It is very frustrating to know that the count was finished on Sunday, all the tallies reported to the various command centres and from them to the national command centre, but that process of "verification" at the NCC is taking forever.
Of course many Zimbabweans think there is a sinister reason for this: "You know they're delaying revealing the results so they can fix them, don't you?" asks Jules rhetorically.
The absence of concrete facts, ensures that rumours fly from lip to lip. "The army chief of staff has given orders to the ZEC to hold the results for 24 hours to allow him to deploy his men - why would they do that?" The assumption is that the army will either crack down on any protests over the obvious rigging of the presidential election result, or they will stage a coup if the real result, a Tsvangirai win, is announced.
"Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa has lost his seat." "Elliot Manyika, the MP for Bindura has lost his seat and shot his driver dead because his driver showed he was happy that the MDC-T candidate had won." True or not, these snippets are passed from person to person, fuelling the feeling of nervousness.
"You forget we have been down this road before. Three elections - 2000, 2002 and 2005 where it was clear that the MDC had won, but Zanu-PF somehow was announced the victor."
"Our only hope this time is that, in spite of the gerrymandering, the postal vote, the problems with the electoral roll and so on... that the transparency of the vote and count in each ward, the public posting of the results for all to see and verify in person, will make it impossible for them to steal the election again."
I have decided to move on from Harare into Matabeleland. I want to see how things are in Bulawayo, Hwange and Victoria Falls. All day yesterday I received text messages from friends in those areas gleefully recounting the results. It seems that Morgan Tsvangirai has swept the board, to the shock and dismay of the Arthur Mutambara faction of the MDC.
One of the things that never ceases to amaze me here is how efficient and well-organised Zimbabwe can be, compared to so many of its neighbours. I call the local reservation number for Air Zimbabwe 575111, choose option 7 for reservations, and speak to a charming and friendly-sounding lady who happily makes a booking for me and gives me my reference.
One day later, I turn up at the international side of Harare airport to the Air Zimbabwe ticket office, state the reference, am told my seat is indeed confirmed, pay up and within minutes am issued a ticket which I then take the 50 metres or so to the domestic terminal where I check in within seconds. It takes a few more seconds to put my bags through the scanner and walk through security into a pleasant and spotlessly clean departure lounge.
Boarding is quick and efficient, the staff aboard the aircraft courteous and friendly. We are even given a snack and hot drink on the flight, which barely lasts an hour. Once on the ground, a quick walk across the apron and straight through the domestic arrivals gate and I am outside. I mentally compare and contrast to the nightmare of transiting London Heathrow and chalk up a few more brownie points for Zimbabwe.
My taxi ride from the airport meets with a police checkpoint - the first I have seen in several days. The policeman and my driver exchange a few words, two 10million Zim dollar notes are surreptitiously passed from my driver's hand into the policeman's hand under the pretext of an African reverse handshake "so he can have a drink" and then we are allowed on.
"Usually they stop us to check if we have currency we shouldn't have, or goods we shouldn't have, then they would confiscate them", the driver says.
Then he shakes his head sideways and smiles: "but they are paid peanuts and I'm sure they too are hoping for good news today."
He means the announcement of the election result, which pretty much all of Zimbabwe is hoping will mean a regime change and the start of a new phase of development that will restore harmony and prosperity to this beautiful country.
Time to go out on the roads and see what is happening here in Matabeleland.]]>
"MDC is telling truth when it says it has won with a landslide."tag:frontline.headshift.com,2008:/blogs/anita//58.29512008-03-30T14:42:16Z2008-12-19T16:13:13Z Since breakfast time we have been criss-crossing the city, looking at the results posted on each polling station wall and talking to people who have been getting results from elsewhere in calls and text messages sent by relatives. It's...Mr Graham
Since breakfast time we have been criss-crossing the city, looking at the results posted on each polling station wall and talking to people who have been getting results from elsewhere in calls and text messages sent by relatives.
It's becoming clear that the MDC has won a landslide victory in Harare and indeed in many of the provinces.
