Déjà vu —Mugabe's same old plots with new names as the victims.

As I silently watch how Zimbabweans are suffering amid a run away hyper-inflation and a dollarised economy when most of them are paid in Zimbabwean dollars, my memory keeps on taking me back to the political happennings in this country over the years.

Mugabe has been in power in Zimbabwe for 28 years now, albeit against the majority of Zimbabweans' wishes most of the years. During all these years he has been using the same old tactic over and over again to discredit any form of opposition, so that he maintains a one-party state system. It is the same tactic he is using in accusing Tsvangirai of the insurgency case. Accusing his opposition of treason is not a new tactic for Mugabe. It started in February 1982 when Nkomo and three of his ZAPU colleagues were dismissed from the cabinet. These dismissals were said to have followed the discovery of large quantities of arms in several caches in Matabeleland which the Government alleged had been hidden by guerrillas loyal to Nkomo in preparation for a military coup against Mugabe's ruling ZANU(PF) party. In July 1982 Joshua Nkoma was implicated by Mugabe in a gun attack on Mugabe's home. He was acquitted, but was placed under house arrest without charges. A wave of unrest in Matabeleland resulted, and several hundred people were killed as from 1982-1987 as Mugabe's government cracked down on dissident activities until 22 December 1987 when Nkomo and Mugabe signed the Unity Accord.
So that was how Nkomo's political rivalry to Mugabe was eliminated.

That left Zanu Ndonga as the only other political party in Zimbabwe besides Zanu-PF and because of Mugabe's obsession with a one-party state system he decided to eliminate Zanu Ndoga even though it wasn't much of a threat to his party. ZANU-Ndonga had two seats, including one occupied by Sithole, in a 150-member parliament in which Mugabe's ZANU-PF party controlled the remaining 148. I remembered that in October 1995 Mugabe came up with trumped up charges against the party's leader, Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole. Zimbabwean Police arrested veteran opposition leader Ndabaningi Sithole in a pre-dawn raid on the 14th of October 1995 in connection with an alleged plot to assassinate President Robert Mugabe. The state news agency ZIANA quoted police as saying the 75-year-old leader of the right-wing ZANU-Ndonga party was helping police investigate a Mozambique-based Zimbabwe rebel group involved in the alleged coup plot. Police said Sithole was being held in connection with the arrests of two men accused of plotting to kill Mugabe in August of the same year. According to the state prosecutor, these two men had placed a landmine beneath a road on which the presidential motorcade was due to pass. Sithole's wife, Vesta, said the allegations were false, "These are trumped up charges, Mugabe has a personal vendetta against my husband and (Mugabe's ruling party) ZANU-PF is pursuing this grudge," she said. Police declined to give details on what charges Sithole would face, saying this would prejudice investigations but Vesta Sithole said her husband stood accused of organising a private guerrilla army to overthrow Mugabe's government. In Dec 1997 Rev. Sithole was convicted of plotting to assassinate President Mugabe and overthrow his government in October 1995.
So that was how Sithole's political rivalry to Mugabe was eliminated. Déjà vu-Mugabe's same old plot that he used to eliminate Nkomo with a new name, Sithole, as the victim.

The next serious opposition to Mugabe and his Zanu PF came in the 2002 when Tsvangirai was the only serious contender to Mugabe during the March 2002 presidential elections. To discredit Tsvangirai before the elections Mugabe contracted a Canadian political consultancy, Dickens and Madson, headed by former Israeli intelligence officer and Mugabe lobbyist, Ari Ben-Menashe. On a videotape, repeatedly broadcast on Zimbabwean state television, Tsvangirai was shown allegedly discussing ways of eliminating Mugabe with consultants. But there were suggestions that the videotape was heavily edited. Tsvangirai, and his two associates Welshman Ncube and Renson Gasela denied the allegations. The Canadian firm is on record as having been hired by the Mugabe government to improve its image, therefore its evidence against Tsvangirai was questioned as unreliable. Tsvangirai said the firm offered to help the MDC buff up its image in the west, it was a trap. These three MDC leaders were charged with treason and faced the death penalty if found guilty. They were saved by well-known South African attorney, George Bizos, who defended Nelson Mandela between 1963 & 1964 in the Rivonia trial during his fight against the apartheid regime. The MDC leader said the charges were fabricated by the authorities to try to remove him from the political scene.
Déjà vu-Mugabe's same old plot that he used to eliminate Nkomo & Sithole with a new name, Tsvangirai, as the victim, but this time it failed to eliminate Tsvangirai.

