Why is Mugabe confident he is going to be reelected? Because his main opponents, Mr Tsvangirai, who heads the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), and Simba Makoni, the former Finance Minister, are from Manicaland. I’m a Manica, my family comes from the mountains around the capital of Manicaland, Mutare. What is the problem with being a Manica? We are, to put it in terms that are not complicated, the smallest tribe of the the three main tribes in Zimbabwe. We might produce lots of educated men and women, but our intellectual power is not backed by the power of a large population. Because the bottom of all African politics is tribalism, Mugabe is guaranteed to hit rock bottom—he will win. In the African mind, the tribe is first and the stomach is a distant second.

A note on Makoni: I recall he was an excellent squash player. I used to watch him play in the courts at the Sun Hotel, the center of Gaborone’s society back in 1987. Makoni was then leading the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which was (and still is) based in Gaborone, Botswana. I even recall Makoni beating an Indian chap, the owner of the right to distribute cars manufactured by BMW, but that might be my imagination and not what actually happened.