It is rumoured that Robert Mugabe and his family have left the country for Malaysia.
At Belvedere School which had two polling stations, A and B, we spoke to a man who had just come from church. He said Moab's cousin attends his church and confirmed the rumour to him. Hard to tell if this is true, but he was middle-class, well-educated, well-dressed and seemed plausible enough.
At Belvedere A Tsvangirai won 222 votes to Mugabe's 45 and Makoni's 51. At Belvedere B Tsvangirai won 215 to Mugabe's 35 and Makoni's 51.
We drove to nearby Strathhaven - there Tsvangirai had 342 to Mugabe's 63 and Makoni's 79.
As we talked to the police guarding the polling tent, who were all affable but hungry (so my companion bought them some bread rolls) a truckload of young men went by, singing away... as they passed they put up their hands in the MDC open-palmed gesture, then putting thumbs up. The policemen smiled but didn't respond.
We asked what they were hearing... is the city calm all over, how safe are we (as white women)? They smiled and reassured: "No my sister it is all calm, all peaceful, we are all Zimbabweans together, never fear."
At the Marimba shopping centre it was a similar scene: people flocking up in ones, twos and groups to see for themselves the result of yesterday's vote. All over the country people are doing the same thing and then passing on the news to their friends and family. Like the breeze stirring the long grass, the news is slowly passing from one area to another. Broad smiles, thumbs up, the open-palmed wave are everywhere.
"Oh madam, chinja at last", says the driver in the car that pulls up next to us at the traffic lights. "What are you hearing?" everyone asks. We swap information: a text from an MDC worker in Bulawayo says there are reports of mayhem at the Zimbabwe election commission after clean sweep for the MDC-Tsvangirai faction in 5 or more districts.
Will has been up all night, collating incoming reports as MDC observers report back on the count results at each ward polling station. He texts: "Former Zanu strongholds like Bindura, Mutoko, UMP, Chivu, Goromonzi, Whedza, Rusape and Masvingo have changed hands."
More rumours: the Zanu-PF MP of Bindura, Elliot Manyika, has lost his seat and shot someone. An MDC member named Sikhala has stabbed someone in Chitungwiza.
Victoria Falls town as a whole has voted MDC-Tsvangira: "Pasi nawagushunge! Pamberi nema bhunu!" comes a text message.
We meet Simbarache and Prince coming from church - they say Mugabe's home district of Zvimba has turned against him. "The Lord has blessed us, the Lord has blessed us," says Simbarache.
"It has never been like this in other elections I have known since 2000," says Nik. It is so cool people acting like this, going out to check the results for themselves, completely without fear. It's amazing."
Along the road leading back towards the city centre all the Zanu-PF election posters pasted to the lampposts in the central reservation have been blotted out with yellow paint - the work of Simba Makoni supporters perhaps? His campaign colour was yellow, red for the MDC-Tsvangirai, green for Zanu-PF.
Makoni has been coming third everywhere we have seen, and everywhere we have heard of. But he has been taking votes from Mugabe and Zanu, that much is clear. Everywhere I go, on foot and by car, people are smiling, starting to dare to believe that maybe this time it really is going to work.
"Can we start to celebrate?" someone asks. "No, not yet, don't provoke anything," answers another. It appears the electoral commission warned against premature celebrations. There is quite incredible self-discipline. No triumphalism is betrayed, just nervous satisfaction.. nervous because they still have to wait for the ZEC official result announcement. Until then, nothing can be taken for granted.
Back in Chisipite, I encounter a self-professed Zanu-PF supporter reading the blue result announcements in disbelief. Tendai says he cannot believe that Mugabe has lost Zvimba: "it must surely be propaganda" he says. But what about here, does he believe this result is propaganda?
He speaks in rapid Shona to the police guarding the voting tent, on which the four blue sheets of paper tallying the count are attached.
"No, it is right. Here these were the votes, this is what was counted here, the police confirm it and to be honest I expected this area to be pro-MDC-Tsvangirai faction."
