SPEAKER 1 0:00:10 Comrade Takuzo, welcome to Zim Left Radio. Thank you for having me, it’s a pleasure.

SPEAKER 2 0:00:18 It’s been a long time, comrade Larry. How would you prefer me to address you? Larry Takuzo, you know we never talk about this actually. I just want to use these things interchangeably.

SPEAKER 1 0:00:29 I think interchangeably is perfectly fine.

SPEAKER 2 0:00:32 Ah, thanks a lot. And I know you do a lot of work in the social media space. You’re also a lawyer and I’ve just introduced you as lawyer. So I don’t know also how do you prefer me to refer you to, do I call you a lawyer or what’s your preference?

SPEAKER 1 0:00:50 I think it’s quite wise for people to address me first as a writer before everything else. Yeah, because every other thing that I do is premised on that reality that I want to write something and spread it to the world.

SPEAKER 2 0:01:10 Okay, thanks for clarifying comrade. And one other thing I wanted to say is that I think you’re one of the smartest young people I’ve ever met and I think I really find your work inspiring and interesting. So it’s such a pleasure having to talk with you today.

SPEAKER 1 0:01:27 Indeed, same ways. Okay, so tell me how is Arare?

SPEAKER 2 0:01:32 How are things going on in Arare? You’ve become my go-to source when I want to know about the situation back home. How is Arare?

SPEAKER 1 0:01:40 Well, Arare is currently a tough environment. People are dejected. No one is happy about the prevailing status quo. And there’s just a tense atmosphere around. In all aspects of life, everything is just difficult, especially for the common man, for the common woman, for the ordinary person on the street who really feel robbed yet again, even though people expressed some little doses of hope. Some little doses of hope, but at the back of their minds knew that, well, nothing is really going to significantly change. It’s just a repeat of what we have been going through all these years. So yeah, that’s how I can describe it. It has increasingly become a dog-eat-dog environment.

SPEAKER 2 0:02:43 Okay, so when you say feeling robbed, are you talking about the most recent presidential or harmonized elections?

SPEAKER 1 0:02:50 Very much so. Okay.

SPEAKER 2 0:02:52 All right. I mean, we will talk about those recent harmonized elections in a bit. Maybe before we do that, actually, I wanted us to start by talking about elections in general. So today I was reading a very interesting article that came out in Compact magazine by this guy called Toby. He’s written with another guy called Thomas Fonsi. And I mean, Toby was just painting a picture of the situation that happened in Africa after independence 60 years ago, when we were told and promised that electoral democracy is going to bring us development. You see, in Zimbabwe, when people were fighting or just after independence, we were told we will get one man, one vote. You see, we were fighting for the right to vote. And even in circles that I engage with people that I consider to be maybe socialist or Marxist, they still tell us today that we fought for one man, one vote. And it was sort of an aspiration that the person who was living in Rhodesia would have aspired to get the opportunity to vote. I just find it a very low bar, to be honest. So I thought I would come to you to tell us a little bit about this. Come to you to tell us a little bit about this thing called elections. What must be our attitude towards elections? If elections helped us firstly in Africa in general, and more specifically in Zimbabwe.

SPEAKER 1 0:04:21 Well, first and foremost, elections are more a reflection of the system that they call democracy in the global north that was exported to all parts of the world via imperialism and colonial conquests. And the premise of elections is purportedly a representative democracy. That is, people get to elect a leader of their choice who will stand for their issues on a higher level of power and higher hierarchy. But intrinsically linked to the concept of elections is the notion of individual liberties or individual freedoms as espoused through the liberal concepts of the Renaissance going into the French Revolution and other capitalist developments that followed later on. And for us in Africa, we had our own forms of democracy. We had our own forms of airing each other’s pressing needs in society. And we all know that the primary purpose of colonialism was to destroy all African modes of politics, governance, social systems, and replace them with European ones on the basis that as Africans we were regressive, we were backward, we were barbaric, and we were not people to them. So they gave us this concept called elections, and then they said, and this is your path to success, this is your path to development. But we can even see the contradictions therein in that if we take, for example, during the colonial era, Rhodesians set standards, set discriminatory standards or criteria for one to vote. So for black people, they said you had to be educated, you needed to own some property, and so forth and so forth. But for us Africans, and I think that’s where stuff gets mixed up, for us Africans, it wasn’t necessarily about getting the one man, one vote. For us Africans, the reason we fought against that oppressive system was to was to get land, was to feel sovereign in our own country. And because the nationalists or the people who advanced the black nationalist cause at the time, most of them came from the black middle class, and they had, they were blinded by their own interests, and then they started to push the narrative of one man, one vote, thus, you know, obscuring the real intentions or purposes of elections. So as it stands now, elections have become this futile process, which we really never questioned at the time that we got independence to say, is this the best form of choosing leaders? Is this the best way to govern ourselves? Are we simply doing it because we have been told that this is what needs to be done in order to run a nation from days of colonialism into the post-colonial era? So what we have failed to do is to critique elections, to say, because currently elections reflect a power structure or a leadership structure where they think that the people in the higher age levels of power think that it is wise to solve problems they perceive are part of the lives of those, you know, of the lower classes. So it’s a top-down approach instead of it being a bottom-up. So perhaps if elections reflected a bottom-up form of participatory organic democracy, then they would make sense. But as it stands, they do not make sense because elections are merely an avenue for liberal bourgeois democracy or parliamentary democracy to prevail for certain class interests, for certain people who think that they have the prerogative to, you know, dictate the solutions without actually hearing what the problems are, what the real, real, real solutions needed are. So for me, basically elections are a facade.

