A Photo Essay by Cont Mhlanga  

Nominated by 25 villagers from my rural ward of Kusile Rural District
Council, it was time to present the nomination papers to the nomination
court. The nomination court was sitting at the Kusile Rural District
Council Boardroom in Lupane on Friday the 15th of February 2008.

First let me set you up. Kusile Rural District Council and the Lupane
District Office administer Lupane District which is one of the 7 rural
districts that constitute the Matabeleland North  Province of Zimbabwe.

The other six are Tsholotsho, Nkayi, Umguza, Bubi, Hwange and Binga.
Zimbabwe has 10 administrative provinces with Bulawayo and Harare being
the only totally urban provinces. The other 8 provinces are Matabeleland
South, Midlands, Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West,
Mashonaland Central and Mathebeleland North. Lupane is the provincial
capital of Matabeleland North. How ever most of the province’s
administrative and development work is still being administered from
Bulawayo as there is still no adequate infrastructure in Lupane.

Wards

Lupane has 26 wards the latest addition being wards 25 and 26 that are
resettlement areas, coming after the land redistribution exercise. Wards
are identified by both names and numbers for example the ward that the
villagers have nominated me to contest is Matshiya Ward also identified as
Ward 15. Politically it is a strategic and sensitive ward and is always
highly contested because it includes the fast growing Lupane town center
where both the Council, District and Provincial administration are
headquartered. This year’s elections will be ward based and not
constituency based as previous elections.

This is a Ndebele speaking district while the whole of Mathebeleland North
province boasts of four  more ethnic languages and cultures of Tonga,
Nambia, Kalanga and San.

Strong Hold

Politically the district was a strong hold of PF Zapu led by President
Joshua Nkomo till the Gugurahundi forced unity of the liberation political
parties of PF Zapu  and Zanu PF in 1987 creating a Zanu PF defector one
party state led to this date by President Robert Mugabe. The personalities
in the district politics remained the same but the political doctrine
changed to that of President Mugabe’s Zanu PF.

It was not until 2000 when the then strong MDC led by Morgan Tswangirai
swept in winds of change in the District politics when it swept aside Zanu
PF taking all the council seats. How ever the district administration
remained Zanu PF driven and in most cases frustrating the MDC council
resolutions through the Liberation War Veterans Association a pro Zanu PF
civic group and the Zanu PF party. In the 2004 elections Zanu PF regained
about 55% of the council seats.

This coming election on the 29th of March 2008 is different from all other
elections in the past as it brings the election of council, parliamentary,
senate and presidential all in one day.

Nomination Court

I arrived at the nomination court at 11am. It opened at 10am and 7
officers where on duty at the nomination court registering Zanu PF
candidates who were all not at the courtroom, only represented by their
two party election agents. I soon learnt that the first to come where the
Morgan Tswangirai led MDC who had placed their nominations and left. I set
myself, escorted by my three young election agents at the court benches
waiting for the Zanu PF election agents to file their candidates to the
finish. This was like attending my first day, for my first grade at school
and what an eye opener!

When I walked into the nomination court a uniformed policeman guarded the
door while four plain cloths police officers two from the CIO were hanging
at the court yard. The uniformed police officer met me by giving me advice
after we exchanged greetings. He knew who I was because of my running
battles with the police over my protest plays. ‘The nomination court for
the House of Assembly and the Senate are in Bulawayo, here sits the
council nomination court only’ said the officer with a big smile.

‘Why conclude that I am coming for the House of Assembly or Senate?’
‘People of your social standing go for those seats’.
‘Not me. I don’t enjoy doing the ordinary and the obvious. I am interested
in Rural District politics. This is were the majority of the population of
this country live’ I said as I walked past him.

He was not sure until about after lunch when I finally put my nomination
papers as an Independent that it was me contesting for Ward 15 and not any
of the persons who were in my company. The buzz started making rounds
within the security units and the Lupane business community.

District Politics

Politics in the districts is deferent and miles apart from the politics in
urban centers and big cities of Bulawayo and Harare. It’s two worlds apart
in one country. Here it is not media driven like in the cities but
political party driven through word of mouth.

Zanu PF and MDC Mtambara fielded candidates in all the wards except the
two resettlement wards 25 and 26. MDC Tswangirai fielded in 6 wards. It is
the weaker political party in the district.

I had arrived from the city my head full of the media reports that the
voter’s roll is in shambles only to find one of the best organized and
administered voters rolls. I know confusion when I see it, but this was a
smooth roll and a smooth court. The only set back was that the MDC
Mtambara election agent who walked into the nomination court 30 min before
the 4pm closing time of the court to place before the nominating officer
24 candidates! Every one was then kept waiting until 7pm.

I had a nice chat with the young election agent earlier on. He said,
‘Mhlanga had we known that you are coming back to the district we would
have fielded you for the Senate or Parliament. We don’t have suitable
candidates. We were forced to just pick some one.’