Among the surprises so far, it appears independent MP Margaret Dongo has lost her Senate seat. A huge surprise is that Matabeleland, which was thought to be the heartland of MDC-Mutambara faction, has voted massively for Tsvangirai. The Mutambara faction is said to be in shock as some of their leading members have lost their seats. Only David Coltart, a white Senator, is said to have been re-elected safely.]]>
Live from Zimbabwe election day 2tag:frontline.headshift.com,2008:/blogs/anita//58.29502008-03-30T14:39:10Z2008-12-19T16:09:10Z At 7am we went to check the results posted on the wall of the tent that served as the Chishawasha Junction polling station. Only 236 votes had been cast (they had expected 300, so 64 ballot papers were unused)...Mr Graham
At 7am we went to check the results posted on the wall of the tent that served as the Chishawasha Junction polling station. Only 236 votes had been cast (they had expected 300, so 64 ballot papers were unused) and 138 of them were for Morgan Tsvangirai, against just 53 for Robert Mugabe and 43 for Simba Makoni. Langton Towungana got one vote.
It was the same margin of victory in the Senate, parliamentary and council elections, the Tsvangirai faction of the MDC romping home by a mile. People drifted up to check for themselves, singly and in groups, with broad smiles breaking out, thumbs up signs and the open hand wave that is a symbol of support for the MDC.
"This time we got him good," said Andy. "I phoned relatives in Gweru and Kwekwe this morning and the MDC is still leading in both and I am thinking that we really got him this time."
We drove around the almost rural back roads of this north-eastern suburb of Harare finding everywhere an atmosphere of hopeful anticipation. And at every stop we found yet another person who tried to go and vote on Saturday but was denied because their names had disappeared from the electoral roll.
Micky was one of them. "I went first to Newmarch Farm to vote but they couldn't find my name, so I tried the other polling stations in my ward, but they didn't have me listed either."
Yet the African Union observer mission accredited to the '2008 Harmonised Election' has discovered widespread evidence of 'ghost voters', including 8,450 voters registered to an empty field in north Harare.
Everyone I talk to comments on how there have been no police road blocks on any of the roads all weekend. Usually a drive from the suburbs downtown is interrupted several times as police check for contraband or cash.
"When Operation Sunrise was announced - that's when they knocked three zeroes off the bank notes and we all had to surrender the old money - we were stopped regularly by police hoping to confiscate cash", Julie told me. "It's the same story with people coming in from the countryside with a sack of mealie they've grown that they're hoping to sell in the city. The police would stop them and seize their stuff on a pretext. We started to believe that this was sanctioned from the top as a way of keeping lower-ranking police paid and fed."
I had heard similar stories all through Matabeleland. Ross told me that in the markets it was the police chiefs who were selling grain and sugar.
"If someone else comes to sell their stuff, they take it from them, because only they can sell."
I have also heard plenty of cautionary tales about police brutality, especially at the feared Harare Central station. Yet late on Saturday night, at the close of the polls when I went to see how things were at one of the northern polling stations, the policeman from Harare Central posted outside the tent was warm and friendly.
After the usual African reverse handshake, he talked about how orderly things had been throughout the day, that almost everyone had voted by mid-afternoon. At 7pm the chief polling officer gave a little speech to the assembled election officials, party observers, independent observers and a small group of South African journalists, to explain how things would proceed and with that the count began and we left them to it.
The MDC was already predicting it would win by a landslide nationwide. In an attempt to pre-empt fraud the MDC said it would collate results from each of the 9,400 polling stations and announce them itself.
President Mugabe, however said he would definitely win a sixth term and rejected the rigging claims, saying preposterously:
"We are not in the habit of rigging... We don't rig elections. I cannot sleep with my conscience if I have rigged," he said.
But with the latest figures showing inflation is running at 165,000% even in his own rural heartland, people are waking up to the reality of economic disaster and growing hardship and hunger.
This morning I went out to the local farms that have not been seized by 'warvits' (the so-called war veterans who were Zanu-PF's shock troops in the land grab from 2000 on) to find that a single egg bought at cost price on the farm is 5 million Zimbabwe dollars (ZD).
