I could not believe the headline of the Sunday Times yesterday. “Crisis? What Crisis?” How can President Thabo Mbeki honestly believe that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe? Is the non release of results of the presidential election results not a crisis? It was been two weeks now and still there is no word on who the president of Zimbabwe is going to be. If this is not a crisis then i do not know what is. Wikipedia defines a crisis as: A crisis (plural: crises) may occur on a personal or societal level. It may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person’s life, or an unstable and dangerous social situation, in political, social, economic, military affairs, or a large-scale environmental event, especially one involving an impending abrupt change. More loosely, it is a term meaning ‘a testing time’ or ‘emergency event’.

Now based on the above definition by Wikipedia, a crisis may be a traumatic or stressful change in a person’s life. Taking that into account, how many peoples, more specifically Zimbabweans, lives have been put through stress because of the delay in the election results? Millions I would say. Then how can that not be termed a crisis Mr. Mbeki? If we then look at ‘a traumatic change in a person’s life’; The military and police are now out in full force across Zimbabwe getting ready to intimidate people. Just the sheer sight of seeing soldiers and police people walking around the streets holding guns and batons is traumatic enough to anyone seeing them. One never knows what these armed forces will do to you. And if they do something to you, who can you run to to protect you?

The definition then goes on to say ‘an unstable or dangerous social situation’. Clearly Zimbabwe is currently in an unstable and dangerous situation with the whole country waiting with great anticipation to find out if there will be a new president. Many think that there will be a new president in Morgan Tsvangirai but for a reason unbeknown to us, the election results have not yet been released. It is said that the MDC leader, Tsvangirai, won the vote and that is the belief of many Zimbabweans. Now if for some reason, the results are released and Tsvangirai is not the winner then there is a potential dangerous social situation. On the other hand, if Mugabe is not elected the winner, there are those who will be really upset and thus will create a dangerous social situation. So either way, if Mugabe or Tsvangirai win, there will be a dangerous social situation in Zimbabwe. Is this still not a crisis?

The final part of the Wikipedia definition for the word crisis states ‘a testing time’ or ‘emergency event’. If Zimbabwe is not currently going through a testing time then I do not know what will ever be a testing time. President Mbeki and Mugabe met in Zimbabwe over the weekend to discuss the Zimbabwe situation. There are things they obviously talked about which we are not aware of but after the meeting, President Mbeki came out and told us that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. I find that impossible to believe and I hope that Mr. Mbeki can prove us wrong and show us that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe. I hope Mr. Mbeki’s statements do not come back to haunt him when the ‘non crisis’ in Zimbabwe escalates and lives start to be lost.