge the system and I think it is the best thing.

So, if he is able to balance dividing ZANU PF and picking out people that are from outside the ZANU PF without necessarily having to sit down on the table and saying this is what I am going to give you, the reason why our own arrangement that we were trying to do with our brothers and sisters in the Morgan Tsvangirai group, the reason why they failed is that people became so pre-occupied with provisions and where they are going to be – to such an extent that people lost the bigger picture. People were more worried about how many seats and who is going to be standing in what area in Bulawayo and Matabeleland that they forgot the struggle was about Robert Gabriel Mugabe.

With Simba Makoni no one is sitting around him trying to find out whether they will be a cabinet minister. That can only happen afterwards. At the moment if you support Simba, you are only supporting him because you believe he is able to mobilize enough votes to dislodge Robert Gabriel Mugabe. Simba is not looking to dislodge ZANU PF, he has no candidates to dislodge ZANU PF. Simba is looking to dislodge Robert Gabriel Mugabe. We are looking to dislodge ZANU PF at Parliamentary, Senatorial and Council level. I think if we were all of us, as Zimbabweans, were to agree that this is the two tier strategy we are going to use that would to be the formula to do so but unfortunately Zimbabweans being Zimbabweans, we are spending so much time doing a critique around; “Why is it someone that was in ZANU PF is now outside ZANU PF, why he is not castigating ZANU PF?” I think it is sad and sometimes I actually think that Zimbabweans deserve Robert Mugabe because sometimes we behave like we deserve him.

Violet: But Priscilla with all due respect you must understand that people have suffered at the hands of this despotic regime so it’s only natural for people to feel this way. That’s why people would ask your group that what makes you think that Simba Makoni will be different since his been part of this regime for a long time. And you yourself have admitted that you don’t know his strategies, you don’t know his policies, so how can your group trust this formation if you don’t know anything? All you have done is to… (Interject)

Priscilla: No! It’s not totally true to say we don’t know Simba, we know Simba. We know Simba is the one Minister of Finance who was fired by Robert Gabriel Mugabe because he happened to speak his mind. We know that Simba is one Zimbabwean … (interject)

Violet: But do we really know… (Interject)

Priscilla: Sorry?

Violet: But do we really know the conditions for which Makoni was fired, do you really know why he was fired?

Priscilla: Yes! I know that! I was the chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee and I know that Simba was fired because at that stage he was against the monies that were going to be given to the war veterans, the $50,000 that was going to be given to war veterans. I now that Simba was fired because at that time he was talking about the issue of devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar. People should not pretend they don’t know that and everybody in ZANU PF who you speak to, knows that if there is anybody who in a Politburo meeting and was able to take Mugabe on and ask him questions it would be Simba. So we know that.

But I think also Violet every other person who is in the opposition right now, the majority of them, perhaps with some of us who have not been necessarily been in ZANU PF, the majority of those people have been in ZANU PF. Morgan Tsvangirai was a member of ZANU PF. He was a member of ZANU PF. When he was a secretary general of the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions, he was a member of ZANU PF. He would invite Ministers in ZANU PF. We have war veterans from ZAPU and ZANU who currently are leaders in the Movement for Democratic Change. We can not punish people because they were part of the system at some stage. If somebody said I tried to deal with the system when I was there now I have gotten out of it I want to challenge this individual they can’t be punished. In fact they are having double standard. All those people who were part of ZANU PF should never be in the opposition if that is the position that we are going to take.

The only thing that I said about Simba is that the reason why I could sit down and openly say to you we are having an agreement with the Tsvangirai grouping is that at the time we were discussing, we were discussing a reunification and we were discussing the values and principles that set up the Movement for Democratic Change. So I could come out tomorrow and say I have an agreement with these guys because that agreement followed the values and principles and everything else in an ideological issue. Those things have still not been clarified by Simba – at the moment, which is why I did not go into an electoral pact and I still feel that if I have enough votes, if I have enough MPs enough Senators I will be able to influence some of the policies that he has if he then seeks a coalition with me. But at this particular point in time I think he has got the best chance of dealing with Robert Gabriel Mugabe. He holds the biggest axe to deal with this man and I will support him. What is the alternative?