Time now to go eat that egg before we set out to find out what we can about the results from elsewhere and gauge the mood on the streets.]]>
Live from Zimbabwe election daytag:frontline.headshift.com,2008:/blogs/anita//58.29492008-03-29T06:32:56Z2008-12-19T15:49:00Z7am - Umwinsidale, Harare Arrived at the polling station, a large marquee in a field between the Redale petrol station and the local police outpost, just after 7am to find a short queue of about 10 people waiting to vote....Mr Graham7am - Umwinsidale, Harare
Arrived at the polling station, a large marquee in a field between the Redale petrol station and the local police outpost, just after 7am to find a short queue of about 10 people waiting to vote. Loitering outside was a chap wearing a yellow jerkin which read Regional Faith Observer but when asked he turned out to be a Zimbabwean national.
A further seven unidentified people, supposedly observers, sat side by side along a bench outside the entrance to the tent with a man posted at the doorway, calling in the voters one at a time and checking their Zimbabwean ID cards before allowing them inside.
Inside along the left-hand wall of the marquee there was another row of six or seven people sitting on a bench watching events, while at right angles to them were set a group of six desks or tables placed side by side. The polling officer at the first desk looks up the voter's name on the electoral register, checks it matches the person's ID card and then underlines the name.
At the second desk the voter collects a presidential ballot paper which the polling officer folds in half as an example. At the third desk the voter collects the ballot for the Senate elections, at the fourth, the ballot for the parliamentary elections and at the fifth the ballot for the council elections. At the sixth desk the voter is asked to dip the left little finger into a pot of pink ink.
At right angles to the desks (now on the third side of the square of the tent iare set three cardboard booths, about six feet high, in which the voter can mark each ballot paper with a cross. Once this is done, the voter emerges with four ballots folded in half, all slightly different in colour ready to put in their individually-marked ballot boxes, where there is another official to confirm that each paper is put in the correct box. The four ballot boxes are Perspex and transparent, each clearly marked.
On the way out of the tent was a desk with another man, purpose unknown. There was no uniformed policeman inside and the one patrolling outside did not enter when a disabled lady (arms foreshortened from thalidomide) entered. Although this lady (Sandy) has on previous elections been on the electoral roll for this ward and has always voted in this place, she was told her name wasn't on the roll and she must go elsewhere. She tried to complain to the observers both inside and outside the tent, but no-one paid any attention or took any note of her complaint.
So the voting process at this polling station appeared entirely in line with international standards for a free and fair vote albeit that at least one voter feared being disenfranchised from the absence of her name on the electoral roll. However, as another voter commented: this isn't where the rigging takes place, it's the count and the tally which need the closest scrutiny.]]>
Nation of Millionairestag:frontline.headshift.com,2008:/blogs/anita//58.29482008-03-28T20:28:48Z2008-12-19T15:51:24ZFor a short while today I was a billionaire. I changed US$100 at a rate of 40 million Zimbabwean dollars (ZD) to the US dollar. In Zimbabwe everyone is a millionaire some of the time. I couldn't have changed more,...Mr GrahamFor a short while today I was a billionaire. I changed US$100 at a rate of 40 million Zimbabwean dollars (ZD) to the US dollar. In Zimbabwe everyone is a millionaire some of the time.
I couldn't have changed more, even if I'd had room in my rucksack because apprehension about the outcome of tomorrow's elections has people queuing in their hundreds outside banks to draw whatever they can. As a result there is little liquidity for the black market dealers out on the streets.
It went quickly - 500 million ZD for a meal, 100 million ZD for a bottle of beer, nearly 1 billion for a pair of leather sandals. Easy come, easy go.
The meal had been pretty spectacular - a lamb curry at Amanzi, one of Harare's best restaurants out on Enterprise Road as you head east away from the city centre. Not just because of the quality of the food, which was excellent, but because of the live music and party atmosphere in which it was consumed.
