The Sunday Mail
AFRICA undoubtedly has the most modest, deferential and reverential communities and societies in the world.
As a people, we can be disarmingly respectful and courteous.
Ever-smiling, we are always prepared to bend over backwards and go out of our way to help even strangers.
We have the inexplicable innate ability to either make small talk, talk turkey or have heart-to-heart conversations with people we have met for the first time or don’t even know.
Godfrey Tsenengamu
We curtsy to elders and those with a higher station in life, including treating everyone with respect.
Bishop Lazi thought this was a common human trait until he found himself in Switzerland some years back.
Upon entering a tram in Geneva, he tried to chat up an old lady seated next to him, but was met with the most censorious talking eye he has ever seen from the mute, stone-cold old-timer. At first, he thought it was odd, only to discover that it was the norm, rather than an exception. As strange as it might seem, in some societies, you just have to mind your business, do your business and speak when only spoken to.
What a strange way to live!
Not here!
In the village, if you are a stranger, you cannot just pass through a homestead without fielding inquisitive questions that can almost feel uncomfortably invasive.
They would want to know your name, parents, siblings, totem, et cetera, and unfailingly offer you food and water.
This is who we are!
Little wonder that those who stray to this part of the world are always bowled over by the wholesome warmth and hospitality of our people.
Squeaky-bum time
However, even in the same societies, we also have those outliers who abuse their seniority and become cocky to the extent of demanding respect. Time and circumstances, however, have a way to humble them.
You see, in the village, there always came a time when a moderately flooded river was the only thoroughfare in an unavoidable journey and had to be crossed somehow.
Notwithstanding the relations and relationship of those crossing the river, this was a time when all inhibitions had to be temporarily suspended, as frocks had to be uncomfortably adjusted — sometimes exposing the derrière — to avoid being swept away by the currents.
This spawned a common idiom that has been part of our age-old wisdom for years, which counsels that we must avoid being conceited and arrogant, lest circumstances humble us, for example, when we had to expose our derriere to everyone when crossing the river.
Perhaps this is what some in the West call “squeaky-bum time”.
And it is indeed squeaky-bum time in local politics, when the nomination courts sit on Wednesday.
By the end of the week, we will know the candidates who are eligible to stand in the August 23 elections.
Ordinarily, by now, this would have been clear, but some political parties have been unfathomably secretive with the way they have been selecting their candidates, while others have just expressed their intention to stand without necessarily explaining how.
We will know, for example, who are Nelson Chamisa’s men and women.
We will also know who Saviour Kasukuwere’s men and women are, as well as Douglas Mwonzora’s team.
The process by which and through which political parties choose their candidates is necessarily of public interest — more so to the electorate — as it shows how they are likely to marshal and run the complex machinery of Government.
ZANU PF appear to be the front-runners.
They held their primary elections in March, ironed out the creases that resulted from some electoral disputes, reconciled the contesting parties, and the shortlisted candidates are already on the ground to canvass for support from the electorate.
But for Chamisa’s CCC, the long-drawn-out “candidate selection process”, as they call it, has now taken more than 74 days since it began on April 5.
Interestingly, it has been closed to the public, in whose name it is purportedly being conducted. Luke 8:16-18 is instructive: “No one lights a lamp and hides it in a clay jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, they put it on a stand, so that those who come in can see the light.
For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open. Therefore, consider carefully how you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what they think they have will be taken from them.”
Dangerous waters
And, although they say the inordinate delays are typical for an inherently meticulous process, the rumblings from some aggrieved CCC candidates are now apparent.
As Bishop Lazi told you earlier, a storm is brewing in Harare East, where Chamisa was trying to get rid of Tendai Biti — whom he considers a threat as he has support from the Americans — and instal Rusty Markham.
Temperatures are rising and nerves are being frayed.
The same is playing out in various wards and constituencies around the country.
In Bulawayo’s Ward 4, Chamisa has been trying to impose David Coltart ahead of Melissa Mabeza. The same thing happened in Ward 3, where Roger Muhlwa was disqualified under unclear circumstances.
There are also grumblings in Nketa, Nkulumane, Njube-Lobengula and Cowdray Park.
