hoping so hard it hurts

BY WILF MBANGA

As Zimbabweans go to vote today, in the most crucial elections my country has faced since Independence in 1980, I am filled with apprehension. There is so much at stake. Change is imminent. I can almost smell it. I am hoping so hard it hurts. But I also know the realities of the situation. I know Mugabe - his utter ruthlessness. Although I cannot comprehend it, I recognize his desperation to cling to power. It is terrifying.

He knows that most people no longer support him, no longer love him the way we used to. We have seen through all his lies. The only ones who support him are those he has bought - with farms, with food, fat salaries and useless Zimdollars that no longer buy anything.
He knows that we know that he is the cause of our problems. He is the reason for the economic collapse of one of the most prosperous and diverse economies in the entire sub-continent. No-one believes his lies about western sanctions and re-colonisation plots, or sabotage of the economy by the opposition and the whites. His rantings are tired, hollow, meaningless.
They fall only on the ears of children and old people herded by vicious green bombers to his campaign rallies around the country.

He has thrown everything at this election - money, threats, violence, cars, food. The entire machinery of the state is at his disposal. By presidential decree he has changed laws at the last minute, desperately hoping this might prolong his presidency.
The top echelons of the military and the police, rich beyond their wildest imaginings thanks to his patronage, have come out in full support - threatening a coup if the people should fail to re-elect him and his party at the elections. I feel sad that it has come to this. My beautiful country - now so wasted, so impoverished, so destroyed. Zimbabweans were a proud, hard-working people. We used to hold our heads high in the international community.
Visiting South Africa recently, I told someone I was Zimbabwean. "Ag, shame," she replied. Fury rose within me that one old man had reduced me to an object of pity. It could have, should have, all been so different.

We had so much going for us at independence, but Mugabe has squandered it all.
My heart weeps for the countless Zimbabweans going to an early grave - because of Mugabe. For the families split and scattered to the four corners of the world. We all miss home, would love to go home. We have been driven away by this crazy old man. I feel a profound sense of betrayal.
I feel angry at the abuse of the police and the military. These forces are meant to keep us safe. They are now being used to terrorise us. Tanks are rumbling through the streets of our cities, while Chinese-built MIGs screamed overhead. Rocket launchers were dragged through the streets of Harare yesterday. I feel angry when I think of the police beating women, marching peacefully with roses in their hands and babies on their backs - as they have so often done in the past five years.

I feel outrage at the prospect of Mugabe rigging the elections in his favour
- and getting away with it yet again. I feel outrage at the South Africa president and the observer mission, which, as recently as last week, declared that everything was in place for free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. Zimbabweans as a whole feel terribly let down by our African brothers. They have been so quick to endorse flawed elections in the past, out of a mis-guided sense of African solidarity. I pray this time will be different.

Things could be so different if they would insist on truly free and fair elections, if they would raise the alarm in Harare today if Mugabe goes ahead with his elaborate rigging plans.
A new government - headed either by Morgan Tsvangirai or Simba Makoni or a combination of the two - would mark a significant new beginning. The international community stands ready to assist us get back on our feet again. Millions of skilled Zimbabweans around the world are just waiting for the end of the Mugabe era to go home and rebuild their shattered nation.

But mostly I cling to hope. Hope that the election will indeed be free and fair. Hope that the civil servants conducting the elections and the police will, at last, realize that there is life after Mugabe and do the right thing. Hope that there will be dancing in the streets when the results are announced - not bloodshed and Kenya-style violence. Hope that the exiles will be able to return, to kiss the soil at Harare airport. I will be among them. - first appeared in The Weekender, Johannesburg, 29.03.08