It was a respite from the rumour mill, from the seesaw between hope and despair that all Zimbabweans feel as the hours tick by and the moment comes when the people can have their say.
Outcome already fixed
The trouble is that so many are convinced that their votes will not count in the usual way because the 'Harmonised 2008 Elections' are already rigged in Zanu-PF and Robert Mugabe's favour.
"There is more excitement than in 2005 and that is down to Simba Makoni's entry into the presidential race," Pastor Rifa told me. "The only way to dislodge the tyrant is for all the opposition to unite and when the MDC split people were so disappointed they weren't even sure it was worth registering to vote."
"But then Makoni declared - and voter registration in this constituency went up by 45% in a single week. Maybe he can't win, maybe he will split the vote, but the thought that as a former Zanu-PF insider he will know how to beat Mugabe has given people renewed hope."
Does he share that hope that Mugabe can be defeated? "Personally I believe the election has already been rigged before a single vote is cast. BUT if there is an overwhelming vote for the opposition maybe it will be too difficult to cover up."
Pray for us
For Linda, the situation can hardly be worse. A supporter of the Arthur Mutambara faction of the MDC in Bulawayo, she has been out on the stump campaigning for Simba Makoni.
"My children are grown and gone. But last year a family came by to visit us, just as you are now. The two children were here playing in the garden as we spoke under the shade of the tree. I went to arrange some cool drinks and when I came back the parents had left, leaving these children that you see here now, with us."
Linda and her husband are getting on in years, have no employment and no pension.
Her husband was a Zipra fighter in the second Chimurenga and so was targeted during the Gukurahundi repression of 1982. He showed me the scars from the beatings that nearly cost him his life.
They have long had reason to fear and loathe Robert Mugabe but had become disillusioned with the failure of Morgan Tsvangirai to find a strategy to oust him.
"But this time, God willing, it will happen. Change has to come, life is too hard here. Please pray for us that this time we can make it so."
Lessons of the past decade
Electoral officials have traditionally called on teachers to act as polling officers during elections but this year it's been a source of contention as the new rules require everyone to vote in their home town where they are registered. It has meant that anyone deployed outside their home town would in effect be disenfranchised.
Justin Moyo is so determined to cast his vote he chose not to volunteer as a polling officer this year. He has been on strike for weeks, tempted back by President Mugabe's offer of a 4.5 billion ZD raise then frustrated when it turned out to be only 1.2 billion in the pay cheque.
"Not everyone even got that much. So even though we are supposed to go back to work for the start of the new term on April 29th, I think some teachers won't go back then and we will be on strike again."
"I think this time it will be tough for the old man, because he has never won a free and fair election."
Then he frowns and asks if I think the election will be free and fair. I answer with another question - what was it like in previous elections?
"We know the old man stole the election in 2000, 2002 and 2005 but we have to believe that this time, it just might be different."
I go to the house of the fourth, and least known, candidate in this presidential election, Pastor Langton Tawungana, who lives in Mkhosana township, a high-density suburb of Victoria Falls.
The pastor isn't home, in fact he is away in Harare, his wife says.
Mrs Tawungana is on her way to work and doesn't have much time to talk about her husband's candidacy.
Does he have prior political experience? "No". Has he any experience of public administration? "No". Not even at local level, in the town council? "No". Has he ever been a member of any political party? "No." So why is he standing?
"He felt a calling from God. He says the situation in Zimbabwe is crying out for heavenly intervention and that he was called upon to do something."
So has he been campaigning hard? "No he has done no campaigning."
And with that the interview is over. So I drive to Pastor Tawungana's church. On the trees outside are posters for his rivals, Morgan Tsvangirai and Simba Makoni and in their shade lies a broken down van, its tyres flat.
]]>
It's an Election... but not as we know ittag:frontline.headshift.com,2008:/blogs/anita//58.29472008-03-28T17:28:38Z2008-12-19T15:15:49ZJust two days before the elections in Zimbabwe, Santos still hadn't decided which presidential candidate to vote for."Who do you think will make the better president," he asks, "Simba Makoni or Morgan Tsvangirai?"(He ruled out a vote for Mugabe with...Mr Graham
elections in Zimbabwe, Santos still hadn't decided which presidential candidate to vote for.