Five years later, starting late last year, in early December 2007, after the March & June 2007 caricature of elections were over and done with, after the GNU agreement had failed to come to fruitition, which Mugabe thought would have the same effect as the Zanu PF and Zapu, Unity Accord of 1987, that is unite the three parties and by so doing kill all the opposition in the country, kill democracy, he decided to come up with insurgency and banditry training charges against the MDC leader. This is the case that Jestina Mukoko is said to be involved in which led to her abduction.
Déjà vu-Mugabe's same old plot that he used to eliminate Nkomo & Sithole with a new name, Tsvangirai, as the victim.

Could somebody please tell the old man that the same tactic used over and over again becomes a cliché and it is his credibility that is beginning to come into question and not the credibility of his opposition like he intended his plots to do. His repeated plots to kill democracy in this nation have lost originality and effectiveness through overuse and they are now revealing to Zimbabweans just how predictable and superficial he is. The old dictator seems unable to learn new tricks and it is such weaknesses that the opposition parties should take note of and use to strategise how to out manouvre him.

It's all coming back to me now (Part 2)

Memories of days gone by kept coming back to me on that day when I was in a rare state of mind. I was thinking deeply about the pathetic economic and political situation that Zimbabwe is in at present. In the sheer frustration caused by the situation in this country, recollections of the politics in this nation over the years which I thought had been blotted out of memory started to come back to me bit by bit.

