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Western citizens across the world believe they live in democracies, Zimbabweans alongside millions of other denizens of the developing world harbour heart-rending fantasies about the glory and glitter of living in a democracy — all because of this “rich country over there” syndrome.

The truth of the matter is that democracies in the West have failed the Aristotelian test, and they continue to fail despite the high sounding glorification that comes with Western economic achievement, and despite the overwhelming praises that come with the much admired frequency in changing political leaders in the West’s governance systems.

If the arbiter of democracy is the Aristotelian definition of the term, then it can be easily concluded that the people in the West hardly live in democracies.

The mere facts that elections are periodically carried out, that there are names of people on the ballot, that campaigns are waged, that votes are cast, and that winners serve their terms do not in themselves constitute the success of democracy.

The fact that Zanu-PF and the MDC parties in their various formations provide candidates to compete in Zimbabwe’s parliamentary, presidential or general elections does not in itself constitute an adherence to the democratic path.

Neither does the fact that Zimbabwe or any other country happens to carry out periodic elections that are internationally ratified as credible.

These are simple matters of procedure and they hardly touch on the merits of the principle of democracy itself.

For as long as some votes count more than others the essence and core-meaning of democracy continues to be defeated.

Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC openly and arrogantly believes that the elected members serving their various terms in the party’s leadership structures carry on their shoulders more voting powers than all other people in the party’s ranks.

Precisely based on this belief it is supposed to make perfect sense for the elites in the party to override the essence of primary elections for the purpose of fielding candidates in the pending 2013 general election.

What is deemed logical for these scheming elites is to empower themselves with what the party has called “confirmation powers” — where those in the national executive and in Parliament can confirm a sitting member as a candidate for the next election, that way overriding the need for a normal primary election involving the party’s grassroots supporters.

In a true democracy the voice of the majority cannot be superseded by the confirmation powers of a few elites, especially the very elites coming to the end of their office terms — itself the whole essence of having the next election.

This bastardisation of democratic principles by the MDC is perhaps directly borrowed from Zanu-PF — the revolutionary independence party to which the MDC is fast becoming a sister party, more or less in the mould of the republican-democrats relationship in the United States.

The mutation of relations between Zimbabwe’s two most hostile rival parties into sister parties shall be re-visited in later editions of this column.

Zanu-PF has a rather notorious culture of candidate imposition, and there are delusional characters in the party who are foolishly convinced that they are the ethnic custodians of political direction and opinion in their respective provinces.

Some of these dons have elevated themselves to deities and they believe their lengthy occupation of political office makes them some sort of provincial gods ruling over all others in their home areas. It is tragic for some of us that the despicable trend was pioneered by two political stalwarts from this writer’s home province of Masvingo, both now dead and hopefully with The Lord. Frankly the chef culture in Zanu-PF stinks to high heavens and must be discredited and abandoned for what it is — archaic and plainly inane.

It is quite apparent that the MDC-T in particular is headed by staunch admirers of the ugly tactics of candidate imposition. For a party that is so hopeless on policy, the idea of candidate imposition can only be fatalistic. But the party is primarily led by fatality any way, and maybe for those at the top it is just a game of time.

Nathaniel Manheru recently did a whole article through his Saturday Herald column where he thrashed the monstrous culture of candidate imposition in Zimbabwe’s politics.

He made telling comparisons to political events in Kenya, particularly paying detailed attention to how one Mary Wambui defeated a series of imposed candidates on her way to clinch the Othaya parliamentary seat.

The concept of democracy continues to be thwarted while democratic fantasies are hailed and elevated to world class arbiters of governance, and this makes sad reading for a world in which democracy is preached more than religion.

For as long as those who vote with their cheque-books and political muscle have far more sway than those whose voting powers are limited to a pen and a ballot paper in a voting booth there is no real point talking about democratic governance.

Since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe has been moving further and further away from the one person one vote principle, just as much as Western democracies have continued to do over many more years. Corporate and political power are the two main forces that continue to diminish the power and relevance of the one person one vote principle, and it is now more of fact than opinion that today’s democracy is shaped more by the will of corporate and political elites than by the will of the people.

The further one moves away from the one person one vote principle the less of a democracy there is in any society.

When one looks at the political culture in the US today, from the way politicians make it to Congress or to the White House, it is quite clear that the world’s self-proclaimed number one democracy has moved a vast distance from this ideal principle of one person one vote — not exactly by denying citizens the vote, but by ritualising and ceremonising it.

Elections in the US are now four year periodic voting ceremonies where the people are required to ratify the opinion of political and corporate elites — not exactly to express to their own opinion.
What is in the US and other Western countries can be described as corporate oligarchy — implying the concentration of corporate power in the political affairs of these nations.

In Zimbabwe we have what can easily be described as political oligarchy — a concentration of political power in elites that are obsessed with donor-driven puppet politics or crude greed driven by a vampire attitude to suck the blood of the nation — our country’s God given wealth and resources.

The sad part is that there are limited options in the quest for attaining true democracy. In as much as elites will continue to manipulate the vote and to diminish the power of vote equality, the electorate itself has its own enormous problems.

The democratic process relies on the assumption that the electorate can recognise the best political candidates or the best political idea when they see one.

Research by social scientists like David Dunning concludes that there is a tendency where a democratic election (even where equality of the vote is guaranteed) continues to produce mediocre leadership and policies.

Essentially the research asserts that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people.

People who lack the expertise on foreign direct investment have no idea what the MDC-T is preaching in its JUICE election policy, much as the party is holding mass rallies to sell its rhetoric on this policy.

Equally people with no expertise in entrepreneurship may not fully understand Zanu-PF’s economic empowerment policy, much as most people may find the rhetoric around the principle attractive and even adorable.

What the electorate often lacks are the mental tools to make meaningful judgement by way of choosing the right candidates to see through the fruition of otherwise sound policies.
It is hard to understand that most of the mediocre candidates sitting in Zimbabwe’s parliament today were actually voted in by majorities in their respective constituencies.

The inability of the voter to accurately evaluate political candidates cannot be under-estimated. It can be catastrophic.

Human beings are inherently self-delusional when it comes to matters of self-esteem or intellectual skills, and you get the slack when you assert that sometimes people are not smart enough to make the right choices.

It is precisely because we have this self-delusion inherent in us as human beings that political rallies and mass media are used by politicians to incite us into hysteric self-delusion leading to some of the most irrational choices made in the name of elections. Even false prophets and cult leaders thrive on the self-delusions of their followers.

Not many will admit easily to having acted foolishly. It is easier to defend and disguise stupidity than to acknowledge it.

The anti-Zanu-PF crusade in Zimbabwe’s urban areas in the last decade was so strong that it virtually elevated blatant mental retards all the way to the national executive, right into the country’s cabinet — all in the name of voting for the MDC, or rather voting against Zanu-PF. It would be funny if it was not so tragic.

Equally the anti-MDC sentiment so rampant in most of Zimbabwe’s rural areas also elevated some real good-for-nothing characters to parliament and even cabinet — all in the name of defending the revolutionary legacy of Zanu-PF.

The disconnect between the will of the people and what they are asked to vote for in an election can be so disappointing to the point that sometimes the options on the ballot paper have absolutely nothing to do with the aspiration of the people.

It is the hope of this writer that Zimbabwe’s election 2013 will be about giving the people the opportunity to choose what they want to do with their destiny — precisely to allow them the freedom to fully sustain themselves in their limited generational terms on the face of this planet.
Zimbabwe we are one and together we will overcome. It is homeland or death!

Reason Wafawarova is a political writer based in Sydney, Australia.