How to steal an election (updated)

Being a dictator is not easy. In addition to worrying about commanding an entire army, leading a cabinet of 40/50 odd ministers, making decisions on the economy, international relations and ruling the country; you have to worry about making opposition members ‘disappear’, deciding which wine to drink with your caviar and whether to do Paris or Milan for your wife’s next shopping trip. Of course all these things come with the territory. As a dictator you will quickly find that for you to stay in power there is one skill that is an absolute must have if you are to last in this business, and this is how to steal erm… win an election.

One must never feel guilty for resorting to this method of letting the people ‘express their will’. Think of it this way: Superman flies, Spiderman spins webs, Batman fights, Hulk has unlimited strength, rapid tissue regeneration powers, and inexhaustible stamina and you can rig… oops sorry hold elections to affirm the people’s unwavering support of your policies.

Firstly, you need to secure the media and by secure I mean literally. If you can find all the media people in your country and tie them up somewhere that would be ideal. For those you can’t tie up gentle persuasion is advised. Since you control the media already, if you’re the incumbent, the former wouldn’t be necessary because the latter would be easier.

Starve the opposition of airtime on the mass media so that for most of your voters the very first time they even hear about the other candidates is in the voting booth. With your name the only one in their sub conscience in the run up to elections, it’s obvious who they will choose.

The advent of social media has resulted in many people relying on their phones for news. Social media is a beast whose power you must never underestimate. You could in theory use the police force (change their name to the police service if you can as it sounds nicer) to round up all the phone devices in your country but that wouldn’t be very subtle. It is very likely that someone might notice. Instead, your best bet is to persuade the telecommunication regulator in your country to persuade the cellphone networks to disrupt services before, during and after elections. I am sure you noticed the repetition of the word persuade here you know what that means right? Good! If you’ve been doing your job well enough you should only have one network provider. If any Human Rights groups question this, citing free speech violations, feign ignorance for two or three days and ask them how they found out about this if the internet is not working then drop the mic and walk away! Bear in mind this does not always work. People are more intelligent and very resistant to authority nowadays. They just don’t make them like they used to. If you are in this situation sadly you might have to arrest a few, at least until you are ‘duly elected’ in a free and fair election which brings me to the next point.

Make sure your telecomms regulator has your back when people start asking questions about you blocking the internet.

You’ve heard it said that too much of a good thing can be bad? Well, when it comes to ballot papers with an X next to your name that isn’t the case. Believe it or not people win elections by getting other people, usually more than everyone else, to put an ‘X’ next to their name on a ballot paper. Extra ballot papers are inexpensive to print as they are part of the election budget. No-one will be surprised by their presence so they are the one paper that is worth their weight in gold unlike your currency but stay with me. Just don’t end up winning by 100% or something crazy like that. Unlike scripted TV you want to make it look like it was a competition from the get go. This will make it look like you genuinely won. This is important and you’ll find out why after this last point.

To aid the facade of your honest victory resist the urge to use violence… at least on camera. When the results are declared, act surprised but state you were always very confident that the people would vote for you. You must add that the will of the people has prevailed and focus should now shift to bettering the country as a whole regardless of political affiliation. And oh… don’t forget to turn the internet back on!

Why I’ve never voted

Do we need a new system of selecting our leaders?

I am a 36-year-old Zimbabwean-born Malawian who now lives and works in Zambia. I have never voted.

Given the turnout in the last election, I am not the only one in this boat. According to electionguide.org, only forty-five percent of Zimbabwe’s roughly five million registered voters turned out to vote in 2018.

Why have I not voted? I turned 18 in 2003. Born in Zimbabwe to Malawian parents, I had lived my entire life as a Zimbabwean. It had never occurred to me to question that. I was excited at the prospect of voting for the first time in the general elections scheduled for 2005. In preparation for that momentous occasion, I thought it would be ideal to obtain my National Identification document at the age of 16 and two years before the elections to avoid any complications when registering as a voter. It was then that I found out for the first time that I was not Zimbabwean.

