i will put my X next to Mugabe’

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Old loyalties, fear and loathing all hold sway as Zimbabweans head to the polls on March 29, the Sunday Times Foreign Desk discovers as it investigates who — President Robert Mugabe, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai or new Zanu-PF pretender Simba Makoni — will carry the day The shelves in Murombedzi Growth Point shopping centre in Katama are empty. So too are the granaries of the poverty-stricken villagers who call Katama home. And another disastrous harvest looms, with crops in the fields failing due to excessive rains over the past few months, coupled with scorching heat. But still Jacob Musiyanwa, a 55-year- old retired security guard, intends to vote Robert Mugabe back into power in five weeks’ time. “I have no choice,” says the peasant farmer. “I will put my X against his name. He is our uncle. He comes from our village. He sent my children and grandchildren to school, although he is responsible for all our suffering. “Everyone here calls him ‘Sekuru’ (Uncle) or ‘Mdara’ (Old Man),” he says respectfully. “Everyone here” refers to the villagers of Katama, where Mugabe hails from and where he spends most of his weekends. Katama, 80km west of Harare, is reached by a tarred highway that leads directly to the gates of Mugabe’s palatial retreat. But while Mugabe’s home boasts electricity, running water, satellite television and expensive furnishings — all the “luxuries” that most hard- pressed Zimbabweans have learnt to live without — Katama has not escaped the ravages of the economic collapse stalking the country. After Mugabe’s homestead, the road deteriorates rapidly. The walls of Murombedzi are in urgent need of a lick of paint. Most bus operators — reeling from the effects of inflation of 100000% — have discontinued their services to some villages due to the poor state of the roads. Fuel is also a major problem. Villagers are forced to walk up to 20km to reach the nearest town to do their banking . Everything is scarce: bread, maize meal, other basics . In fact, Musiyanwa, a grandfather of 13, cannot remember when last shops at Murombedzi had fresh bread. “Things are bad even here,” he says in a hushed voice, apparently in fear of plainclothes state security agents and other Zanu-PF informants. “You can’t imagine it is where the old man comes from. People are busy right now being ferried by buses for his birthday in Beitbridge, but we are left behind without food to eat. “I am not the only one fed up.” And his gripes don’t end there. Musiyanwa complains about the rampant corruption and nepotism in the handing out of food relief to villagers by chiefs and headmen affiliated with the ruling Zanu-PF. He charges that the distribution of farm implements — tractors, ploughs, harrows, discs, fertiliser and seed — parcelled out to villagers under the government’s mechanisation programme, is fraught with irregularities. “Corruption is rife at the doorstep of his homestead,” he says . But still Musiyanwa will not change his mind. Old loyalties and obligations — even strained ones — die hard. Musiyanwa has voted for Mugabe since independence. And he will probably continue to do so till his death. “Election to us here is like a ritual,” he says. “We have to vote for the old man or Zanu-PF. To some of us Zanu- PF is our totem.” It is a sentiment unemployed Tawanda Chidawu, 23, collecting water at a nearby borehole, understands — even if he does not agree with it. “The old man has had his time,” he says. “He must go, but our elders here are afraid to tell him, because this is his home area and there are a lot of soldiers, spies and policemen who are quick to get angry on behalf of Gushungo (Mugabe ).” Chidawu, whose distant uncle has been cherry-picked by Mugabe to stand on a Zanu-PF ticket in the poll on March 29, predicts there is no way people in Katama will vote for opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai or former Finance minister Simba Makoni, who are running against Mugabe. “The problem is that there is a lack of alternative information,” he says. “There is too much propaganda; the opposition is banned here and I don’t see how Makoni can penetrate the area because he is already seen as a sellout financed by (US President George) Bush and (former UK Prime Minister Tony) Blair.” He blames the opposition for concentrating on major towns and cities, thereby allowing Mugabe to hold sway in rural areas. “This should be the year, but people are being told by Zanu-PF political commissars that Tsvangirai and Makoni want to return the land and the farming implements to the whites,” he says, before excusing himself for fear of a ragged group of men who seem interested in our conversation. Citizens in Harare are grappling with an entirely different dilemma: who to vote for — Tsvangirai or Makoni. Mugabe is not even a consideration. No right-minded Zimbabwean can afford to waste ink and vote for Mugabe, insists Margaret Shoniwa. “Anyone who does that needs to see the nearest psychiatrist,” she says. However, Shinowa is in a serious quandary on where to make her mark come March 29. “ It will depend on who impresses me during their election campaign ,” she says. But Tafireyi Masocha has no doubt. Tsvangirai, the Movement for Democratic Change leader who is widely believed to have been cheated of victory by Mugabe in the last two elections, is the man to lead Zimbabwe out of its quagmire, he insists. “Tsvangirai is the man. We have been with him in the trenches, we were beaten with him while Makoni was sitting in the same Cabinet with Mugabe,” he says.