Zim's GPA Circus - Is Tsvangirai Losing The Battle?

This sums up the performance of Zimbabwe’s unity government which marked its third anniversary this February 11. The performance of the shaky hybrid administration can best be captured through the analogy of a soccer match.

From the vantage point of the commentary box, one sees that Zanu (PF)’s chief striker President Robert Mugabe has just scored another goal to push the score line to 25-0 against player coach Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and his MDC.

The goals amount to the outstanding issues that are still left to be implemented but favour Mugabe and his party.

The goal has just come after Mugabe recently sold Tsvangirai a dummy and reappointed Police Commissioner General Augustine Chihuri and his other biased service chiefs for another two years.

One can see Tsvangirai throwing his hands in the air in frustration again.

But typical of a rough opponent that he has always been, Mugabe is insisting the goal is genuine.

The goal came just as Mugabe was trotting back into the pitch after he had run to the crowd to celebrate another goal he scored through his refusal to appoint the MDC-T’s treasurer Roy Bennett into the post of Deputy Minister of Agriculture.

Mugabe has

Mapeza’s Curse : Will History Repeat Itself?

Mapeza had been given the chance to guide the Warriors in their last game against the Flames of Malawi after national team coaches Charles Mhlauri and MethembeNdlovu had been sidelined following the Warriors failure to make the continental football rendezvous from a group that also included Morocco.

The group was left to be contested by three teams after Sudan withdrew at the last minute leaving the Atlas Lions of Morocco to take that vital place at the Ghana finals while the Warriors of Zimbabwe fell by the wayside.

But despite the Warriors failure to make the football festival, Mapeza brought back the excitement in Zimbabwean football with his team’s classic display at Babourfields that brought pride in the smile and gusto in the applause.

And suddenly the fans had forgotten that their team was not going to the Nations Cup finals in Ghana and were now talking with deep affection about their new crop of heroes such as Richard Mteki, Kingstone Nkata, and Ovidy Karuru.

Convinced soccer fans from all the four corners of the country started campaigning heavily to have Mapeza the former Warriors captain be appointed the new Zimbabwean coach.

But that was not to be.

Despite bringing

Zanu (PF) Aligned Militants Out To Scuttle Constitutional Making Process

By Gideon Chitanga and Trust Matsilele

Once again the military- security –police complex is interfering with a purely civilian and political process which should be above it. In a democracy the military should account to civilian elected authority without arrogating itself such powers as should be accountably and legitimately enjoyed by the politicians without otherwise subverting the country’s national laws. In the contemporary situation in the country, the military as all other organs of the state is governed by the current constitution as amended to embrace the inclusive government.

By summoning Mangwana and other Zanu (PF) stalwarts leading the Copac process, Chiwenga and other military chefs are undermining a legitimate civil process which is way above their mandate in terms of the constitution, intellect, grasp in terms of their professional orientation and a direct violation and assault on democratic ethos of our country. It is painful that those who should be at the forefront of proudly defending the national interest are now in the habit of subverting it for selfish partisan and personal interest. Zimbabweans should never again allow their wishes to be subverted.

The call by the service chiefs to be briefed by a faction of COPAC is a

Have The GPA Principals Usurped Powers Of Other Constitutional State Institutions?

The word principal in the current Zimbabwean context refers to the three signatories to the country’s 2008 unity agreement, otherwise known as the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

They are President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara.

Lately, is has also been used to refer to Professor Welshman Ncube, who is now leader of the smaller faction of MDC.

Seemingly, the principals' ghost has also haunted the legislature.

In August last year, when the upper house was about to debate amendments to the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa stood up and vetoed further debate on the matter was being negotiated at a political level as part of the GPA.

The local courts have also failed to shrug off the principals’ hegemony.

The High Court in Bulawayo in October last year gave President Mugabe 14 days to call for by-elections in three Matabeleland constituencies that were rendered vacant when the then Mutambara led MDC sacked its sitting legislators.

Strangely, President Mugabe and his fellow principals seemingly reached a gentlemen’s agreement and extended their moratorium on the holding of by elections in vacant seats.

The first COPAC All Stakeholders conference in July

The Weird African Cup Of Nations World

The tournament has a rich history and so too are its funny moments which have lived on with the tournament as it grew.

The most memorable being the events that took centre stage at the 1984 finals in the Ivory Coast.

In the semi final match between the Pharaohs of Egypt and the Super Eagles of Nigeria, spectators were stunned when the Egyptian team went into prayer and the referee joined them as the teams went for the dreaded penalty shootouts.

According to the then London based African Soccer magazine, the Egyptians were on course for victory when they went two up before Nigeria’s captain Stephen Keshi pulled one back. Then with 15 minutes remaining, the Super Eagles equalised through Bala to send the game into the penalty shootouts.

Then something unusual happened.

The Egyptian players rushed to their kit bags and withdrew small copies of their bible, the Holy Koran, and started praying right on the football pitch.