My father was Malawian in language, culture, mannerisms, and dress but, he was a Zimbabwean citizen on paper. He was born in Zimbabwe to my Malawian grandparents, was raised in Malawi, and had returned to work in Zimbabwe in the 80s. It was during this time that I was born. After Independence and according to Zimbabwean law he and others like him were classified as aliens because they had obtained citizenship via parents that had emigrated from Malawi. Through an oversight on the part of the Registrar’s office, he had managed to keep his ID which had the classification ‘citizen’ stamped on it. By the time I turned 16 he had voted twice. My mother was born and raised in Malawi and had no Zimbabwean connection bar her marriage to my father. Her ID had the classification ‘alien’ stamped on it. Because of that, I could claim Malawian citizenship and as a child of a couple that was 1 part alien, I would have to denounce any claim to Malawian citizenship before being considered a Zimbabwean citizen. My ID also had the words ‘alien’ written on it. I was told that would remain the case until I produced proof that I had denounced my Malawian citizenship. Imagine being told by a country that you had lived in your whole life that you are a citizen of another country where you had never lived.

Being an alien was not necessarily an issue per se. Aliens could still vote according to Zimbabwean law. That changed in the year 2000 when His Excellency, then President and First Secretary of Zanu PF, Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Robert Mugabe prohibited aliens – a group known for their affinity to opposition parties – from voting. It’s a pity that no email was sent round, so by the time 2005 came about I wanted to vote but I could not.

His Excellency, then-President and First Secretary of Zanu PF, Head of State and Government, and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Robert Mugabe left office in November 2017, after 37 years as the only president of Zimbabwe I had ever known. A mere eight days after the departure of His Excellency, then President and First Secretary of Zanu PF, Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces, Robert Mugabe, a High Court judge reversed his earlier ban on alien voting. Zimbabwe was preparing for elections in 2018.

This would be a good opportunity for me to vote for the first time. However, as fate would have it, I was now living in South Africa having left Zimbabwe in 2005. I held a Malawian passport. The experience of being referred to as an alien had scarred me so much that in conversations I introduced myself as a Malawian born and raised in Zimbabwe not a Zimbabwean born to Malawian parents. I still harboured wishes of voting but this time I was prevented from doing so by my location. I was also a broke teacher who would rather buy food for his young family than spend that money travelling over 800km from Johannesburg to Bulawayo to vote in an election whose result, judging by how other elections had gone, was a foregone conclusion.

With the next Zimbabwean elections due to take place in 2023, I’m still hoping to vote for the first time. Living outside of a country I called home for so long has given me perspective on how important peoples’ voices are. Now more than ever I feel that if we are to change things for the better in Zimbabwe getting a huge voter turnout is a small start but a start nonetheless. I am not holding my breath.

I live and work in Zambia. The political climate in Zimbabwe is such that without any meaningful reforms, this next election is likely going to resemble the processions that characterised most of Michael Schumacher’s Formula 1 races before the rule changes.

As I grow older, I now appreciate my Malawian heritage and my Zimbabwean upbringing. When I am asked where I am from I mention both countries because I feel they both contributed to who I am today. I love both countries the same and I hope that one day by making my mark on a ballot paper for the first time I can add my voice to changing things for the better in my country, even though they still call me an ‘alien’.

Racial Unity and the Springboks

After a convincing victory over the English in the Rugby World Cup Final, South Africa’s Springboks will undoubtedly touch down to a heroes’ welcome when they return with the Webb Ellis trophy. Not everyone was pleased with their victory and as the saying goes “there’s always that one kid…” In this case it’s actually two kids, Ntsiki Mazwai and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi, that have clung onto the racial division that is often attached to rugby and refused to be part of this charade (as they call it) that all is well between black and white people in South Africa.

Ndlozi, the national spokesperson of the EFF, tweeted “Congratulations to #SiyaKolisi… the rest go get your congratulations from Prince Harry”. Ntsiki Mazwai, a poet, musical artist and a sharer of opinions voiced her distaste at what she perceives as the continuation of a narrative where black players are continually excluded from this sport. Ntsiki went as far as stating that there should be more Xhosa men in the squad because kwaXhosa (in the Eastern Cape) rugby is played mostly by black players.

The hypocrisy of Ndlozi’s tweet is obvious. He is very much entitled to his opinion. As a politician I would put it to him and his colleagues that, if anything, they are the ones responsible for the unequal society we find ourselves in. It is true that South Africa is unequal. It is also true that this did not just happen, nor did we just realise this after Nldozi’s tweet. Nor will we forget this because the Springboks won the World Cup. This is our lived reality. That said, you can’t be part of a party funded by a couple of so called “Prince Harrys” and then want to tell some of us celebrating the Springbok victory about “house nigger syndrome”.

