Wikipedia describes a “politician” (from Greek “polis”) as an individual who is involved in influencing public decision making through the influence of politics or a person who influences the way a society is governed. This includes people who hold decision-making positions in government and people who seek those positions, whether by means of election, coup d’état, appointment, electoral fraud, conquest, right of inheritance (see also: divine right) or other means. Politics are not limited to governance through public office. Political offices may also be held in corporations, and other entities that are governed by self-defined political processes.

There will be various other interpretations of the term - and it is as often misused as the position. It should be remembered that in democracies (which Robert Mugabe attempts to sell Zimbabwe as) that the political representatives, are freely and fairly elected by the proletariat (a very basic misnomer meaning the public at large - all registered voters, of course!) and are hence elevated to public office by that choice.

If you were to trawl through vast numbers of reports on elections in Zimbabwe, going back as far as independence in April 1980, you will, no doubt, find numerous reports of vote fixing, rigging and other means used to influence the outcome. The people so elected as supposed to be civil servants (so why we insist on putting them on pedestals, I shall never understand) and therein lies the clue, “Civil” and “servant”.

These are servants of the people, not the other way around! When the latest election panned out in Zimbabwe, we found that ZANU PF (Mugabe’s party) had lost the parliamentary majority to the 10-year-old MDC party. The Presidency was taken by Mugabe, only after a bloody campaign was launched against the MDC, resulting in the deaths of at least 130 people and the subsequent withdrawal from the second round of the election by Morgan Tsvangirai, and he now uses the position to make unilateral decisions that fly in the face of the ‘power-sharing’ agreement signed in September of last year.

Today I read that the leader of the smaller faction of the MDC, the parachuted in Arthur Mutambara, has suggested that the ‘unity’ government might not be interim government, we were led to believe. Part of an article in The Zimbabwe Times read “What we all know is that elections will be held after a new constitution has been crafted,” said Mutambara.

It is, however, clear that no one knows of the date or is certain when the polls will actually be conducted since sitting MPs might feel that the polls should be held after five years. We all know that previous illegitimate elections have been at the centre of controversy in the country, which means the inclusive government has to make sure that the next elections are held in a free and fair atmosphere.

There has been debate on when the elections will be conducted. According to the Global Political Agreement (GPA), the inclusive government has to conclude the constitutional reform process within 24 months of its inauguration, to pave way for free and fair elections.

My query is very simple and yet begs an answer. Why should we, as law abiding Zimbabweans vote for political representation in one timetable, only to discover that these representatives can rework and re-engineer that timetable, thereby negating the understood timeframe held in mind when the vote was balloted?

By allowing the representatives this power, are we not enabling them to be self-serving as opposed to being civil servants?(Please note that I have never voted in Zimbabwe, primarily because of my ZRP training in which it was imbued upon me to be apolitical).

Robb WJ Ellis The Bearded Man