GNU

is a new TLA that has entered the mainstream lexicon, especially if you've been following the disputed election results in Kenya. It stands for Government of National Unity, but as the utterances by Kenya's Prime Minister and Foreign Minister show, it is anything but. For the Kenyan taxpayer, the GNU means having to pay for a bloated cabinet. Kenya's IDPs face a delay in being resettled because funds for the IDPs have been diverted to the precious lawmakers. Cocking a snoot to the plight of the IDPs, Kenya's lawmakers have decided to award themselves a non-taxable generous allowance increase.

If Zimbabwe does go down the road of the GNU, as they are being encouraged to, then I certainly hope Zimbabwean taxpayers get a better deal than that of their Kenyan counterparts. And if the wishes of the electorate are ignored as was the case in Kenya and Zimbabwe, what's the point of spending all that money on having elections in the first place? Why not set up a GNU at the outset? I believe the IDPs in Kenya and Zimbabwe would be amenable to that because exercising one's democratic right is not worth one's life, livelihood or displacement.

Africa doesn't do elections (apart from Botswana), it does selections, but there is a slight breeze of change.