The alternative is to say Robert Gabriel Mugabe stays in power. The alternative is not to support Morgan Tsvangirai because he has said he doesn’t want my support. So that is the position that we are in as the Mutambara grouping and clearly given the choices that we have at the moment the only choice that we’ve got is to endorse Simba but we are not going to be his foot soldiers. We cannot speak on his behalf; we can only say given these choices we think our best bet is Simba. If the people of Zimbabwe think Morgan Tsvangirai is the there best bet we respect their decision to do so. But I as Priscilla when I get into that ballot box will vote for Simba because he is the one who has asked for my vote. I wanted to give my vote to Morgan Tsvangirai he said he doesn’t want it and I respect his position and I will not force him.

Violet: Why do you think Morgan Tsvangirai said he didn’t want your vote? What went wrong?

Priscilla: Some of us who were part of the negotiations, I will tell you Violet, are still in shock because by Saturday at 12 midnight we could have signed that agreement but by 7:30 in the morning Tsvangirai was a completely different person altogether. I believe two things could have happened. The first thing is I believe either during the process in which we were negotiating they were not negotiating in good faith, that they were playing some game that we will have to find out one day. Or if I give them the benefit of the doubt I believe the system, which is the CIO, must have gone to Tsvangirai between the time we finished our meeting at 12 midnight on Saturday to 7:30 in the morning and must have either lied to him and said to him if you go back to these guys and say to them; “unless if you give me the entire Matabeleland, I am not prepared to go into this process with you.”

Told him that we were so desperate that if he demanded for the entire Matabeleland we would still agree to an agreement. But certainly sometime later on in life somebody will be able to write a story or will be able to tell us who went to Tsvangirai’s house from midnight on Saturday to 7:30. Because we had a meeting on Friday and if at that meeting on Friday while we were negotiating, if the negotiations had broken down, I would honestly be saying to you Violet that we both can be held responsible for those negotiations breaking down. Because at some stage we all got emotional and I remember all of us picking up our papers and saying this is useless! The only person who sat in that room and looked at all of us and said, “you can be as angry as you want, you can throw as much tantrum as you want but I, as Morgan Tsvangirai am not walking out of that door facing the people of Zimbabwe under a divided MDC.”

So I am very convinced that from the time we started talking on Thursday, Friday and even Saturday Morgan Tsvangirai was committed to having a united MDC but something happened between 12midnight and 7:30am. And anyone who knows who Morgan saw between 12 and 7:30 will one day tell us who that individual is because that person was paid big money and he was paid big money by the system! That’s all I can say.

Violet: Some analysts say it was egos and nothing regarding policies and strategies that could have caused the unity talks to fail. Do you agree?

Priscilla: No but I am telling you Violet, in fact our formation has put out a day blow by blow account of what was happening on each day from the time we started negotiating to the time that these things broke down! And if those analysts have anything to say they should go and look at that blow by blow account and be able to tell us, like I am saying, what happened between 12 midnight and 7:30? Because at 12 midnight on Saturday we were only left with talking on two constituencies and those constituencies were whether we were going to be giving Morgan Tsvangirai two other constituencies – one from Mat North and one from Mat South in exchange to nothing or whether they were going to be giving us two other constituencies in exchange for something. We had gone through all the egos that you are talking about. We had gone through all the tantrums and the madness that could have broken the negotiations and it does not make sense to me that Tsvangirai was able to go through all the madness of these negotiations and decided on the Sunday at 7:30 to say he is no longer interested in these negotiations. Something happened! Somebody spoke to him! And that person can only be someone who new that a united front would be a sure way of Robert Mugabe getting out of power and that is the person that the analysts and everybody who cares about Zimbabwe needs to find out. At least I personally am going to spend all my living life trying to find out who that person is because he is a very dangerous individual and I say “he” because I believe it can only be a man.

Violet: Now Priscilla why would you believe it could only be a man and not some women in the opposition?

Priscilla: Because at the time those negotiations were taking place – there were only two women on the Tsvangirai side. It was Teresa Makone and Thokozani Khupe. At the time we came back to Zimbabwe and started these negotiations the only other two women in the opposition were myself and Miriam Mushayi. Secondly we could not have been the people who went to Morgan Tsvangirai’s house. So the people who were present on the last day of these negotiations were the men and Teresa Makone. I do not want to give Teresa Makone the power that she may have turned this thing around. After all she had just entered the leadership in the last few days. It is possible it may have been her but I believe out of the men who were sitting at that table and in my mind it is wrong to say it is this individual but when I finally finish the book that I am writing I may just have the guts to name this particular individual because I have a very strong suspicion that among those men that were negotiating, one of the very high profile people in the Tsvangirai camp – who is said to have gone to Tsvangirai’s house at about 1:30 in the morning – is the person who was sent by the security forces. And is the person who actually made sure that these negotiations don’t come to fruition.

