PEOPLE can be so, so rude, Muckraker can tell you! As Zimbos were busy digesting (and celebrating) the shock outcome of Botswana’s election, Muck overheard one yokel yawning aloud that if free and fair elections were held in all countries, some people would fare worse than Mokgweetsi Masisi and his Botswana Democratic Party (BDP). We can’t believe it to be coming from Zimbos!
As proud Sadc chair, we certainly were thoroughly disappointed by the speed with which Cde Masisi rushed to announce his own defeat even before the counting of the votes had been finalised. That was very unAfrican of him. He could have appealed for assistance from Sadc-PF and we would have dutifully delivered it.
Results of an important election can take up to six weeks to be released — we talk from experience — so there was no need for Cde Masisi to worry because he would have been under our guaranteed protection. And the transition was swift and smooth: no drama of inviting the whole continent to witness the swearing-in — also unAfrican!
But of all the unAfrican things about the Botswana elections that miffed us, none of them compares to the rush by Zambia’s Hakainde Hichilema to congratulate Duma Boko and his party.
UnAfrican Masisi
Who does not know that it is disrespectful and unAfrican to rush ahead of the leadership and elders? We are not just Sadc chair, but elders as well. That was rude, to say the least!
Just as everyone followed us on Mozambique, that is what was supposed to happen on Botswana, where everyone takes a cue from the leadership and the elderly.
In the run-up to the landmark election in Botswana, Muck followed developments across the Shashe River with keen interest, and rightly so. The outcome of the election vindicated Muck’s unhealthy interest in the country.
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Voters in that country did not just reject Masisi, but what he was increasingly standing for? Zimbabweanisation of his country? Zanufication of the BDP, to be more specific?
And that rejection is also our rejection — vicariously. In a truly African fashion, the loss of the BDP is a loss to the denizens of Shake Shake Building. A loss so portentous of the inevitable tragedy ahead.
Meanwhile, there is also something unsettling about the Botswana election: the fact that a party calling itself (Something) for Democratic Change won in a run-away fashion! Nxa-a!
Summit of apologies
The dictators’ trade union, named Sadc, is plotting an extraordinary summit for Harare inside a fortnight. Top on the agenda is the outcomes of elections in Mozambique and Botswana and the upcoming election in Namibia.
While it is obvious that Zambia’s president Hichilema will not be coming, Muck sincerely prays that Botswana’s new president, Duma Boko — against whom we campaigned — will let bygones be exactly that and accept our summons.
Otherwise, this could leave us with an egg in the face.
In fact, things could become a bit complicated. Botswana is the seat of Sadc that we importantly chair, so there has to be at least an outward show of co-operation lest we endure more embarrassment.
Muck has an idea though. A brilliant one as usual for that matter. How about poring over the 28-page Sadc Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections document for a possible clause that empowers us, as the chair, to reject unfavourable election results of a member country.
If such clause can’t be found, and we can’t find another one that we can deliberately misinterpret, then we can amend the document and then apply the changes retroactively.
We do this often here, so it won’t be a problem at all. Come on, surely how can we be embarrassed just like this?
Still on the upcoming Sadc extraordinary summit, one of the leaders expected to grace the event is the Namibian president, Nangolo Mbumba. He took over as president following the death of 82-year-old Hage Geingob in February.
Now hear this! Mbumba says he will not be running in the November 27 election because, as an 83-year-old, he has nothing to offer. Surely, how can a normal African ever think — let alone ever talk — like that?
Isn’t this an insult for all the 80-something-olds? We hope he will take advantage of the summit to either profusely apologise, or to angrily explain how he was deliberately misquoted!
Sweet revenge!
In the aftermath of the August 2023 harmonised elections, Muck passed through some polling stations in Mbare. He noticed something very strange.
Although the reeling party’s member of the National Assembly and councillor had posted notable victories (thanks to the coercion strategy that the party had resorted to), our Owner was losing by embarrassing margins. He even got as little as 30 votes in some polling tents compared to his opponent who was getting more than five times that number.
And Muck could hear some self-important reeling party members openly expressing their fears on how would this trend be explained away? They feared the obvious accusation of instructing voters to vote for party MP and councillor, but not for our Owner.
The ‘solution’
Muck is told that those results were closely analysed by the party. And a decision was made to teach the people of Mbare a lesson and a half. Someone, who is known to be a front for some serious people, made moves to close the Mbare retail market “for upgrades”, but was violently resisted.
Muck has it on good authority that the traders actually boasted that no one can ever evict them from the retail market what was gifted to them by Queen Elizabeth, blah, blah! So, a “solution” was soon found — fire — a mysterious fire!
And thanks to the inferno, a new multi-storey facility is now being erected. A new facility with new beneficiaries (possibly new tenants who love the reeling party and our Owner).
The next frontier
And it will be compulsory for vendors to use it (and pay the seemingly extortionate rentals). Next is Siya-So in Magaba. A similar clean up and takeover will be happening. Then lastly, the operation will target those seedy residential flats like Matapi, Nenyere, Matererini, Majubeki, etc.
Remember the flats were declared unfit for human habitation over four decades ago, resulting in the establishment of Sunningdale suburb in the mid-1980s for the purpose of the relocations?
So, the squalid flats will be razed down and new ones (with new tenants) erected (at the taxpayer’s expense).
Now that the city mayor is on loan to the reeling party, everything will conveniently be done in the name of Town House, Local Government, Order and Standards, but the real issue is settling scores with the thankless voter who embarrassed our Owner in such a manner.
As the evil unfolds, the MPs and councillors can only stand akimbo, they can’t protest or stop it because they are already struggling to extricate themselves from the mystery of the strange voting pattern. So, just watch the space!
Lots to offer!
Now that Donald Trump is back in the White House, it is time for revenge. Many of us in the shithole nations that celebrated seeing his back can only imagine what awaits us.
But considering that Trump is almost 80, this is good news as it serves as a message that even in the United States, octogenarians still have lots to offer!