SPEAKER 2 0:09:40 Yeah, thanks so much. And as you were speaking, I couldn’t help but think about Plato’s Republic. I’m not sure if you’ve read it. And I think, you know, if you reflect on what Plato was saying in the Republic, you know, Socrates, the conversations, I mean, they never believed, you see, the idea of democracy comes from ancient Greek anyway. It was never their belief that there was supposed to be a special, you know, body or special class of people who would sort of be the ones to rule everyone else. And so I think that’s what we are now reproducing today, as you rightly say, you know, even if we look at Zimbabwe and say, look at Zannou Piaf and look at Triple C, they don’t think that you and I as ordinary men or shop floor workers, we must say something. No, they are the elites like Chamitha and all these other, you know, the ministers, they supposed to make decisions for us. They never believe or have ever believed that some of us can actually be able to influence their decisions, which makes elections really a joke. And I think I remember the other day saying, I think in some of the forums that we participate together in these groups, saying that, you know, one of the things that, for example, the opposition aspires for, they say, oh, let’s say free and fair elections like the ones that you get in developed countries. But if you look at the most developed countries in the global north, for example, the United States, you can barely call that system a democratic system when you have like two sides of the same coin, the Democrats and the Republicans, you know, they are sort of controlled by the same interests. And just how we aspire to reproduce such a system is perhaps, you know, unconscionable in my view. And you are right that, yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER 1 0:11:25 I think it’s actually farcical, you know, for us to believe that mimicking Western democracy means that we have true democracy in Africa, because, for instance, you mentioned the example of the United States.

SPEAKER 1 0:11:45 There’s that thing that they call lobbying in courts where billionaires fund the elections, billionaires sponsor the political parties, which you said are the same two sides of the same coin. And if you ask a person, do you think that these political parties, whether it’s the Republicans, whether it’s the Democrats, do you think that they will really represent the interests of the masses when they are bankrolled by billionaires?

SPEAKER 2 0:12:21 And I think in Africa it’s the same thing.

SPEAKER 1 0:12:23 Our parties are now representing the interests of those who sponsor them, of those who fund them, and to quote that, democracy is just off the mark.

SPEAKER 2 0:12:34 Yeah. Now, there’s one thing that I’ve noticed, Conrad Larry. So if you look at, say, Western Africa, right, there’s a tendency that, well, maybe I don’t want to generalize it, but they don’t tend to complain too much about free and fair elections. Like Francophone Africa, in those areas, people tend to just, you know, military coups. And yet, if you look at a place like Southern Africa, Zambia, for example, there was a heavily contested election. Why do you think we have these regional variations where in some places, we are the class struggle is over elections, and in other places, people are just saying military coup, remove the government and put another one. You know, you don’t even need to contest the authenticity or the freeness of the elections. You just simply say, we are nullifying the whole process if it’s a military takeoff of government. Why do you think we have these regional variations where in Southern Africa, we tend to sort of venerate elections, whereas in other countries, or at least in other regions of Africa, they don’t look at elections in the same way? Why do you think there are such regional variations?

SPEAKER 1 0:13:40 Yeah, of late, we have seen that the trend towards complaining about elections has also become quite prevalent in West Africa. For instance, in the Nigerian elections, the opposition, one actually, they filed a petition challenging Tinubo’s presidency and saying that the election was rigged. And just recently in Gabon, the first point was to complain about elections. And then the coup happened. So I think it now seems as if coups in West Africa are the norm. But this has a historical outlook to it because most of the West African nations were the first to get liberated from European colonial rule in Africa. And for us, Southern Africa, it came late. And immediately after with most West African nations had obtained independence from colonial rule, the trend of coups immediately took over. And this was in the context of the Cold War, where it was essentially a battle of ideologies, fierce as it was, and very, very, very much acrimonious. And the first instance is Ghana, where you have Kwame Nkrumah deposed through a coup. A CIA-sponsored coup. And then the trend took root in Africa, in West Africa, that is. So West Africa is more predisposed towards taking such a political action more than regions like Southern Africa. Because for us, if you look, Angola, Mozambique, 1975, Zimbabwe 80, South Africa 94, and the rest.