Violet: Had you established a coalition with the Tsvangirai MDC would you have pushed harder for a broader coalition with Makoni as well?

Priscilla: Certainly. I actually believe that if we had had the United Front Simba Makoni ould have had no choice but to actually come into the broader grouping because it would have been established already that you’d have no choice but to work within the broader formation of the progressive forces. The reason why Simba was then able to come out as an Independent is I purely believe it’s because the kind of coalition, the kind of reunification that needed to take place between the two MDC had fallen through.

The other aspect which people are not talking about which I am going to talk about Violet, is the very fact that we have the males in Civic Society who are working very hard to make sure that this United Front did not take place. And some of those males have spoken to me personally so I am not talking about things that I have heard from outside. These males have said they want Morgan Tsvangirai to participate in this election as an individual with a fractured MDC. They want to make sure that Morgan Tsvangirai loses this election so that he gets out of the way so that those males who are in Civic Society will then come in and inherit the structures that are in the Morgan Tsvangirai group and become the leaders in the MDC – Tsvangirai grouping. These are the same males who were at the centre of divisions of the MDC, the same males that have organized a convention and have decided as Civic Society they will say, “we will endorse Morgan Tsvangirai,” when everyday of their lives they are the same males who have been talking to some of us, calling Morgan Tsvangirai a sellout with Amendment 18, calling him unreasonable, calling him uneducated, calling him all sorts of names. And it is the same males who are standing up right now pretending that they are supporting Morgan Tsvangirai. And it is important for the world to know that… (Interrupted)

Violet: But who are these people?

Priscilla: …These are the other forces that are making sure that the MDC will never be a re-united front because it limits their chances of getting into politics. But trust me you will be able to identify these males after the 29th of March and you will understand what I am talking about.

Violet: How are people going to know and what are they going to do after the 29 th of March and are you able to name these people?

Priscilla: This is why I am saying if I name them now people will tend to think I am merely doing so because I want to malign certain individuals but the reason I am putting it out to the public is that when people begin to see their behaviours after the elections, they will understand what I was talking about. If I know what is going to happen after the 29th – if after the 29th none of the Presidential candidates that are standing against Robert Mugabe have made it for President, you will be able to see the kind of political formations that are going to be coming out after the 29th. But let it be rest assured that Morgan Tsvangirai should know that the people that are standing up and saying “you did a good job not to re-unite with the Mutambara group, you did a good job for you to stand on your own,” those are the same individuals who will be waiting to take him for his burial after the 29 th. And people will know who these males are and it will be much more clearer because they will have to come out of the woodwork where they are hiding right now.

Violet: Now briefly because I am running out of time, some consider you as sellouts and Roy Bennett said recently that you people have gone back home to ZANU PF – and there are others who accuse you of being part of a plot to bring back ZANU PF through the backdoor – how would you respond to that, briefly?

Priscilla: I will not even dignify those kinds of statements with any responds Violet! When we ran for the Senatorial elections we were called sellouts, we were called people who were trying to sanitise ZANU PF. The same individuals that stood on podiums and castigated us are the same individuals today who are not only running for the Senate but are beating people up in their own political parties so that they can become Senators. I have no time for people who think like that. You can lie but you cannot lie to everybody like that. I have never been ZANU PF, I have fought ZANU PF from the time that I became anybody that can stand up to the system, I will fight ZANU PF until I die and it does not matter how many times you stand up because you think it will give you more donor money to castigate us, it will not change the Priscilla that I am. I will fight for justice and if you are part of the people that are working against the issues of justice, we will also fight you and it doesn’t matter how much and how many times you call me a sellout I know who I am and God will vindicate some of us. It may take 10 years, it may take 15 years but people will remember that some of us speak for justice all the time!

Violet: And on that issue about your group standing for justice can you finally tell our listeners what your group is offering the electorate, as elections are around the corner.

Priscilla: Ours is very simple. The reason why we are contesting against ZANU PF, the reason why we are saying we are an alternative is because of one thing. We believe that ZANU PF has betrayed the poor, the peasantry, and the working class. They have betrayed the ideals of the liberation struggle. We are the political party that wants to go back to those ideals. The ideals of freedom, the ideals of justice, the ideals that says if you are a Zimbabwean it does not matter what political party you come from you are a Zimbabwean and you should be treated with dignity. The ideals that says every person is important irrespective of the class, of tribe, of gender. And in everything that we do – whether it is in the economy, whether is social services we will be guided by those particular principles. And that is what we stand for.

