Grace Mutandwa

The Waiting Game

I have been comparing notes with friends. We have all been waiting for the presidential results to be announced.

Decisions have been put on hold. We all need to know what the future holds for us. A day after the much publicised harmonised elections I was glued to the television - watching programmes dished out by the State run broadcaster.

Under normal circumstances nothing would induce me to watch local television. On Sunday 30 March, I learnt about Chinese gardening, saw a replay of a 1974 World Cup soccer match, watched a re-run of a West African drama, a wildlife programme and discovered there were more than 100 varieties of tortoises and an even bigger number of different snakes. I also learnt about how to care for my snakes!

The inane programmes we were fed on that day, a day when all we wanted was to hear the parliamentary and senatorial results, were ridiculous, bordering on the insane. A friend who had waited for the results the night when voting ended, told me she had learnt about Japanese haircuts. I am sure in another place at another time we could all find those crazy programmes useful.

When the results finally trickled in we were all mesmerised by the fact that the two main contenders were running neck-to-neck. Only in Zimbabwe can such a miracle happen. No-one among my friends and colleagues has been able to explain this amazing development.

Eventually the results for the two elections were in but the counting of the presidential ones seems to have hit a major snag. It seems the figures are not adding up or where they do, they are not what they are supposed to be. We the voters of course have no right to know what has happened to our votes. All we are being told is to be patient and remain peaceful.

Zimbabweans are an amazing people. They ought to be in the Guinness Book of Records for their patience and great sense of humour even in times of hardships and adversity.

As we wait we have of course put our mobile phones to good use, sending each other text messages of encouragement and joking over our predicament. We are good at waiting. We wait in queues for money, bread, milk and we wait to vote and then of course wait patiently for the results to be announced. As I write it is 12 days after we voted and we still do not know the results of the presidential election.

We just do not know the official result but technology has ensured that resourceful Zimbabweans collected results posted at the various polling stations and have been circulating them. We are just not saying it but we already have an idea of how the voting went. We are even told of the possibility of a run-off. And again only in Zimbabwe can you talk of a a run-off without first announcing the results. We are incredible!

The waiting continues and national radio plays revolutionary music and airs programmes on various liberation war heroes. We are told this is to remind us of their sacrifices, which we must always remember every year around 18 April when we celebrate our independence.

I am still waiting for the presidential results but as I do my work I cannot help but wonder what all those heroes think about us, we the people they sacrificed so much for. I wonder if they would approve of everything going on now. Do you think they would approve of withholding results and keeping everyone in suspense? And still the radio and television are broadcasting from another planet. They are not on the same page with listeners. We wait uninformed.

Posted at 11:46 11 April 2008 by Grace Mutandwa  |  Comments[3]