kariba (well, sort of)

"Things are not good," he says.

The white bakkie shot past our gate, then reversed. The passenger window opened. I recognise MDC MP P. M. and his driver (or is he a policeman? He has a fluorescent green vest). The MP is smartly dressed these days: pin-stripe suit (despite the heat), stiff white-collared shirt, tiny brass flags pinned to his lapel.

But he isn't optimistic. The just-started constitutional outreach programme is mired in controversy. Educators from civic groups -- including a sizeable contingent of war vets (leader Joseph Chinotimba was pictured getting his accreditation in the state-owned Herald last week) -- are supposed to be holding meetings with mainly rural folk to tell them about the importance of putting their own input into a new constitution. The rural folk are getting intimidated, a Nyazura farmer told me last week. And the educators are making a pretty penny from their donor-funded allowances ($70 per day when teachers get $150 per month: not surprisingly, civil servants have given a general strike notice). MPs meantime are hiring out their government vehicles for the exercise at up to $250 per day. If the exercise lasts 100 days, that'll be more than $20,000 profit.

"There are more farm invasions, the war vets are telling the people they can only have the Kariba Draft," says the MP as we stand under the fig tree. The Kariba Draft is a draft constitution hastily agreed to by all three parties to the power-sharing deal. The document -- which retains Mugabe's sweeping powers -- wasn't supposed to be set in stone. But ZANU-PF now insists it is.

The MP looks at us and sighs.