(He ruled out a vote for Mugabe with an emphatic sideways shake of his head and a guttural click of the tongue.) He outlined the pros and cons:
Tsvangirai, the former trade union leader turned opposition party leader, is seen as an honest man, on the side of the people and above all, Mugabe's arch-rival.
He has been battling for 8 years at the head of the Movement for Democratic Change, winning votes but losing successive elections until in-fighting split his party into two factions.
The MDC says the results were rigged in 2000, 2002 and again in 2005 and that seems to be what most Zimbabweans believe.
"Maybe President Robert Mugabe is just too wily for him; he will never let him win, just as he has been saying again and again in his speeches: 'Akosoze' - never, ever".
Former SADC Secretary-General and ex-Finance Minister Simba Makoni on the other hand was an insider in the Zanu-PF establishment until he broke ranks this year to stand as an independent.
"I am not convinced Makoni is not still one of them," says Santos's friend Tedi.
The two men confer. "He didn't speak out against what Zanu-PF was doing all those years, until now. But he is an educated man, a clever man and maybe he has the secret support of powerful men inside the party."
Santos was talking to me just hours after Simba Makoni's campaign wagon had rolled out of town.
The candidate didn't turn up in person - he sent a local hero Dumiso Dabengwe in his stead to address rallies in Hwange and Victoria Falls in western Matabeleland.
Several thousand people had turned up, among them the grizzled heads of former Zipra liberation fighters, almost mobbing the Makoni team in their keenness to get hold of a campaign t-shirt.
But in a town where few people can afford to buy clothes, was this a sign of allegiance to the upstart, or just a pragmatic grab of free shirts on offer?
Mrs Moyo was there handing out the shirts. She and her husband are supporters of Arthur Mutambara, the leader of the other faction of the MDC, which has swung behind the Makoni campaign.
With a broad grin she told me "support is building day by day".
One poll (by the Mass Public Opinion Institute in Harare) suggests Tsvangirai has 28% of popular support against 20% for Mugabe and a mere 9% for Makoni.
On the ground it is difficult to gauge.
Anecdotal evidence suggests more people turn out voluntarily for the MDC leader than for the President, provided the opposition political rallies go ahead as planned.
Zanu-PF tactics are said to include block-booking of the stadiums, unexpected power cuts midway through opposition rally speeches and the impounding of a helicopter that was meant to fly MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai to campaign events.
Rumours are everywhere: that by presidential order the printers producing the ballots for Saturday's four polls, printed three million duplicate forms; that the voters' roll is filled with the names of the dead or impossibly elderly (the 'ghost' voters), while some of those entitled to vote find their names are mysteriously not on the register; that the international observers who were allowed in by 'Comrade Bob' are only accredited until Saturday, so will not be at the sinister National Command Centre which will count the ballots in the presidential race.
Four million Zimbabweans living abroad in the diaspora have been disenfranchised, but a postal vote was compulsory for an estimated 400,000 police and army who will be on duty on polling day, and who allegedly were ordered to vote Zanu-PF under the supervision of senior officers.
Zanu-PF has blatantly handed out food, seed, agricultural implements, cars, buses and billion-dollar pay hikes to public sector workers - none of which the country can afford - during the election campaign.
The party's propaganda occupies hours of TV and radio broadcasting and fills the state-owned press while the opposition struggles to get any air time.
In Thursday's state-run newspapers, Zanu-PF full-page advertisements run on alternate pages, with just a single quarter-page ad for Simba Makoni and none for the MDC.
But, unlike prior elections, this year there has been little evidence of violent harassment of the opposition.
Cynics say that is because Mugabe knows he has already stitched up the result.
