And Makoni crumbles...

HOW progressive could Makoni be? Could he be as transformational as Zimbabweans expect, address the land question adequately and ensure that Blacks own a thriving economy?

Or will Makoni more likely end up, as Chiluba did, as a timid intermission between two unfriendly systems of Black Nationalism and Western Dominance?

With the election closing in and the realities of a presidential campaign sucking his energy; Makoni is exhibiting signs of weariness, dizziness, inconsistence and incoherence.

He’s being punched from every political corner. He’s feeling the weight of the institutions he is purporting to revive: the free press, the civil society, opposition parties.

And who on earth is handling Makoni’s media campaign? Who’s spinning for the Doctor? Whoever it is, he should get the immediate sack. And who is Makoni trying to convince by talking to the media? Shouldn’t he be talking to the electorate?

These are the challenges and effects of trying to squeeze a Presidential campaign into four weeks. A strategy whose utility many boasted and heralded as strategic, is crumbling in our very eyes.

First it was the BBC, then South Africa’s Talk Radio 702, then SW Radio. Each time Makoni has managed to shoot himself in the foot on key questions of Black land ownership and undeclared Zanu PF backers.

The Makoni Project is tottering on the brink of big-time trouble — progressive analysts have begun looking elsewhere — like the Cato Institute. Even Coltart has seized the opportunity to shine, in contrast. And many of Makoni’s knee-jerk supporters don't particularly like what they see, and what they hear.

Is Makoni seeing clearly? Or might Ibbotson Mandaza, the odds-on choice to chair the Makoni Project, actually nudge public opinion in a decent direction?

One month has proved too long for this wobbly team. The Makoni Effect, at first glance, appears to offer precious little reason for progressive optimism.

Makoni defines himself as “a man of the people,” and everyone else seems to have locked in on that exact same characterization. Which people? The ones he has been disconnected with for over three decades?

Makoni has surrounded himself with economic and political advisers, like the frustratingly cautious Nkosana Moyo who failed to ‘advise himself’ when he ran away from Zimbabwe and resigned by fax.

The Makoni camp is packed with generally frustrated politicians. I won’t name them. It would be a futile process. Makoni himself decides not to name them.

Free market guys like Nkosana wanting to use markets to somehow solve social problems, is like trying to square a circle.

At a recent podium appearance Nkosana came across as remarkably ivory-towerish. His boring offering on IMF-induced and World Bank smelling stabilisation solutions tortured his flabbergasted audience.

But he did one thing very well. He helped unmask policy proposals that speed the accumulation of grand private Western fortunes — in contrast to the empowerment of the Black population.

His explanation of the Zimbabwean problem was excruciatingly painful. “Zimbabwe’s position had nothing to do with the international scene,” he said.

Makoni’s appeal is mysterious and irrational. Those who like him are not sure why they like him. He's attained "rock star," status: all flash and no substance, bearing slightly to a "cult of personality."

Should he reconfigure himself, untangle his triangulations, and attempt to appeal to the Zimbabwean people in some deep human way, with or without a tear or two? This would be gargantuan — he would falter.

Someone needs to tell Makoni that there are better ways to solicit votes from the electorate. Arrogancy and big-headedness will not do. Surely raising one's voice and drawing out the vowels, as in "I KNOW [we will win by a big margin] ..." and "I BELIEVE …” is not enough. It’s counterproductive at the elections.

The over-confidence has to go too, along with the recitation of terms and phrases like ‘National Authority’, ‘Stand for the people of Zimbabwe’,’Not running against President Mugabe’, which sometimes go on long enough to suggest an imminent placement within the obsessive compulsive spectrum.

But I don't think any tweaking of the candidate or his message will work, and not because Makoni-mania is an occult force or a kind of mass hysteria.

Let's take seriously what he offers, which is "Mavambo, Kusile, New Dawn." The promise of "newness" is what drives the Makoni juggernaut, and "mavambo" means wanting out of wherever you are now. It can even mean wanting out so badly that you don't much care exactly what that change will be.

In reality, there's no mystery about the direction in which Makoni might take us: He's written a skeletal and vague ‘elements of a constitution’; he has no long history of working with the people, and now, a vague economic program. But no one checks the weather before leaping out of a burning building.

Consider our present situation. Thanks to White farmers, the British labour government and Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC’s call for sanctions, we've achieved the moral status of a pariah nation. The economy is ‘screaming’ as Crocker promised US Congressmen. The Zim dollar is sinking.

Yet Makoni evades these very issues and calls a government he served for three decades, a ‘dictatorship’. What point is driving at, when he implies that he served a dictatorship for three decades?

Whatever Makoni says or does, the semiotics of his campaign boils down to two words -- "hapana zviripo."

Makoni’s car bumper sticker is written, “See, we're not so bad after all, America!”

Makoni needs to learn how to project a sense of hope and of a greater future for Zimbabwe if he is to win the general election.

He might be smart. But being smart does not always get you elected president, especially if you convey to the electorate that you know you are smart. Intellectual hubris does not get you votes.

The voters also don't want too much honesty. That does not mean they want to hear lies, because they do not. But the voters seem to prefer a hopefully optimistic statement to the cold truth. The Liberal Democrats in the UK have learnt that the hard way. It killed them at the polls, and continues to do so.

Knowing the most about the issues does not guarantee victory. In the United States policy wonk Al Gore was also a policy geek. It got him nowhere.

What neither Makoni nor Nkosana seem to not understand is that the voters don't want the details. They may know more about stabilisation, market policies, taxation, etc (and may have a better sounding programme to offer Zimbabweans) but that does not impress voters. They zone out when the details are presented.

There's no powerful emotional component to Makoni-mania, and not just because he's a far less inspiring speaker than President Mugabe. We can’t look to him for atonement and redemption. All of us might want a good life in a sovereign Zimbabwe. But does Makoni represent that good life, that sovereignty?

Samuel Garande
Cambridge, United Kingdom