Gift-Giving
There he is, kindly Robert Mugabe, glad-handing all his supporters and emptying his pockets of spare cash to elevate the discourse of election-rigging in Zimbabwe. These are not enticements, these are lavish but much-deserved items of the grand old man's appreciation for those who recognize the powerful statement of accomplishment his long reign as president has produced for the country.Interested in land ownership? Here's a spare farm you can have. It was meant for re-distribution anyway, just lying fallow now, kind of slipped through the sieve of "to-dos". Take it and do what you will with it. And just by the way, don't forget to get out there and do your duty by your country - vote! For he whom you know best.
The Times reports, in their usual even-handed and politically discerning manner that a procession of troops and armed vehicles rumbled through Harare, a subtle message given to the populace about who is boss here and who needs to be re-elected by a large majority. Who, after all, is in charge here, and who, after all, has governed so exceedingly well?
A little bit of bias slipped in there, with the description of "About 40 armoured vehicles, including four Israeli-made water cannon, anti-riot trucks and six armoured personnel carriers packed with heavily armed troops", the story went. And one is left to wonder, why identify the provenance of the water cannon? Who produced the anti-riot trucks, the armoured personnel carriers?
Whose agenda is being served in this biased reportage? Dissembling...
Mr. Mugabe is very keen for re-installation; it is his God-given right, the saviour of his starving people. And they simply adore him. Not the ones protesting, carrying signage of their disaffection, penury, starvation, those brave souls, but the others, those in business suits, festooned with gold jewellery, to whom he has gifted hundred of luxury cars at a pre-election rally.
No fewer than 450 cars given to senior and mid-level doctors at government hospitals. The doctors were also given lofty promises of houses. Mr. Mugabe boasted he had used his pocket money to buy 300 flat screen televisions for hospitals. Money he had deftly pocketed, money that should have gone to civic infrastructure, to aid the failed economy.
"If they make a disturbance like in Kenya", Mr. Mugabe warned of his three political adversaries and their followers, "you will see. We are not joking. We warn the MDC, if they want to put a rope around their necks, that is OK." And he's just the one to make certain that those ropes are placed around tender necks good and tight; the better to throttle them by.
The president's former finance minister, Simba Makoni, showed reporters photographs of an empty field in Harare where ground pegs mark plots for future homes. Despite which, on the electoral roll there appear the names of 8,000 people supposedly resident in that undeveloped housing plot, duly registered to vote.
"This is evidence of a deliberate, sophisticated and pre-meditated plan to steal the election from us", said Mr. Makoni fearlessly. Not so, countered Mr. Mugabe, "They want to tell lies, lies." And when foreign press report "negative stories" about the election, Mr. Mugabe tells it like it is: "Government will not take this imperialist propaganda kindly."
This gift-giving champion of Zimbabwe, tells it like it is.
Labels: Political Realities, Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Friday, March 28, 2008
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