I remembered how for a whole week in January 1998 riots broke out in the early morning hours in the high density suburbs of Harare. Human chains formed as early as 8:45am across streets south of the city centre, marching towards the central business district (CBD). Rioters, who were mostly women and unemployed youths, threw up barricades on all major roads leading into the city centre. Zimbabweans were demonstrating against the 30% food price hikes that had been implemented the previous week. The riots started in Mabvuku and Tafara townships, where people gathered early in the morning at the main shopping centre in the Mabvuku/Tafara area. A small group of women, around 6 am, began demonstrating against the recent price hikes by turning away a bread truck. First it was all peaceful then for some reason things suddenly got out of hand and tensions rose. The demonstration turned violent and looting began. People went into supermarkets, pharmacies, and butcheries taking things from the shelves and refrigerators. At least one doctor’s surgery was broken into and cleaned out of everything. Steel window and door screens and burglar bars were wrenched out of the walls. One bakery was broken into and glass display cases and refrigerators were destroyed. One man was seen with a whole hind quarter of a cow. A Coca-Cola truck driver escaped before the angry residents stoned his truck before looting the soft drinks he was carrying. At Tsokachena, the biggest shopping centre in the area, residents stoned shops and looted mostly essential goods such as mealie-meal, sugar, and cooking oil. They also broke into shops such as Bata Shoe Company, Power Sales and Marowa bottle store. The looters were youths and women, some with babies strapped to their backs. Bread was strewn all over the place as demonstrators chanted anti-Government slogans. In Chitungwiza a different crowd of demonstrators rioted in the same manner the next day as if on cue. Residents of the area converged at Makoni Shopping Centre early in the morning and turned away delivery trucks of bread, mealie-meal and other commodities. The crowds turned rowdy and overturned a bread delivery truck belonging to Aroma Bakeries and threw away all the bread. A marketing car and a Lobels truck were also attacked. All of the shops in Makoni and Chikwanha were destroyed as were the shops at the Town Centre, a large shopping complex owned by Old Mutual Pension Fund. People looted groceries, furniture, food, and small electrical goods. Surgeries were also broken into and cleaned out of drugs and equipment. The rioters sang revolutionary songs and chanted slogans against the recent price increases. The very same rioting was happenning in Mufakose, Glen View, Kuwadzana, Highfields and Mbare. Police in riot gear were dispatched to contain the situation and they fired teargas into the crowd. A police truck was destroyed when it was turned on its side and set on fire at the Tafara Post Office. In Chitungwiza the police couldn’t hold off the rioters and were forced to leave the area. In Glen View, an Air Force of Zimbabwe helicopter was summoned to spray teargas as looters invaded the area’s shopping centre, Tichagarika, clearing out a dry cleaning shop and breaking into a Spar retail outlet. Residents said that the helicopter hovered in the air for more than three hours and teargas filtered into their homes, causing untold pain for their children who did not understand what was going on. Police put up roadblocks around the city centre and barred commuter omnibuses entry into town. Workers either walked or caught lifts with passing cars. This only worked in the morning however, because by the afternoon rioters were forcing people out of their cars. Motorists were stoned and their cars burnt, while other vehicles were overturned if they failed to heed calls to turn back. Thousands of workers were stranded as they failed to get transport back home. They could be seen walking home on foot by the early evening hours on roads leading to Highfield, Mufakose, Chitungwiza, and Mabvuku. Most commuter omnibuses were stranded in town, and only a few were still running their routes by night time. Many feared facing the rioters.
This happened when Morgan Tsvangirai was the leader of the ZCTU.(Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions) Can you believe that it is Zimbabweans I am talking about here and not South Africans. Zimbabweans who are now being trampled on, being treated like door mats by their leaders, amid a record high hyper-inflation and not doing anything about it. Are you not wondering like I am doing, what caused their complete turnaround from being a no nonsense people in 1998 to being so passive, docile and cowardish. I will tell you what my memory remembers as the events that killed that Zimbabwean courageous spirit. A week after these riots, troops of soldiers were dispatched into all the high density surburbs where there had been rioting and they moved from house to house searching for what had been looted from the shops and beating all residents of the different surburbs irrespective of whether they had found any loot or not. Men, women, boys, girls, children and the aged where all brutally beaten up the same, no one was spared. That was how Zimbabweans were cowered into submission and turned into a passive and docile people. This is the reason why when soldiers started rioting in Harare in early December last year civilians didn't join them. They couldn't understand how soldiers who had beaten them up so brutally back then in 1998 for rioting could be genuine in their rioting, they suspected it was a ploy of some sort to trick them into joining in and then turn against them later on. If in the future there is going to be any effective rioting in Zimbabwe it has to be very well-organised with a lot of mobilisation were civil society leaders actually move around garnering support and making Zimbabweans believe in the cause and its capabilities to provide a solution to the extend that people get so dedicated to the cause that they are willing to do the rioting inspite of memories of the beatings they got from soldiers in 1998 after rioting. The solution in this country probably lies in the Zimbabwean civil society reclaiming their right of freedom of expression and raising their voices through actions meant to chase away leaders who have practically killed their nation. Could we please be locusts called Zimbabweans and advance in ranks towards determining our own destiny.