Ntsiki’s assertion has some truth to it. There are many black players who play rugby at youth level all the way up to varsity. I would put it to her that the problem usually begins when these players turn professional or rather when they don’t.  A 2013 survey titled “Managing racial diversity: Positional segregation in South African rugby union in the post-apartheid era” revealed that “seventy-five to eighty per cent of South African rugby professional players are white though whites form only 9 per cent of the general population”. In 2019 this number has not changed much. There are many ‘black boys’ as Ntsiki calls them that do not end up playing professional rugby. A look at most of South Africa’s top professional rugby sides will show that black players do not make up a majority at this level  although they dominate the game at youth and school level in terms of numbers.

The selection of players is fraught with its own problems but the Springboks are selected from these professional players and therefore it follows that the dominance in the professional teams will be reflected in the national team.  In the same vein there are very few white soccer players in the Premier Soccer league and this is reflected in the team’s composition. Having said that, it must also be said that soccer does not have the history of exclusion that rugby has.

There are some of us who love sport because it is an escape. It helps us forget our day to day problems and for those 80 minutes that South Africa played in the final we were united. Personally for those 80 minutes I thought of nothing else but ensuring that England’s 25 phases did not end in a try. I thought of nothing else except Makazole’s try not being ruled out for a forward pass in the build up. I thought of nothing else but Cheslin’s brilliant side stepping of the English defence on his way to score an amazing try. And when the final whistle blew I screamed “we won” ( I am actually Malawian by the way)

This kind of unity is short lived  but it is not helped by people disowning a certain section of the very group of players that are the reason we are talking of a World Cup to begin with. If you can’t be happy about your country winning any World Cup I doubt there is anything anyone can ever do or say that will ever make you happy. Yes we have issues. Yes winning the World Cup will not magically fix those problems. But for the life of me don’t add to our problems with your bitterness.

Robert Mugabe “The king don father” :1924 – 2019

Like many Zimbabweans, I was nonplussed at the news of Robert Mugabe’s death. There was a time when I thought I would celebrate the news. At the time it came, I could have cared less. I have my problems. I am in a foreign country, I am trying to carve out a legacy for my daughters and I am just trying to make ends meet. A 95-year-old dying somewhere in Singapore was the furthest thing from my mind.

When I watched his funeral, for some reason, I remembered the great admiration I once held for the man and I believe I cried…a bit. Then I remembered all the stories I heard growing up of the atrocities committed by his government, the suffering we all went through and are still going through because of years of mismanagement and his inability to know when it was time to go. Then like 50 Cent when he dated Vivica I realised, of my crying, “nah, man it was nothin”

Many are angered by comments like mine because we are demonising a guy in death. Mugabe, a person who even in death will just not go away since his mausoleum might take a month to build, is undoubtedly important to Zimbabwe’s history. The state in which he left our country in 2017 wipes out any gains he might have made since assuming power in the 80s.

Under his leadership, we had one of the best education systems in Africa. It is because of the education that his government gave us that we are dotted all over the world. In 2019 though, many teachers have since migrated out of the country. It is not that uncommon to find A-level graduates teaching in Zimbabwean high schools. The teachers that are left are underpaid (or not at all some months), under-resourced and are operating under a government that cares more about winning an election than effecting any meaningful transformation of their daily lives.

Mugabe was released from prison in 1975. I firmly believe that in his mind he never left prison. His entire life has been about survival. It is littered with violence, accusations of murder, manoeuvring to get his way, and surviving many attempts to oust him. Combined with his prison resilience is an infectious charm, great oratory skills and the liberation war hero card that many liberation parties have used to hold their own people hostage. Now that he is gone you would expect Zimbabweans to be hopeful. They are not. We still have the same party in power and I would put it to the world that the people that are left probably have more to do with our current state of affairs than Mugabe as an individual ever did. Nothing good comes out of something rotten. Under Zanu PF Zimbabwe has rotted in oodles.

The two years since Mugabe was deposed have served to confirm something we all knew as Zimbabweans which is that Zanu PF is out of depth, out of touch and out of sync with what Zimbabwe needs. They have been like that for a while. Until they vacate the position of influence they currently occupy we are going nowhere as a country and as a people.

Basic budget for a Zimbabwean family of 4

A friend sent me this earlier today. I think the amounts are in the local currency.

