"A WEEK is a long time in politics” — Harold Wilson.
This is a statement that is poignant in politics. It shows the fluidity of politics, where things can take a quick turn either north or south — leaving the audience bewildered.
Who was Wilson? Wilson was a British statesman and Labour politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from October 1964 to June 1970 and again from March 1974 to April 1976. He was the son of an industrial chemist. Wilson was educated at the University of Oxford, where, as a fellow of the University College (1938-39), he collaborated with Sir William on work that led Beveridge’s epochal report (1942) advocating social insurance and other welfare measures.
In 1965 Wilson was unable to avert an illegal declaration of independence by the white minority government of the British colony of Rhodesia, and his subsequent efforts to topple the rebel government by the use of economic sanctions rather than by military force failed. Wilson steered Britain clear of direct military involvement in the Vietnam War, though he gave verbal support to the US war effort. His government outlawed capital punishment (1965) and he began the Open University for continuing education.
This short resume of the man says a lot — the good and bad about Wilson. However, it stands out that he shaped Britain’s politics, social welfare and education in a great way. In simple terms, the man has the gravitas to say the opening statement of this article. He had seen and done it all and still realised politics is very fluid.
Seven days is in deed a very long time in politics. This is the state in Zimbabwe at the moment. In the last seven days, we had only 11 presidential candidates. The number dropped to 10 for less than 10 hours after the High Court ruled Saviour Kasukuwere did not deserve to be on the ballot. He was retained on the ballot after appealing to the Supreme Court.
In the same week, the presidential candidates increased to 12 after the High Court ruled Elizabeth Valerio should be on the ballot paper. The High Court also set Linda Masarira’s application for hearing in the coming week and the candidates could leap to 13. Wait a moment, by Friday next week it could once again dip to 11 depending on the rulings in the Masarira and Kasukuwere cases.
From the look of things, for the first time since 1980, Zimbabwe will have its elections decided in the courts from the start to the end. A bad impression to both locals and the international communities on how the country conducts its elections.
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It is interesting that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) is at the centre of the controversies. All aggrieved persons are alleging that the electoral management body failed to follow the law in either accepting or rejecting nominations from potential candidates.
It can, therefore, be conclusively said that Zec needs to be reformed and its staff retrained in understanding the law as is. If Zec continues on this blundering exercise, the end results will be always disputed.
On the political arena, Zanu PF continues with its mega rallies. The rallies have thousands of people attending. Some lessons from this is; the party is enjoying the power of incumbency and its rallies are automatically approved, State resources are being directed to these rallies and thirdly, but not least, Zanu PF's coercive apparatus is in overdrive to have all adults attend these rallies.
The main opposition this time around using the number of candidates nominated, the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) has finally launched its campaign. Some thousands of people attended the rally in Gweru. It still has supporters — the pictures tell, despite the divisions caused by its candidate selection process.
Of the presidential candidates, Kasukuwere is still to hit the ground. He has been doing Press conferences, paid for billboards and has an army of social media activists hyping his campaign. It will be seen if this will be enough, but for now we can conclude —Emmerson Mnangagwa and Zanu PF are rattled. They did not see this coming.
Surfing the social media brought me across journalist Ranga Mberi Twitter streets. There are some new developments in political campaigning. Zanu PF seems to have hitched on artificial intelligence (AI) in its online campaigns.
Mberi tweeted: “New world of political comms: Can’t get a real “political analyst” to endorse your candidate? Easy. Just use
AI to generate a fake one that will: Mr Richard Stone.”
He attached a link to the AI generated video. Here is the link. https://www.tiktok.com/@zygydf/video/7257856472351034629?_r=1&_t=8eAUQR2HIKk.
The new media wars would start in earnest. We have to wait and see how the opposition will react to this. However, the AI age has its own pitfalls. These include creation of fake adverts or outright lies. The audiences now have to be able to crosscheck facts.
This was clear in the 2016 United States elections and the Brexit referendum. There was a lot of misinformation and scaremongering. I am not sure if the Zimbabwe audience is sophisticated enough to deal with it.
The media wars will boil down to who has a large war chest. Chat bots will be unleashed, creators will be working overtime and the audience will be left with an information overload, where many will not be able to know which is which.
Interestingly, despite all the hype and the physical rallies no political party has launched its manifesto. It is not clear why the manifestoes are still in the vaults. One can only hazard, all parties are afraid of being scrutinised if they put their plans in black and white, hence they want to do it last minute giving the electorate no time to read and criticise them.
The election train rumbles and August 23 remains the final destination, but each week has shown what is bad in our politics, laws and our leaders. Another week on this ride will tell us which is which.
- Paidamoyo Muzulu is a journalist based in Harare. He writes here in his personal capacity.
