As Zimbabweans take to the polls once again this year, Robert Mugabe appears confident of another victory in the country’s allegedly fair elections. No doubt, the world’s media outside Zimbabwe will castrate poor Bob for humbly trying to extend his 33 year rule, so Wonkie thought it only fitting to offer an alternative perspective on the matter.
Below are seven good reasons why Zimbabweans are likely to support Mugabe in his 2013 election campaign:
1. Money
The world may not like it, but Zimbabwe has produced more billionaires in the last few years than the entire western world put together. Granted that you’ll need a few million Zimbabwe dollars to buy a loaf of bread, but let us not take away from Mugabe’s epic achievement. Those that have enriched themselves under Mugabe will also see no reason to vote for Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition MDC.
2. Growth
Many lateral thinkers in Zimbabwe will vote for Mugabe because unbeknownst to non-lateral thinkers, Mugabe has been following an ingenious strategy that is proving to be quite successful. Wonkie’s inside sources have discovered Zanu-PF documents that indicate that destroying Zimbabwe’s economy is actually part of Zimbabwe’s 100 year plan (and you thought only China had those – ha!).
By creating the very real impression of hardship in Zimbabwe, Mugabe has legitimately been able to dispatch millions of enterprising Zimbabweans to invade neighbouring countries through emigration channels. Slowly but surely, all of Southern Africa will soon belong to Zimbabwe… – mwahahaha!
3. Fear
As luck would have it, for many, the need to stay alive with most of their limbs intact is quite a strong motivating factor. While the elections in Zimbabwe may be fair, Mugabe losing the election will most certainly not be.
4. Senility
Wonkie’s research indicates that many Zimbabweans stopped remembering new things quite soon after Mugabe liberated Zimbabwe just over three decades ago. New things like a collapsed economy, ruined infrastructure, etc. For them, the Zanu-PF and Mugabe will forever be their hero – freedom fighters, not unlike Nelson Mandela. This senility phenomenon is not confined to Zimbabwe, and in fact, has started rearing its ugly head in South Africa already too.
5. Science
You don’t need to be an academic genius to observe the strong downward trend in Zimbabwe’s general well-being over the last 30 years. Many in the sciences, and in Zimbabwe, believe that nature follows cycles, and are convinced things will turn around shortly. Sure, Zimbabwe has gone through a tiny rough patch, but Mugabe deserves a chance to rule while it’s on the up too… it’s only fair that he should.
6. National pride
Wonkie is not talking about fickle citizens, easily swayed with political rhetoric like:
“We believe in Africa for Africans, Zimbabwe for Zimbabweans.”
Robert Mugabe is one of the foremost African role models for true dictators on the planet. These are becoming a rare breed indeed, especially after the fall of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi. If nothing else, some Zimbabweans will vote for Mugabe because they are proud of their ruler. Who knows, with their help, he might even take Zimbabwe into the history books as the country with the first centenarian leader. Now, how cool is that.
7. Morbid Curiosity
Come on now, Wonkie is surely not alone in its curiosity to see how long a mental 89 year old will last at the helm of the bread basket case of Africa? What unusual decisions will Mugabe make next?
Has Wonkie left out any obvious (or not-so-obvious) reasons about why Zimbabweans will vote for Zanu-PF? Please leave a comment in the comments section below, and let Wonkie know now!
If you’re distressed that your country is heading down the same path as Zimbabwe, then now is probably a great time for you to fork out some cash and click here to buy some lottery tickets online in India now. If you can’t wait for the next draw and the thought of gambling on Zimbabwe is too frightening, you should check out this excellent updated page or Wonkie’s own in-depth Online Casino South Africa article for risk-taking of a completely different sort. Regular online casino players should check out Wonkie’s updated Silver Sands Casino review for the latest coupon codes for July 2013.