1. Loaf of bread= $8-00 x 30 days

= $240.00
2. Meat= $6-00 x 30 days =$180.00
3. Mealie meal= $100.00
4. Transport to/fro work= $240.00
5. Breakfast, Lunch= $160.00
6. Airtime per month= $40.00
7. 4kg of Surf = $120.00
8. 4kg of Sugar= $40.00
9. 4ltrs Cooking Oil= $50.00
10. 2kg Coffee Creamer = $40.00
11. Rice = $100.00
12. Toiletries= $240.00
13. Margarine= $40.00
14. Peanut Butter= $40.00
15. Jam= $40.00
16. Drink = $70.00
17. Soups and sauces= $40.00
18. Tea and coffee = $60.00
19. Salt= $20.00
20. Rent= $240.00

*TOTAL = $2050-00*🇿🇼

Average salary per month $450

Trying to budget in this situation= priceless.

Zimbabwe votes

Zimbabweans went to the polls yesterday to elect parliamentarians and a president. For the first time since I was born, there was a very notable absentee on the ballot paper. Robert Mugabe who, until late last year, ruled Zimbabwe with little in the form of opposition was not up for election as he was deposed in a wave of change that saw his rule successfully challenged for the first time since his rise to power in the 80s.

Results circulating on social media seem to indicate an advantage for MDC but then again, social media does not vote

A part of me is hopeful that what happened last year is the beginning of the end for Mugabe’s Zanu PF party. However, another part of me, the one that felt this type of emotion many times only for Mugabe to emerge as a winner, is sceptical about this whole election. I find it hard to be as hopeful as some of my friends. I left Zimbabwe in 2005 and I am out of touch with what is happening on the ground but I know the narrative all too well.

Zanu PF uses its financial muscle, sway and its struggle credentials plus its rural support base to garner support. They stifle all forms of opposition with varying degrees of brutality in the name of getting rid of criminal elements. They lose the election, or as they would say it the election is ‘a close one.’ They have a runoff that they rig like they tried to do with the first one. After all, if one is cheating the best way to do so is with some semblance of legitimacy. Results take a long time to be released all the while all the African Election observers pass the election as a free and fair one. Finally, the results are released announcing the ZANU PF and the constitution of Zimbabwe as the overall winners. There are disputes but the squabbling is pointless although it drags on even to the next election.

So far this script is not running to this plan as there have been few reports of irregularities and violence. As I write this, MDC leads the early count (according to unofficial reports mostly from friends in Zimbabwe) but I find myself thinking they’ve done that before only to lose at the end. It’s hard not to think that this early lead is all part of the script. We are after all dealing with the behemoth that is Zanu PF.

Like most of my peers, I don’t know anything else but a ZANU PF led Zimbabwe. For that reason, I don’t believe that a party that held on to power for 37 years will willingly let go of power that easily. Only time will tell.

#data will fall

In a ground-breaking move, South African mobile operators have announced a deal whereby people who cannot afford data would be able to barter their goods in exchange for data bundles. The new deal is set to come into effect in 2017 as some ground work needs to be done to design a structure of how this system will work practically.

Speaking to reporters, Vodacom’s Jal nied ta jus Pay said, “we are tired of the FOMO that is going on out there because people cannot afford data and as one of the biggest networks in the country we have taken it upon ourselves to bring data to the people.”

 

The system will see collection centres being set up across the country to collect goods and other items in exchange for airtime/recharge vouchers. Although it is still unclear what goods will be exchanged for which amounts of airtime, unconfirmed reports also suggest that those who have nothing to exchange will even be offered the chance to get contract deals as long they can work it off in 24 months.

 

The deals on offer range from getting a Huawei p9 with 1G of data per month in exchange for doing the Vodacom CEO’s gardening for 2 years to getting an S7 with 5G of data per month for doing lap dances at Teasers on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The latter deal would see the club covering your contract costs.

 

Experts around the world are hailing this new cost model as the way most mobile network providers will go especially in developing countries where data costs are so prohibitive that some people are even unable to respond to friend requests from as far back as 2 years ago.

 

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Communication said, “hopefully this brings down the cost of airtime and who knows people could free up more money to afford university fees making the feesmustfall hashtag obsolete and in turn all the (insertproblemhere)mustfall hashtags”

Why passports are a disadvantage in South Africa

Since I arrived in South Africa in 2005 I’ve found that doing any dealings with banks, western union, letting agents, Insurance companies, furniture shops, post offices, security guards at most Johannesburg residential complexes and DHL (by DHL I mean all shipping companies) always leaves me with a sour taste in my mouth.

It amazes me how all these groups of people seem to want different documents from me to verify my identity every time I need to make use of their services. In a normal world it is usually enough to provide some form of valid ID and proof of address when dealing with most companies in the service industry. However in South Africa, particularly if you are human being of the foreign variety, sometimes these requirements morph into an exercise that seems akin to trying to get a visa to visit the planet Krypton (No it does not exist).

