Late on Saturday afternoon – after another long day of waiting for election results – the power went off. To be accurate, I was working through the last batch of Senate results released by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (the zzzzzzzzzz.. elections, what elections?, commission) when the lights went out.

Normally power cuts in Zimbabwe are so common that they’re quite unremarkable. But this time, I was more concerned than usual. Why?

Well, true to their word, the Zimbabwe government managed to secure additional power supplies from some gullible nation (Mozambique I believe) to keep the lights on whilst the nation voted in the harmonized elections held on March 29, 2008. Since then the power had stayed on – maybe to make sure there was no hitch in the counting of the votes (ha,ha!). Seems like the ZEC has been blinded by the light because 8 days later they still haven’t announced the result of the presidential election.

Anyway, when the power went out on Saturday night I thought, “Oh no, ZEC has rigged the final result and announced Mugabe as the winner”. Lights out Zimbabwe. Or for those of us from a previous era – Tilt! Game Over.

It’s 192 hours after polls closed in Zimbabwe’s Harmonised Elections last week. There’s still no presidential results, but I’ve finally turned off my radio. If The Big announcement happens tonight, maybe I’ll miss it.

I’ve noticed campaign posters starting to come down – including the ones where Brenda showed someone her pink finger. But they might well be going back up again soon. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission hasn’t said anything officially yet, but it’s looking increasingly like a run-off is in the works, between current president Robert Mugabe, and MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai. I’m nervous at the prospect, concerned about increased levels of intimidation and violence. The war veterans, most infamously known for their campaign of violence after Zanu PF’s proposed Constitution lost in the February 2000 referendum, have begun their threats anew.

Ordinary Zimbabweans I’ve spoken with, and many of those sending in text messages to our SMS service, all say an adamant No to a run-off. The old man lost, they say. He’s no longer wanted. It’s time for him to push off.

My one hope is that the MDC can somehow convert this sentiment – and the popular conviction that Morgan Tsvangirai won the presidential election by more than the stipulated 50% required to avoid a run-off – into a rejection of yet another election and an insistence that Tsvangirai be sworn in as President of Zimbabwe. The MDC has already begun to speak this way. But their success on the matter feels unlikely. Mugabe has repeatedly shown that he’ll resort to any means necessary to stay in power. And Zimbabweans have, in recent years, become increasingly less willing to engage in mass protests or street demonstrations. Perhaps now the stakes are high enough, and victory close enough, that with strong enough popular leadership they’ll reconsider.

A good start is the t-shirts I saw two young men wearing tonight. Whilst I have my own objections to the idea of wearing anyone’s face on my body, the slogan is exactly what we’ll need to see more and more of, if Zimbabwe is going to shake off the shackles of Mugabe’s dictatorship. “Morgan Tsvangirai – People’s President” they read.

A new road has been built near my house. When it opened, they closed off a bit of old road at the top of the new one. I know that no cars can come down this road, but still when I run down it I find myself looking behind me, nervous at having all of this space, certain that something will come and invade it. Metaphorically, the MDC needs to create and claim spaces exactly like that – and hold them long enough that we stop looking over our shoulders anticipating the klap, and instead look straight ahead of us, confident that the space is ours, that victory is ours.

The Kubatana team went for what we call a “cold one” (beer) on Friday night to support Comrade Fatso’s Get Up, Stand Up concert . . . here again we share his views and hear his frustration as we wait, and wait.

The only run off we want is for Mugabe to run off. Is this an election or an erection because everything seems to be standing still? These are the words on Harare’s lips and in its text messages. Our joy is agony. So close but yet so far. We are tired. We can’t take this anymore. Everyone I talk to wants the old man to go. If he doesn’t they will. Some say they will take to the streets. Others will leave the country. Everyone has a plan in Zimbabwe. Most of us plan to be here. But many will leave if Bob doesn’t.

Elections have become hello and goodbye. They have become our speech. ‘Results’ and ‘delay’ take on a new meaning. ‘Zviri sei’ which normally means ‘How are things’ has come to mean ‘What is the latest in the elections’. But the response is always the same. ‘Zvaka dhakwa’. ‘Things are drunk’. Drunk with emptiness in our kachasu society. Drunk with more of the same if we don’t win freedom this time. If there is a run off many more than those in the first round will run to vote out Mugabe. If Mugabe stays in power through rigging and violence many Zimbabweans will just run off.