SPEAKER 1 0:16:01 So for us here in Africa, we got independence at a time when Western liberal democracy had just triumphed over Soviet communism or whatever version of communism or socialism that was. So we immediately bought into this idea that was prevailing at the time that democracy is the right way to do things. That is to say, democracy in the language of the West. And Zambia was trying to be exemplary in that case. But we all know that it was democracy attached with IMF in the world being structural conditions, which is the same situation everywhere in West Africa. But because West Africa had been exposed to coups much earlier, and it’s a raid that was so prevalent more than other areas in Africa. That is why it seems as if they are susceptible to coups like that.

SPEAKER 2 0:17:11 Okay. Well, anyway, moving on a little bit. So, yeah, I want to understand from you, you know, you said first of all, you want people to think of you as a writer before thinking of you as a lawyer. But we cannot escape the fact that you are trained as a lawyer, right? And I think lawyers tend to be more liberal. And interestingly, I think I have seen you musings on Twitter, and you tend to be very critical of the legal profession. And I think the other time you actually be mourning the fact that our politics has been dominated by people who studied law. Tell us a little bit more about why you found why you are critical of your profession in that way. What have you found? What do you think is the weakness? Because, of course, you are right. Look at one of our premier or early political figures in Zimbabwe. He was a lawyer. Robert Mugabe, I think he studied law. You can name, I think, Emasum Nangagwa, Comrade Nangagwa, President Emasum Nangagwa is a lawyer as well. Chamisa is a lawyer. There’s an interesting trend there. So I think I want you to kind of delve into that and teach us why you think the legal profession gives us this type of leaders.

SPEAKER 1 0:18:27 Okay. I think this discourse, we may have to take it back to the, I don’t know if it is basic to some people, but at least to us it is basic to these concepts of the base and superstructure. So we know that at the base, that’s where you have, you know, the modes of production, the means of production, and then in the superstructure, we now have the social relations, the laws, the cultures, the beliefs and everything else legitimizing the base. We find law in the superstructure, a concept that was further expanded by Antonio Gramsci through hegemony. For me, I see law as the primary means of establishing a state or a polity. And I usually tell people that law is politics and politics is law, you know. So by being taught law, you are being taught how to, it’s either you are taught how to sanitize the system or how to go against it. And given our historical background here in Africa of colonialism, French colonialism, British colonialism, the rules, the laws, the regulations governing us are dominantly informed by European ideals, by European values, European laws. So this is what we are taught in university. We are taught European laws. We are taught how the European functions or how the European thinks. And by that, we definitely mean capitalism or if we are to go with the contemporary language, the neoliberal agenda. So for me, law reflects those things. If you take, for instance, there is a course called jurisprudence where we have to study legal philosophies or legal reasonings behind the whole thing. And in my experience, we were taught Western thinkers of law. We were taught the likes of Jeremy Bentham, the likes of Austin and all the philosophies of law. And when it came, when time came, say to explain maybe a critical race theory and its relation to law or feminism and its relation to law or Marxism and its relation to law, these were merely treated as footnotes. We were not really taught how did the Soviets approach their thinking towards law as compared to Western capitalism and to draw positives and negatives. We were never taught that. So the system teaches lawyers to work for it. And it’s quite difficult to encounter radical lawyers. Most of them are just along that liberal path where they may seem to embody progressive language because we have the constitution, we talk about the Bill of Rights, we talk about the right to freedom, the right to free expression, etc, etc. But in that same constitution, you have the right to private property. And we were never taught that in law school. So law schools don’t exist to enable students to critically question the status quo. Why do we have the law of contracts? Why do we have company law? Why do we have insurance law? Why do we have this and this and this and this? Even if one takes, for instance, the issue of succession, to say succession was basically means of entrenching private property for the colonial elites, to say, no, my private property passes through this and this and this, so it is done through a real ETC. We were never taught the reasons underlying the laws we have. So this is what makes lawyers think that they are capable, yet they aren’t because they don’t question things. Yeah, I think that’s the fundamental flow with law that we have currently, which makes lawyers extremely bad politicians.

SPEAKER 2 0:23:46 Wow. In other words, you’re arguing that law doesn’t teach you to think. And that’s very interesting because I am also a qualified chartered accountant, and I don’t think that studying to become a chartered accountant equips you with any thinking skills. You’re just taught to just get this information and you don’t even question the basis of everything, as you said. It’s almost like you’re taught this is how it works. You are never even supposed to question the basis of it. Like, as you said, what is the basis of inheritance? As inheritance, for example, why should your wealth pass to your children? You’re not supposed to question that, but you’re supposed to know the ins and outs of how do you deal with inheritance, etc. Do you think this is one of the reasons why we are in this merry-go-round of elections each and every five years where we don’t seem to get anywhere? Because now my analysis, as I was thinking about this conversation, preparing for our conversation, is that since 2000, we’ve had a situation where 2000 elections contested, 2005 election contested. And it’s been the same story over and over again, like a five-yearly cycle where we know that before the elections, the opposition will come and say, there’s so much hope, God is in it, and whatever slogans that they might want to devise, we are winning, everyone is with us. They even said, you can’t argue with something whose time has come, etc., etc. And then we go to the elections. Soon after the elections, well, they say they are not free and fair. A few days later, members of the opposition will be seen dancing in parliament, wearing suits and reciting the oath of office.