Related Wonkie articles on Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe and the Zimbabwe Elections:
- Mugabe mentors Obama on financial crisis
- Mugabe doesn’t win Nobel Peace Prize
- The New Zimbabwe cartoon
- Thabo Mbeki and SADC Zimbabwe strategy
- Mugabe solves world energy crisis
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One stooge in the form of Jacob Zuma is enough in Southern Africa, why make them two in voting for Morgan Tsvangirai. Hate him all you like, Mugabe is a genious! Morgan can only think of when next he is going to open his zip!
Hmmm Lulu… Wonkie is curious to know what you think makes Mugabe a
genious, oops, genius?Mugabe is definitely more intelligent than Zuma (who isn’t?) but is still President of Zimbabwe through either fear or stupidity. The same stupidity that keeps the ANC in power in South Africa.
If the vast numbers of Zimbabweans who currently reside in South Africa return to their own country to vote, Tsvangirai will almost certainly win the election and, IF he is allowed to assume power, might be in a position to return the country to its former economically stable position. Return to the agricultural prominence it once had will unfortunately take many decades.
At least shops will have stocked shelves while the country slowly returns to normality.
Wonkie is not sure why there is so much certainty around Zuma’s stupidity, relative or otherwise. He clearly has some savvy and strategic thought processes to get to where he is. Voters, on the other hand, as you quite rightly imply, clearly don’t vote based only on their intellect.
If Zimbabweans return home now, the South African economy would collapse… please, let’s not even talk about it.
The other reason is pseudo voting- under any circumstance the UN/SADC AND whoever know that the elections are not going to be fair,Mugabe has capacity to stop evoting process and refill the boxes nobody will say anything or it will take five years of meetings after meeetings from Maseru to Nairobi even beyond the continent. could they decide to change SADC are unlikely to accept the results in fear of anything opposite from ZANU PF.
Institutions like SADC,OAU,UN have to look into the issue of Zimbabwe with God’s eye other wise zimbabwe people are at mercy to the African Brothers Democracy. the writing is on the wall if ZANU PF is outvoted the unnecessary lives are going to be lost while conflict resolvers with litle they can do besides their brotherhood alliances to Mugabe will be going up and down promising this and that
If the elections aren’t fair and international intervention is clearly not forthcoming, what else can be done? Sounds like the only real option is to have enough disgruntlement in the Zimbabwean masses to start a revolution.
Considering Zuma, I have a different view, Zuma is a star compared to people like Mugabe. He is Genius in African politics he is ruled by his instincts not behind desk theories from London,Washinton u name them. This is the man to look for when it comes to exercising administrative intellect.
Mugabe, Zuma birds of a feather. They were born with cupped hands for begging, unfortunately begging only got them so far, so thieving was the next best and they both have done that extremely well. Anybody in their right mind will never again vote for these two thugs. Although there is the threat of death when it comes to Zimbabwe for those voting for the MDC. South Africa in not that much better, the uneducated are brain washed into believing that the ANC will be able to tell who had voted for other parties. Until they are convinced that this not true they will continue voting ANC.
Collitjies, fortunately we have plenty of people out of their right minds in South Africa.
Wonkie wonders if the DA, Agang, EFF etc have a strategy for addressing the brainwashing, if that is indeed the case – it sounds like they would be wise investing the time to develop one if they haven’t!
You are getting it wrong!!!! Zuma has been paid by the West to leave the status quo and not rock the boat in favour of blacks. What has changed since Zuma came into power? I suppose we are now seeing more and more service delivery protests! He dealt with people like Malema, Mothlante and Sexwale so that his inefficiencies are not seen! I for one had hoped that SA would change for the better of the black populace when Zuma took the reigns but the West realised that and they paid him off so that he could look after his harem and so many dozen children. I do not deny that if Morgan came into power things would be rosy BUT he will not be running the show, only a widow dresser and someone in Europe running the show. You see one might not understand the cost of true emancipation until they are! The graph in Zim had to go down before we can see an upward trajectory! Viva ZANU PF!
