Another asked between sips: “so this means another five years of Zanu PF?”
It was one of those things that get you both angry and surprised.
Empty polling stations; unemployed young men who hang around local pubs and are forever asking for beer alms saying voting is for suckers; short queues moving at a snail’s pace; bored polling agents getting animated seeing a single soul passing by; all this became part of the July 31 kaleidoscope.
And this was in Bulawayo, a city long known for its strong anti-Zanu PF sentiment, yet here were some people eligible to vote staying away, choosing instead to leave the country to the Fates.
Bulawayo has some 367,178 registered voters against the disputed 2012 census that put the city’s population at 655,675, but despite the widespread frustration during the voter registration exercise, some actually said they had no reason to vote as the poll outcome had been decided a long time ago.
While this kind of talk infuriated those who had braved the cold to queue and exercise this important constitutional right, the same chaps today feel vindicated!
Yet those who did vote saw it as The Coming of the long-awaited transition to a post-Zanu PF political dispensation and the stories I listened to bordered on the hilarious as folks firmly believed that their vote would indeed make a difference.
One chap told colleagues he was saving USD150, – a lot of money by any standard – to purchase a goat to celebrate “independence,” another, a man in his fifties who has a ready story to narrate about his torture by the Fifth Brigade during Gukurahundi, went home after casting his vote and blasted his stereo in celebration of what he saw as a sure Mugabe defeat; another bought a round of beer for anyone in the bar who was sitting next to the counter: that was the mood in some parts of Bulawayo, and the excitement was just fantastic.
And then I met some folks on Friday 2 August as it became clear that Zanu PF had bamboozled the MDC-T and it was like a funeral!
A chap I grew up with who has been flirting with mining said he couldn’t take it and was contemplating leaving the country; the fellow who had planned to buy a goat to celebrate an MDC-T victory simply said: sizafa sihawula – we will die poor. He was in no mood for the animated chit-chat of 31 July; men and women feeding their families as “flea market” trader said, “And we were only beginning to realise something out of this (flea market). We are facing tough times ahead.”
These folks did not need to explain the gloomy predictions of their economic future by referring to Erich Bloch or Tony Hawkings but know from experience where they are from and, with such frustration with what are seen as very flawed political and electoral processes that have come to define Zimbabwe, they are not cursing Tsvangirai and the MDC-T but a system thought to have allowed such incredible results.
Everywhere one went the sentiment was that this was a classic case of daylight robbery, and grown men could be seen literally drowning their sorrows by taking generous quaffs of bottles brown, green and other liver melting stuff.
Another asked between sips: “so this means another five years of Zanu PF?”
Yes.