SPEAKER 1 0:25:33 And you think, gosh, what’s going on here?

SPEAKER 2 0:25:36 Are we going somewhere? I mean, this election was particularly disgusting because I think on this occasion, I didn’t try to fool myself and start to have some hope to think that look, people see it any chance at all. I knew that they were telling us about all this, the hope that they will get all these millions of votes. I knew that this was not genuine and that I think on this occasion, I don’t even think Zahnab here even rigged the election. You know, I don’t generally, you know, maybe I don’t know what the feeling is on the streets, but it was almost obvious that they were not going to win this election. Yet they promised people that they were going to win elections. I mean, so many WhatsApp groups here, some in the diaspora and people were like, oh, we are hopeful after the election, we are going to go back home and etc., etc. And yet I didn’t see the basis of that hope. It remains to me that we seem to be stuck in, you know, to be stuck in a like a deer in the headlights, right? We can’t best out of this mode. And even some of the socialist groups that I’m in, you can hear them complaining about elections as well. And you think, gosh, so where is the change going to come from? So I’m just wondering, is this because of, you know, the way that we’ve been taught our educational background, which sort of limits our imagination? What do you think? Precisely so.

SPEAKER 1 0:26:58 Everything goes back to the education system. What is it designed for? What purpose must it achieve? What effects must it have on the masses? And from colonial times, and the education system that was there was a system designed to ensure that the African was completely alienated from their being, from identity, you know, from their sense of community. And at independence, post-independence, the education system hasn’t really been changed to reflect, you know, the views, the ways that Africans see the world through. And this becomes intense, or this becomes so serious at Teshad level, because we expect in education system that must, you know, equip us with critical skills to develop our own solutions, you know, critical thinking capabilities. But this has not been the case, you know, from primary, secondary, Teshad, depending on what level of education one has achieved. And this has had a serious impact on our level of thinking as a nation, on our collective national consciousness, because the education system that we have is one that teaches us individualism, is one that teaches us liberalism, is one that says we do not have to complain when trade unions are being hounded, you know, by the regime. It’s one that teaches us that we don’t have to question whether religious fundamentalism is the right way to do politics or not. You know, it does not teach us that the inequalities that are so rampant in society today are a result of colonialism and the corruption of our ruling class. You know, these are the things that the education system doesn’t touch on. It doesn’t even address our history. Most Africans don’t genuinely believe that they have it in themselves to change their conditions.

SPEAKER 1 0:29:34 So we are still stuck in the colonial thinking that we cannot do without external powers, whether they, in the present context, whether they are from the north or from the east, every deal must have a UK investor, every deal must have a Chinese investor, and we are not learning to do things for ourselves, which is why with every election, the opposition says it’s chance, it’s slogans, and yet it’s the same result of contested elections. And the people that they go to complain to that the election has been rigged or the election is not legitimate are Western powers. Why do they rush to open powers? Why are they so desperate for the validation of Western powers? And the same is, we’ve even seen the same with the ruling partisan PFP. They have also been courting Western powers under the guise of re-engagement or de-engagement in a business-friendly environment. But these are values that do not suddenly appear. You know, they are deeply entrenched in our thinking, in our collective psyche. We believe that everything must have a Western power, everything must have a foreigner for it to be deemed legitimate or worthwhile. Yet we Africans have it in ourselves. Only if we manage to study completely our history, without even romanticizing the history of pre-colonial Africa, but to truly appreciate it for what it was, its negatives and positives, I generally think we would be able to develop the critical consciousness to say, do elections work?

SPEAKER 1 0:31:31 Why are we doing elections because so and so says do elections? Are elections the only way to choose leadership? We would be in a position to ask those questions, but currently as it stands, especially now with the rise of dominance of social media, there’s nothing progressive to talk about. There’s nothing inspiring to say let’s collectively work together in order to create a better today and tomorrow for the country. So yeah, it will always be the same result, the same five-year cycle if we do not change our way of thinking. Because as you say, that maybe Zhanopiev actually didn’t even tinker with the numbers because what they are dealing with is a foregone conclusion already. So I think we really need to start looking deep into ourselves and say, are we simply doing something because someone says this is how to do it? Or maybe we now have to look for alternative ways to do it because genuinely and frankly it’s just disappointing that we do elections every five years and nothing changes.

