Airstrip One

Zimwatch: Time for Freedom House?

Suddenly it's got all hot on the Limpopo. Last time most of us looked the MDC were giving up and talking of boycotting all future elections.

No more. The MDC's chairman Isaac Matongo has said "we are going to shock ZANU-PF elsewhere by winning this general election." Now they won't, but this is no longer the talk of a defeated bunch of Soviet style dissidents.

We've also got Mugabe's Goebells, Jonathan Moyo, turning his coat again and threatening to run as a third force against both ZANU and the opposition MDC. What he's playing at nobody knows. Is it a play to split a chunk of the Ndebele vote away from the MDC, or a preliminery to bringing ZANU dissidents into the broad opposition in a preliminary to an American financed People's Power revolution or is it a genuine power play from a man who has come to overestimate his own abilities? Who knows?

Elections are coming soon and this surprising country could appear on our TV screens soon, so don't be surprised.