Thursday, April 3, 2008

Been a bit quiet …..

It’s not like to keep my big mouth shut for so long, but I have been moving house, - which 9 out of 10 dog owners agree is highly stressful!

Anyway I have survived the ordeal and can now report that every last box has been unpacked and every last picture has been hung up on the various walls, and although my back hurts, my legs hurt and my arms feel like I’ve been heavyweight boxing (oooooh nice pun J), I am so very proud of my little self for getting it all sorted so that I can finally sit down and get down to some serious blogging.

Have been trying to keep up with the Zimbabwe elections – as you may have gathered from my hurried few words I’ve sent in from my Blackberry.

I have been a little concerned about their plight after seeing what happened to us lot here in Kenya after what we all felt was an extremely peaceful election, and now look at the mess we are involved in, and I might add, are STILL in the process of fighting our way out of.

Although we have light our end, we are yet to be basking in its full warmth, like we felt we would be by now. Coalition governments are not all that bed of roses that Kofi Annan seemed to promise us all.

Kenya is still waiting to sort out that little problem that we call “The Cabinet” that is supposed to be running this place. Both sides seem to be blatting each others decisions on who, what, and even how, and all this nonsense that is being bandied about as to how many members this cabinet should have is becoming a bit of a joke, as once again, our marvellous elected ministers fight over which position they can have and how much of our money they can get for the title!

The latest news we have on that front is that “the cabinet shall be named on Sunday” – according to the latest Nation media update. Actually, it’s not the first ‘breaking news update’ we’ve had through in the past couple of weeks telling us that they are on the verge of naming the cabinet, so I’m not quite sure how seriously we should be taking this last bulletin.

As for the situation in Zimbabwe, I saw a brilliant interview on one of the international news channels, I forget which one, but it was a journalist interviewing one of Mugabe’s staunch supporters who is currently ‘Minister for the Totally Blind and Corrupt’ – or something like that – and he was arguing that all those reports coming out of Zimbabwe about Mugabe and the opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai having talks were just a bunch of “April fool’s jokes” and “who says that just because the Zanu-PF party had perhaps lost the majority in parliament – it was according to this knowledgeable fellow – only by 96 to 93 seats so would have no bearing at all on the Presidential result !!

Also the most remarkable thing being reported about 3 of the parliamentary seats that have been won, is that the chaps with the winning votes had recently died.

So it seems not only do they have a bunch of phantom dead voters, even the candidates can be corpses too ! (Mind you, if you’ve ever watched the Parliamentary proceedings live from any country in the world, and watched them all sleeping, I’m sure it wouldn’t really make much difference if a few turned up in coffins.)

So my headline of April 1st of “Will He? Won’t He?” still looks very current. Latest news on the All Africa website says “they are having talks”, and yet according to the incumbents “”It’s all a load of rubbish made up by colonialist Westerners trying to assert their influence on Africa.” So it still looks a lot like very much a ‘wait and see’ situation.

Personally I wouldn’t be surprised if they declare the Presidential result as less than a 50% majority on either side, have a run off with the two of them (which chances are Tsvangirai shall win hands down), but in the meantime Mugabe will have weaselled himself some kind of a deal where he can live out his days in a secluded life of luxury in Zimbabwe where those ‘colonialists’ won’t be able to take him to task for the incredibly suffering he has caused his people.

Whichever way it goes I do hope that Zimbabwe had learnt one thing from Kenya, suppression of the majority does not get you very far, and I also hope that if Uncle Bob has any slight semblance of decency left, it will be to succumb to the inevitable, sooner rather than later.

7 comments:

Gorilla Bananas said...

It looks like he's going to fight it out in a run-off. Hope the new home is living up to expectations.

BabaMzungu said...

Hi MC
Was the shifting of boxes anything to do with trying to trim up so the polo ponies don't get so agitated when they see you coming?
I am now back in UK after two attempts to actually caatch a flight, the first having been aborted after getting caught in a slight downpour that flooded all the roads around JKIA, which turned a 40 minute journey into 5 hours.
But, I can't say I was upset, I got to stay in Kenya for another 5 days - Hey Ho!, This is Kneya.
And now, I see that TweedleMwai and TweedleRaila have agreed [again] and will be announcing a cabinet. Wonders will never cease!

BabaMzungu said...

Oops! Sorry about the spelling - my brian is on a go-slow - no change there then!

Anonymous said...

New house - hoorah!

Where is it? What does it look like?

No, I don't want to stalk you... I'm just nosey!

PS I've moved blogs - can now be found at www.parlezvousmoo.com

Anonymous said...

on a lighter note:-

A burglar who broke into a funeral home in Spain tried to fool police by playing dead - but he was caught due to a couple of flaws in his otherwise brilliant plan. First, he wore grungy clothes rather than the Sunday best of those dressed for eternal rest. Second, and perhaps more importantly, he was breathing. Police and the Crespo Funeral Home said Wednesday they have no idea what the 23-year-old Spanish man was trying to steal in the break-in March 17 in Burjassot, a small town just outside Valencia. Neighbors alerted police when they heard the front door of the business being forced open in the middle of the night. Police officers arrived with the owner, and eventually found the suspect lying on a table in a glassed-in chamber used for viewings of deceased people during wakes, a local police official said from Burjassot. 'The custom here is for dead people to be dressed in suits, in nice clothes that look presentable. This guy was in everyday clothes that were wrinkled and dirty,' the police official said. 'He was trying to fake being dead, but he was breathing,' she added. The suspect's name was not released, but police said he had served jail time in the past for robbery. The funeral home said it was mystified as to what the man wanted, as there were no valuables or cash in the funeral parlor.

Have a good weekend :-)

Mzungu Chick said...

Mr Bananas - it does indeed look like Uncle Bob is going to fight until the bitter end. Last night he had the boys out raiding hotels and chucking out all foreign journalists.
My new house is fab thank you, even a Gorilla would be proud !

DM - Glad you got your 'brian' back to the land of Blighty ok. Not sure about this cabinet announcement. Will wait and see.

Nuttycow - House is jolly fab in jolly fab garden in jolly fab area ... does that help ??
Will swing by to check out your new home too :-)

Anon - a bit of light humour is always a good distraction from the everyday trivialities of life but not sure if they shouldn't have just shut the lid on the box !

aims said...

Have been keeping up with the news here about there....and shaking my head and thinking of you and yours.

Can you imagine if Obama and Clinton say they both have won? And then McClain jump in and say he has too?

I just can't get my head around it all...I really can't.

As for politics here in Canada - I don't even bother most of the time. We the people have no say in anything..