SPEAKER 2 0:32:53 Yeah, and I think the last point and discussion point I want us to consider on education and elections is the role of private schools. And I can’t avoid this topic because now we have Fazay Mairi in parliament, a staunch advocate of private education, someone who condescendingly passed some comments about people who went to mission schools, etc. And I couldn’t help, I think at the time when she said it, but think about the class dimensions of her politics and where do private schools fit in? I think a lot of Fazay Mairi, I think they believe themselves as a superior class of people who go to private schools and can master the art of public speaking and using foreign accents. How are such people in our society contributing towards some of the challenges that we are facing?

SPEAKER 1 0:33:52 Well, people like Fazay Mairi, they have their certain class interests because they believe that they have got the refinement, that cultural moral refinement to be able to dictate the way of living towards others. And this is as colonial as it gets because private schools are colonial. And since 1980, we have failed to decolonize private schools. I think if we had managed to decolonize private schools so that their better amenities could be for the collective benefit of everyone, we would be somewhere. But then the black bourgeoisie and upper middle classes, they were never about the struggle to begin with. They simply wanted to occupy the position that the white men occupied. They envied the material world in luxurious lifestyles of the colonizers. And when the time for them to get into those positions came, they completely forgot about all the ideals of the liberation struggle that they had stood for, only conveniently returning to such ideals in order to entrench their newfound upper class positions. So in this forward, we now have people like Fazay Mairi. And it is quite disheartening to reach this sobering realization that people like her are truly never going to represent the interests of the masses. And it goes back again to that issue of lawyers or what I would call lawyer’s peak. Lawyer’s peak sounds progressive and change inspiring at the superficial level. But when you dig deeper, you realize that it’s all about self-serving interests. It’s all about elitism. It’s all about them maintaining their social status and position in society. And also, it’s disconcerting that the condescending views that people educated in private schools have towards the rest of the nation. It’s something that’s disturbing because the nation must move as one. But when another group of people thinks that they are superior over other groups of people because of superficial metrics like accents or matters of individual style, it becomes pointless because what we want are politicians of substance. What we want are politicians standing for emancipatory ideals for an egalitarian society. But this is why even when you look at governance, it’s local authorities.

SPEAKER 2 0:37:19 Say Harare City Council, for instance.

SPEAKER 1 0:37:21 A person is elected mayor, but they stood as a councilor in their mountain, in their highlands ward. And when they get into council, they have this elitist perspective to say, OK, ban all combis without actually offering any other alternative solution for the simple reason that neoliberalism says combis are bad, cities must be clean, etc. So, yeah, private school educated people really need a serious questioning from all of us to say what substance are you offering us other than just offering rhetorics of democracy and progress. Yeah, you know, it’s ridiculous. I think the other day I saw on Twitter someone was comparing how Fazaimayere speaks and how Tafaz Gomuwadi of Zanpif speaks and say, oh, Tafaz Gomuwadi has got a rural kind of background or something like that, which I find ridiculous because this is not a metric of judging whether someone is going to, you know, to help people or the majority. Anyway, moving on, let’s talk about the most recent harmonized elections in Zimbabwe. What was the painted picture for us? The pre-election vibe. And, you know, how did you find it? I found it pretty much, you know, first of all, it seemed as though there was not much excitement. In fact, until two days before the election, I wasn’t actually following it because I think I didn’t find it interesting. How did you find it? You were on the ground. Did you find people enthusiastic about it? Were people very hopeful? Your friends, you know, your age mates. How did they think? Did they vote? Did they think that they wanted to vote and do they think that they could change the situation by going to vote?

SPEAKER 1 0:39:19 OK, well, I’ll start with my personal perspective towards the election in the sense that when we actually got into the new year, into 2023, it didn’t seem real to me that this is election year, you know, that we are actually having an election as a country. We only started to realize that, oh, it’s election season in August, July, August. That’s when we realized it’s election season. But for some people, they really had this genuine thinking that they could, you know, change things through their votes. And I think it’s a reality that I think it’s a point that if there was enough voter education and if there was enough critical consciousness, as you previously said, maybe our votes would count for something. But for judging from the perspective of the rest of my other peers, the education that the election to them was a foregone conclusion. They knew that the ruling party would retain another electoral victory. They knew that the opposition would go on to complain and it would be, you know, rings and repeats.

SPEAKER 1 0:40:54 So there wasn’t really much excitement that the election would change the fortunes of Zimbabwe. But at the last minute, you know, it seemed as if we could actually do something through our votes.

SPEAKER 1 0:41:13 And especially for the urbanites, that feeling turned into reality when ballot material was delayed. You know, and then that’s when the that phenomenon has two aspects. For some, they reached this conclusion that our votes matter and that this is why the ruling party is doing this. And for others, they were like, oh, here we go again. Why should I vote? It’s still the same tactics that they have used before. And this time they’ve been so brazen about it. For some, it was like a crude joke, like a cruel joke to say how can you delay ballot material?

