Mutumwa Mawere
24 March, 2008

With barely a week left before Zimbabwe decides on who should be the president, senator, parliamentarian, and councillor, it is important to pose to reflect on what would be in store for Zimbabweans during the next five years if ZANU-PF and President Mugabe were to be re-elected.

What may be obvious to many that Zimbabwe needs to turn a new chapter is apparently not so obvious to President Mugabe who still would want the voting public to believe that his administration has really not been in charge over the last 28 years.

If President Mugabe were to win, it is important to imagine what kind of change he is promising. We now know that he will push for an amendment of the constitution to ensure that people like Makoni will not be allowed to exercise their constitutional right to offer themselves for election as President.

To the extent that President Mugabe would want Zimbabweans to believe that he is still a democrat, his position on the Makoni presidency and his knee jerk reaction of proposing to amend the constitution to address what appears to be a party and personal problem clearly highlights that deep down in his veins he does not support the bill of rights enshrined in the constitution of the country.

This raises an obvious question of whether a person who holds the constitution he was elected to uphold and protect in contempt should be trusted with another five years in power. Is it conceivable that President Mugabe’s contemptuous behaviour to the constitutional order will change after the elections? If not, what is the responsibility of anyone privileged to vote in this historic election?

Should political clubs be the custodian of who should be a President when the constitution provides for citizens to directly elect their leader?

To many people it might appear absurd for an incumbent President who for the last 28 years has argued that citizens are sovereign and should be trusted to make their own choices to now opportunistically make the case that citizens cannot be trusted to choose between four men who have all qualified to be candidates for the office of the President in this historic and defining elections.

However, politicians in general only pursue politically expedient outcomes and in most cases it is so because citizens allow them by choosing not to exercise their democratic rights through non-participation in electoral process.

I have no doubt that President Mugabe is praying that like what happened during the constitutional referendum many Zimbabweans will not vote and, thereby, allow him to remain in power fully knowing that he also is challenged by the future and has no real answers to the defining questions that confront the nation.

It is evident that President Mugabe would not like this election to be a referendum on his record rather he would like it to be a referendum on colonialism and its known vices. To accept President Mugabe’s argument means that one has to accept the proposition that Rhodesia never died and he as the only leader of post colonial Zimbabwe failed to provide the required leadership that Zimbabweans deserve and urgently need.

President Mugabe has attempted to persuade Zimbabweans that voting for the MDC would mean the restoration of colonialism. Whether this argument will wash with the voters remains to be seen but what is clear is that for anyone to accept this proposition one has necessarily also to acknowledge that President Mugabe has failed to deliver independence to the majority a task he willingly accepted to discharge in 1980 and at every election since then.

Indirectly, President Mugabe has accepted that sanctions are biting and the future of Zimbabwe would be more secure and prosperous if sanctions were lifted. If this is the case, no suggestion has been made by him that the situation will be any different if he was to be re-elected. On the contrary, anyone who will be naïve enough to vote for the status quo must accept that sanctions will continue and fear will be institutionalised.

Even President Mugabe has correctly observed that only Tsvangirai has the pin number required to unlock the sanctions issue. It is also evident that President Mugabe has not informed the Zimbabwean public that he is powerless to deliver hope and anything he says about the future is speculative and cynical at best.

Zimbabwe cannot lift itself out of the current economic abyss without the support of the international community and if the attitude of the international community is accepted as given there is nothing in President Mugabe’s campaign message to suggest that he has any intention of reaching out to the people who do not share his views on how the country should be governed and, therefore, assist in bringing hope to a nation on its knees.

It is common knowledge that the so-called imperialists are firmly in control of the very institutions that Zimbabwe needs to lift itself up and yet President Mugabe would want to persuade Zimbabweans to commit economic suicide by voting for him. The next five years under President Mugabe will mean that the people’s government will continue to be managed with no accountability characterised by state induced fear.

Only yesterday, this is what President Mugabe on the campaign trail: “Let the British keep their money and we will keep our land. It is treasonous for the MDC to aid the British involvement in our country. They must take due precaution because after the elections we will act against their companies. How dare Tsvangirai and his party continue to bow down to the British? In this day and age, when we have fought for the restoration of our dignity and sovereignty of our people, the MDC still panders to the British?

A party that is full of white Boers and the white farmers? The likes of Bennett (Roy) are still masters in the MDC. And this is the party that wants you to vote for them to rule this country? Never in my lifetime will the MDC rule this country. I swear by Mbuya Nehanda, that will never happen,"

It is evident from the above that no amount of persuasion will convince President Mugabe to look into the mirror and see how irrelevant he may be to the future of the country. Why would a person who purports to be a democrat want to argue that a white Zimbabwean citizen like Roy Bennett is less Zimbabwean than a black citizen while accepting that the constitution should have the same meaning to all?

Who is President Mugabe to say that MDC will never rule Zimbabwe while accepting to subject himself to electoral politics? Zimbabweans must take responsibility for helping to create an absurd situation in which a purportedly democratic order would allow itself to produce a President who thinks he is above the constitution. If there was any reason why President Mugabe must be shown a red card, I believe one does not have to look any further than what I have quoted above.

Surely for Zimbabweans to reclaim their future and help shape their destiny, it is evident that President Mugabe must go as his world view is clearly not aligned to the kind of values a progressive nation needs.

All I can urge anyone who values his/her future, property and life to please take a minute just to imagine what the next five years will bring under President Mugabe’s continued watch.

The future will surely belong to those who believe that change is not someone else’s business but theirs. It is not too let to put your signature of the future by being the change you want to see.

It should be accepted that a vote for President Mugabe has its own meaning and implications and ultimately responsibility must be accepted by those privileged to vote that they had six days to think deeply about the future and yet had the wisdom to invest in the past.

If the past is important to you, then President Mugabe is your man. Any other outcome will surely represent change that people can really begin to believe in.