A polling round-up on the day of Robert Mugabe’s one horse race
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National
The Econet cellphone network, owned by Strive Masiyiwa, is all but defunct so communications via cellphone are proving almost impossible. One wonders if the sole state telephone controller has deliberately put a spanner in the works? In addition, NetOne coverage is also very poor, and for the past two months it has been almost impossible to buy pay top up cards for pay as you go lines, only for contracts. The rumour is that the companies printing the top up cards were forced to use their machinery to print Zanu PF cards.
Government knows that people are intending to spoil their votes if forced into polling stations, so the word on the street is that most voters will have to cast their ballots in the presence of a state agent.
Harare
The people of Harare have opted to stay at home today. By 8.30am polling stations had processed an average of 20 voters each, a far cry from the 29/3 election when people had started queuing by 4am.
But the atmosphere is tense, with the expectation that midday will signal the time when the state will galvanise their thugs to force people to vote. Many activists have gone to ground, fearing for their lives, following the recent information disseminated with the latest JOC strategy report leaked.
We hope and pray the observers will do their job today.
Bulawayo
It’s a beautiful winters day, deep blue skies and the sun is shining – a great day to stay at home and relax.
No one queuing to vote at Bradfield, Bulawayo
Bulawayo has shown the dictator exactly what they think of him, the boycott of the polling stations is complete. An activist did a drive around the city and polling stations are morgue-like.
The Bulawayo City Hall, usually a fairly busy station due to its location in the centre of town, is dead. Another usually busy polling station had had all of 3 voters by 9am and that is the pattern throughout the city!
Hey you guys… psssst…… Sokwanele - Zvakwana! Get it?
In fact, all polling stations driven past, saw the police and polling agents sitting outside sheepishly enjoying the morning sunhine and reading the daily dose of propaganda from the state controlled “Chronic” newspaper.
Interestingly enough the Chronicle is on the streets, but so are yesterday’s copies of the Sowetan and the South African Star. So, the government’s attempt to deny all fair news coverage has been stymied by the sale of these papers, but only for those who can afford it.
But the underground news network is in full swing. The streets around the entire city are carpeted with red and white flyers, apparently distributed in the early hours of the morning. A call came in early this morning from a high density suburb to say, “Yesterday the streets were red, today they are white!” An Ndebele version of the boycott flyer is the order of the day.
The other new addition adorning the streets are red spray painted V’s on walls, street signs, on the roads, as well as a few beribboned trees and sign posts. Somebody was busy last night!
By-Election in Pelandaba
As a by product of the boycott, the polling stations in this constituency are also very slow, a clear indication that people do not believe in the legitimacy of the election process.
Lowveld
Chiredzi polling stations are also enjoying poor turnout.
Right now people have been forced to gather at Triangle Stadium, where they are being given papers and cards to go and vote.
Hippo Valley, Triangle and Mkwasine sugar estates have been the sites for intensive “pungwes” for the past two months. People in these areas have said they will go to vote and they will vote Zanu PF for the sake of their children. Most people who in the past helped each other will not even talk to each other.
Zaka
People are being forced out of their homes to go and vote.
Masvingo
Voting patterns are the same as all other urban centres, two or three voters at most stations by mid morning.
Victoria Falls/Hwange
Once again, polling stations are dead. Hwange residents have been threatened with violence tomorrow if they do not turn out to vote.
June 27th, 2008 12:44
Fantastic post, fantastic leadership. Let’s spread this around the world as an example of democracy.
On reading this I felt like Michelle Obama - today I feel proud . . of course there have been other times too, but the surge of feeling of pride, hope, you see,
Zimbabweans cherish reasonableness and this is so Zimbabwean!
Obama twitters - I am going to have a go at nudging him!
Why don’t we send this link to every company, politician, newspaper that we’ve been nudging for the last three months??
Send this post to 10 000 organizations by midnight tonight?
June 27th, 2008 12:55
Keep this up. I hope one day soon to read your reports of joy on the streets at a change of government.
June 27th, 2008 12:59
I dunnit!
I sent this link to Barack Obama on Twitter.
Now who else!
Yep, LinkedIn. Friday is a good time to talk to them.
Think hard now Sokwanele. All manner of people log into LinkedIn on Fridays and check out the questions and answers. They were helpful over the An Yue Jiang. It’s random who logs on but 2m people can see a question of mine, if they log in.
What question can we ask? Something that will engage people, mainly in north America.
If anyone lists any suggestions here, they are forwarded by email.
And pass this link on - show Zimbabweans as resilient, determined, and with a irresistible sense of humour.
June 27th, 2008 13:22
I am not sure if there is anything in this but I just tried to log onto the mdc webiste rfom work and got this message. Could this be a hack to attempt to gain info from people logging onto mdc?
“Reported Attack Site!
This web site at http://www.mdc.co.zw has been reported as an attack site and has been blocked based on your security preferences.
Attack sites try to install programs that steal private information, use your computer to attack others, or damage your system.
Some attack sites intentionally distribute harmful software, but many are compromised without the knowledge or permission of their owners.”
June 27th, 2008 13:38
Great photo of the Bulawayo polling station. Great respect to the man or woman brave enough to snap that.
June 27th, 2008 14:16
And I just fired this link into House of Commons in the UK.
Some more folks! The world wants to see definitive action on Zim.
