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When Mr Morgan Tsvangirai,leader of the Movement of Democratic Change,told BBC's Sunday AM programme some months back, that the political crisis in Zimbabwe had approached its "tipping point", the world was once more,put on alert.For all the wrong reasons there on planet earth,President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe has forced its way to the forefront of international political discourse,thereby shrinking further the ailing image of the African continent.

Mr Mugabe had,in response to mounting opposition to his desire to run for re-election as president next year 2008,deployed,in a most crude fashion,the coercive apparatuses of the state against his compatriots who legitimately seek change.By the time the dust raised from the crackdowns on opposition had settled,Messrs Tsvangirai and Nelson Chamisa,member of parliament,were left thoroughly beaten,with the former's skull fracture.Government ,through Mr Sikanyiso Ndlovu ,Minister for information,denied state involvement in the incident on BBC Focus on Africa.
It was for these-and more-that Mr Tendai Biti, MDC's chief scribe,as Southern African Development Community leaders converge in Tanzania {with the Zimbabwean crisis top on their agenda},appealed thus: "We hope they{SABC leaders} will be strong against Mugabe and tell him he has had 27 years of uninterrupted,peaceful rule in Zimbabwe,and should go." Days later ,Mugabe's party-ZANU-PF,armed him with their presidential flag.Zimbabwe,nay,Africa,does not need a crystal ball to know that tougher and uncertain times await Zimbabweans as they march to the polls come 2008.Zimbabwe should face it:the countdown to the zero hour will be painful.It might be bloody also.
Liberation,as a matter of rule,comes with a price.The good news,however,is that government resort to brute force in its desperate bid to quell voices of dissent reveals,quite instructively ,the diminishing strength of its semantics,sophistry and pseudo-nationalism preachments,which it had hitherto relied upon to stifle alternative political view points.Owing to this fact,it won't be surprising to see a highly inflammable Mugabe in the days ahead,who would not mind razing down the entire Zimbabwean edifice in an attempt to contain the equally highly inflammable temerity of the change agents he restrictively perceives,in error,as mere political rivals.
In fairness to Mugabe,though what is left of his political ideology is not useless in its totality .For instance ,given the historical circumstance of Zimbabwe

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