Prof Clive Chirwa - Power or Influence?

In the play "Kafuti the brazen serpent" by Zambia’s acclaimed playwright Mulenga Kapwepwe, Kafuti the main character asks the age old question – which is best power or influence?

I imagine Zambia's Presidential aspirant Prof Chirwa has mused over this question too, would his influence on participants in Zambia’s political system yield more benefit or does he need to be the principal power to effect the change average Zambians so desperately need?

In the play Kafuti finds herself inclined to choose influence, for she reasons- influence the ability or clout to persuade others to get things done without the direct responsibilities of titular power as in the case of the American Enterprise or Oprah is far more enduring and beneficial than the transient power of a political title.

Political power would, readily avail Prof Chirwa the potential to allocate resources, make and enforce decisions but even Presidential authority relies on the power of persuasion and influence to rally important and effective players for government to deliver benefits to the public. More importantly, to gain political power he must first, persuade and influence the Zambian electorate to vote him into office.

In their books Robert L. Dilenschneider’s ‘Power and influence’ and Rudy Giuliani’s ‘Leadership’ both stress that seizing the power of governmental organizations and using it appropriately differs greatly in contrast to private sector companies.
Giuliani offers the following advice;

i) prepare relentlessly for the day you become boss
ii) Under promise then over deliver.
iii) Surround yourself with good and effective performers.

Rudy Giuliani who recently lost the Republican Party nomination might have been the greatest beneficiary of his own advice, had he prepared relentlessly for the Presidential campaign, sharpened his promises and surrounded himself with good people he might have gained the ultimate power of leader of the free world.

Yet, Giuliani has now devoted his efforts to influencing government policy through his lobby firm Giuliani Partners. Think tanks like American Enterprise and lobbyists have become more brazen and effective in influencing government policy, it now appears political power has lost some of it’s clout.
In a way Giuliani’s case illustrates the influence versus power dynamic, does power guarantee influence or is influence that gives way to power? Like the chicken and the egg, the two are interdependent; therefore it is folly to attempt or seek a political career/power without influence.
Would Prof Chirwa therefore, be more effective and beneficial to the average Zambians by creating a policy influencing think tank or lobby firm that would influence the Zambian government to allocate resources more effectively, to make and enforce decisions that are pro poor?.
Prof Chirwa has vast aviation technology expertise and has formed important relationships with leading global companies, investment firms and leaders, he would use this influence (which is widely unrecognized in Zambia) on these players to derive benefit for Zambians.

Presidential office may provide the ultimate power to get things done, however it also confers absolute responsibility. The probability of Prof Chirwa’s international influence been enhanced by political office is significant but also real is the possibility that it may be scared.

Prof Chirwa must therefore weigh heavily, whether he prefers influence or power over Zambia’s current political system, I would that he would choose influence!

Mugabe's cronies completely lose it!

It has been speculated that Hitler may have suffered from a mirage of psychological issues, he was an ideologue with unshakable convictions........ He did not use language for the purpose of interaction with others, but only for the purpose of dominating others. He endlessly engaged in long-winded and pedantic speeches, with "illogical arguments full of crude comparisons and cheap allusions.

As in the case of Hiltler, I find that Mugabe's direct reports, especially the army chief are pandering to the whims of a mentally ill man.

Much worse how do these policemen beat up their fellow countrymen for voting against Mugabe, during the day and go back to their homes at night, in the very neighbourhood where the people they beat up live?





BarryBearak.


New York Times correspondent Barry Bearak, who was jailed earlier this month in Zimbabwe where he was reporting on the country's elections, has a lengthy piece in Sunday's Times about his experience. Bearak was released on bail a few days after being taken into custody, for, as he writes in his Times piece, the crime of "committing journalism:
I had never been arrested before and the prospect of prison in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest, most repressive places on earth, seemed especially forbidding: the squalor, the teeming cells, the possibility of beatings. But I told myself what I'd repeatedly taught my two children: Life is a collection of experiences. You savor the good, you learn from the bad.


