AS July 30 nears, and the campaign decibels keep rising, I have been thinking about who I would vote for and I have not needed too much convincing that my vote, which I used in a failing cause in 2002 when we waved red cards in anticipation of the end of Zanu PF dictatorship, stays with the Movement from Democratic Change.

Since my 16-hour wait to vote in 2002, I have never knowingly voted again although my name was on the roll until the last registration exercise. I honestly had hope in the so-called “new dispensation” as I’m sure many other patriots also did. I really believed that Emmerson Mnangagwa was sitting on solutions but was being hampered by the stubborn old man (Robert Mugabe). Seven months into his presidency, and as far as I can surmise, like all crocodiles our President can only swim in shallow waters. The deep end of the Zimbabwean economic crisis is too much for him.

If November 15 was a new dawn, it has been a false one. The same old drum beats and the chorus rings with only the choir master injecting a few new gestures to the same old Zanu PF rhythm. The biggest warning sign should have been in the choice of his Cabinet, the recycling of the same old failed leaders with no capacity to invigorate the dying embers of a caring government.

Mnangagwa came in promising a lot, but he has achieved very little. The bank queues are worse now than under Robert Mugabe. The economic meltdown continues. Corrupt officials continue unmolested and

We all cheered as the likes of Ignatius Chombo and a few others were arrested only to be disappointed by the lack of proper charges given the clear gluttonous accumulation of wealth. It soon became clear that this was not an attack on corruption but just a suppression of would be opposition. People emboldened by the so-called new dispensation began to reveal lists of corrupt activities and we all hoped to see arrests and trials and maybe some asset recovery but alas, it was all a ruse.

If this is a new dispensation, can someone tell me how far have lifestyle audits gone? Can they list for us how multiple farm owners are being addressed as revelations where abound that some own even 21 farms? Can we be told what has been done to redress that criminal anomaly? Revelations of corrupt activities within parastatals, police fines, Net One and the rest have all gone un-investigated and unprosecuted. How much money could the state recover through simply catching the criminals that have been milking state coffers?

I will not sing the Chiadzwa chorus as this has been overdone already. If Mnangagwa and his coup ally Constantino Chiwenga desired a break with the past, they would have arrested and prosecuted a lot of their corrupt, negligent and incompetent colleagues instead of sharing podiums with them. An opportunity to sweep clean like a new broom was badly missed. People that have been beneficiaries of corruption have kept their ill-gotten gains and so there will be no fear in continued pillaging of state resources. We see them in the queue of opportunists, trying to jump onto the command gravy train.

“Zimbabwe is open for business” is the claim that is being widely circulated and only a few can buy into that ruse because practically, Zimbabwe is closed for business. Rumours before the coup were that there were rescue packages organised, from China to the West, as soon as Mugabe was ousted. We would see the liquidity crisis disappear, we were told.

A whole seven months later, and with an election approaching, the only plane loads coming from China seem to be the scarfs and campaign regalia, nothing more than what the former leader used to get. We keep hearing about “megadeals”, themselves exhausted propaganda. How can an economy be open for business when there is hardly any money to use as a means of exchange? People are being sold their cash and by the time you hold paper money, you have already lost 60 to 75% of it on the streets.

The prevailing country conditions are not what an economy open for business looks like. Diaspora remittances have always made up a huge part of the foreign currency earnings of the country and diaspora investments would resuscitate the economy but the prevailing lottery of the fake 1USD is equal to 1 Bond makes it difficult to trade for people with other incomes. It is worse for the local informal market. Zimbabwe can only be open for business when the liquidity crisis is solved but there has been no improvement in that situation. It appears to be getting worse and we know it’s benefitting a few elites who are able to access brand new notes and exchange those dollars and profit simply from selling money.

Any capable and competent leader would have found a solution to this problem by taking decisive action. Should we point to the expensive taste that the government has? If these megadeals where real as they are in their billions, wouldn’t they have helped avert the cash crisis after all the initial capital investment would have boosted Nostro accounts and enabled the importation of currency? Some of these deals, we have been told, were signed a while ago and investment capital inflows should have been solving our dire balance of payments position. It all points to some optical illusions disguised as progress.