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Zimbabwe: Zanu-PF's Rural Pillars Crumble?
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Financial Gazette (Harare)
27 March 2008
Posted to the web 27 March 2008
Rangarirai Mberi
Harare
CHARLES Sigudu knows more than most just how spectacularly the once formidable walls that once protected ZANU-PF rural strongholds have collapsed.
He is one of those responsible for bringing them down.
We meet at Mamina, a crumbling rural centre at the end of a lonely, bumpy dirt road, inside Mhondoro-Ngezi, a poor rural constituency held by ZANU-PF.
Sigudu is standing for council for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Three years ago, representing the MDC here would have been certain to attract beatings or even death.
But now Sigudu is standing at the centre, with six of his colleagues, all decked out in brand new MDC T-shirts and carrying reams of campaign posters.
He describes how meetings with villagers over the past few months have eroded the image of ZANU-PF's invincibility here. Villagers now openly defy the ruling party.
The opposition has been able to campaign here more freely than in any other previous elections, he says, although ZANU-PF activists still try to frustrate them.
"We are being harassed. A car we hired was stoned, and they block roads to prevent us from getting to meetings," Sigudu says.
But the opposition activists are not deterred.
As with most other rural areas, the yearning for change is now more palpable here than it ever was.
For long closed to any other campaigns and fed only ZANU-PF's stale slogans, rural villagers across the country have been taken in by the opposition's lively campaigning. Unable to resort to violence, ZANU-PF has little to defend its territory by.
"We are winning and they know it," says a young, female activist for MDC Mhondoro-Ngezi Parliamentary candidate Rombo Mangwiro.
"This time they are going nowhere. They know it."
Crop yields have been poor this year, and the community's desperation is visible.
In baking midday heat, hungry villagers stand idle at Mamina, their only preoccupation being the new MDC and Simba Makoni campaign posters festooning the walls of crumbling, empty stores.
Down the road, I arrive at the local Grain Marketing Board depot. This is peak harvesting season, but the depot sits empty and abandoned.
The wood stacks that at this time of the year should be creaking under the weight of tonnes of freshly harvested grain are decaying and termite ridden.
But on the other end of the depot lies ZANU-PF's secret weapons. These are the ploughs and disc harrows that the ruling party is confident will be enough to save its seat.
Just outside Mamina, I meet Bright Matonga, the Deputy Information and Publicity Minister who is MP for the constituency, and I ask him about the farm equipment.
"Call it vote buying, call it what you want. But we are empowering our people," he says.
I put it to him that the starvation here, coupled with unprecedented access for the opposition, should be giving him a fright.
But he is genuinely confident: "In the last election, I won 17 000 votes to 2 000. I don't think this will change. In fact, with the programmes I have been running here, there's absolutely no way I can lose. No way."
He mentions how he has stocked the local hospital, how he has put 700 of his constituents on ARV treatment, and his support for local schools.
But there is no doubt where his strength really lies; it's all in ZANU-PF's patronage system.
Half an hour later, there's some confirmation of this when I meet Chief Murambwa, an energetic and vulgar man.
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The chief waxes lyrical about his brand new pick-up truck, his tractor -- "the biggest in all of this area", he says -- and his modern home, complete with electricity and even a satellite dish.
He throws his arms around and paces up and down to demonstrate his enthusiasm for the farm mechanisation programme.
"You are the journalist," he says, "Tell me, do you know of any other leader, anywhere in Africa, who has ever done this for his people?"
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