It has to be remembered that in the March 26 by-elections last year, CCC fielded double candidates for the few contested council seats, when Donaldson Mabuto and Bekithemba Nyathi both filed their papers for Ward 9, while Norman Hlabano and Mpikelelo Moyo registered to slug it out for Ward 26.
With just two days left until the Nomination Court sits, it is highly likely that CCC’s top honchos in Harare will sow divisions in their ranks by imposing their preferred candidates.
There is definitely method in their madness in announcing candidates on the eve of the Nomination Court’s sitting.
On the flipside, two days are not enough to resolve possible disputes that are sure to erupt once the candidates are finalised.
Well, if this is how they intend to run Government, then God help us all.
Actually, come to think of it, this seems to be the way they have been running our local authorities. Professor Jonathan Moyo can be a lousy politician but he remains a brilliant political scientist. His nuanced take on what is happening in the opposition, in an interview with SABC’s Sophie Mokoena last week, puts into perspective the local political dynamics ahead of the watershed August 23 elections.
“This is the one election without an opposition,” he argued, “There is a palpable absence of an organised, discernible, active opposition. It is common cause that the leading opposition since 2000, which was in the form of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), is no longer there.”
He described CCC as “an opaque movement” that is “conspicuous by its absence on the political arena, and the elections are right around the corner”.
And so bad and so inept has CCC handled its affairs that even its former allies like Godfrey Tsenengamu (whom we know is Kasukuwere’s lackey) now think that Chamisa has made a pact with ZANU PF to lose the elections. Kikikiki.
With allies like these, who needs enemies? Kikikiki.
The less said about Mwonzora’s MDC-T and Kasukuwere and his motley of restless political ghosts mainly from his home province of Mashonaland Central, who have been desperately looking for a political home after their jettisoning from ZANU PF, the better.
The Bishop would not want to waste his breath.
A convenient political manifesto
But no matter how shambolic the opposition handles its political campaign ahead of the elections, they are holding out hope that the obtaining chaos in the economy — nay, in the financial markets — will be their saving grace.
Again, as Professor Moyo rightly observed and asserts, once your manifesto is a deteriorating economy, “you are in very dangerous waters”.
There is a lesson to be learnt from Nigeria’s February 25 elections, which were preceded by tumult in the financial markets, when the Central Bank of Nigeria decided to swap old bank notes with new ones.
The chaos coincided with fuel shortages and attendant queues across the populous African nation.
This was interpreted by Western media and Nigeria’s opposition political parties to mean that the disenchanted electorate, especially the youth, would be compelled to vote out the ruling party ACP’s candidate, 71-year-old Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in favour of the much younger opposition candidate and social media sensation, Peter Obi of the PDP.
Politics rarely works that way.
Obi got the political beating of his life and came third in the presidential race.
There are those who are surprised that ZANU PF seems unflappable and unmoved by the current aberrations in the financial markets (not economy).
Well, they know the engineered chaos, which became apparent after the proclamation of the election date, is transitory, and is not affecting the real economy, where most of the voters are.
Has the opposition ever stopped to think who is producing the record maize, sorghum, wheat and tobacco, and is pocketing the windfall therefrom?
Who do they think bagged the US$14 million and $1,5 billion paid out to cotton farmers last year?
This explains why, during lean periods, urbanites travel to the rural areas to raid grain from their parents and relatives.
Under President ED’s administration, massive investments have been made in people and infrastructure, particularly in areas that were previously left behind.
These key voting populations might have been shaken by the current turmoil but they certainly have not been stirred, as they remain relatively perfectly insulated.
Myopia is indeed the staple food of immature politicians.
This reminded the Bishop about what controversial clergyman Apostle Talent Chiwenga said in a scathing sermon sometime last year.
“We need adults in these things (politics), not just in terms of age, but in terms of experience . . . There are adults who are going to say to you, ‘why can I join a children’s play’ . . . People are not looking for an eloquent orator; a motivational speaker — people want a leader. Munofunga kuti chirungu chinokuitai leader here (Do you think fluent English will make you electable?)” Kikikikiki.
This is the week of revelations.
This is it!
Bishop out!
