Standing in the referendum queue was a jab  and casting my  “yes” a hook. And queuing in the Elections will be a ferocious uppercut to all who underestimate my power to effect change.

I live in Hwedza South. On Referendum Day people were quite eager to cast their votes. Admittedly most did not read nor did they even see the document but the better devil to choose was to move away from the old constitution. On the side lines of polling places most were saying they cast a YES vote. Most people are however expressing great concern at why the names & ID Nos are taken down before one can be allowed to cast as this could easily be cross – checked should the need to victimise arise.

Most people do not know 99% of the draft constitution: only land and gay was talked about to the people especially in Zvimba.

Constitutional referendum reports – Kubatana asked our SMS subscribers to share their eye-witness reports from polling stations and voting day during Zimbabwe’s 2013 Constitutional Referendum. We also collected and mapped incident reports submitted by Zimbabwe’s NGOs who were observing the process via the Situation Room. This word cloud shares the observations of more than 600 citizen reporters and 60 NGO incident reports.

Last updated: 12 noon, Monday March 18, 2013

The Situation Room is a joint Zimbabwean civil society initiative to report on Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Referendum.

This map shares incident reports received by the Situation Room and its civil society partners.

You can view the map full screen here

You can also view the map information in table form here

View 600+ citizen reports from the field here

We will regularly update this map and table as we receive new reports.

These incidents include verified reports, such as those received, verified and confirmed by civil society organisations, and unverified reports, those received from citizen journalists which have not yet been verified. Each incident report indicates whether it is a verified report or not.

We will be updating the map throughout the election period to provide an overview of the election environment during Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Referendum.

Members of the Situation Room include: Counselling Services Unit (CSU), Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition, Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe (EFZ), Heal Zimbabwe, Kubatana, National Association of Societies for the Care of the Handicapped (NASCOH), The Women’s Trust, Women’s Coalition, Youth Empowerment and Transformation Trust (YETT), Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights (ZLHR) and Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP).

I didn’t vote and did not pay it attention. Did not want to increase voter turn out and no motivation whatsoever to participate in a process in which the people ceased to be drivers in any capacity so long ago.

I went to vote yesterday. Early to avoid the crowds! I got ink on my left pinkie finger, all the way up to the second joint. Seems they have a lot of ink, and don’t expect many people to come to put it on. I bet they were right.

There was no trouble voting. Metal ID (which says citizen of course), they wrote my name, next desk gave me a voting slip, next desk inked my finger (the only desk with only one person on it), I went to the booth and marked my paper (my vote is secret), went to the ballot box, showed the next desk the folded slip with the stamp on it and put it in the box.

Before lunch, I went to my afternoon engagement. Spotted several polling stations along the way. One had six people waiting, another had 20 people. I am guessing the station I voted in might get 1000 voters. There are three polling stations in my ward, and 18 000 voters. If each station gets 1000, that is 3000 voting out of the 18000. That is a 16 percent turnout, by very rough guess, and nothing scientific about it.

No one came for a nothing document.

Some queues were short and some were very long and tiring because of the heat. Though in some areas reports of voter apathy marred the Saturday referendum. Where I voted it was peaceful and I only spent a couple of minutes before I left the polling station. At times like these usually you would find people walking in pairs or groups to cast their votes. Maybe there is comfort in numbers or it’s just the fear of being left out in a national event like this, as people will be flashing the pink finger with pride to anyone who cares to see. As everyone was looking forward to going to the polling stations I felt sorry for my fellow citizens who were born here but are still regarded as Aliens. My father helped me to fight that battle some years back before the rejected 2000 referendum polls and that is the reason why I was showing the finger to whoever. This was my second time taking part in a referendum and I got worried when I had to show the back of my folded ballot paper to the polling agents so that they see the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission stamp. My vote is supposed to be a secret but when the ballot paper is so transparent to an extent of revealing where I had put my X I get worried about what it means to whoever sees it. So the after poll chat is always about when the results will come out. Instead of worrying about the implications of the pink finger of the just ended referendum maybe the real worry is now on upcoming presidential polls and if the pink finger will be visible to anyone to see. I hope when that time comes, this constitution we just voted for would have passed, and Aliens will be citizens and pink fingers will be shown without fear.