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Political apathy has never been deeper - even in Zanu PF's rural heartland
Cape Times (SA)
October 16, 2007

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=17545

In the Zanu PF rural heartlands, even people who have always been Robert Mugabe's supporters are beginning to despair of his rule - but do not know of any alternative. "My mother is 90 and even she is now tired of him (Mugabe). She hasn't had a cup of tea for three months because I can't find sugar anywhere," said Florence Chiwayo - not her real name - deep in a rural stronghold tightly controlled by Zanu PF. "We don't talk about politics. Why should we?" In this remote part of Zimbabwe where opposition Movement for Democratic Change politicians dare not venture, everyone would say, if asked, that they are Zanu PF supporters. Zanu PF was in control here long before the end of the Rhodesian civil war in 1979. It was a "liberated zone" then. Today it is a one-party state, peaceful, subdued, stuck in a time warp of underdevelopment and absolute dependency on the state.

Chiwayo, 46, and her younger sister, Memory, were walking from their cluster of huts near Dendera village, 240km north-east of Harare hoping for a lift to Nyamapanda, the border with Mozambique. Even Mozambique, officially one of the poorest countries in the world, has more food for sale than Zimbabwe. Chiwayo said some people knew the name of founding MDC president, Morgan Tsvangirai. "We know him, but we never saw him." She says she is the only person in her district who travels out of Zimbabwe to work. She goes to Botswana where she does not need a visa, "cleaning houses, doing anything" for 90 days a year. The two women, a grown son, and others who stopped for a chat were slender and said they were hungry, but they are not starving as there was summer rain for subsistence farming. "If we have money we can get maize from the GMB (Grain Marketing Board). "

The state GMB, the only legal cereal trader, regularly asks people to produce Zanu PF membership cards before it will sell the staple food. "They don't ask us because everyone here is Zanu PF," she said, laughing again. People here get little news. They have no batteries for their radios to tune into the Zanu PF-controlled radio. Newspapers used to come when relatives visited, but that seldom happens nowadays. The only news they get is local Zanu PF news. Yet neither Forence Chiwayo and her sister bothered to vote in the 2005 general election: " What do we get from voting?" Memory Chiwayo asked. Mutoko is the main town towards the border and trading stores there are as empty as Harare supermarkets - a few boxes of jelly powder, cleaning materials. Half a hind quarter of beef was delivered that morning, the first meat for three months. "We have nothing for sale here," said Perpetual Duncan, 19, at a kiosk outside a garage in Mutoko which had no fuel.

About 20km west of Dendera, about 100 people were sitting under a tree alongside a dilapidated clinic listening to a local Zanu PF heavyweight on a warm Wednesday morning far ahead of elections next March. A further 8km down the rutted dirt track through wooded hills in another tribal area was another Zanu PF rally. Mugabe is "busy already", said a man from the area who was travelling in our small truck. Perhaps Mugabe's lieutenants know that political apathy has never been deeper, not just in opposition dominated urban areas, but out here too, in his rural heartland. People have little to show for 27 years of independence even in the three large Mashonaland provinces with superb soil and reliable rainfall. They rarely see relatives from Harare nowadays as fuel is scarce and expensive. They are poor, certainly, but not as desperate as those in the south and parts of eastern Zimbabwe.

In the late afternoon, on the outskirts of Mount Darwin, 155km north of Harare, Mugabe's personal army, a new intake of youth militia, dubbed "green bombers" for their uniform colour and violent history, were marching towards town from a day's training. These strapping young men and women glowed with health in new uniforms and waved as our vehicle, the only one on the road for many kilometres, passed by. Zanu PF member of parliament Shuvai Mahofa recently told a parliamentary select committee that the militia should disband as trainees were not fed properly and some women members were raped. Many believed that the militia, loyal to Zanu PF, but publicly funded, was no more. The militia was the key to Mugabe's relentless pursuit of the MDC. Human rights activist David Chimhini said recently that the militia "loot, assault and rape". Last month Mugabe's supplementary budget allocated 40% to security ahead of the elections.

The last stop on this extraordinary journey, where everyone was pleasant and polite, was at the Mazowe Hotel, about 40km from Harare. There the bar was busy, selling beers and amazingly expensive packets of crisps (Z$700 000). No one there was talking politics in this small hotel owned by a Zanu PF bigwig, where pictures of white settlers in front of ox wagons are still on the walls and the low moon above the dam reflected on still waters as it always has.

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