Violet: Thank you very much Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga.

Priscilla: Thank you Violet.

(Source)

Robert Mugabe’s formative years were spent as the fatherless, friendless favourite of a cold, religious mother, writes Heidi Holland in her new book.

Robert Mugabe’s only surviving brother, Donato, (now deceased) is sitting on an upturned plastic milk crate on the veranda of his house at Kutama, about 100km southwest of Harare, the village where he and his siblings were born and where Donato has remained all his life.

He is a large, white-haired man with a lot of laughter lines on his face, but he looks decidedly wary on this occasion.

He and his wife, Evelyn, invite me indoors reluctantly. Huddled together on the sofa, they are silent and unblinking.

I am acutely aware that few, if any, journalists have been to talk to Donato before me, possibly because we were collectively not interested enough to uncover Mugabe’s ancestry in earlier years when the going was good, but later on because it’s dangerous to ask leading questions in Zimbabwe, let alone to walk into the middle of the terrorised country’s first family.

Donato begins by telling me that for some years during his schooling at Kutama, Robert Mugabe lived with his maternal grandparents “so that he could be watched carefully by them”, he says.

“He was a good boy and he loved to play tennis at school. That was what he did besides reading. He passed teacher training in 1942 but he did not show off.

“He was quiet and never harsh to anyone. He was always determined. Whatever he wants to do, he can do.

“He never recognised the word ‘no’; it was not in his language. He went to Ghana for teacher training and sent letters to our mother.”

His wife says something to him in Shona and he suddenly bellows: “Sally came from Ghana.”

Looking delighted at the thought of his late sister-in-law, his eyes stare into space again for a while.

“She was a lovely person. It was a happy marriage,” he remembers. “It was a happy time in Zimbabwe.”

When I mention Grace, Mugabe’s second wife, Donato nods sagely, offering no comment at first.

“She gave him children,” he says on reflection, nodding slowly.

Behind the sofa is the large official portrait of Mugabe that hangs in government offices and most public spaces in Zimbabwe.

Alongside the couple on a table is a framed, unsmiling photograph of Bona, the president’s late mother, her unusually elongated head wrapped in a scarf that typifies the attire of local rural women.

Robert Mugabe adored his mother. He attended Mass with her every day and twice on Sundays in the years following the deaths of two of his older siblings.

Both of the dead children were boys. One of them, Michael, was the acknowledged family favourite, loved by everyone in the village, not only the Mugabes.

Donato’s description of Michael’s cause of death as “something he ate” is typical of the bare details on offer, not only because the man sitting in front of me does not entirely trust me with his story but because, in the ’20s, life at Kutama was austere. People endured, they fell ill, and they died.

Donato, who was christened Dhonandho and called Donald at school, does not remember how or why Raphael, the second son of the family, died.

Their father, Gabriel, left home after Michael’s death, says Donato. “He went to live in Bulawayo, where he could get work, and he remarried there. He was a very good carpenter. Robert remained cross with him because he would never help us with our schooling. He came back later with three children, and died at Kutama.”

That was a lot of loss for Bona to bear. After her husband left, she became depressed by all accounts. She could not cope alone.

Robert, although only 10 at the time, stepped into the breach.

Suddenly the oldest child, he became his mother’s favourite.

It was he who set about trying to restore the light in her eyes, to be what she wanted him to be.

He could not forgive his father the hurt he had inflicted because Robert’s life was so difficult in Gabriel’s absence.

“The other children used to tease him and he became lonely. He didn’t seem to care, but maybe he did,” muses Donato.

“Our mother protected Robert from everyone, especially me, but he himself did not fight. Our (half) sister Bridget was the one who fought with me. She was the strongest one – never Robert. She had the courage of a man, not like him.”

The Catholic head at Kutama was an Irish priest, Father Jerome O’Hea, a gifted teacher and an exceptional man.

He soon noticed the solemn, talented Robert Mugabe and began to nurture him as a scholar and a credit to St Francis Xavier.

Donato remembers Robert “hanging around” outside the priest’s classroom, ever eager to help the man (who had probably become a substitute father) by carrying his books or cleaning the blackboard.