SPEAKER 1 0:42:05 And it truly discouraged many. But at the same time, it emboldened many. Post election, people knew that, well, CCC is back. It is song and they are dancing to it, actually. We saw that they wanted to pressure SADC, you know, into taking their side as well as complaining to Western powers. So I think this time around, especially if we compare to 2018, the mood was low. People were more concerned about I need to do what matters for my individual sustenance for the sustenance of my family. Unlike in 2018, 2018, Chamesa seemed to have a chance, really. But this time around, the same around, it was just, it was quite gloomy. There was no iota of confidence or inspiration that things would change through elections.

SPEAKER 2 0:43:20 Yeah, which is very concerning. And so, I don’t know, tell me about the politics of ZANU-PF currently. How are they managing to keep everything together? And where does the CCC come in? Is our society now stuck? Because it would appear to me that most people are not happy with this thing. But as I said to you earlier on, I don’t think that ZANU-PF needed to rig the election on this occasion. Because it is lost on some people that ZANU-PF does not only rule with autocratic and heavy handed measures. No, no government can do that. They also have really certain benefits that come out from the system that they are building from the system that they are presiding over. I think during the time that I was doing fieldwork, many people are benefiting from the system. A very significant number of people are benefiting from the system through either contracts, supplying things, etc, etc. You know, all the things that come along with state power. And the fact that the majority of our people are actually not gainfully employed. So whilst our population is highly urbanized, living in the urban areas, but they are not gainfully employed, just selling haircuts and juice cuts. So that is for the most part, the class consciousness of whatever working class or presentry that we have is at rock bottom. You know, I actually find it extremely amazing that we have people like you who are able to understand the class dimensions of this problem that we face. So tell me about the politics of ZANU-PF. How do you see it? How are they managing to keep everything together? And where does the opposition come in?

SPEAKER 1 0:45:06 Well, ZANU-PF this time around, they have tried to use both subtle means as well as direct means to retain their power. But the first point to look at is that ZANU-PF will always rely on the rural vote, which we all know that the opposition doesn’t have. This time around, they really, really struggled to penetrate in the rural areas. We saw the formation of the shadowy group called for air associates in Zimbabwe or FAS, which is reportedly sponsored by the intelligence in the country. So FAS has been using, you know, intimidation tactics, used intimidation tactics pre-election season to ensure that people voted for ZANU-PF and for Emerson and Nangagua. And on election day, we saw them setting up what they called exit poll surveys at polling stations, which was in violation of the electoral law. So we saw ZANU-PF aligning with musicians. No, we had notable musicians, especially among the youthful demographic who were constantly present. If ZANU-PF allies were pictured together eating with ZANU-PF politicians and we saw them on their social medias, expressly voicing their support for ZANU-PF. And it is within their rights to do that. But these are the tactics that ZANU-PF used to try to sway the vote in its favor. And then post-election, we have seen ZANU-PF becoming more brutish. We first saw that through the appointment of Premier Tunkwananzi as the spokesperson of CCC and how they manhandled him. When he was speaking at that press conference, you know, we had plainclothes, you know, state security agents coming to disrupt that press conference and actually forcing him into self-exile. And we have seen now the harassment and arrests aimed at opposition leaders. We saw Sanindeo MP Maureen Kadimaunga arrested, Kostalos Kifsiziba arrested, the JPG mayor of Harare arrested. And I think in post-election, you know, the president seems to be more jittery and he has become more open that he is here to retain power by all means necessary or to force Nelson Chamisa and CCC to back down their efforts at courting regional support or international support, something like that. So this is how ZANU-PF has been doing it, you know, pre-election, election and post-election. And what the conclusion is that it’s just to the same ZANU-PF, if not worse. Okay.

SPEAKER 2 0:48:50 And the opposition, what has it been doing? I think we need to also look at them because I think what they’ve tried to do, as you said earlier on, they’ve initially they went into this election very poorly prepared. That’s a very, that’s so glaring for everyone to see. I don’t think you need to be sympathetic or critical to some of their tactics, but you could see that there was hardly any preparation that was put into this. Chamisa’s partnership was, see, has no structures. They felt really build some sort of grassroots structures. Now, we see that they, like, Kostalos was kind of, had some trips in America, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, which is a staunchly CIA funded body. This ZANU-PF knows for a fact, because obviously they’ve got a military intelligence, they’ve got an intelligence unit. They know that this is an imperialist funded project. And to be honest, I mean, whilst it’s not something that one needs to celebrate, I think I find the imperialist links of a party like TPC extremely disgusting, because then it’s not taking us anyway. But anyway, what has been their politics? Tell us about their pre-election politics, then going into the elections and after the elections.

