UNLIKE February which had been wet and humid and marked by incessant rain, March was a relatively dry month. With a lull in the rains, throughout the villages in Buhera South constituency, the peasant farmers commenced weeding their maize fields with zest.
But the month was not totally dry, for day after day during the long afternoons, thunderstorms, attended with lighting and sounds like discharging canons, exploded over the country causing the reluctant heavens to open and the air to be filled with incessant torrents of rain.
The villagers were very busy, yet in the cool of the night when the rains had eased, the villagers still found time to attend rallies where they were addressed by one Cde. Chinotimba, described by a wikipedia entry as “a militant ZANU-PF cadre with unquestionable allegiance to the old guard of the ruling party” who “is credited with spearheading the violent invasions of commercial farms in Zimbabwe, in collaboration with his mentor and ally, Dr. Hunzvi,” and has recently “ led million-man marches across the country together with his close ally Jabulani Sibanda.”
The Buhera South seat has been held by the former agriculture minister Kumbirai Kangai since 1980. During all these years since independence, the people had never seen anything exciting and rejuvenating, until Cde. Chinotimba stepped across the skyline and declared his desire to contest for the seat under a ZANU-PF ticket. Since that day last year the young, the old, the sick, and the expecting have been out and about each night attending Chinotimba’s carefully choreographed rallies. His raucous rallies are like Alick Macheso music concerts.
Cde. Chinotimba is running his campaign like a military operation, in which guerilla tactics are at the forefront, the preferred modus operendi. Of course, this stategy is different from the one he used when he ran for a seat in Harare, which he lost with a big margin, something he remembers with bitterness. “The people in Glen Norah, vanopenga for sure,” he told me the other day when I met his convoy at Muzokomba Rural Service Centre in ward 24. “They took the blankets, hupfu, cooking oyiri and bicycles that I gave them with one hand, while voting for MDC with the other hand!” He spat on the ground with disgust, vowing never to do business with people in Harare again.
For one, he campaigns at night, a hallmark of his campaign which his MDC rival Naison Nemadziva has labeled very suspicious, at one point speculating in the media that, “Chinotimba’s gatherings are not rallies, they are pungwes in which the villagers are indoctrinated into voting for ZANU-PF.” Buhera, being in Manicaland close to the Moza border, was a battleground between the ‘terrorists’ and Smith’s security forces during the Second Chimurenga. Pungwes are nothing new. Cde. Chinotimba has vehemently denied the allegations, as was widely expected. “You got to understand, vanhu vanoswera kuminda in the day, saka ndakachuza kukambena husiku,” he told one state news reporter. Chinotimba’s aim is to win the constituency one ward at a time. And surprisingly, the strategy is working. “We know Chinotimba. He comes and helps us in the fields during the day. And unlike Nemadziva, he is not all talk, he is pragmatic,” the villagers I saw fishing along Save River told me point blank.
One weekend day, I decided to attend one of Cde. Chinotimba’s rallies. The early night outside was warm and dark, devoid of almost everything but space and stars and the sounds of pariah dogs woofing in the distance. The villagers emerged from the darkness like phantoms one by one, stepping up to the clearing between the classroom blocks where a leaping fire was lit. This, Nechava Primary School in ward 16, was the venue of the rally. I didn’t know what to expect.
I don’t know if one could call it a rally, it was a gathering, a feast perhaps? The attendees, numbering above fifty, feasted on roast meat, and quenched their thirst with Hariyemadzisahwira. A boom box blared music by Chimombe and the men danced with grace, their wide brows covered with oozing sweat. The women also joined in the fray, dangerously swaying their hips to and fro in tune with the music. The scene reminded me of the fabled Jikinya that my grandma spoke about in one of her tales. The air around became thick with the smell of human sweat and roasted beef. The people enjoyed themselves with reckless abandon. I found it difficult not to join in the festivities. After about an hour, in which the crowd continued to swell, the dancing eased.
Cde. Chinotimba himself threaded his way through the crowd, shaking hands here and there. He took to the ramshackle stage and addressed the gathering. He clenched his fist above his head and chanted: “Pasi nemaBritish!” “Pasi nawo!” they replied, while more than a hundred fist punched the air in theatrical unison. “Pass nema collaborators!” “Pasi nawo!” “Pass neMDC!” “Pasi nayo!” “Pass nemasellouts!” “Pasi nawo!” “Pamberi neZanu-PF!” “Pamberi!” “Pamberi navaMugabe!” “Pamberi!”
The affirmation to the party done, the villagers sat on bricks, goatskins, straw mats, and low stools hand etched from the local Msasa trees. Others squatted on their hunches. Their chins were upturned, their gaze fixated on Chinotimba. They listened to him with open faces, their minds in total concentration like school children. Chinotimba spoke at length, his face lit up by the fire. At one point he told them thus: “Voterai ini, nekuti ndiri right candidate yeconstituence ino. Zimbabwe can never be a kolony zvakare.” I found no policy positions in his ten minute speech. The moment Chinotimba stopped speaking, the air was filled with music again and the crowd danced the night away.
“Cde. Chinotimba, what is your strategy for winning this election at the end of this month?” I asked the aspiring candidate after the rally as the crowd melted into the darkness of the night. A young sickle shaped moon hang in the night sky and the boom box was at full blast again.
“Isimple chizukuru. This seat has sixteen wards, saka ini neteam yangu we will campaign zvakasimba ward by ward. Tavapakati paMarch, and we have already covered more than half the ward.” I challenged him to reveal where the money for his campaign was coming from, seeing as he was not employed. He laughed away the question, exposing his gapping teeth.
“I know you have been sent by my opponent Nemadziva. He knows he will lose, that is the reason why he is bringing up all these allegations. All I can tell you is that ndine maconnections mugovernment,” he said, picking his teeth with a twig. One of his young cadres, dressed in green fatigues, brought us a platter full of sizzling goat roast meat where we sat on the edge of the fire.
“Are you saying you are using state funds to campaign while your opponent is using his own money?”
“Are you mad? What is wrong with me using state monies to campaign? Tisu tiri mupowa, saka it is fair kuti tishandise mari yematax peyas!” I withdrew seeing as the man was becoming a little agitated.
From what I saw and heard in Buhera South, I won’t be surprised to see Cde. Chinotimba his celebrating victory come April 1st.
(This article is fictitious. It is political spoof. Believe it at your own risk.)
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