The race is definitely on and notwithstanding the provisions of the Zimbabwean electoral laws, no one including the Zimbabwean Electoral Commission (ZEC) knows precisely when the run off will be held.
It now turns out that the ZEC is conveniently out of funds when it is common cause that the incumbent President needs time to refuel and hopefully poison the atmosphere sufficiently to discredit his nemesis to his electoral advantage.

If President Mugabe had won the first phase there is no doubt that Gono would have been deployed to robb someone or further mortgage the country to fund the election. All of a sudden the ever busy printing press cannot be put to use to manufacture money to finance what is fast turning out to be the mother of all battles.

Ordinarily common problems call for common sense but the Zimbabwean crisis is different. At this defining hour in the nation’s post colonial history, the country is being run by a cabinet whose legitimacy is questionable and whose President has lost the trust of his people to be a credible custodian of political morality.

The last mile is always a decisive one and it would be wrong to assume otherwise given the nature and context of the contestation for power in Zimbabwe.

For the first time, President Mugabe is going travel this last mile of his political career as a wounded animal, albeit armed with poisonous instruments targeted at defenceless and vulnerable people. President Mugabe still believes that the justice of his cause is the justice of his tactics.
It is evident that President Mugabe and his former ruling party have not accepted that the people who voted for the opposition did so voluntarily and as such a different outcome should be expected in the run off election.

ZANU-PF would like to convince the Zimbabwean public that the election ought to be about whether Zimbabwe should revert to its former colonial status or remain under the control of the incumbent President who evidently has little to offer rather than vernom against his opponents. What is clear is that ZANU-PF has not accepted that Zimbabweans can make their own rational political choices.
Unlike business where the customer is king, politics has a different modus operandi requiring competitors to throw mud at each other so that voters can decide who looks better than the other.
President Mugabe is advantaged in the game as he has the state machinery at his disposal to use to discredit his opponent. Regrettably, after 28 years of independence, the game of politics in Zimbabwe has not been transformed to a higher level where serious conversations about the future of the country can be held.

The strategies and tactics of President Mugabe are as predictable as night follows day. As expected, he will continue to make the case that Tsvangirai is less Zimbabwean than him and that a vote for Tsvangirai will not be in the national interest.

Before the 29th March election, President Mugabe had made the case that MDC was an agent of imperialism but unfortunately the voters did not buy this. Subsequent to the election, President Mugabe has accepted the allegation as true that the MDC bought its votes as he genuinely believes that no rational Zimbabwean can conceivably think that Tsvangirai and MDC symbolizes the change that the country needs.

The sanction issue will gain traction in the run off. President Mugabe will argue that he has been betrayed by his colleagues in SADC who promised that if a deal is struck paving the way for elections; Zimbabwe would be rewarded with the lifting of the sanctions. The absence of a spirited call for the lifting of sanctions by SADC will naturally be used by President Mugabe as a pretext for changing the ground rules for the run off.

President Mugabe will argue that all bets should be off since the light at the end of the tunnel appears to be Tsvangirai’s train carrying a lot of unwelcome passengers. After the first phase of the elections, President Mugabe is convinced that Tsvangirai’s train is carrying in its first class cabin former white farmers.

President Mugabe is behaving as if he must have a say on who Tsvangirai should trust in his camp. While President Mugabe can ask the country to look east he has not accepted that Tsvangirai is also entitled to ask Zimbabweans to look west. Even President Mugabe is looking west in so far as he desire to get the sanctions lifted is concerned but has not accepted that the West is fully entitled to decide who they should trust with their money after their experience with him over the last 28 years.
President Mugabe was a darling of the same west until they discovered that their investment in him had produced negative returns not only for them but for the people of Zimbabwe many of whom are seeking asylum in the West.

President Mugabe will use the argument that the only segment of the Zimbabwean population that is in a hurry to get him out of power can only be former white farmers. Accordingly, he will continue to argue giving up power to Tsvangirai will necessarily lead to a reversal of the land reform program.
President Mugabe is of the view that the land reform program is irreversible and by putting the land issue at the centre of the contestation of power he has successfully diverted attention from his record on other nation building issues that ought to have been at the centre of the national democratic revolution.

Zimbabwe needs to turn a new leaf and yet it appears that President Mugabe would rather remain in power fully cognisant of the fact that he run out of steam and the country will be better served if he were to take a back seat. Is there anything new that can be expected from President Mugabe?
The Zimbabwean voters have already shown President Mugabe a yellow card and in so doing they have signalled that they need change and now want to reclaim their future.
Common sense would call for President Mugabe to change the tone of politics on the recognition that out of four candidates, Tsvangirai was rated as number one.

History has already recorded that Tsvangirai has beaten President Mugabe in a race in which President Mugabe controlled everything except the will of the people. Surely the more than a million voters who selected Tsvangirai cannot all have been bribed by the British and Americans. At some stage, the will of the people must and should be respected.

Will President Mugabe acknowledge Tsvangirai as the favourite horse in this final mile? Will he continue to invest in gutter politics? What should the response of Zimbabweans be in this final mile?
We know that intimidation is good currency for any discredited politician. It is not unexpected that President Mugabe’s people regard the last mile as one in which terror should take centre stage. Evidence is abundant on the ground that the run off will be conducted under different rules to justify its reclassification as a totally new election. Already the rules are being manipulated to favour the underdog and it is evident that when the electoral laws were put in place no one could have imagined that President Mugabe would be a victim.

Because Zimbabwe is too important to all who care about it, this is a time that differences must be put asunder and all good minds be deployed to make sure that this be the final mile for President Mugabe. He needs a rest and it is important, therefore, that all the Zimbabweans in the diaspora who are immune from intimidation and are registered to vote be energised to regard this last mile as theirs and quietly and purposefully go home and vote while encouraging those at home not to succumb to fear.

The Presidential vote is a national referendum on who should preside over the executive branch of the state for the next five years. Just pose to think and imagine a Zimbabwe after five years under President Mugabe. If you see light at the end of the tunnel then do nothing but remain a passenger.
President Mugabe’s record is known as are his views on the Zimbabwe he wants to see. Nothing much will change for the better if he were to be elected and deep in his veins he knows that the game is up.
Will Zimbabweans once again rise to the challenge? Tsvangirai has accepted to be in the race and the rest must surely fall on all Zimbabweans who have the right to vote to exercise their historic duty in the name of all future generations who will naturally look at this last mile as the golden mile. The future is within grasp and the past is full of pain to allow for any pontification.