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Vote ZANU-PF and die poor, very poor
Rejoice Ngwenya
February 25, 2013

I am Sithembiso, once an elder sister "by more than a decade" to Rejoice. I departed earth life a day before Valentine's Day, Wednesday 13 February 2013. It's part of humanity isn't it? This birth and death thing. Now that I've perished, I hope my eccentric kid brother is competent enough to narrate my life-s ordeal.

For forty-two years, I was a primary school teacher yet died a miserable, poor, sick and frustrated woman. My late father was also a teacher, so are my other three younger sisters. Two of them "escaped" to England at the height of Zimbabwe's memorable catastrophic economic decline "a decade pervaded with brutality, selective justice, impunity and systemic collapse of governance. This was Zimbabwe's self-inflicted crisis presided over by an ideologically derelict plutocratic regime of the predatory Zimbabwe National African Union Patriotic Front [ZANU-PF]. Like thousands of other post-Rhodesia teachers, my life was hostage to the curse of abject poverty. When ZANU-PF succeeded Rhodesia Front, the dignity and integrity of teaching was incrementally eroded, permanently shredded. Funny enough, President Robert Mugabe-s cronies boast how their nationalist policies "quadrupled enrolment" and made Zimbabwe a country with one of the highest literacy rates in Africa. What an aberration!

Ian Smith was oppressive alright, yet his teachers were community gems, prized assets of star status; pioneers of quality life-style and fashion trends! Ironically, President Mugabe and three quarters of his cabinet are former teachers. Shouldn't they know better? They afforded houses, cars, groceries and new clothes. My father's "colonial salary" catered for his own family of eight and several other relatives.

There is something sinister about a politburo and Cabinet full of people with PhDs but whose policies impoverish teachers - cruelty, insensitivity and disrespect perpetrated by rulers who pursue only egotistical interests. For the past thirty years, ZANU-PF has focused on quenching its insatiable desire for largesse and militarisation of unproductive state institutions. Much to the detriment of teachers' welfare, they have only succeeded in heightening acrimony between the state and its employees. Millions of dollars are poured into bottomless canyons of dysfunctional parastatals while more are squandered on senseless oversees presidential, ministerial frolics and obscene patronage.

I never taught or encountered a child of a ZANU-PF Minister in a poor primary school! Co-existing with leaking roofs, crowded classrooms, dusty floors, broken windows, and no textbooks was normal while ZANU-PF glorifies legitimised pilfering, diamond looting and property plunder. Quality healthcare, a resort holiday or small car were beyond my wildest dreams. In short, to remain a school teacher was a sure way of accelerating my fate to this cold, dark, wet, airless tomb!

Colleagues in rural areas are perennially hounded by ZANU-PF's political rogues. Teachers' work stations are turned into militia camps. They are routinely and systematically tortured for being "opposition". A piece of advice: as you now enter a season of electoral anxiety, uncertainty and turbulence vote only for a party that respects humanity, gives real hope for the future and adores teachers. Be on the side of truth, fairness, integrity, honesty, justice and love. To my fellow teachers, if you decide to vote "which you should no matter how much you are intimidated or harassed - do not vote for ZANU-PF". Soiling your ballot paper with a vote for Robert Mugabe means eternally condemning yourselves to yet another era of poverty, destitution, hatred, greed and revenge. That's my opinion, at least from where I stand, or more appropriately, from where I rest.

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