Rewinding my memory to another year in the history of Zimbabwe, I remember in 2002, when there was going to be a Presidential election contest between Mugabe and Tsvangirai who led the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions from 1988-2000. As usual Zanu PF militia was going around perpetrating violence on MDC supporters and intimidating villagers to vote for Mugabe and threatening that if they don't there would be a guerilla war again in the villages. Tsvangirai reported the matter to SADC and a SADC summit was scheduled to take place in Malawi to discuss the issue. The Southern African Development Community's summit in Malawi failed to generate sufficient pro-democracy rhetoric and Tsvangirai angrily told the BBC that he expected far more support from SA. To quote his exact words this is what he said, "The threat to undermine the elections by the military, by President Mugabe himself, should actually send shock waves to South Africa and say, under those circumstances, we are going to cut fuel, we are going to cut transport links. Those kind of measures, even if they are implemented at a low level, send the right signals." South African deputy foreign affairs minister Aziz Pahad quickly dismissed the request to turn his government's failing `quietly-quietly' strategy into more concrete solidarity and responded by saying, "We've been working at this for a long time, trying to convince (people), that what is called (for is) quiet diplomacy. Calls for sanctions are misplaced. Effectively sanctions have been applied in Zimbabwe. All foreign aid has been terminated. There is effectively no new development aid. Investment has been frozen and exports from Zimbabwe have been stopped. Sanctions are not the way to go." SA had not applied any sanctions to Zimbabwe so Pahad was talking about sanctions that he knew the West was implememting on Zimbabwe after being asked to do so by Tsvangirai.
Apparently Pahad was a vociferous proponent of anti-apartheid sanctions. The ANC began its sanctions-campaigning during the 1960s, and Pahad and his comrades always argued that even if black South Africans were hurt in the process, the short-term pain was justified by the long-term gain which was removing the illegitimate regime. Was Pahad now merely being self-interestedly hypocritical, or could he have undergone a radical change of mindset, or probably for SADC diplomatic reasons he didn't want to come out in the open about the sanctions SA was imposing on Zimbabwe.
Tsvangirai in calling for sanctions against Zimbabwe failed to predict that, firstly, Mugabe would use tightened sanctions as a whitewash excuse for his own economic mismanagement; and secondly that while Zanu can retain power especially through its monopoly of military might, sanctions will mainly disrupt the white-owned business sector, which supports the MDC financially, and employs most of its core working-class loyalists. Was the decision by Tsvangirai to call for sanctions arrived at through as much reflection and consensus as is probably required?
This is the truth about what happened concerning the sanctions issue in Zimbabwe yet Tsvangirai denies ever calling for sanctions. I happen to have a photographic memory and as much as I want Tsvangirai to be given a chance to rule the country since the majority of Zimbabweans voted for him in the March 2008 elections I also would like him to admit his mistake in calling for sanctions instead of completely denying doing so. I do understand that at some stage in a struggle for political justice, political leaders must decide what kinds of pressure points they are willing to ask others, acting in solidarity, to impose upon their enemy, even if there are detrimental side effects but that decision should be reached at only if the ordinary citizens who will be affected the most by the side effects, agree to the implementation of the pressure points.

It's all coming back to me now

Usually when I endeavour to recall my early life in its entirety, I find that it is not possible. It's like ascending a hill to survey the prospect before me on a day of heavy cloud and shadow and seeing at a distance, now here, now there, some feature in the landscape, a hill or some wood or tower or spire, touched and made conspicous by a transitory sunbeam while all else remains in obscurity. The scenes, people and events I am able by an effort to call up do not present themselves in order, there is no order, no sequence or regular progression - nothing , in fact but isolated spots or patches, brightly illuminated and vividly seen, in the midst of a wide shrouded mental landscape. It is easy to fall into the delusion that few things thus distinctly remembered and visualised are precisely those which made a mark in my life, and on that account were saved by memory while all the rest has been permanently blotted out. That is indeed how our memory serves and fools us, for at some period of a person's life, when in a rare state of mind, some scenes, people and events maybe revealed to us by a miracle that nothing is blotted out.

