Forget about Mugabe- focus on the bigger picture

Ask any Zimbabwean, including the staunchest Zimbabwe African Union-Patriotic Front supporter, they will tell you that Robert Mugabe has overstayed. But most people are likely to vote for him at the elections next Wednesday, not because they like him, but because of what he and his party stands for- the empowerment of Zimbabweans.

Wednesday’s elections are not about democracy. They are about the economy. Most ordinary Zimbabweans did not want elections because the inclusive government, though dysfunctional according those in government, was the best government Zimbabwe ever had from about 1985.

Despite the squabbles among the parties in government, the economy improved, goods came back to the shelves, the motto that those who do not work shall not eat once again began to apply. The era where people made money from selling money was over.

What happened over the past four years confirms what studies have said all along -that 60 percent of the people in Zimbabwe do not support either ZANU-PF or the Movement for Democratic Change. They vote for the party that best serves their interests.

Both the MDC and ZANU-PF are selling their economic blueprints to the electorate. The MDC is planning to create one million jobs in five years. ZANU-PF is selling indigenisation. The question becomes, do people want to be employed or do they want to be their own bosses and make money?

That is what Zimbabweans are to decide on Wednesday.

But the West has been fighting to make sure that Zimbabweans do not to make an informed decision. The elections have been reduced to a fight for democracy versus dictatorship.

That is why the West will never acknowledge that though it was chaotic, the land reform programme is now paying off.

That is why the West still insists, despite the evidence from Western academics, that it was only Mugabe’s cronies that benefitted from land reform, not the 250 000 plus ordinary Zimbabweans.

That is why despite scientific evidence that it is small and medium enterprises that build economies and create jobs, they cannot support indigenisation and instead insist on foreign direct investment.

But while Zimbabwe has vast resources that the West likes -the platinum, the chrome, the diamonds, the gold, and the wildlife, in their quest for sovereignty, Zimbabweans have lost the bigger picture- the one that matters most for the West.

Forget about democracy, forget about human rights, forget about rule of law? This is all a ruse. Yes, they are all important but Western interests come before all this. Indeed, it is often

camouflaged in the language of the fight for democracy, human rights, rule of law?

Zimbabwe and Mugabe are not that important. It is what Mugabe and Zimbabwe are doing. “Grabbing” land from whites, taking firms from whites that they are looking at. But the West would not care a hoot, were it not simply for the fact that Zimbabwe is a neighbour to Africa’s biggest economy South Africa-a first world economy in a third world country.

The West might have been concerned about what happened to Zimbabwe’s 4 000 white farmers but the bigger picture and the bigger concern is that if Mugabe’s land reform is judged as a success, what will happen to South Africa’s 30 000 plus white farmers and the South African economy as a whole?

Zimbabwe’s white farmers were not just farmers but they were also businessmen controlling most of the country’s economy-including Old Mutual the country’s largest institutional investor. What is the case in South Africa. What would happen if the like of Julius Malema went on a jambanja?

If Mugabe’s indigenisation programme works, what would happen to South Africa’s economy, if Pretoria insisted that all South African companies must be owned by locals- locals in this case meaning blacks?

This is the picture most people are missing. This why the West is putting pressure on Zuma to rein in Mugabe. This is why they pushed out Thabo Mbeki because he was too pro-African empowerment.

Yes, Zimbabwe may be a sovereign country. Mugabe might be its president, wanting to stay in power for life. But the West wouldn’t care a hoot- just like they are not making the same noise about Cameroon President Paul Biya who has been in power for 38 years, Mohamed Abdelaziz of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic who has been in power for 37 years, Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasongo of Equatorial Guinea who has been in power for 34 years, and Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos who has also been in power for 34 years.

Sadly the worst sin the West has committed is that their open calls for Mugabe to go, instead of letting Zimbabweans decide, has forced most people, including those who d not like him, to support the 89-year-old because deep down people always- and perhaps erroneously- think that politicians hated by the West are probably good for them because the West always looks after its own interests not those of the people that it claims it wants to help.

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