Such is the dearth in suitable political candidates in France that an enterprising group has decided to court former US president Barack Obama to come and run for Presidency in France in the forthcoming election.
To them the current crop of politicians fighting to succeed Francois Hollande are not worth the mantle and responsibility.
The current competing candidates include a far-right female-Trump, Le Pen, who has vowed to offer the French a chance to vote out of the European Union in a Frexit (after Brexit) whilst also coming down hard on the Islamic; a thieving nepotistic fellow, Fillion, who swindled government funds by paying his wife for a non-existant job plus a centrist, Macron, with a vague plan for the nation.
It’s a mouthful of candidates really such that the population has just said what the heck Obama can you come over and be the first black French President again just as you did back there in the US.
Currently the movement calling for an Obama-ian Presidency has amassed nearly 50 000 signatures for their petition, with an aim for one million before 15 March when they will present his candidacy.
Of course Obama is never going to do that as he gets down to writing books (Penguin has already latched onto him and Michelle with bumper million book deals) and enjoying the benefits that come with being the nearest thing there is to a universal Big Brother.
The French shall simply have to choose the better devil from the displayed wares of politicians that they have managed to produce as a country.
Politicians are the produce of society and more often than not we are simply faced with the product of our combined being.
Trump for all his white supremacist take on the world is, put simply, the personification of the current complete American conscience and being. He is only an anomaly in so far as a shameful desire red-cheeks us all when it goes public.
Which brings us back home to the 2018 election, the disenchantment with an opposition that cannot stand still amongst itself, repeatedly splintering and splitting; a ruling party that is failing to deliver but remains with a huge traction amongst a large batch of the electorate and a future that is as bleak and in need of a foreigner to come in and rescue us from our sorry ourselves.
As 2018 draws closer with Tsvangirai and Mujuru failing to unite over petty differences do we need our own version of Obama? A retired former president from somewhere to come in and lift this sorry nation that like the biblical character of a lamenting Paul knows what it wants but goes ahead and does the opposite?
However the job becomes tricky considering that institutions such as the Mo Ibrahim Foundation which reward democratic leaders with prizes in Africa has, for the second year in a row, failed to find any suitable candidate.
No retiring or removed African leader has been deemed worthy of democratic statutes and principles to be awarded the $5 million prize.
This leaves us in a quandary and facing the prospect of scavenging back in time to the likes of long gone Thambo Mbeki or some such relic as Kenneth Kaunda.
That however won’t suffice as we are just groaning under an octogenarian self-esteem that knows no bounds and eternally believes in its use and ability.
Another white haired or scowl jawed old man is unwelcome.
So what about the baby-faced?
He has roused up a docile South African political landscape dozing into fake progress under the stewardship of the ANC and appears to possess flecks of common sense though with a need to trim off the ungainly teenage exuberance.
Malema is no political Einstein. He is just a ‘forward’ politician who knows what his objectives are and goes for them despite the hindering presence of enemies and the status quo.
That kind of approach requires that he stand up to old man who have grown to believe in their infallibility and omnipotence. In an Africa where common sense can be a rare commodity Malema can surprisingly come across as a rare commodity.
One that is evidently absent from ZANU PF where Chipanga wants to do away with elective congresses. (Make it a formality); and Dr Grace wants a Mummy Mugabe to rule from the grave.
Wherever that type of democracy came from only the cowards of ZANU PF know. If he is so popular then where is the danger in pitting him against others? He will just win, right.
The other guys from MDC-T have not shown a lack of common sense but the opposite. They have exhibited too much of it by-passing the obvious in their learned and deep thinking ways.
What was that gimmick about boycotting elections in Africa? Besides deflating whatever momentum they had built, they have sapped the opposition family of the drive to fight the barbarity of ZANU PF.
Even Tsvangirai has been exhibiting the same tendencies if his remarks that people show-boat as ZANU vote as MDC-T.
Boycotting elections is a trick from advanced democracies where both the status quo and the opposition are civilised beings with a core of humanity still very much functional and alive.
In Africa it’s viewed as the perfect cowardly way of chickening your way out of a beating, literal and metaphorical during election season.
Mujuru and the scarecrows he adopted from ZANU PF have already shown an inability to sustain themselves in the battle whilst Tendai Biti and the People’s Democratic Party have chosen to play Big Brother in a small brother’s community called Coalition of Democrats (CODE), where numbers don’t matter according to them.
What kind of election are they going to compete in where numbers don’t matter??
Welshman, Welshman the least said the better about a noble principled project misplaced in a jungle called Zimbabwe.
With such a medley of characters clamouring for my vote, Malema comes across as a viable alternative to daydream about as 2018 elections draw near.
Can’t we just borrow him, stamp him at the head and watch the dying embers of ZANU PF really die out.
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