I had such an experience recently when I was thinking deeply about the pathetic economic and political situation that Zimbabwe is in at present. In the sheer frustration caused by the situation in this country, recollections of the politics in this nation over the years which I thought had been blotted out of memory started to come back to me bit by bit. It was not like the mental condition known to most persons, when some sight or sound or, more frequently the perfume of some flower, associated with our early life, restores the past suddenly and so vividly that it is almost an illusion. That is an intensely emotional condition that vanishes as quickly as it comes. This was different. To return to the simile and metaphor I used at the beginning, it was as if the cloud shadows and haze had passed away and the entire wide prospect beneath me made clearly visible. Over it all my eyes could range at will, choosing this or that event to dwell upon, examine it in all its details, then return to another event and again repeat the process and resume my analysis of the recollections. How easy it would be, I thought, if this vision would continue but that was not to be expected and so I set myself to try and save it from the oblivion which would eventually cover it again. I got on to my laptop and immediately began to put it all down using MS Word and then saved it on my hard disk.

Let me share with you a few of those recollections.
There I was, a young girl of eight years of age and beginning to make a bit of sense of the world around me when my grandfather came from the village to my parents' house in town. Grandpa was normally a jolly old man whose infectious laugh could be heard miles away from our house and it would come out from deep within him at regular intervals which were closely spaced but on this particular day he looked nervous and never once did I hear that infectious laugh come out from him. He looked serious and intense as he discussed with my parents, some events that were going on in our village and curious me decided to eavesdrop on the conversation. In the village there was a guerilla war in which Mugabe's soldiers (they prefered to be called comrades because of their communist beliefs) were fighting the Rhodesian soldiers. Grandpa had been ordered by the comrades to go to town to buy some underwear and socks for all the comrades who were operating in the village and they had threatened to burn down our village mansion if he doesn't bring those items in three days time. Dad assured him not to worry because he was going to go and withdraw all his savings from his bank account and buy those items for grandpa to go and give to the comrades and for sure the next day he did just that.
That was how my dad contributed to the war for freedom, albeit by force but all the same quite a big contribution considering that he sacrificed all his savings. Everyone who was in the villages or had parents or relatives in the villages contributed to the struggle for freedom in their on unique, special ways be it willingly or unwillingly. Some sacrificed their livestock to feed the comrades, some had to share their farm produce with the comrades and the women in the villages sacrificed their time cooking for the comrades. Yet now Mugabe and his close circle of former ministers are clinging on to power and abusing office with corruption and justifying their wrong actions by telling themselves that they fought for freedom and so should be immune to the law of the land. What bullshit!!! Without cooperation from those villagers whom they terrorised after the March 2008 elections ZANLA forces were never going to win that guerilla war yet now they act as if they did it on their own . And no one ever said that if you liberate a country you are then free to loot the country of its resources and can be as corrupt as you want without being brought to a court of justice. No one ever said that if you liberate a country you then have a right to rule it until kingdom come.

Going down memory lane, I remembered another year another time, this time I was twelve years of age and very much aware of what was going on around me and News was my favourite program on TV so I was always up to date and knew that the guerilla war for freedom was over and done with. The Lancaster House agreement had been signed and Lord Soames of Britain was in the country to see to the smooth running of the first elections in Zimbabwe, back then in 1980. There were quite a number of parties contesting in those first elections that year and I have forgotten the names of some of the parties but I do remember the names of some of the leaders of the different parties, namely, Mugabe, Nkomo, Sithole, Muzorewa and Chikerema. I remember very vividly the helicopters and planes that where being used to campaign that year and how they would fly low while the campaigners throw campaign pamphlets and T-shirts. The child that was me then used to enjoy running around with other kids in the neighbourhood picking the campaign materials and taking them home to our parents. The campaigning and the elections that year were quite peaceful, that is if we don't count the fact that everytime there was a Zanu Pf rally Zanu Pf youths would move from door to door forcing people to attend the rallies and at these rallies all the teenagers would be forced to do a run march singing, "Simudza gumbo, harisi rako, nderemusangano," words which mean lift up your legs ,because those legs are not yours, they belong to the party.
How can your legs be said to belong not to you but to a party? If that is not the same as suppressing people's freedom then I don't know what is. How on earth no one ever questioned the force that Zanu Pf was using to make people go to its rallies and how no one ever analysed the meaning of that song and how then the majority of the population in Zimbabwe went ahead and voted for such a party that was showing at an early stage how force will always be part of its strategy, puzzles me? So now that same party is doing what it pleases with Zimbabwean peoples' lives and refusing to accept the real results of the March 2008 elections and you cry foul but you forget that back then in 1980 the tell-tale signs were there but you shrugged them off. All those who were adults back then in 1980 I blame you for allowing the snake to enter into the house and treating it like a favourite pet over the years.