I was being charged with the crime of "committing journalism." One of my captors, Detective Inspector Dani Rangwani, described the offense to me as something despicable, almost hissing the words: "You've been gathering, processing and disseminating the news." NYTimes.

Zimbabweans driven beyond despair.

ALONG THE SOUTH AFRICA-ZIMBABWE BORDER — Sarah Ngewerume was driven to the river by despair.
Seeing South African military truck, two women, with their babies, fled back to Zimbabwe after trying to cross into South Africa.

More than 1,000 people cross the border from Zimbabwe into South Africa every day.

She said she had seen gangs loyal to Zimbabwe’s longtime president, Robert Mugabe, beating people — some to death — in the dusty roads of her village. She said Mugabe loyalists were sweeping the countryside with chunks of wood in their hands, demanding to see party identification cards and methodically hunting down opposition supporters.
“It was terrifying,” said Ms. Ngewerume, a 49-year-old former shopkeeper.

Mariella Furrer for The New York Times

It has been said the strength and morality of a nation, is revealed by the fate and circumstance of the weakest among them.

I therefore must ask - Is there indeed, no conscience nor sense of a higher purpose among the men of Zimbabwe?

How be it that this sad fate of women and babies, fails to arouse the valor of any man in Zimbabwe?

How can the fate of an 84 yr old man be more important than the future, of millions of Zimbabwe's children?

To borrow from Mathew Arnold's "Dover beach" -

How can a nation- that lay before us like a land of dreams, So various, so beautiful, so new,

Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;

And now Zimbabweans are before us, as on a darkling plain Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight, Where ignorant armies clash by night.

Post-election Zimbabwe and it's impact on the Region.

With official Presidential results from last Saturday's elections still unclear, Zimbaweans are looking at a very long walk to recovery from the political, economic and social upheaval of the Mugabe years.
That Zanu-PF still maintains a considerable number of seats in Parliament will make it particularly hard to reach consensus on future economic and political reforms needed to put Zimbabwe on a new path.

The US and the World financial institutions are currently pre-occupied with averting a US and global economy recesion, whatever the form and nature of the new Zimbabwe government, it will certainly find it hard to raise funding for economic and social recovery.

As Afghanistan's post taliban government has learnt there is a vast and increasing gap between pledged and actual funding received .

Zimbabwe's parliament results show no clean break from the past because Zanu-PF maintains more than a third of parliamentary seats, this though a result of a democratic process, may actually prove the people's worst enemy. The degree of Zimbabwe's current economic and political troubles require a government with a sound and convincing mandate, to adress. Whatever ambitious economic or political reform programs MDC has will require the cooperation of the Zanu-PF members of parliament to pass; a real challenge given the level of animosity between them.

This also gives Mugabe, though he lost the Presidential vote, leverage to negotiate an exit on his terms; as in the Kenya situation, Zimbabweans may be looking at a bitter complex of a government of the new and the old.

Because of this long walk to recovery, countries in the region, especially South Africa may still have to put up Zimbabweans crawling through their border fences for a breath of fresh air and a chance at real money.

Zimbabwe Independent results center show MDC lead.

Presidential	Constituency

PRESIDENTIAL RESULTS Morgan Tsvangirai 1,036,939 50% Robert Mugabe 895,717 43% Simba Makoni 148, 887 7%

Seats MDC 53% ZANU-PF 42% MUT/IND 5%

Constituencies reported 192 (91%) - Zimbabwe Independent Results centre.

The last throes of the rigger!

Nothing could be more telling of the degree of greedy and tyrany that has consumed Robert Mugabe as his desperate attempts to delay and rig Presidential results through his diehard cronies at ZEC, in the face of defeat.



This disgraced and senile tyrant who has stretched the tolerance of the people of Zimbabwe to breaking point, has neither the presence of mind nor the sense to discern the end of his hold on events, now unfolding in Zimbabwe.

He can have himself another day or a few more hours of sleep in the cocoon he has conjured up but the reality is the heads of security agencies will have to salute and yield to the will of the people of Zimbabwe.


