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Zanu PF shocks us with Tutankhamun electoral candidates
Rejoice Ngwenya
July 01, 2013

The world-famous Egyptian pyramids are home to three-thousand year-old tombs built by and for the ancient Pharaohs. A unique combination of science, advanced technology, archeological skills and sheer human grit has propelled some tenants of these tombs to global stardom. Of note is the tomb of Tutankhamun located in the Valley of the Kings near Luxor in the North African country. All history students know how the iconic Tutankhamun gold funeral mask was carefully excavated, dusted and restored only to be one of the great attractions in Egypt’s museum of antiquities.

Back home, for the first time in a decade, Robert Mugabe’s ‘historical’ Zanu-PF is about to give Zimbabwean voters a Tutankhamun experience - the extraction, dusting, preservation and public display of archaic Zanu-PF electoral candidates. One learned professor, during his prime years of political astuteness - referred to these men and women as dead wood! If this was funny, we could be in line for a ‘Zimbollyhood’ blockbuster aptly titled ‘Zimbabwe’s 2013 elections – Revenge of Jurassic Geriatric Hegemony’.

Zanu-PF is about to turn our elections into the Cradle of Humankind, complete with Australopithecus Africanus candidates. Honestly how bankrupt of talent and innovation can a political party be! It is not a surprise, though. Talk is prevalent on how Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party has been ‘torn’ into two distinct factions: one progressive one clamouring for leadership renewal, another ‘chaos’ entity that is on a trajectory of suicide. It is this latter entity bent on unleashing Zimbabwe’s own version of Howard Carter’s historical discovery. In a desperate attempt to salvage lost glory, Zanu-PF has gone to the political archives to extract, dust, preserve and display electoral candidates whose contribution to Zimbabwe’s ‘civilisation’ can only be scientifically determined by carbon dating!

Perhaps there is light at the end of this pyramidal tunnel: quenching Zimbabwe’s desperation for tourism. In the unlikely event that Zanu-PF wins in a free and fair election, Mugabe’s Tutankhamenic cabinet will result in a ‘major upsurge of tourist arrivals’. Wouldn’t you like to see three thousand year-old Tutankhamuns driving around in 2013 models of Mercedes Benz? I would!

My fear is that in the unlikely event that Mugabe’s Tutankhamunic candidates win the election, they may not only be ‘Raiders of the Last Cabinet’, but our country is likely to experience irreversible "curse of the mummy". One now understands better why Zanu-PF is always talking about a forty-year old bush war. It’s the "curse of the mummy"! To them, governance that prioritises economic development, quality education for children, disease and poverty eradication, employment creation, free and fair elections.

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