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Our country, Zimbabwe is a beautiful country with an amazing resilient people. We have seen the economy of Zimbabwe crumbling down. There are so many reasons to why Zimbabwe has been reduced from being the breadbasket of Africa to a nation of vendors. Zimbabwe needs a real change. Replacing a poorly administered autocracy with an equally incompetent democracy will get us nowhere. It needs a change of leadership with a political mindset different from the one we have seen from the Zanu PF regime. The suffering we are facing in Zimbabwe is sufficient enough for us to demand for change. There is no doubt that the Mugabe era will finally reach to its end-game. As a country, we have a lot of work to do post Mugabe. Politics of patronage is so much embedded in our politics; it will take an enormous effort to reduce it. It is up to individuals to describe Mugabe a legend or villain. Some may lament and bemoan the end of pan-africanism; others will celebrate the end of a dictator. Even yesterday, while others were calling Mandela a hero, others were calling him a sell out and traitor. Mugabe is no exception. It is beyond doubt that Mugabe is a man who divides opinion and stimulates so much debate. I will leave that for posterity. It is a time to look ahead and visualize a new Zimbabwe without Mugabe. Many of us would like to figure out how to transform Zimbabwe, once the "jewel of Africa" to a fully functioning democracy, suitable for the twenty first century and beyond. We also need to educate our people. A large number of our eligible voters vote for populist policies. Some vote on the basis of personalities rather than policies. Most of our voters do not have the expertise to devote to the careful study of complex public policy issues. New social actors should form a coalition which has no strong stake in the existing corrupt system. The coalition will have to change the rules by which the current system has been operating. A coalition of progressive social groups will eliminate one particular form of clientelism, the ability of political parties to secure support through the distribution of jobs. In view of Zimbabwe's economic atrophy, the short essays here attempt to address the following questions: o What is political development? o What is political decay? o What can Zimbabwe do to curb the rampant corruption bedevilling the nation? o What are the tough challenges of rebuilding Zimbabwe post Mugabe. o Is Zimbabwe a failing state? o Is democracy just an expression of ideas? o How communist China did broke the mold from poor to rich and what should be the lessons for Zimbabwe? o Is Mugabe's main challenge a crisis of legitimacy in the Zanu PF system? Finally, the last essay is adapted from Frantz Fanon's The Wretched of the Earth; who died of leukaemia on December 6, 1961 at a National Institutes of Health facility in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Tendai Kwari: Follow @tendaikwari
