Vera Brittain was unmistakable when she said that “Politics is the executive expression of human immaturity.” Otherwise, why should democracy in Zimbabwe be made to look like a puzzle within a paradox? If we put the pieces of the Zimbabwean election odyssey together, it is perhaps worst than a paradox; a conundrum, maybe. So, the recount seems to have been done and the MDC did not win an outright majority in the presidential polls after all. The world had to wait for weeks after the elections, to hear the outcome. We had been told that announcing the winner would be dangerous for the situation in the South African country. So, perhaps, the elections shouldn't have been held in the first place, because the facts were too predictable. And here, the Henry Adam Brooks truism that “practical politics consists in ignoring the facts” proves a poignant understatement, even for our times. But the facts in this rather bizarre story cannot be ignored for another minute, unless the world is prepared to make a shame out of that poor African country. That is exactly what everybody wants to avoid, isn't it?

It is not enough to be interminable; let's be precise on this matter. “Zimbabwe is facing the precipice”, Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change party, has always told the world. And now, the country may well have taken a nosedive into a democratic cliff with the recent elections. Voting had gone on as scheduled even though there were reports of a bloated electoral register that contained names of voters who had died thirty years ago. Initial estimates after the voting had it that the MDC had won some 53% while President Mugabe's Zanu PF party had managed 40.3. The MDC had won majority of the parliamentary seats. It seemed the floodgates had been opened for a new dawn in Zimbabwe, a very new beginning. We thought Zimbabweans had at last put their best foot forward, but that foot remains where it got stuck. When the electoral commission appeared to be moribund, the world thought, or perhaps hoped we could count on a court ruling. So, when that prospect proved ineffectually shameful, we pinned our hopes, desperately, on mediation talks with some major players in the South African region. We would still struggle to find an apt definition for the consensus we seemed to have reached. It may satisfy our brains, never our senses.

Perhaps the British media were too quick to forecast the end of Mugabe's 28 year rule of Zimbabwe. Did that feed the intransigence of the ruling Zanu PF Party, the same way it had heralded the Iraq war by trumpeting into the conscience of the British citizenry that a nuclear attack was imminent in 45 seconds? Newspaper headlines after the elections had celebrated the fall of the 84 year old tyrant. In Zimbabwe, it was not difficult to gauge the relief of the electorate after the elections. But did anybody think Mugabe was genuinely going to win any elections in Zimbabwe after a horrendous 28 year rule of a country that was Africa's breadbasket is now a real basket case? With no food on supermarket shelves and inflation hitting record numbers, the voice of the people was going to be audible. Democracy seems to have stamped its authority, but the Zimbabwe electoral process works with an even greater authority. Is this democracy's worst nightmare or a nightmarish haunting by Africa's immature democratic experience?

When the Archbishop of York, Ugandan born John Sentamu, recently cut his dog collar into pieces on live television, to highlight the problem in Zimbabwe, he did so to dramatise his disgust for the Mugabe Administration, but the gesture also spoke generally about Africa's woes. Mugabe is not the most terrible leader in the history of Africa; there have been have 204 governments (leaders) in Africa since 1960, and we will have no difficulty in selecting ten of them who did anything good for their people. Well, perhaps we would have a lot of trouble in choosing just five, because there seems to be trouble everywhere on the continent. We may all be unanimous in selecting Mandela as a good example, and to an extent former president Chissano of Mozambique, if the Mo Ibrahim leadership index is anything to go by. Did former president J.J Rawllings of Ghana did a terrific job by quietly handing over leadership to the then opposition NPP some eight years ago when his handpicked successor lost to J A. Kufour? In retrospect, if Ghanaians juxtapose the Zimbabwean situation with theirs, they would have a thing or two to say about the promising future of democracy in the West African country. There have been other peaceful transitions on the continent, but the recent Kenyan affair is too fresh in our memories to recount any of them with any measure of satisfaction. So, what is the way forward in Africa?

Dr George Ayittey, a Ghanaian economist in North America, sums up the African problem in a few words: The Cheetahs vrs the Hippos. The Cheetahs are those visionaries who come to change old systems and tired paradigms, and seek to alter the vicious pattern of rule-loot-stash that has characterised African politics for decades. The Hippos, according to Dr Ayittey, are those who are “stuck in their intellectual patch”. They are satisfied with the rotten status quo because it benefits them and their cronies. It doesn't appear difficult to tell whether President Mugabe is a Hippo or a Cheetah, but we don't have a Barack Obama conviction to say that Morgan Tsvangirai is a good cheetah. He has led a tough struggle through very trying times, but the odds seem to be too odd for a dream. Is the time right for a Morgan Tsvangarai leadership? A US senator, Dick Durbin, once said to Senator Obama: “There are moments in life when you can pick the time, but when it comes to running for president, the time can pick you. You have been picked. This is your moment.” Has time picked Tsvangarai for the people of Zimbabwe?

Time can pick a leader where systems and institutions work properly. Democracy has mostly been conducted in a laughable way in Africa. Western powers have often wondered if the continent is ready for a free market place of ideas where insignificant voices must necessarily be heard. Yet, we are convinced that the worst form of participatory democracy is desirable in Africa than any other form of governance. So, we have a responsibility in ensuring that we can, at least, tame the 'democratic vengeance' of movements on the political divide during elections. Instead of assuming that our democracy is working fine and only needs fine-tuning; we should aggressively pursue basic reforms to build our composure for the demands of the system. Where the voters' register cannot be trusted, voting is only a cosmetic measure. Where dissent cannot be tolerated, free speech causes pain. So, where a change of government is hailed as a breakthrough instead being seen as a natural consequence of processes and measures, there is always a problem. This is where a run-off in a contested election could be a trade off or a trade-in or a complete 'trade-out'. The Zimbabwean elections could be anything.

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