ZANU-PF now a tame lion but weak people still say it is threatening

Fear and distrust are the undercurrents of Zimbabwean opposition politics and may discourage many from voting. According to a recent Afrobarometer survey, a third of Zimbabweans believe their vote will not be counted, nearly half believe an incorrect result will be announced, and almost as many believe there will be violence after the announcement.

Nevertheless, ZANU-PF officials are adamant that a new era has begun in Zimbabwe.

At a rally in a small village in Bindura South, Remigious T. Matangira, ZANU-PF’s sitting Member of Parliament for the area, bellowed to the crowd, “We must show the world how democratic we are! Let the observers come and see! We have nothing to hide.”

On the sidelines of the rally, Matangira acknowledged that ZANU-PF had engaged in “hate speech” in the past, but that Zimbabwe now needed re-engagement with the wider world and that “true democracy” was the way forward. Then he named Libya’s Moammar Gaddafi and Cuba’s Fidel Castro as model leaders who “commanded the love of their people”.

While Matangira spoke, a truck arrived with 600 sacks of fertilizer. Alwin Ngoshi, a local ZANU-PF ward councilor, confirmed that the fertilizer was from the state-owned Grain Marketing Board and that village chiefs had compiled lists of loyal ZANU-PF supporters for distribution — a clear breach of electoral code.

In the secrecy of a car parked on a rural stretch of road, Baison Baison, an MDC candidate from Bindura South, showed a reporter a text message he received from a friend who had been attending a Matangira rally where the press was not present.

“He has just threatened to kill you,” it read. “Please be careful.”

Baison said he received a similar threat from his direct opponent in the election, a ZANU-PF official named Bigboy Nyakudya. (Nyakudya denied threatening Baison.) When Baison reported it to police, he says they told him they couldn’t help because they had no fuel for their vehicles, which had flat tires anyway.

Charity Charamba, an assistant police commissioner in Harare, said she would follow up with Baison and that all police are “adequately resourced”.

Asked about allegations of intimidation, Matangira said, “In any jungle, one may find a tame lion. A weak person may say, ‘That lion is threatening me.’ We are that lion. And the MDC is weak. The real threat to them is simply that they have no supporters.”

Zimbabwe’s Minister of Justice said he tended to agree.

“The only problem so far in this election is false perceptions,” said Ziyambi Ziyambi, whose position is one that Mnangagwa held for 15 years. “As for what you have seen regarding the distribution of fertilizer, you must understand that we have a culture of providing inputs to mitigate against drought and hunger. This is something that has always been done.”

By Max Bearak for the Washington Post

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