The sleeping intellectual giant will soon awaken and save Zimbabwe from ruin

Lord knows I have tried and I keep trying to let the potential leaders in Zimbabwe rise up and save this country from ruin, to save it from becoming like the Zimbabwe Ruins where its name was derived from. Whoever said, be very careful about the names you choose to use, was very right, now the beautiful Rhodesia of before 1980 lies in ruins called Zimbabwe in 2009. My previous articles on this blog were all shouting very loud and clearly that the GNU leaders have failed Zimbabweans and so we need new leaders to come out in the open and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. I have tried to give potential leaders hints that this is the right time for them to rise up and become forces to reckon with in Zimbabwean politics but they continue to stay quietly in the dark were most people can't see or hear them, afraid of standing up against the ruthless dictator who plays politics so uncleanly that given a chance he doesn't hesitate to draw blood.

Read the following articles on this blog if you want to know the hints that I am talking about.
1.) The article entitled, "Zimbabwe is suffering from lack of leadership," in which I stated clearly how the leadership styles of Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara leave a lot to be desired.
2.)The article entitled, "Could we please be locusts called Zimbabweans," in which I stated clearly that just like locusts which have no king Zimbabweans have no leader at the moment. The aspiring GNU leaders are all so ineffective and indifferent to the plight of the ordinary people that it is just as if they are non-existant.
3.)The article entitled, "Zimbabweans are crossing the thin line between love and hate," in which I stated clearly how Tsvangirai is losing support because of his lack of a speedy response to the hunger and cholera outbreak and his continued stay in Botswana.
4.)The article entitled, "2009, here we come in full force" in which I urged Zimbabweans to wait patiently for the right leader, ordained by God, who can lead us as a nation to that proverbial place in the sun, to emerge among us in 2009 and then pledge our full support for him instead of following any of the ineffective GNU leaders for the mere reason that we have no other better choice.
5.) The article entitled, "Decision biases of Zimbabewan leaders," in which I pointed out how Mugabe and Tsvangirai's decision-making abilities are all biased and how those biases hinder them from coming up with fruitful decisions concerning the way forward for this country.

All these articles shout very loud that we need new capable leaders to emerge now, whose competence as leaders can rescue this nation from the quagmire that it has become. We have a potential President, an intellectual giant in our midst who continues to stay out of sight and appears to be sleeping as Zimbabweans need for his leadership grows with each passing day and as the economic and political situation in the country worsens. I suppose he is acting like the burnt child that dreads fire, having suffered third degree burns in the last elections in the form of Mugabe's decampaigning verbal attacks and his failure to win any seat in the elections. If only he could get it into his head that that failure was not because Zimbabweans don't love him, it was because he lost timing to announce his divorce from Zanu PF and didn't give himself enough time to form a party and organise candidates for all the constituencies. He should start preparations for the next democratic elections in the country now, so that there is ample time to go to the grassroots and sell his vision. The grapevine has it that he will be launching a party in March, so dear Zimbabweans brace yourself for the waking of the intellectual giant that will wake up Zimbabwe from this slumber it is in that has killed all systems (education, health, water supply, electricity supply, banking system, mining, industry, farming, etc) needed for survival in the nation.

My profound respects go to Dr Simba Makoni, he is the person I am talking about. We eagerly await his return into the political scene.