And yet they still dare to hope that this time, the weight of numbers will be so overwhelming that it will be impossible to hide the truth: that with few exceptions the whole nation is waving the red card at the 'old man' in State House.]]>
From Tuesday April 1: Victoria Falls, Harare
The rumoured developments don’t happen. There’s no premature announcement of a Mugabe victory… just a further drip, drip, drip of parliamentary results and I suspect they mean to drag this out until everybody is bored with it, in the hope that people lose any will to protest.
This is 3am ‘wisdom’ speaking of course. The heightened tensions of yesterday left me, and no doubt several million Zimbabweans, unable to sleep. By 6am I had digested all the overnight analysis (frenzied speculation about military coups, SADC intervention, feelers put out between the opposition, Mugabe and the military, all of which turn out to be wild guesses).
I decide against heading back to Bulawayo. On balance I think it is unlikely to be in the grip of popular protest. Instead, I spend the day in and around one of Zimbabwe’s most-favoured tourist destinations, the Victoria Falls.
Business is not at its best in Vic Falls. Most hotels are operating at somewhat below 30% of capacity. Even those that have carved out a regular share of the lucrative tour group market feel rather empty. There appear to be more staff than guests. The political situation is frightening off visitors.
For a town whose livelihood is almost 100% dependent on the tourist trade, this means everyone is hurting. I discover that here the unofficial exchange rate – the street rate - is 30 million to the US dollar, compared to more than 40 million in the capital.
Along Livingstone Way, the main street that runs through town from the border to the Bulawayo Road, there are signs in front of the three main banks warning foreign visitors that it is against the law to exchange foreign money anywhere else. Each bank has its forlorn queue of Zimbabweans snaking from the door, forced to waste hours trying to cash paychecks or to draw enough money for their everyday needs.
“We are not allowed to keep foreign currency – but our money is worthless. Every week, the Zim dollar buys less than the week beforeâ€, local woodcarver Freedom tells me. “We have big problems here in Zimbabwe, madam and that is why everyone here was hoping for change.â€
A month ago, a shirt at the Batoka clothing store 100 metres up the road was 200 million Zimbabwean dollars (ZD). With hyperinflation now around 200% per month (estimated at more than 120,000 year on year), a lively barter trade has sprung up with locals eager to trade Nyanga ironwood carvings, serpentine Shona sculptures or Batonga baskets for clothing and footwear. Today that same Batoka shirt was 850 million ZD. Not that anyone was buying… they were flocking to any café with a TV to see whether the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) had any further light to shed on the outcome of Saturday’s elections.
FEELING CHEATED
It amounts to death by a thousand cuts. At random, at tedious length, an inarticulate spokesman or woman woodenly pronounces a jangle of names and numbers.
The audience at the River Café scribbles furiously… after a while the rhythm is totally predictable: a litany of constituency name, the candidates’ names and number of votes received by each, then the pronouncement: so-and-so “of the MDC-Tsvangirai faction is duly electedâ€, followed in strict sequence by blah, blah, blah… and so-and-so “of Zanu-PF is duly electedâ€. Ping Pong. The appearance is given that the two main parties are neck and neck.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) broadcast takes an hour or more – a male spokesman with the benefit of some tuppence ha’penny graphs repeats the account. In summary, 25 more seats (out of 210) have been allocated: 13 to Zanu-PF and 12 to MDC-Tsv.
As I sit watching, Tendai comes to find me: “I don’t understand – on Sunday I heard from Bindura that the sitting MP Eliot Manyika had lost, got into a dispute, shot someone (allegedly his driver) and was in police custody. Today it turns out he’s been elected after all.â€
A bystander says: “Don’t worry, the MDC will have the real result from every ward, even photographs. If the ZEC and Zanu-PF change the figures, they will be found out.â€
Whisper was a candidate for his town council but lost to MDC-Tsv. He says the opposition will not take another stolen election lying down: “I want you to write this - I think this time if they steal the election, the MDC will fight.â€
COLLATERAL DAMAGE
We are speaking on the edge of the curio market, where just a few tourists desultorily wander up and down the rows of carvings and sculptures on display, while the vendors slump despondently, occasionally stirring themselves at the prospect of a client.