SPEAKER 1 0:50:10 The Citizens Coalition for Change has been dismal in their performance, in their preparations, in their stance, in their general outlook, you know. You know, pre-election, we, it seemed as if CCC was not even present, you know, in the election.

SPEAKER 1 0:50:33 It was like they did not exist. They only, they suddenly appeared at the last minute and all along, you know, they did nothing. No grassroots mobilization, no proper structures, everything had to be at the face of Chamesa, recently.

SPEAKER 1 0:50:54 I think last week, Chamesa registered the party logo with the Zimbabwe Intellectual Property Office, saying that no one else is allowed to use that and it bears his face. So everything has been about Chamesa. That’s why, that’s why, you know, they didn’t have structures and it came back to bite them, you know, because we know that, as you said earlier on, that this is essentially two sides of the same coin, you know, only that they are not on friendly terms. Unlike in America, we know that if it is about bombing Iraq, then Iraq has to be bombed, whether it is, you know, Bush or Obama or Trump. So the opposition in Zimbabwe has been, has betrayed itself as not authentic. You know, I think it has really come to the fore that they are in this for themselves. It’s not about the people. They just want to have the power, which is why they criticized the election as not credible. Only later on to attend the swearing-in ceremonies at Parliament and at all local authorities. If the election was not free, then they should not have participated in all those swearing-in ceremonies, but then they did, which means, which really says something about how they approach politics, you know. And as you say, it’s disconcerting that CCC is an imperialist-funded project, and they have shown no willingness to hide that fact, at least, you know, to say maybe they would do it in a more insidious or clever manner, you know. They’ve just, they’ve been like Sano Piaf, only that they are called an opposition party. So this is how the opposition has been approaching the politics in this election season. And post-election, they have shown that they have no other clue or they have no other alternative other than, you know, repeating the same things that they have been doing all along. And also, I find Chamesa’s insistence on Bible verses quite embarrassing, you know.

SPEAKER 2 0:53:33 Yeah, same here.

SPEAKER 1 0:53:34 We expect something concrete. Even the party manifesto was just, it was just shambles. They talked about building a $100 billion economy in less than 10 years, and I don’t know how that is possible, especially in the conditions that we are in to build such a monumental economy. But this is the thing that they believe in, and their manifesto was full of religious undertones and overtones, you know. Everything was about God, everything was about Christian morals, even though not stated explicitly that we are talking about Christian morals, but we know that this is what prevails, this is how they think. So I think it’s, the opposition has failed the people. You know, if they were really genuine, you know, people would be more sympathetic towards them and they would actually join in that struggle. But because the CCC is completely divorced from, you know, what actually concerns the average person, you know, they are on their own and they are in this for themselves.

SPEAKER 2 0:54:55 Yeah, yeah. I couldn’t help but, you know, I think the other day, Chamisa put a verse to say, no, God is in it, etc, etc. And, you know, Jacqueline Sande, you know, I think she was a representative for Saviour Kasukwure. She said people are not looking for deliverance, they are just looking for you to provide them with solutions, you know, so you can’t keep on telling people Bible verses, which I think brings us to the topic of the Kasukwure project. How did you see it fitting into this war puzzle?

SPEAKER 1 0:55:28 The Kasukwure project was as serious as it could get. That’s why they fought to the nail to ensure that he was barred by the courts from contesting. But for me, it was more of a personal vendetta against Emerson Ngagwa. You know, he just wanted to revenge November 2017. But perhaps it would have been interesting to see how that would have played out in terms of dividing the vote, especially in areas where Kasukwure enjoyed popular support from his days as political commissar of Sano Pia, that is to say, in the Mashina land provinces. But then that did not happen. So we cannot really say much about it, except to say that this was just another example of self-serving politics at play. But from what Jacqueline Sande has been saying, you know, of course, they are birds of the same feathers, but part of me thinks that if perhaps maybe we could have people with brains like Sande’s, we know that they are not really radical. But the way that she critiques Channisa is of important note, and we should really analyse it on a deeper level because Kasukwure refused to endorse Channisa, saying that Zimbabweans should vote for any other person who is not ED. So the fact that maybe Kasukwure and his camp don’t have confidence in Channisa should also point us as a collective to start bringing our heads together, you know, and say maybe the way we’ve been doing politics is not it, the way Sano Pia has been doing it is not it, the way CCC has been doing it is not it. Because I think what Sande is trying to tell us here is that workers on PF and CCC are now obsolete in this time for other new ideas to take centre stage in the political ministry.