The five Egyptian penalty kickers went through some pages of the Holy Koran and praying. The referee from Gambia, Omar Sey did not know what to do. He was confused.  Being a Muslim himself, he could not interrupt the Egyptians from

Joice Mujuru Gets A Feel Of Her Government's Dysfunctional Delivery System

It knows no colour or political affiliation as Vice President and General Solomon Mujuru’s widow Joice is learning through the ongoing inquest in to the death of her of husband Solomon.

Despite her status as the second most powerful person in the country, politically that is, she had to get court papers outlying the on-going inquest of her husband when she only arrived at court.

For long, ordinary Zimbabweans and Zanu (PF) opponents have been complaining about the police and Attorney General’s (AG) office selective application of the law.

But for such complaints to be made by a person of the calibre of the Vice President of the country, it is quite revealing.

A lawyer representing the Mujuru family, Thakor Keawada told journalists that the Vice President was disadvantaged by the late delivery of court papers.

“At this stage the vice President is at a disadvantage because she did not receive any of her documents etc. As soon as she receives them she had three papers, one was a copy of a subpoena with three names on it, not her name but a letter from police saying will you record a statement from the Vice President and somebody had drafted

Torrid Time For Zim Deportees In SA

“We feel like animals. They treat us badly and gave us no time to collect our stuff. I had a four year work permit on the farm but still they deported me,” said Brighton Tagwira from Masvingo.

Like prisoners they disembark from the fortified truck one by one by under the watchful eye of the police and Zimbabwe immigration officers.

Tagwira was picked up by the police while selling his stuff in Polokwane where he works as a farm worker.

Tambudzai Mawunganidze 30, said, “We were kept in jail for too long and felt like criminals because they mixed us with South African criminals. They kept our cell phones, clothes and other valuable items. If you ask for the things they threaten you with a longer stay in jail.”

“The way they treat us is bad. We stayed in jail for two weeks before we were deported. Before that they had taken a lot of things including money from me. When I asked to get my things they said their cars do not carry other things except people.”

An IOM official said there were more blacks than whites among the deportees and a large number of them were  men on

2011- Arab Spring, WikiLeaks, Mujuru Death, Tsvangirai "Marriage" Provided Talking Points

Outside, many Zimbabweans would find the fall of the once mighty dictators in the mould of Colonel Murmur Gadaffi of Libya, Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali (Tunisia), Laurent Gbagbo (Ivory Coast) and Hosni Mubarak (Egypt) quite significant occurrences that punctuated African history.


Indeed, who could dream that the brother leader and billionaire Gadaffi, who would not hesitate to show all the bravado and public show of force, would one day find himself squatting in some hole, at the mercy of very poor young boys with not the slightest idea how he muscled himself into power.


The Julius Malema saga also generated debate in 2011.


Some say the ousted ANC youth leader overestimated his popularity within South Africa’s ruling party while his sympathisers felt he was a victim of a powerful political elite that was still apprehensive about the pitfalls of opening up the economy to blacks.


The Pandora ’s Box opened by the whistle blower WikiLeaks website was quite profound and a significant game changer in our body politic.


It exposed Zanu PF was not a monolithic and homogenous body after all.


The clear narrative was the revelation that all Zimbabweans, irrespective of party differences and hostilities, share the view that

Dry Christmas for Shabanie Workers

While these workers, largely the civil servants were pushing filled up trolleys and had smiles on their faces with most shops in Zvishavane crowded, Geshem Shumba a Shabanie mine worker waited outside shops with his cart to help the shoppers carry their groceries to where transporters operate from.


With dry parched lips and sweating under the heat that has hit Zimbabwe, Geshem tries to charm potential clients as he is not the only one providing this service. There is a lot of competition as he competes with other people some young enough to be his children.


When approached by RadioVOP he smiles, assuming it is a potential client and shakes his head when asked how business is faring.


He said he wished he worked for another company that is not Shabanie and wishes he was earning his salary and given his 2011 bonus and confirms that since the introduction of foreign currency they have not received any pay from the mine.


“Things are hard and we had hoped things would be different this festive season after the human resource audit called by the Zimbabwe Mining Development Cooperation (ZMDC). We were told that we would be paid three months salary but

Is The Unity Accord Still Relevant?

But to ordinary Zimbabweans, the pact is no more than a mere document that brought together sworn enemies, then Prime Minister Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo leader of the then PF Zapu and ended genocide in Matabeleland.


To date, the much celebrated accord has failed to get a buy-in from the majority.


The political protagonists involved stand guilty of failing to give it practical relevance.


Indeed, it is no more than a mere cosmetic document only there to be paraded towards elections by vote seeking Zanu-PF politicians.


MDC national organising secretary Qhubani Moyo, says other than ending bloodshed in Matabeleland, unity in Zimbabwe remains a fallacy for as long as what transpired during the killing of over 20 000 civilians in the early 1980s remains hidden.


“The unity accord did not provide so much in terms of opportunities for the vanquished,” he adds, “It was just a paper tiger that did not address fundamental problems that led to unity.


“How do you talk of unity when perpetrators of genocide were rewarded with top posts in government and the security forces and have even shown no willingness to repent? This is a big insult to the people of Matabeleland.”


Moyo says