"How they are rigging the election at this very moment
Mugabe's spies are using a simple but effective technique to rob Tsvangirai of victory - and not be caught doing it
Harare, Zimbabwe, Tuesday, April 1, 5.0 pm
Sources within the fearsome Central Intelligence Agency (CIO) have told me this afternoon that the Zimbabwe security chiefs, who nearly came to blows yesterday, have reached a compromise - and instructed the CIO to finally fix this election in Mugabe's favour.
The CIO's task is to falsify the voting figures in a way that appears to give logical and expected results, and thus becomes unchallengeable. With the eyes of the world on this election, the power men know that any fraud has to be virtually undetectable.
The technique was explained to me by my source, who told me it is being put into effect at this moment. This is how it works.
In the case of the race for the position of President, votes are being stolen from Tsvangirai. The votes have to be credited to another candidate, to keep voting numbers correct. But they are not being given to Mugabe. They go instead to Simba Makoni.
Why? Because there are some areas - Bulawayo is a good example - where Zanu-PF parliamentary candidates have made such a poor showing that any extra votes recorded there for Mugabe, the party leader, would seem illogical, and rightly condemned as evidence of rigging.
But by diminishing Tsvangirai's vote total and giving the difference to Makoni, Mugabe gains overall, and no-one will query the higher total for Makoni, who in any case was expected to do better than he has.
If this technique is applied across the nation, it will certainly be sufficiently effective to either give Mugabe an overall victory, or at least ensure a runoff.
Virtually the same technique is being applied to fix the parliamentary elections. Only in this case votes are taken from the candidates of the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC, and added to the totals of candidates from the smaller faction led by Arthur Mutambara.
Once again it is Zanu-PF that benefits by cutting down the votes for the Tsvangirai candidates, and giving the seats to the Mutambara faction.
The plan can be seen working already in the so-called official results. The Mutambara faction failed dismally in early returns, but has recently mysteriously gained ground against the Tsvangirai faction, and now commands, for instance, five seats in Matabeleland.
That's the joint plan to fix these elections, put as simply as I can. Those who wonder why the results are being held back and released so slowly need wonder no more." (Zimbabwe Today.)

The end of disgrace and tyrany in Zimbabwe?

Morgan Tsvangirai, garnered 67 percent of the 30 percent of votes so far counted, Secretary General Tendai Biti said in an interview today from Harare, Zimbabwe's capital. The MDC leads in Mashonaland Central province and won a majority in the province of Masvingo, both strongholds of Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party, he said.

``This is just an example of what we're getting from every province,'' Biti said. ``Barring a miracle, Mugabe can't win.'' Bloomberg


Robert Mugabe may have played a vital role in the liberation of Zimbabwe, but what people will remmember about him, is the ruin he has brought to a people and a nation that was like a city on a hill. Zimbabwe was the bread basket of southern Africa, it's schools, hospitals even roads were the evy of the region, now Zimbabweans are crawling through razor wire to escape the mess Mugabe has unleashed.
Those that claim that forcebly grabbing land from white farmers was a patriotic and noble thing, need to realise Mugabe only played this self destructive move to foster his grip on power and to prolong his overdue stay in power. His poor choices and policies over the years had already put Zimbabwe on the path to this ruin, the land issue was meant to divert people's attention.

He is indeed a disgrace to the memory of the many that fought and died for the emancipation of Zimbabwe. That fight was to ensure a better destiny for Zimbabweans not 100,000% inflation, not empty shelves, not unemployment, not police brutality and certainly not economic exile!

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday branded Zimbabwe's president a "disgrace" to his people and to Africa, and expressed concerns about verifying whether the country held free and fair elections.
Rice, in the Mideast for peace talks, made the harsh comments after voting Saturday in Zimbabwe that presented Robert Mugabe with the toughest challenge to his 28-year rule. The main opposition party on Sunday claimed an early lead; preliminary results were expected by Monday. AP