SPEAKER 2 0:57:46 Yeah, and I think she has made that point very much. She has said, I think she refers to it as the third way. Definitely, I think, I don’t want to say I agree with the politics, but I found a suggestion that both Sano Pia and the mainstream opposition have failed us is at least a very good starting point, you know. She doesn’t spend pages or hours on end talking about what happened in Ward 6 or that a few votes were lost there or no. She’s saying we need to do an overview, a critical look at the system itself and think about whether it can deliver the goods for us. And I think this brings us as we are heading towards the hour mark to the point where I want to hear from you. What’s now for Zimbabwe? Where are the shoots? Do you see any shoots for any developing, you know, or some roots or whatever, some seeds starting to germinate to demonstrate that Zimbabwe is ready for alternative politics? I think we are really, you know, I don’t know. I mean, I was thinking about some of the developments in West Africa and seeing that, you know, other young people are starting to question the system that was, you know, the neo-colonial system. I don’t seem to see it in Zimbabwe, unfortunately. Maybe it’s there happening somewhere. Are you seeing other developments where we can start to think about really mass-based politics, you know, that politicize the majority of our people? You know, we have been stuck in this Messiah mentality where we need just one person, this one person who comes and solves everything for us, that we are no longer involved in participatory politics. I see it here even with the work that I’m doing with care workers. They want you, if you are sort of supposedly a leader, to tell them what to do. They don’t believe that they have agency in this matter. And this is what has happened to most of our people. They think that Mudara Achawuya, this one person who, you know, solve everything for everyone, whereas in participatory politics, it’s got to be involved, most of us, in a participatory manner. And I thought maybe as a parting short, you want to tell us about where you see, how you see the situation developing and whether there are other projects that you want us to point us towards so we can start building something for the future. Because to be honest, I don’t think with these two parties, there’s not much hope that we can expect any change. Indeed.

SPEAKER 1 1:00:13 As it stands, there isn’t much talk about having mass-based politics in the truest sense of that phrase. But people have now seen clearly that CCC and ZANUPF have lost it and have been other small failures, you know, proven historically. And now they have really seen it. But people are still stuck in the capitalist way of thinking, you know, in this individualized way of thinking and living, you know. The prevailing thought is, you know, I just have to do my own hustle and do my life and see where that takes me, you know. And the downside of that is that it still gets us back to this crisis where we expect a Messiah to come suddenly, you know, which is what I think has been the reason also why we always have these five-year future electrocycles. But as it stands now, I think this is now the chance for us, for every progressive mind to engage collectively in critical consciousness-raising. I think this is our first starting point, you know. The next five years should be more of an information warfare because everything is in the mind, you know, everything is on information. That’s why we see that ZANOPIEF, you know, ever since we got independence, have hijacked the liberation struggle narrative, you know, and they have distorted it for their own selfish purposes. But the moment we start to critically question everything using all the means available to us, I think then we may head somewhere where we can start to sense that, you know, we can actually do this.

SPEAKER 1 1:02:39 We have agency in this. We are the masters of our own destiny and that we do not need to rely on the promises of any political party or any person who claims to be MSI and has the solutions to our problems because, you know, ZANOPIEF counselors and MPs have been promising change to Mbare, for instance, but it’s still the same dilapidated conditions, you know. So primarily for us, the young people, I think everything we have at our disposal, you know, that is to say the social medias, the education that we have, the positions we have in society, the jobs we have, I think we now have to use all these avenues, you know, towards engaging with each other and helping each other think towards alternative ways of doing things. And the alternative way of doing things is that we need to live as a community. We need to divide that sense of community back to say the wellness of an individual is dependent on the wellness of the public and the wellness of the public is dependent on the wellness of the individual. For me, this is how we should approach our politics. This is how we should run our city councils. This is how we should formulate laws in parliament. And this is how, you know, the executive, the president should do politics. So what we now have to work towards in line with all this is creating environments for participatory democracy, because this is what has been critically lacking in our political economy, in our social consciousness and in everything we do. We have been so brainwashed by the neoliberal agenda that we seem to have lost control in ourselves when we know that we have the power to change our destiny.

SPEAKER 2 1:04:43 Thank you very much, Comrade Chiwanza. These days, what projects are you working on that you might want to tell our listeners to follow carefully as a last thing?

SPEAKER 1 1:04:58 All right. These days, I’m currently a writer with the Kukurigo Information Services, which means we are doing a lot of news reports. We are leaving North Stone unturned. We are reporting everything. And it doesn’t matter whether you are CCC or ZANU-PF or SAVIRA or whoever. We are reporting everything. And I’m still active on my main news blog, simsphere.co.za.w. And I’ve been recently engaging a lot of other creatives in Zimbabwe, trying to create positive narratives, counter narratives, using our social medias in our groups as peers, etc. This is where we stand at the moment.

SPEAKER 2 1:06:03 Thank you very much, Comrade, and all the best with the excellent work that you’re doing. We look forward to seeing you on the show again.

SPEAKER 1 1:06:10 Indeed.

SPEAKER 2 1:06:11 It’s been a pleasure having you.

SPEAKER 1 1:06:13 Thanks.

SPEAKER 2 1:06:32 Thank you.