If only there were some facts to back up these allegations of imperialist deviousness – Wonkie would definitely invite you to write a Whole Truth conspiracy theory article Lulu! Who do you think is running the show in Europe?
My domestic lives in a nearby township. She tells me that the ANC cadres there know who votes and who doesn’t and who they vote for. They also tell her that they will fix anyone who doesn’t vote ANC. The Government cant deny that this is happening when they check on a log when you vote and give you a personalized number. Its the democratic way.
Surely the likes of the IEC would address issues like this Garth? Or do they just farm out a tender for it? In any case, if this is the situation on the ground as per Wonkie’s previous comment, it would be smart for the opposition parties to develop a strategy to counter this.
Garth, what you are saying is so true. The lady that helps me in the house, just told me yesterday that the ANC tells the same sort of stories here in Oudtshoorn. They are also telling the people that if they vote for the DA and DA comes into power, they will all loose their jobs, houses and their salaries will be taken away from them etc. Now the ANC is handing out “free” gifts. She also said that they will be driven in their scores to the polling stations by the ANC. It seems to me a certain party is playing dirty tricks and running scared…
Collitjies first mentioned that the uneducated are brain-washed into believing that the ANC will be able to tell who had voted for other parties. Garth’s story about his maid confirms the fear. Lulu proves that conspiracies abound in the black communities and many of the people are so backward that they believe them.
Lulu there is no way that the West would want to buy off Zuma unless to get him to resign and so prevent him destroying the country. He has access to unlimited funds from the public purse and it is his, and that of ANC appointed councillors, stealing from the taxpayers that results in little being left for service delivery. China might be another matter as they actively attempt to corrupt many African leaders to open the way for China’s access to minerals, rhino horn etc.
In Zimbabwe vote counting is shielded from opposition parties as well as international observers so ballot stuffing and other rigging cannot be proved.
In South Africa all opposition parties send observers to the counting stations to ensure that the election is free and fair. Irregularities are challenged and it would be the exception rather than the rule that criminality occurs. After counting, the ballot papers are stored and sealed and only if a constituency challenges a count can the IEC permit those papers to be recounted. Once verified or accepted the papers are destroyed. The ballot paper assigned to your ID number can only be accessed if a court deems a possibility of voter fraud exists. Otherwise nobody has knowledge of who you voted for unless you yourself confess to such or wear your parties colours to the polling station.
People threatened by ANC stall-warts should report the criminality to the IEC.
Thanks for the response actually the results are posted are known before they can be sent to the centre, it is very easy to verify.In the case of Zimbabwe even if rigging can be establiched,noticed of whatever institutions are managed by ZANU PF or rather the man is ruling the minds of the African leaders some fear him like its their father. If any party wins I do not know how everybody will be waiting to here ‘the west has riged the Zimabwe elections’ ‘I will not allow that’
Not true, vote counting is done with all the contesting aspiring candidate or their representative present. I have had an opportunity of being a representative of an aspiring MP so sorry that is not factual! The problem with Zimbabwe is that so many people have theories and they base those on what they hear on BBC or CNN. Come to Zim I will be quite happy to show you that this rigging people talk about does not exist. Okay some over enthusiastic party cadres might lie to the uneducated that when they vote there is a machine that sees who they vote for! Not true in Zim, we have the most literate population in Africa and you cant lie to people that way! Its a pity if ZANU PF is winning all sorts of theories come up! Better luck next time for MDC, they have done well as a young party but most people who vote ZANU PF vote for policies and not a person as many of you out there might want to believe!
Mugabe enjoy support of the African leadership on any effort he apsires, whether painful to Zimbabwens or not. They have already prepared two speeches diplomatic for approving Mugabi dirty tactics and attack to MDC for any comment thereof. Its a pity Zimababwen negotiations are bound to be led by powerful SADC monster. Zimbabwens shall forever here comments such as ‘problems shall be solved by Zimbabwens only’ yet every monkey has written its theory on the appropriate future for Zimbabwens.Unless u stop attempting to make Mugabe our SADC ‘god’ og dictators Zimbabwe shall be free.