Unlike the happy-go-lucky Donato, Robert’s childhood had effectively ended when his brothers died and his father left home.

He found solace from the pressures of Bona’s disappointment and expectations in books, not in other children.

An introspective child who may have been neglected in babyhood by a burdened mother and therefore failed to develop confidence in himself, Robert began to adopt a lofty attitude towards his siblings and fellow students.

As Bona’s special one in the family and an increasing favourite among teachers in the classroom, he focused all his energy on being “a good boy”.

“Robert was always a loner,” recalls Donato. “He was a person who was not interested in having many friends. His books were his only friends. I was the opposite, talking to everybody and even fighting with some of them. I could run fast but Robert could not, he was lazy, just reading all the time.

“When he went to herd cattle because our grandfather told him to go out into the fields, he would take his book. He held the book in one hand and the whip in the other. It was a strange thing for all of us to see. When the cattle were settled, he would sometimes sit in the shade under the trees.

“Sometimes, if our grandfather asked him to get something for supper, he would catch many birds, especially doves. He would cut sticks, tie them with grass and put some soft leaves inside with some seeds. This nest he would put near the river and wait quietly, reading his book.

“When the birds came to drink water, he could catch them. He was the only one who could get the birds because he could sit very quietly and that’s why grandfather said it was his job.”

Robert was different from his siblings in other ways, too.

He loved to be at school even when his brothers and sisters were home playing.

Their house was so close to St Francis Xavier College that he could come and go as he pleased.

“He used to be very serious and not always happy,” recalls Donato. “He seemed to have matters to think about.”

Then came the prestigious endorsement of Robert’s scholarly efforts that was to have profound implications not only for his life but for the future of the country he would lead to disaster six decades later.

“Our mother explained to us that Father O’Hea had told her that Robert was going to be an important somebody, a leader.

“Our mother believed Father O’Hea had brought this message from God; she took it very seriously. When the food was short she would say, ‘Give it to Robert.’ But he would refuse and say he didn’t want to eat.

“A doctor (academic) from Salisbury (Harare) came to talk to Robert about his lessons. We laughed at him because he was so serious, until he became cross. Then our mother told us to leave him alone. She believed he was a holy child and she wanted him to become a priest.”

Father O’Hea went out of his way to help the shy child he described as having “unusual gravitas”.

With “an exceptional mind and an exceptional heart”, the boy merited extraordinary attention, he believed.

Promoted to the next class as soon as he could hold his own, Robert was always younger and physically smaller than his contemporaries.

His greatest desire was to please his mother and to earn praise from Father O’Hea.

However, the favouritism of two such important adults in a tight community made him increasingly the butt of jokes among his peers, including his brothers and sisters.

As the children teased him mercilessly, Robert became defiant and presumably angry.

With his reputation for cowardice well established, he was constantly mocked for having his nose in a book by the village children who had not scored highly enough for ongoing study.

As he grew up, Robert got his sense of who he was from Bona, a cold, stern nun of a mother.

She left him in no doubt that he was to be the achiever who rose above everyone else; the leader chosen by God himself.

She may also have viewed him as a substitute for her own failure to serve the church as she and her parents had intended.

Aloneness and the inability to co-operate are the dominant features in all the descriptions of Mugabe’s childhood.

Considering all the available evidence, Mugabe seems to have been driven from very early on by a determination to show those who scorned him and his books, who called him a mummy’s boy and a coward, that he was, nevertheless, the king of the castle – and that they would all have to acknowledge it sooner or later.

Instead of seeing their taunts accurately as sibling rivalry and jealousy from less-accomplished classmates, Robert seems to have felt persecuted, bitterly resenting the failure of everyone around him to appreciate his difficult role in a fatherless family.

“He said he did not have time to play and we always laughed when he said big stuff about himself,” admits Donato.

What the young Robert achieved by single-mindedly pursuing his studies at school, and for years after he left Kutama, was truly remarkable.

To become one of the most erudite Africans in the country from the humblest of beginnings – with no electric light to switch on at home and read by, seldom enough food to eat, and little support except from those whose ambitions robbed him of childish things – was a triumph of discipline over adversity in the classic Jesuit style.

Against the odds, the angry little boy with no friends did become the king of the castle.

But Robert’s diligence was also his way of coping with a universe he believed to be against him.

Despite periods of contentment, he was to be consumed by distrust for the rest of his life.

· Holland’s book, “Dinner with Mugabe”, is due to be released by Penguin Books this month.

(Source)