The Sunday Mail
PHEW!
What a jam-packed week it was.
From the 15th BRICS Summit across the Limpopo, which is reshaping the world; Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin’s literal fall from grace after the reported plane crash in Russia on Wednesday; Zimbabwe’s consequential elections on Wednesday, which spilled into Thursday; and the World Athletics Championships in Budapest, Hungary, which have been nothing short of eventful, there was really plenty of news to nibble on for news junkies.
A 20-year-old athlete from Botswana, Letsile Tebogo, lit up the stage in Budapest by attracting deserved rave reviews after incredible performances in the100-metre and 200-metre events, where he won silver and bronze medals, respectively.
His triumph on the world stage is made all the more spectacular by not only his age, but also the country from which he hails, whose population is a little more than 2,6 million.
Not many people know that Bishop Lazi used to leave fellow athletes in the dust in the 100-metre race in high school.
Although he excelled in sprint races, which are admittedly thrilling, he remained fascinated with long-distance runners, particularly marathoners.
Competing and winning in a marathon takes incredible stamina, fortitude, endurance, willpower and, most of all, a sound strategy.
You cannot just go gung-ho off the blocks when starting a marathon race.
Every footfall has to be measured and the speed must be calibrated to suit the terrain.
Constantly checking the time helps ensure the energy in the tank is enough to conquer the distance.
Some elite athletes prefer to use pacemakers, which are handy in setting the pace for the race.
So, by their very nature, marathon and long-distance races are thoroughly technical and tactical. The Bishop always marvels at the way these athletes always engage the top gear in the last lap of such gruelling and taxing races.
This is why he holds in high regard marathon runners such as Eliud Kipchoge (Kenya), Haile Gebrselassie (Ethiopia), Robert Cheruiyo and Catherine Ndereba (Kenya).
Blood on the floor
Elections are similarly a marathon and demand the same stamina, fortitude, endurance, willpower and strategy.
They are far from being a mere event.
Thus, they have to be approached with the same tactical and technical ingenuity.
The only difference in the high-stakes game of elections is that you do not win silver, but you lose gold.
1 Corinthians 9:24-27 says: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last, but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I do not run like someone running aimlessly; I do not fight like a boxer beating the air.
“No, I strike a blow to my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.”
You see, it is not quite rocket science to establish political patterns.
In the lead-up to last week’s elections, the Bishop predicted the demise of the MDC led by Douglas Mwonzora and its reconstitution under Chamisa’s CCC.
He also indicated that it would take a seismic shift in voting patterns for the opposition to upstage the ruling party.
Even the chaps from the US-based Fitch Solutions could see this from their sprawling and commodious offices in New York.
“We still expect that ZANU PF will win a comfortable majority in the parliamentary elections in July, with the ruling administration benefitting from a host of incumbency advantages,” they said in their report earlier this year.
For the opposition, it was always going to take nothing short of a statistical miracle to turn the tide.
Remember, in 2018, ZANU PF almost had a clean sweep in six provinces — Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland East, Masvingo, Midlands and Matabeleland South — on its way to claiming a comfortable two-thirds majority in the National Assembly.
In this year’s election, however, there was likely to be some variations caused by the game of musical chairs, prompted by the redrawing of constituency boundaries.
And, as expected, the ruling party came out swinging in its strongholds.
In the three Mashonaland provinces, it bagged 53 seats, while the opposition managed 10.
Some of the winning margins were quite scary.
In Shamva South, for example, the winning candidate had 31 068 votes, compared to 3 106 for the opposition.
Also, in Shamva North, ZANU PF outpolled the opposition by 23 022.
Incredible!
Bishop Lazi does not quite know why the voters in Guruve, Mt Darwin and Rushinga were so angry, as they mopped the floor with the opposition.
Need the Bishop traumatise you with the numbers from Uzumba and Maramba-Pfungwe?
Masvingo was equally brutal, as the opposition only snatched two of the 23 seats that were contested.
Bulawayo went as previously forecast, as Raj Modi’s hold in Bulawayo South — the only constituency won by ZANU PF in the province in 2018 — was tenuous.
But in Harare, ZANU PF clawed back some territory, gaining three more seats and taking their overall tally to four.
The same way the party gained in the capital is the same way CCC gained in Matabeleland North, where it snatched nine of the 13
seats.
Looking at the wafer-thin margins in the province, the opposition did not make any incremental gains the same way ZANU PF did in areas such as Binga, for example, but it was a case of the ruling party slipping up.
So, for ZANU PF, it is going according to the script.
All these trends have or had a bearing on the outcome of the presidential vote.
Nothing but a prosperous Zimbabwe
The 2023 harmonised elections are done and dusted, and the electoral process will soon come to an end.
Election observers have all said their piece, with encouraging reports from the Commonwealth Observer Group and the joint AU-COMESA Elections Observer Mission, but not quite from SADC — nay, from Dr Nevers Mumba, who headed the group deployed to Zimbabwe.
While taking note of his comments on the electoral process, Bishop Lazarus was quite baffled when he started masquerading as a supranational jurist, who has the power to judge the lawfulness of our laws and statutes.
Somehow, under the guise of the regional body, he thought it wise to pronounce himself on the legality of the delimitation process conducted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) and the amendment of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act (Chapter 9:23) (No. 23 of 2004) — loosely referred to as the Patriot Act — among some of our local legislation.
What nerve!
He came across as proscriptive rather than prescriptive.
But this is hardly surprising, especially coming from someone who deputised the late Zambian president, Levi Mwanawasa, who was popularly known in this part of the world for his testy exchanges with former President Cde Robert Mugabe.
The Bishop will leave it at that, lest he speaks out of turn.
Those in Harare, however, knew full well what he was up to.
Recall what President E.D. said at his last campaign rally in Shurugwi last weekend.
“We have invited observer groups from SADC, from the continent and from beyond,” he said.
“As I have said to all the observer missions, please do not come to observe us with foregone conclusions from your homes or your countries.
“Come with an open mind. We are a peaceful people.”
This has since come to pass.
The lessons for Zimbabwe are quite obvious. Winners do not have time to gloat and losers do not have time to sulk.
As Zimbabweans, we have a common goal — to build a prosperous country that works for everyone.
As the revolutionary West African Amilcar Cabral once said, “Always bear in mind that the people are not fighting for ideas, for the things in anyone’s head.
“They are fighting to win material benefits, to live better and in peace, to see their lives go forward, to guarantee the future of their children.”
The swelling ranks of youths know no political tribe but want a fulfilling life.
Everyone has to deliver.
We cannot afford excuses anymore.
Bishop out!