Of course they vote for a person! – they vote for every person in their families to stay alive and not be subjected to Mugabe’s “security” forces.
Lulu dont lie, Zanu pf is all about cheating, Village heads are told to lead their subjects to polling stations, people are asked to record their ballot serial numbers. We know of the witch hunt done in the rural areas, of huts set on fire for supporting MDC.
Tony, the process may be in place but the bigger question is whether the voting masses are educated enough to be able to turn to that process. Theory and practice are usually 2 different animals in the third world.
The National Road net work is such a sorry state, one wonders if it will be brought to world standards. The Railways too, lucky the railway line is heavy, scrap metal dealers could be partying all night just like they did on the Electric cables between Harare and Gweru. Water in Harare and other other major towns is but survival by the Grace of god.
You will definitely be voting for Mugabe then?
They might complain about the Zimbabweans that are here in SA, but we find them very polite, hard working and have a good attitude, not as sinister as some of our own people. That could be the reason why they left as those we know are more for peace then our own people.
In my opinion the freedom of Zimbabwe is SADC freedom. With experience and variety of skills those people possess we are going to be far better. what President Zuma and all other God fearing leaders like Tom Thabane should do is to promise all the corrupt generals and troopers in the regime general pardon to all the dirty practices they did under Mugabe. Other wise in three months they will topple any legitimate government like Egypt.
Chepha, Lulu, even Tony, What are you guys smoking. There was a report circulating on the internet about the abundant ignorance of black Africans, whilst this is the case they will continue to vote for populists who promise the earth and moon but deliver nothing but more ignorance with the failure of schools; more poverty and loss of jobs; lack of basic services such as sewage, water, electricity, education, health etc.. and when they do something they want to charge the public for it. (Sanral for example) all of this is because they know that educated voters will not vote for them. Mugabe and a host of other African leaders are like a bunch of bananas; they are yellow and there is not a straight one in the bunch. Those who think Zimbabwe is coming need not fear it is already here in the form of Limpopo and Mamparalanga.
So Zim and SA are the new ‘banana’ republics !??!
The naivete of many western-minded bloggers is that they assume that Africans do not recognise the stratagem of using their undemocratic domination of global media space to tar and feather Africa’s real heroes, while mollycoddling and shielding the real tyrants (WMD scam, et cetera) just because they are spawned in the west. The reason why Mugabe is demonised is that he dared to challenge western encroachment on African property. It is his insistence on a new chapter in which Africans seize control of the trajectory of their lives that triggered the vicious attacks, and boycotts imposed in a world where it’s ok to talk to insurgencies and to coin ludicrously tragic terms as “armed opposition.” The sudden, wildly implausible western claims of anguish about a Mugabe they say is “oppressing his own people” are a naked trick to trap the gullible into accepting the racist notion that a handful of avaricious whites and those who listen to them qualify for the high ground of moral arbiters. If indeed they are, why was their stridency muted when Africans were being denied their rights by Ian Smith and his cronies? Where is their voice today as the subterfuge of “responsibility to protect” is being used to destabilise nations and introduce banditocracy? Mugabe is voted in because he is giving the grandchildren of today’s African something tangible to inherit on their own soil, a feat that no other approach can accomplish. For this, thinking Africans are willing to endure the wrath and ridicule of outsiders, whose argument of expertise on Zimbabwe is based on the qualification that for years they were the resident, colonial thief. Of course, Zimbabwe has been hurt by the induced economic distortions visited on her by an angry west, which revels in the irony of misleading the gullible, wherever they may reside to believe that Mugabe the Liberator caused them!
The clarity and lucidity of your comment, Patrick, shows that you clearly have a brain. Unfortunately is also shows that that brain has been thoroughly WASHED.
i have been following you wonkie but this time, your tendency of generalising issues seem to have defeated your reasoning.
