HomeOld_PostsRural vote carries the day

Rural vote carries the day

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By Catherine Murombedzi

FIRST let me salute Zimbabweans for holding a peaceful election on July 30 2018.
My layman analysis shows that the urban electorate forgot that this is a one-man-one-vote, not an examination in class.
Whether one is educated or not, one is entitled to a vote.
A lawyer, a small artisanal miner (mukorokoza), a fisherman, a youth in the city or the rural setting, each has a vote worth the same.
With the opposition having spent time on highway technology campaigns, the ruling Party was with the people, meeting, talking and listening to the people.
When the opposition was celebrating victory by looking at the number of nods they got on facebook, twitter, WhatsApp groups and in partisan newspapers, the revolutionary party was listening to the people.
Right now the urbanites are in shock, denial and are singing: “We have been robbed.”
The urbanites are abusing the rural voters who went out in their numbers and affirmed the need to have the new dispensation working for them.
They are calling the rural voters ‘uneducated and not worth the plebiscite’.
The rural voters have a different view to life. It does not mean they are ignorant.
Urban supremacist ideology is a form of discrimination.
Rural people are self-sustaining.
They eat what they grow.
They subsidise the urban food bill, whether you agree or not.
They make use of the rains.
They do not sit all day on the rock, paruware taking ‘bronco’.
They are hardworking by nature.
One cannot sell the rural voters a dummy because they know their worth.
The rural voter is capable of understanding the socio-economic dynamics.
They too have relatives in urban areas.
With some of the relatives and children spreading the change message, they have not helped them in anyway.
They have children in the cities too and need not be seen as uninformed.
They understand well who cares for their needs. With some children not having visited their parents in years, the rural citizens have soldiered on.
The new dispensation has given them a new lease of life.
With inputs not given on party lines, the agricultural inputs have seen the rural populace managing when the rains fall.
The rural farmers who come to urban markets daily have not been absent in the goings on in the country in general.
Therefore do not disrespect your fellow citizens just because they do not agree with you.
They are entitled to their views and choices as much as you are entitled to yours.
My advise to the opposition is: ‘Listen to the voice of reason, all citizens are equal’.
For the next five years, its back to hard work, back to the future, back to rebuilding Zimbabwe.
Back to reality. The bullet train has derailed in your dreams.
There is always a next time.
The opposition needs to view women as equal citizens.
MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa promised to give President Emmerson Mnangagwa his sister if he won the 2018 elections. I am not even asking him to, for this smacks of belittling women, of objectifying women.
If he does not respect his sibling, how can he respect a stranger.
The alliance was not prepared for the harmonised polls as shown by their leader’s arrogance.
He made campaign rallies a stage to spew general lies, making them comedy shows.
He made fiction reality as his promises were regurgitated by fans as a possible reality.
Anyone not agreeing with him was seen as an enemy of discarding poverty.
The alliance made up of obscure parties was a final nail in the coffin.
Mainstream media in support of the alliance celebrated the stillbirth, arguing only an alliance would dislodge the ruling Party. Chamisa did not go back to the people to explain the need for an alliance.
He imposed the alliance on the MDC-T.
The supporters were not in tandem with that.
They refused to have bridesmaids at their own wedding, with them relegated to guests. At the end of the day, no seat was brought in by the alliance partners.
As stated, the alliance roped in desperate movers ready to get a roadshow started.
Tendai Biti did not disappoint in that aspect.
Winding back to 2005, Biti leaves the MDC-T after failing to agree on fielding candidates in the senatorial frame.
Fast-forward, having been relegated to the periphery, he joins Chamisa in the grand coalition.
The MDC Alliance, an electoral bloc formed between seven political parties in Zimbabwe on August 6 2017, is made up of most of the member-parties and splinters from the original MDC of 1999.
The brainchild of Chamisa becomes a reality and is seen as the pillar to dislodge the ruling Party.
On another twist of the many turns, Chamisa replaces Morgan Richard Tsvangirai who died on February 14 2018 after a long fight against colon cancer.
May his soul rest in peace!
The event screened on global platforms has Professor Welshman Ncube’s MDC formation, Tendai Biti’s People’s Democratic Party, Agrippa Mutambara (Zimbabwe People First), Jacob Ngarivhume (Transform Zimbabwe) and three other little known entities.
With the marriage made in dreams now a reality, Chamisa does not take stock of informing the real voters.
At a time the party was making inroads into the semi-rural population, it was shrinking its urban vote by the confusion.
It gained the Diaspora voice, which however, never turned out to register and vote. It even had the exciting voice of all-time music great in self-exile, Thomas ‘Mukanya’ Mapfumo.
He was around during registration period and no journalist asked if he had registered to vote in the July 30 harmonised polls.
Rather, they were excited and frothing on the mouths when Mukanya said: “Our roads are mihomba yembambaira.”
That is now being addressed by the new dispensation.
Mukanya never bothered to register, but flew back after putting moolah in his pocket.
Zimbabweans, wake up, smell the coffee!
Your needs can only be addressed by you.
MDC Alliance, its time to shake off the shock and denial.
You must understand what an election entails.
You need to embrace acceptance and move on.
There is another election in five years’ time and it’s time you worked on your to-do corrections list.
Biti refuses to accept reality saying; ‘We filled stadiums, ED does not speak good English and does not appeal to women’.
You are right, but elections are not won on that basis sir!
Polls are won in the booth.

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