We want to be very focused. By my calculations, about 200K people still voted for MRT and another 200K spoilt their papers against a maximum total of 2.xM votes.

That means at least 20% of the vote was a protest vote done with the possibility of personal danger.

When we design online communities, we expect 1% to be initiators, 9% to be elaborators and 90% to be consumers.

When you know figures like this, and the sure knowledge that the ballots were stuffed to some degree or another, then the turnout was fantastic. We should spread the word that Zimbabwe resisted not that Zimbabwe was beaten.

My advice to people on the ground, and let’s be clear I have been away for a little while now, is dig in. It is not clear how long this will go on for, so strengthening local ties and local arrangements is very important. I think you know this.

Out here, we must work the principle of effective small levers for big changes.

If we can do nothing else, an email a day to a decision maker or a comment on a major newspaper prodding them to ask the right questions.

We know from the An Yue Jiang that we can make the greatest impact when we give people a concrete issue, something to be indignant about and clear action. AND get the money and organised groups behind us. I am sure that getting Lloyds involved was critical – they were watching that ship closely. COSATU and the unions were critical and will be forever in our hearts.

It is like dominos – knock over one piece and the rest follow!

Hang in there guys… the struggle is nearly over.

They are going to have a long night filling in forms.

Is there a checkout function to count tonight as before?