The new lion king?!

Simba Makoni ..... an ex- Zanu PF cabinet minister government has formally announced his intention to stand against Robert Mugabe .... a happy happy day ....

Despite increasing disquiet in the country - it's still been an incredibly brave move to publicly challenge Mugabe from within his own system .... and predictably he has immediately been discommunicated from the Zanu-PF party .... and already threats such as “Traitors know how Zanu-PF deals with sellouts..." from Mugabe's "war veteran" rabble have spewed forth ...

However in reality - the continuing failure of the MDC to actually capture popular imagination or stop its in-fighting and the grimly worsening daily-life situation (a Dr friend from Harare writes of dipping into his final stocks of tinned food and crippling electricity shortages now that Zambia and South Africa won't supply Zim due to unpaid bills running into the millions .... thats US dollars ... am not sure there are words for what the amount would be in Zim dollars) .... mean that Makoni throwing his hat into the ring is the most positive development in Zim politics for a long while .... despite some of his more shadowy backers ....

Makoni claims to have widespread support from political players across the divide: “I know I will not be in this campaign alone. There will be many of us, a great many of us.”

With contrasts like this - lets hope we hear him roar soon ....

Salisbury (Harare) 1981
Harare 2007


Please note ... before i get any cross emails - I'm not in any way advocating that Salisbury 1981 was a better place .... just lamenting that Africa's bread basket with the most diversified economy and educated population has now slipped to a situation where the average life expectancy is 37.