We held our Get Up! Stand Up! Concert at the Book Cafe. It was a concert for a free people. With music and poetry MAGAMBA!, our cultural activist network, hopes to inspire and incite people to believe in their dreams and to struggle for them at this history-making moment. The crowd danced and toyi toyi’d. We sung freedom. We created a window into the freedom we fight for. My band, Chabvondoka, played music that is food for us during these question-marked times. We will need much food in the next few days and weeks. Food for the soul and for the body as we walk this potholed street called freedom. This street-light dark street that we walk down one step at a time, seeing only a metre ahead of us. But we walk still.

This is Comrade Fatso’s Daily Blog during the Zimbabwe Election period.
See www.comradefatso.vox.com

For Daily Election Blogs by other MAGAMBA! poets and activists see
www.myspace.com/magamba

We are grateful to Zimbabwean poet John Eppel for sharing his poem Waiting with us. As politicians play their games of power, Zimbabwean artists pick up their pens.

I count the falling frangipani leaves.
Early April, the nights are growing cold;
the scent of wood smoke sours as neighbours burn
their household rubbish; every now and then
a discarded aerosol can explodes
triggering memories of another time,
another place, another war.

So quickly do they change from fluid green
to yellowish, to desiccated brown;
and yet, the drop, the clatter, ages takes;
takes ages: either way. In terminal
cymes some flowers remain, as white as wax,
mingling the bitter sweets of paradise
with odours of anxiety.

Like sharpening blades on steel the plovers cry
as homeless people wander near their nests
waiting for news, waiting for results. Who
will it be? These falling leaves remind me
that the day has come and gone for ballots
to be counted, results announced, and I’m
afraid that change will never come.

I’m reminded of a saying that goes something like . . . politics loves a vacuum; if you don’t fill it with hope, it will be filled with fear. And this is exactly what’s happening in Zimbabwe.

The MDC’s early election victory claim has fizzled out and we’re left with witnessing a strengthening Mugabe response to the recent election. The MDC failed to capitalise on their momentum, and now it appears that its they that are on the back foot, not Mugabe.

Mugabe controls public media in Zimbabwe – both television and radio, as well as the daily newspaper. This is what people watch, listen to and read. And whilst we’re all entirely cynical of the state’s propaganda, our spirits wane as we watch Zanu PF re-grouping and using this delay in the announcement of election results to their advantage.

Of course this delay does nothing to enhance the esteem of Zanu PF in the eyes of anyone watching, nor does it give anybody any faith in the veracity of the election process, but then again Mugabe has never been one to care what anyone thinks about him or his actions.

In the light of this I’m still wondering HOW the MDC intends on communicating their side of the story to Zimbabweans who don’t get to watch or listen to international news broadcasts.

I’m wondering what the MDC is going to actually do to insist on their election victory being acknowledged as legitimate by Mugabe.

Perhaps it’s happened very occasionally but in general, a dictator doesn’t relinquish power through a democratic election. Now more than ever the MDC has to link its electoral success with people power.

There can be many forms of this.

For starters lets see the MDC’s victorious Members of Parliament and Senators gather together in a peaceful protest demanding the immediate announcement of the presidential election results. Lets see this peaceful protest strengthened by the participation of members of the legal community to draw attention to the subversion of the electoral process by Zanu PF.

Lets see Morgan Tsvangirai lead this protest.

Well, it may be a new Zimbabwe, but the cash queues are still with us. I’ve just come from CABS, where even the Gold Class queue was stretching out the door and onto the street. A large silver Pajero pulled up to the kerb, and out lept a young man who opened the car door for Zanu PF National Chairman John Nkomo. People in the queue looked at one another, looked at him, and slowly let him move to the front. It doesn’t matter who governs Zimbabwe next. Whoever it is will treat us exactly as we allow ourselves to be treated. We won’t see anything improve until we start to demand more. Creating the Zimbabwe we want is going to take a lot of hard work, as we learn to break a lot of bad habits – and start holding ourselves and one another accountable to a new standard of behaviour.