Give them something to cheer and support. Help them see the finishing line.
June 27th, 2008 15:10
Sokwanele
What an excellent report of procedings so far.
The pictures make the difference.
June 27th, 2008 15:14
Things look very gloom in Glen Norah the turnout is very slow.GOOD FOR DEMOCRACY.
June 27th, 2008 15:17
“Sleep no more! / Macbeth does murder sleep”
On another dictators’ life and times…
Witches/dark forces give ‘reassurances’:
1) “Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn / The power of man, for none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth (Mugabe).”
(updated) Said Grace ‘Emelda’ Mugabe: And none of ‘British born’ will enter state house? But what of Trade Union and opposition born?!Step on in Morgan, Thane of Fife
2) “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until / Great Birnam wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him.”
(updated) Said SADC: ‘Til South Africa troops and Mbeki swim the Limpopo? (And that would never happen..) But what of the African Union coming as UN/African peacekeepers? there are now a list of countries volunteering …
Macbeth: “This push / Will cheer me ever, or disseat me now. / I have lived long enough. My way of life / Is fall’n into the sere, the yellow leaf, / And that which should accompany old age, / As honor, love, obedience, troops of friends, / I must not look to have, but in their stead / Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honor, breath, / Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.”
Believe it!
June 27th, 2008 15:28
And finally there seems to be some actions by the German Government:
27/06/2008 11:48 BERLIN, June 27 (AFP)
German firm told to stop supplying money paper to Zimbabwe
Germany said Friday it has asked a Munich-based firm to stop supplying Zimbabwe with paper used for banknotes because of concerns it was helping prop up President Robert Mugabe’s regime.
There is “serious concern” that the supplies are “providing additional support to the system in Zimbabwe, which from our point of view is not acceptable,” a spokesman for the development ministry said.
Development Minister Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul “has written to the firm asking it to stop immediately the shipments,” the spokesman told a news conference.
Officials from the firm, Giesecke and Devrient, were unavailable for comment.
Once a vibrant economy, Zimbabwe has suffered a financial collapse in recent years with the Mugabe government responding to runaway inflation by printing more and more banknotes of ever higher denominations.
The rate of inflation is officially put at 165,000 percent but economists believe it is many times higher still.
Zimbabweans voted in a presidential runoff election on Friday with Mugabe the only candidate after opposition leader and first round winner Morgan Tsvangirai withdrew because of violence.
The European Commission slammed Friday the election as a “sham” whose result will be “hollow and meaningless.”
Respect for the people in Zimbabwe!!!
June 27th, 2008 15:50
I just found this is also going around in the german online news. The Development Minister told in a radio interview (Deutschlandfunk-radio) that she awaits a statement from Giesecke and Devrient because of her letter. And there were a demonstrationen of human rights organisations outside the central building in Munich. And I read one speaker of G&D refused to comment about their customer relationships but was saying that they don’t deliver money to political system only to central banks accredited by the World Bank Institution. Not much but they are at least probably under some pressure.
June 27th, 2008 16:30
Whether state television shows pictures of long queues at a polling station to try to convey a false message, or whether people have their little finger dyed purple to show they have voted, or Mugabe says he is fit, optimistic and upbeat, matters not one jot.
Of course he will rig the umpteenth election. But this one is different. It is the endgame for him and his cronies. After this farcical election, although humanitarian aid will try to resume, if allowed, the most important aid, the aid which would otherwise stream in from the democratic world if Morgan had run and won, the aid which would and could set the country onto an upward path again, will not be forthcoming. That is development aid. Mugabe will elect himself and the country will fall further into economic decline.
People who are reluctantly voting out of fear may be hoping that the trouble they have been seeing will go away after election day. But even if Zanu-PF violence subsides, life will get harder and harder. A loaf of bread now already costs six billion Z$ and the official US$/Z$ rate has today broken through Z$10bn.
It is now over Z$10.5bn to the US$ and has been increasing at rates in excess of Z$500m
per day recently. This is an inflation rate approaching 4000% per year, four times the rate only three nmonths ago. However much Mugabe and his henchmen despises despise their citizens, nobody could rule such a landlocked corpse for long.
June 27th, 2008 17:06
Sandra that is an interesting point, we must go after World Bank accreditation.
Can’t wait to hear if G&D respond
June 27th, 2008 17:40
Sandra, that is fantastic news.
I think we should remember though that our goal is not to stop bank notes reaching Zim (not embarrass G&D though we will do that IF NECESSARY).
We need to be firing questions at World Bank if that is the mechanism that allowed them to get away with it.
This is great news though. I reckon that without bank notes it will be game set and match.
Congratulations to everyone putting on the pressure in Germany!
June 27th, 2008 22:05
I am very fed up with North American coverage - there are very focussed on their own election, to the exclusion of the world.
On the Daily Show last night the Editor of the London Times spoke about this with regard to Zimbabwe and got a great reception.
Have a look at the top online news source - Huffpost [http://www.huffingtonpost.com]. This is the leading ‘liberal’ site but their Zimbabwe coverage is terrible.
It would be great if people contacted them and shamed them into improving their coverage of Zimbabwe.
Email addresses they advertise are
scoop@huffingtonpost.com
info@huffingtonpost.com
mario@huffingtonpost.com
I read a lot of American sources and only the New York Times has done decent coverage - Americans, am I wrong?