Dear (Not) Departed Despot

I have been hesitant about writing this but after last night's events I think I need to get some thoughts off my chest ...

When we first heard that results of Zimbabwe's elections were slow in being released I immediately had visions of M** Bob's apparatchiks sitting at battered desks in dingy rooms 'correcting' or replacing incorrectly filled in ballot papers. Like diligent teachers correcting the incorrect answers in innocently ignorant schoolchildren's test papers.

What are 'incorrect answers'? Where silly people didn't put crosses in the right places.

Just imagine, for a moment, if my wild imagination had some relation to reality, wouldn't it be really fortuitous that there was an oversight that lead to an overprint of more than 3 million ballot papers!

It is a widely held view, even though the African Union pronounced the last Zimbabwean election to be substantially free and fair, that the election was actually won by the MDC and that ZANU-PF and the Zimbabwean electoral commission performed some serious adjustments to ensure that ZANU-PF and cousin Bob stayed in power.

Many expected this election to be business as usual, i.e. intimidation, interference, vote buying, etc. And it certainly looked to be exactly on track until the results started trickling out...

Lo and behold the MDC was giving ZANU-PF a run for their money! And ZANU-PF and the electoral commission were allowing this information into the public domain!

To quote Buffalo Springfield 'there's something goin' on, what it is aint exactly clear'. But there was no doubt that something unusual was happening.

What did this mean? Could it be that cousin Bob has seen the light at the end of the tunnel, was there a rush of conscience or rationality to his head?

Had the electroal commission stumbled into a pot of integrity?

I wonder if maybe the vote was so overwhelmingly anti Bob that he and the apparatchik and politburo structure was shellshocked into inactivity and it was beyond even their practiced ability to twist things in their favour.

Even thought full results were not released, and still are not released, MDC started trumpeting that they were the winners of the election. Reckless behaviour I think as it might have shocked Bob back into action as we shall see.

There was talk of negotiating a 'graceful exit' for Bob. Quite frankly I don't see how such a despot deserves a graceful exit. In my view he is absolutely drenched in blood and is the author of ongoing gross violations of human rights. More about that at another time.

So there was Zimbabwe, its diaspora and those parts of the world that care, on tenterhooks wondering whether we were on the brink of something momentous.

Then last night it looks like the despot and his minions shook their heads clear.

Soldiers in riot gear raiding MDC offices, journalists arrested, opposition party members arrested, dire warnings and threats ...

Could it be back to Zimbabwean business as usual?

I hope not.

And my heart cries for a beautiful country and its ravaged and savaged people.