‘Sorry’, I said to him, ‘I am not interested in national politics from a
national platform but I am interested in national politics from a local
platform. But you had all this time to groom your potential candidates as
a party, why did you not?’ I asked him.

He just shock his had as if to say to me ‘ you have to be here on the
ground in the district to understand the challenges’.

Yes to know something you have to be on the ground! I witnessed both
election agents from the political parties rig nominations. Its very
simple and effective, the election agent handles all the nomination forms,
makes sure that yours is filled wrongly so that it is disqualified by the
court, then dashes outside to were the other party member with a form that
is correctly filled is waiting, collects the form, rushes back to file it
as a corrected form and replacement, letter collecting money of course for
doing that. Every thing is arranged in advance. The original candidate
won’t know what hit them out of the race even if they won the primary
elections to represent their party. The candidate won’t know and so is the
nomination court or the senior party officials sitting at the Central
Committee. Six candidates were disqualified and replaced in this manner
that day, four from Zanu PF and two from the MDC! It’s so simple yet so
effective and clean.

Communication

It was not until the following day when it was time to introduce myself to
the electorate that I began realizing that political independence since
1980 and indeed the liberation struggle has been a total waste for people
living in rural areas. There is no print or electronic media to drive the
campaign here. Every thing is by word of mouth. Unless you have a 4x4 Hard
Body Off the Road car which I do not have, you have to walk a distance of
30 km to cover the full length of the ward. No gravel roads in some
villages but just paths. Since independence the whole of Lupane district
has not had even 5km tarred road off the Victoria Falls highway! The whole
district in 28years!! It looks like all the Ministers of Roads had
something against this district! Or it’s President Mugabe who hates this
district? In 28years of his rule not even a single kilometer was put under
tar the whole district! I can only conclude that the President has
something under his skin about the Ndebele people that he is not telling
to the nation!

My ward covers six villages and my first task was to visit all village
heads and announce that I had come back to the village to play my part in
District politics and development. With my election agents we set on the
longest walk since independence. We walked from 6am till 7pm from one
village head to the next. By the end of the day we had done only two
villages and we still have four more to cover.

These two photos tell it all. Villagers and school children must cross
this bridge to school, to the Bohole and to the stores daily. It is better
when this stream is not full.

In one village children have not gone to school since the rain season started

because Gwai and the Shangani rivers are too big for the villagers to improvise a bridge.

In the second photo you see me trying the balancing act on the bridge.

My prospective voter has to do it with a full bucket of water four times a day!

Here the rest of the country is totally shut out. It is in one homestead
where I arrived and I was informed that they have listened to me talking
on radio!

‘ZBC’, I asked
‘Studio 7’ broadcasting from Washington DC. You can’t catch local radio
and TV stations from here. We listen to Studio 7.’, said Ndlovu.

‘So you don’t know what is happening in Zimbabwe?,
‘Not until a relative arrives from the city or we are called to a meeting
by the village head to be informed of anything.’

Now I understand why Zanu PF bought all those cars to send to the
districts ahead of these coming elections. Why they are using ploughs as
their visibility marketing tools; why they invest so much in traditional
leaders giving cars to the chiefs; and why it is to their interest
politically to keep the districts under developed when it comes to media
and communications. No one here knows the hype on Makoni for President.

They don’t even know he has left Zanu PF! Some MDC Mtambara members don’t
even know that their president is not contesting. MDC Tswangirai members
have no clue what their party stands for or the composition of its
national leadership. There are only two cross cutting issues that you find
both in the rural districts and the cities, Corruption and the Parallel
Market!

Vote of Death

It was very clear to me that dislodging Zanu PF from power would be by the
grace of god and the ancestors if the opposition political parties do not
take their agenda seriously to the villages where the majority of voters
are, and where the voter’s roll is kept in order to avoid confusing the
vote. Where politics is not driven by the media speculation directing
public opinion to the woods. Where the word of mouth has been perfected to
travel just as fast as the broadcast word! I am puzzled how?

I asked 73 year old MaNcube what her concerns where?

‘Food. We are starving to death. I have two orphans that I look after and
we are starving to death. That’s the truth.’

‘Are you going to vote?,’ I asked her?

‘I always vote, always. Last week I went to the local school to check the
voter’s role. My name was there on the third page. I am going to vote next
month but I know its going to be a vote of death’, concluded MaNcube.

Vote of death? Those words have been ringing on my mind since Saturday
when I first heard them from MaNcube. May be MaNcube is right. The way the
urban Zimbabweans are handling their opposition politics against President
Mugabe, they will sure lead every one to a vote of death!

Meanwhile I still have four villages to cover this coming weekend, walking
from one village head to the next. Did I ever hear some one say ‘…it’s a
long walk to freedom’

Cont Mhlanga
Lupane
Monday, February 18, 2008