The pain of being called a kaffir, being paid less than a white college for the same job but with better qualifications, the pain of seeing the same white persons fighting in the same corner with opposition is sufficient for many Zimbabweans who experienced the brutality of the whites to vote Mugabe over and over. the economy is not a big story in Zimbabwe. After all the majority of Zimbabweans had nothing in the white ruled Rhodesia. the Zimbabweans of the 70s who suffered at the hands of the whites are still around and will never entertain anything that has a resemblance of white comeback. Today Zimbabweans have dignity, yes in poverty but then remember an economy can always be fixed at sometime. It is those who lost who are feeling the pitch. Most of us we started with nothing and now we have something probably small by world standards but it is something. In white Rhodesia as an African owning a house was a pipe dream but now some Zimbabweans own mansions. the slow ones will catch up. That is why people vote Robert. What is age?
Patrick Chinyamukundungwemukundungweatrickhinya you must be smoking something very different it is not the same thing that Chepha, Lulu, or Tony are puffing. It also seems to have given you the ability to use words of more than 3 syllables. However none of that alters the fact that Mugabe is a murderous thug who has and is ruining his country it also proves the point which I made in an earlier comment that there was a report circulating on the internet about the abundant ignorance of black Africans’
And now a word from our sponsor …..
“Once more, my loyal subjects, I thank you all for your support in this latest free and democratic election. You have proved with your valour in stuffing ballot boxes and your bravery in getting so many of our fallen comrades on the voters’ roll, and your indefatigability in getting bodies to represent those fallen comrades at the trenches of the voting stations that there is only ONE Zimbabwean who commands respect. I, your führer, will lead you through another five years in which it will be the duty of every loyal follower to increase my retirement package and DOOM that UPSTART Tsvangirai to eternal misery in the footnotes of our great nations history!
“Now can someone, please, get Obama or Cameron to send us some wheat so that we can make some of that other kind of bread?!?!!!!!!”
C. It never rains but pours.Go on Wonkie!I like your space.I wish you’d open a T.V channel/show and this should be listed on the free channels for Philibao and Wiztech viewers.
I wish you good luck in your future endeavours.
Why oh why, Sorry make that whyohwhy, to keep polysyllabic Patrick Chinyamukundungwemukundungweatrickhinya happy. Anyway is Mugabe any worse than other world leaders. Would any body want Cameron with his sanctimonious whining and his destruction of the UK economy. Or would you like the US warmonger Obama bin Laden, we already have JZ who doesn’t know what he is talking about. We must stop all this criticizing (note the z) or we could and up with Hollande.
“I believe Zimbabwe deserves better, Zimbabweans have suffered enough” – so said Joyce Banda, president of Malawi, just yesterday. She’s RIGHT !!!
Zimbabwe DOES deserve better! Zimbabweans HAVE suffered enough! And the sooner Mugabe releases his stranglehold on the country the sooner Zimbabweans’ suffering will end and the sooner Zimbabwe will get the better deal it deserves.
What makes her pronouncement so strange is the fact that she and our very own showerhead joined in “electing” the senile despot as the next Chairperson of SADC, to succeed Joyce Banda, and to have the next regional summit in Zimbabwe.
God – help Zimbabwe – let the old fool die before the (SADC) year is out on Southern Africa’s future.
Now is not the time to end sanctions on Robert Gabriel Mugabe – perhaps the sanctions should be increased – but you may NOT quote me as suggesting that sanctions “with extreme prejudice” should be added – but that idea certainly does have its attractions!
There is nothing anyone can do about the old fool and his gerrymandering of elections, destruction of the economy and impoverishment of the people.
All that said, Zimbabwe is a lovely country with lower crime than Azania, lower property prices, nice climate ( hot but dry in summer ). And if you are white you don’t get harassed, so what are we doing here, lets buy spread in Zim and emigrate.