Successful Zim polls spell doom for F/town

GALE NGAKANE
Correspondent | Monday July 29, 2013 00:00

In 2008, when Zimbabweans went to vote, expectations were high that Morgan Tsvangirai's Movement for Democracy (MDC) would win, given the support, backing and goodwill it got from the international community.The presidential election along with a parliamentary election were held on March 29, 2008 pitting incumbent Robert Mugabe of the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), Tsvangirai of the MDC and former Southern African Development Community (SADC) executive secretary Simba Makoni who was an independent.

This time around, the contenders are Welshman Ncube of MDC-M, who is also the minister of commerce and industry in the coalition government, Dumiso Dabengwa, of the erstwhile liberation struggle party, Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu) and Kisinoti Munodei Mukwazhe, of little known Zimbabwe Development Party (ZDP).It was thought that with the country virtually on its knees due to the reported mismanagement of the economy, Zimbabweans had had enough of Uncle Bob (Robert Mugabe) and wanted to get rid of him. It all looked as if MDC was cruising to a win and Tsvangirai was going to be installed as the next president of Zimbabwe.  As no candidate received an outright majority in the first round, a second round was held on June 27, 2008 between Tsvangirai (with 48 percent of the first round vote) and Mugabe (43 percent).Tsvangirai withdrew from the second round a week before it was scheduled to take place, citing violence against his party's supporters.The second round went ahead, despite widespread condemnation, and led to victory for Mugabe. As things were happening in Zimbabwe, waves and waves of Zimbabweans were flocking into Francistown such that the city's CBD streets were teeming with the Zimbos, as Francistowners started calling them.

Chinese businesses as well as retail stores such Choppies, Spar and Shoprite were making a killing as the Zimbos swept everything on offer. For the first time, Francistowners started queuing for bread, a thing alien to them before that.  But as soon as things calmed down following the formation of the coalition government in the agreement signed by Tsvangirai, Mugabe and others who were being chaperoned by the SADC, fewer Zimbabweans with buying power started trickling in. The Zimbabwean government flushed the worthless ZimDollar down the toilet and in its place they started using the US Dollar, South African Rand and to a smaller extent, the Botswana Pula.

For the past four years, numbers of Zimbabweans coming here has been dwindling; so much that businesses are now feeling the impact. I met a Zimbabwean friend the other day and we chatted about what was happening then and what is happening now and what is likely to happen after the elections.'Things are better now in my country. I know that if I go there now, I will have no problem. In fact, I am going to vote,' said the businessman friend, who, however, declined to reveal which party he was voting for.But I put it to him that once Zimbabwe gets on her feet again, his compatriots would see no reason to come and shop here and it would spell doom for the already floundering Francistown economy. We need Zimbabweans here. Imagine that right now there are very few Zimbabweans buying goods at Spar (Meriting) and the nearby Chinese shops.  

Their absence will have a ripple effect on the economy of the city -- there are transport operators who sit on the eaves of Meriting Spar virtually everyday, waiting to transport Zimbabwean shoppers to Ramokgwebana. There were times when they could make up to four trips in a day, charging P700 per trip. But these days they are lucky to find one person after sitting for many hours.   The next thing will be the shops, especially the ones run by the Chinese, who may want to relocate to Bulawayo leaving Francistown CDB area looking like a ghost city.

These shops employ hundreds of out-of-school youth, who though earning a pittance are better off than working for the Ipelegeng Scheme where workers are paid P400 or slightly more than that. There is a high possibility that Ipelegeng is going to be a huge industry, as all the youth employed in Chinese shops would want to join.  The friend, however, reassured me that his compatriots would keep coming here to buy from the Chinese and other retailers. But I am not convinced. Much as I wish transition of government would be smooth with no bloodshed as was the case in the last elections, stability of Zimbabwe certainly does not augur well for Francistown.So, actually, Francistown should just pray the status quo prevails in Zimbabwe or even gets worse so that Zimbabweans continue flocking here in sizable numbers to help prop the economy of Francistown, which faces imminent apocalyptic demise. Additional sources: Wikipedia, BBC