Decision biases of Zimbabwean leaders

At a time when decision making in Zimbabwe is so important, the aspiring leaders in the country, namely Mugabe & Tsvangirai are showing that they do not know how to make a good choice among alternatives. They seem to be relying on ill advice or personal intuition without realising that their own cognitive biases affect their judgement. The complexities in the country's economic and political environment make good judgement more critical than ever. The errors in judgement by these leaders originate in their mind's limited capacity as well as in the biases they display during decision making. I want to make you aware of biases that these leaders have that has been impacting negatively on their decision making.

Mugabe's bias is believing what he wants to believe without taking coignisance of the situation on the ground. He is so far removed from reality that he thinks the cholera outbreak in the country is a result of biological warfare perpetrated on Zimbabweans by the West. This bias prevents him from seeing the truth that the cholera is a result of the power and water supply cuts in the country that made the hygiene in the country a major health hazard, as well as lack of enough water purification chemicals. He also wants to believe that the hunger in the country is a result of sanctions that Tsvangirai asked the West to impose on Zimbabwe six years ago when he lost elections yet in actual fact it is a result of the new farmers he allocated land to not fully utilising that land. It is this bias that prevents him from looking for the right information when considering decisions and as a result prevents him from making the right decisions. He tends to give too little weight to information that conflicts with his established viewpoints instead of examining all the evidence with equal rigor. His weakness is his unwillingness to admit that he made a mistake which causes him to continue to make flawed decisions. Having a devil's advocate to argue against a decision can help avoid this decision trap but I suppose Mugabe does not have a devil's advocate, none of his close associates, the former ministers, dares to say anything that is against his way of thinking, they all tell him what he wants to hear.

On the other hand Tsvangirai's bias is perpetuating the status quo. He bases his decisions on what has worked in the past and fails to explore new options, dig for additional information and investigate new possibilities. I am talking about Tsvangirai's belief that since he managed to call for effective stayaways and food riots back then, ten or more years ago when Zimbabweans had started suffering he can use the same method and use the suffering of Zimbabweans to gain himself political mileage. What he fails to see in his bias is that the more Zimbabweans suffer while he does nothing about that suffering the more the Zimbabweans lose confidence in his leadership abilities. Instead he should be seen to be working very hard, (be it remotely or not)to eradicate the suffering of the people and by so doing gaining the people's confidence in him as a capable leader. He is well-connected and could use those connections to make things right for the suffering people now even without signing any GNU agreement. What worked ten years ago when he was at the helm of the labour union might not work now and his bias of perpetuating the status quo prevents him from seeing that. When considering decisions, his mind gives disproportionate weight to the first information it received back then during the food riots and stayaways when he tasted his first victory in influence. This initial victory acts as an anchor to his subsequent thoughts and judgements but then in the rapidly changing environment that is Zimbabwe, giving too much weight to that past can lead to poor forecasts and misguided decisions.

Both leaders, Tsvangirai and Mugabe alike, also suffer from overconfidence, this is a decision-making bias that makes them overestimate their ability to predict uncertain outcomes. Before making a decision, they both have unrealistic ideas of their ability to understand the impact of the situation on Zimbabwe at large and so they fail to make the right choice. I am talking about their continued marathon GNU talks that achieved absolutely nothing except play with the hopes of suffering Zimbabweans. In coming up with decisions during the talks they were all overconfident that their different strategies would clinch a win-lose deal for them but that wasn't the case, they both overestimated their ability to predict uncertain outcomes. It is their overconfidence in wrong predictions that made them both select the wrong decisions which resulted in no GNU deal. Not that the GNU was the best solution for the country, it wasn't because it would have killed democracy in the country for good, the way the unity agreement between Zanu and Zapu did, but one thing it did was show us that here in Zimbabwe we have got two leaders whose decision-making abilities are as pathetic as the situation in the country they aspire to rule.