For example, I tried sending money through Western Union. I had my passport and proof of residence with me simple enough right? Wrong! I was told that since I am not South African I would need to provide my passport, my valid work permit, proof of address, a 3 month bank statement, a recent pay slip not older than 3 months and a letter confirming my employment.

After a return journey home to fetch all these documents, a quick call to our bemused HR lady to email me the employment stuff and a quick turn to the print shop I found that the lady who had served me earlier had left and there was a new lady at the counter. She proceeded to give me forms that I duly filled in. She made copies of my passport, my permit, my proof of residence, my bank statement, handed me back my pay slip and confirmation of employment letter saying I wouldn’t need them and processed my transaction.

The next time I went to Western Union you can guess like any logical human being I took with me the documents that had been needed the last time only to be told again that I still needed my pay slip and a confirmation of employment letter. The only difference was that this time these documents were actually copied.

On a separate occasion I tried to visit a friend living in one of the flats in the Johannesburg CBD. All these flats require that you sign in at the entrance (most of which are manned by security guards) using some form of ID. Upon signing in I was about to enter when I was told by the security guard that I could not enter the flat because he had noticed that my work permit had expired. When I explained that my passport was valid and I was awaiting the outcome of my new application for a work permit (this is not to say that I understood why I needed a work permit to visit a friend) his response was that sadly he could not let me in because after all rules were rules. It seems even for a mere visit to a friend I needed a valid work permit.

Then there was the time I tried to register an online profile with Edgars (a clothing store) so that I could manage my account with them (I have learnt that using the internet often means I do not have to deal with people and this is usually an advantage because the computer has no idea that I am not South African. Or does it? Anyway that’s another story). I got to the part where you enter your ID number and I entered my passport number only for ‘the system’ (a word I hear a lot round these parts) to reject my registration saying I needed to enter an ID number that was 13 digits long (the format for all South African ID numbers). In my anger and disappointment at this obvious example of discrimination I did what any self-respecting person would do … I wrote a letter to them. Not counting the automated response that came seconds after I sent the letter, I have not heard back from them.

I have had many experiences like this and as a result have resorted to moving around with everything. So the next time you are rummaging through my bag (maybe that would also be a requirement for some service I need from you) do not be surprised if you find my passport, work permit, 3 month bank statement, proof of address, letter of employment, pay slip, my employment contract, police clearance certificate, signed medical certificate proving that I am fit and healthy attached to radiological reports, marriage licence, University transcripts, degree certificates, my 1st place ribbon from the egg and spoon race I won back in crèche and my Pokémon cards in case the requirements at a bank state that I need to battle and defeat another Pokémon before I can be given a line of credit.

Are you a foreigner? What is your experience of South Africa?

Teacher’s Pet

“Boys, today there’s a nationwide teacher strike. The government has declared this strike illegal stating that any teacher who doesn’t teach will be fired immediately. To avoid that what we will do today is pretend. I will pretend to teach and you in turn will pretend to learn, so let’s pretend.”

These were the words spoken by my A-level history teacher during one of many nationwide teacher strikes. Of all the teachers that had an impact in my life, my A-level history teacher sticks out. FYI the government fired the lot of them that very day only to reinstate them two days later after realising that they could not replace every teacher in Zimbabwe in 24 hours.

The one thing I valued about him is that he was all about real talk. He was never one to fill our heads with lots of fairy tales. The latter was due to our school being a traditional boys’ school. The former was due to him being morbidly obese.

It was clear he had accepted that he was overweight a long time ago. I remember him refusing to follow the trend (at the time) of teachers migrating to the UK to take up menial jobs as care workers when the economic downturn in Zimbabwe had reached endemic levels. Regarding that issue his response was something along the lines of: “I will not be going to the UK to take up a menial job like some of my colleagues at this school have done. I will not be wiping people’s behinds (he didn’t say behinds but anyway) I have enough trouble wiping my own (he looked like he actually could have trouble doing that).

When I was younger I didn’t plan on becoming a teacher. Now that I am, I realise that it was this teacher who taught me that teaching could be a fun job as long as you showed your students respect by not patronising them. I found his ability to be frank with us very refreshing. In a schooling system that could be very militaristic in its approach to discipline he showed me that teachers are humans too (and so they should be).

2014 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2014 annual report for this blog. I’m not one for resolutions but more posts will follow in 2015.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,400 times in 2014. If it were a cable car, it would take about 23 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.