I ask about the price of a carved stone bird, pointing to its head, inadvertently touching it with the tip of my index finger. Disaster ensues: the carving topples over and breaks into two at the neck. I freeze in anguish stammering my apologies but the salesman, who had previously assured me he sat up all night carving the bird out of serpentine, brushes off my attempt to compensate him.
An acquaintance ushers me away before I embarrass myself further, reassuring me “It’s okay, it was probably already broken and he thought he could get away with fixing it with superglue.â€
I am reminded of some advice given last month by one of the regional experts at a South-African based safari company: “Zimbabwe is perfectly safe for tourists. In spite of poverty there is very little crime and you will be enchanted by the friendly, open welcome you will get from everyone… even if they are trying to rip you off, they are nice about it.â€
FAITH RESTORED
Some weeks ago I mailed a small parcel to a friend in Victoria Falls. In truth, neither of us was certain it would arrive safely. I had further complicated the parcel’s chances of being misplaced by misspelling the recipient’s name.
We went together to enquire at the main post office and were directed to the branch office in Chinotimba, the high-density township suburb adjoining Vic Falls. We walked the kilometre or two between the two offices in the noon sunshine along dirt paths, the sandy earth turning feet and ankles red.
The Chinotimba branch was temporarily unattended. The staff have rearranged the opening times to come in half-an-hour earlier in the morning so as to take an extra 30 minutes for lunch, which allows them time enough to go home to eat.
When the door finally opens, we explain our mission. Miraculously the clerk’s face lights up, “oh yes the package is hereâ€, she says, producing it straight away. I explain the mistaken name, my friend produces her ID card as proof of her real name, and the package is ours – not even any duty to pay.
We are jubilant. This has completely restored our faith in poor, battered Zimpost, which like most Zimbabwean organizations, has not weathered too well in recent times.
TSUNAMI FEARS
From there it was barely another kilometre to the neighbouring township, Mkhosana, where I wanted to catch up with some MDC activists.
Lindi was no longer hopeful: “The old man is going to steal the election, I just know it. He’s done this too many times before. And then when his so-called victory is announced he will plot his revenge on the areas that didn’t vote for him.â€
She explains. Operation Murambatsvina (Clean out the Filth) which left an estimated 700,000 poor Zimbabweans homeless after their homes were bulldozed, was seen as Mugabe’s revenge on the urban poor who voted against him and for the opposition MDC in 2002.
“It was a tsunami,†she says. “That’s what we called it. It came out of nowhere and swept everything away.â€
Now she and her husband worry that the scale of this electoral rebuff will provoke yet another backlash from a president who inspires only fear and loathing. “He has a long memory and he is very, very patient. If he stays in power, be sure he will make us pay, sooner or later.â€
Like everyone I speak to, they are quite convinced that there can be no other reason for the delay in announcing the election results, other than someone is “cooking the booksâ€.
I set off on the dusty walk back along the main Bulawayo road back into Vic Falls. My cellphone has barely pinged all day. The torrent of text messages of previous days has dried up. Communications are on hold until some glimmer of a result can be discerned from the confusion being spread by the ZEC.]]>
We woke early on the promise that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) would be starting to announce the official results as of 6am. In fact it announced one parliamentary seat, Mutasa South which went in favour of the Tsvangirai faction of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) by more than 8,000 votes to 3,000 and some for Zanu-PF.
Since breakfast time we have been criss-crossing the city, looking at the results posted on each polling station wall and talking to people who have been getting results from elsewhere in calls and text messages sent by relatives.
At 7am we went to check the results posted on the wall of the tent that served as the Chishawasha Junction polling station. Only 236 votes had been cast (they had expected 300, so 64 ballot papers were unused) and 138 of them were for Morgan Tsvangirai, against just 53 for Robert Mugabe and 43 for Simba Makoni. Langton Towungana got one vote.
7am - Umwinsidale, Harare
For a short while today I was a billionaire. I changed US$100 at a rate of 40 million Zimbabwean dollars (ZD) to the US dollar. In Zimbabwe everyone is a millionaire some of the time.
