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Cheated before the ballot
Marko Phiri
February 14, 2008

One great naivety that has emerged from some African voters with their own interpretation of home-grown democracy must be the firm belief that they can influence the outcome of a poll, some inveterate cynics have opined.

Other voters and cynics alike have however been disabused of that notion after years of religiously casting the ballot but with their dreams for change and therefore a better life being ruthlessly shattered by democracy charlatans who have made electoral fraud their own pseudo-religion.

Therefore the belief that the tragedy of African politics is the absence of the people themselves in decision-making.

But the focus has also shifted to opposition politics where issues that are a national imperative have ostensibly excluded the people-s participation.

While it is extremely healthy for any emerging or floundering democracy to have a multitude of democratic fighters seeking to unseat unpopular regimes, the multiplicity of power mongers has not always presented itself as emerging from the demands of the people themselves.

All politicians seem to emerge from the wilderness with the clarion call that they are taking the tyrannical bull by its horns, but then what usually happens after that does not always represent or reflect that self-proclaimed altruism.

This is so much the case in countries where the people have endured so many hardships and electoral theft, and anyone can emerge and stoke swelling emotions, in the process giving the already despondent masses very false hope.

Some African elections have seen up to a hundred political parties throwing very many hats into the political ring seeking public office, in the process further confounding an already bamboozled electorate.

This becomes the stuff post-election violence is made of as everyone claims they were cheated after votes have been split into smithereens by the innumerable political parties.

There has been an unforgivable tendency then that once a powerful single bloc emerges to challenge the establishment, its success is overtaken by individuals and personalities who want a very big piece of the action forgetting the founding principles of the new struggle for democracy.

It is then that you hear about coalitions, united democratic forces, and other such clichés that leave the people themselves on the periphery of the struggle. Academics turn into politicians, businessmen turn into sabre-rattling democratic pretenders to the political throne and the people just wonder what the F . . . hit them.

This entry into the world of politics is always ostensibly defined as a gnawing desire to better the lives of the people long under the yoke of despotism.

But what emerges after that is you see the very regime that is accused of a billion evils smiling all the way to the ballot boxes, assured that the challenge to their stranglehold on power has been emasculated by power-hungry individuals who would be better off pursing their erstwhile occupations as astute capitalism students.

Again "we the people" become the biggest losers - not the men clad in those fancy suits.

Listen closely to these men talk and you will hear that at the centre of all proclamations is the megaphone blaring that the "people this" the "people that" but you will never hear the ordinary people echo those hollow platitudes. What they want is someone who will make "things to get back the way they were" - having food on the table, having jobs, not being confused about who would do that and from which political party.

Someone very much pissed of with developments here has said you just cannot trust the authenticity of Zimbabwean opposition politicians because they all invariably passed through the very capable hands of Zanu PF, so why bother about the message they are proclaiming now. Very uncharitable that, but all agree that change must come one day, the question being who will the people trust as their agent for change?

That African politicians - or any politician under the sun for that matter - want power for power-s sake is old hat, but when it occurs within that realm when everybody seems to agree that the people have heard enough and just want to get rid of entrenched dictatorship, it points to the "people element" being sorely missing in endeavors by these politicians to spring them to a better life.

But it has also been said give a man a chance to present his case, then judge him by his ability or lack thereof to deliver. Only then can a man be thrown the noose, but then that implies the people have all the time in the world for experiments while they await the results of that litmus test.

Anyone living among the "ordinary" people will tell you how they have been failed by not just the Mugabe regime but more painfully the opposition MDC. I heard an MDC official last year saying something like: "people want us to unite but it is not as easy as that. There are major differences that have to be settled." And someone quipped: "How come splitting appeared fairly easy!"

In making such crucial decisions which define the hue of the country-s political future, because the people are excluded, should opposition political parties start having their own referendums to take the people-s pulse on what are veritably national issues?

This is because the claim has always been that "the people" support the positions taken by different bickering factions, and then you ask yourself, "people? What people?" Damn those fork-tongued men in those fancy suits!

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