Party interests have sabotaged the larger Zimbabwean dream
Zimbabwe has become a polarised nation, with the ordinary citizen bearing the brunt of elitist politics.
Zanu-PF, the ruling party since 1980, claims it won the 2018 election. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), the main opposition since 1999, also claims it won this election.
The outcome of the election was highly contested. For the first time in the history of Zimbabwe, the matter was taken to the Constitutional Court and the dispute was broadcast live on national TV.
This was a departure from the former president Robert Mugabe years, when elections were contested and nothing would be done. The 2008 election between Mugabe and MDC Morgan Tsvangirai is a case in point. The matter was put before the court but judgment was never delivered.
But the historic ConCourt hearing with a panel of nine judges, which Zimbabweans and the world followed avidly, could not save Zimbabwe from the looming political standoff. If anything, it rubber-stamped it.
Zanu-PF came out of court all smiles and headed towards the cockerel perched building, its headquarters, all set to occupy government offices at the Munhumutapa Buildings and form the next government.
The MDC marched to Harvest House, their headquarters, sullen but ready to occupy the streets and sing the illegitimacy song.
Two years after this election it has become apparent to Zimbabweans that the ConCourt ruling threw the nation into a political logjam that has subsequently seen Zimbabwe head towards one destination: a dead end. In this political quagmire, the ordinary Zimbabwean is stuck in the middle, left to flounder in a socioeconomic quicksand while the political elite at both ends of the political spectrum live in affluent suburbs and drive top-of-the-range cars. Zimbabweans are suffering. From all walks of life, whether one supports the MDC or Zanu-PF, it is fact that the centre no longer holds.
Perhaps the question Zimbabweans must stop asking is who won or did not win the election. It is a wild goose chase.
Instead, what they should be asking each other is where do we go from here? And what is best for the country? These questions have evidently been lacking in the matrix of solving the Zimbabwean crisis.
The we-won-the-election narrative maintained by the two big parties betrays them both by exposing that neither has the interests of the nation at heart. Both are pursuing party interests at the expense of the larger Zimbabwean dream.
Sadly, even the ordinary voter has been hoodwinked into partisan politics and joined the bandwagon of sacrificing the Zimbabwean agenda on the altar of party politics.
Zimbabwe has become a nation at war with itself, with hardliners from the two big parties being not only their own enemies but also foes of progress.
But the politically naive, those affiliated to neither party, know what they need and what is good for the country.
It is their children who kick dust from school, having been chased away for not paying school fees. It is they who share pinches of salt over torn fences to season food that has become so difficult to come by.
It is they who spend days and nights in queues waiting for fuel that may not be there. It is they who stand in bank queues waiting for money that buys almost nothing.
They are the victims of elitist politics.
All they need is a mediator and statesman in the mould of former president Thabo Mbeki and a Mugabe and Tsvangirai of 2008, and the Government of National Unity (GNU) that followed in 2009. Unfortunately, Mugabe and Tsvangirai are dead and Mbeki is no longer in office.
Who will save Zimbabwe? The voice of Zimbabweans calling for a power-sharing deal is not heard as they are deemed not politically astute enough to understand the dynamics of the GNU of 2009-2013, which some label as a polygamous affair.
Zanu-PF regrets it. The MDC regrets it. The big parties lament it was the greatest political gaffe post-independence Zimbabwe because the big parties lost. But did Zimbabwe as a nation not win?
Zimbabwe is burning. It remains to be seen how it will rise from the ashes.
Opposition-led demonstrations continue to be met with repression from the state, the latest case being on Friday last week.
The state warned that the protests would be treated as illegal. The presence of security forces on the streets of all major cities on Friday confirmed the state was more than ready to deal harshly with any form of opposition-led mass action. Indeed, citizens were arrested in connection with the ill-fated protest.
Zimbabwe is again at a crossroads, and again it does not matter whether Zanu-PF or MDC wins. What matters is that the ordinary Zimbabwean must win.
Unless the big parties and their hard-core supporters stop chasing the wind, innocent Zimbabweans will remain the proverbial grass that suffers when two bulls fight.
In this political quagmire, the ordinary Zimbabwean is stuck in the middle, left to flounder in a socioeconomic quicksand