STILL WE VOTE
There is so much hype about politics and voting at the moment that one would think elections are around the corner. However, it is only registration for 2023 polls that has begun!
I find the hullabaloo quite fascinating because it shows our tenacity as a people and the hope we have that one day the wheels of fortune will fully turn.
Someone on social media labelled the next elections the final push and I immediately remembered that we have travelled this road before, of excitement, thinking that the winds of change will blow, only for the same old people to be declared winners.
Of course, there is always the issue of rigging and stealing elections but the sad reality is that even with vast evidence of such anomalies, nothing is done to correct the wrong.
I am not saying people should not get excited about registering to vote and eventually casting the ballot but I am just wondering why 2023 will be any different.
The ruling Zanupf will win by hook or crook, the opposition and its supporters will cry foul and eventually life will
go on with our same old problems.
Who will ever forget the 2008 election fiasco when the electoral commission held on to election results for two months because the late former President, Robert Mugabe, had lost the election?
When the results were finally announced, the late opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, had won the election but had not gotten the numbers to be the ultimate winner. Eventually the two shared power because Mugabe just refused to accept defeat.
So, what will stop the incumbent from employing the same tactics when he finds himself in the same position.
We all know the violence that mars our elections. People get killed, raped and tortured in election brutality all because of leaders who want to cling to power.
While most will register to vote, and while most will cast their votes wisely, the reality is that history will once again repeat itself.
But well, like I have said many times before, hope is what keeps us going.
Who knows, maybe in 2023 Zimbabwe will have a truly free and fair election, maybe winds of change will eventually rise and maybe, just maybe, Zimbabwe will go back to its former glory.
In other news, the government has once again given a Chinese mining firm the green light to prospect for coal near the acclaimed Hwange National Park and neighbouring villages despite growing outcry over the move.
The government has said it will not tolerate any resistance, especially from the villagers who fear they will eventually be displaced from their ancestral land. To make matters worse, the Chinese firm is said to be defiling graves as they continue with their operations.
Basically the government has shown these villagers the middle finger in their quest to please the Chinese; very sad indeed. What’s even sadder is that it’s hardly surprising!