From our subscribers – Zimbabweans share their feedback on the media, voter registration and the upcoming elections:

ZBC s acting like a Zanu-PF entity only serving one party. It shall come to an end come 31st July. Enough is enough.

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MDC-T should have a TV station on satellite like Evangelist Guti and Prophet Hubert Angel have done.

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Quite an informative and inspirational letter.It makes me reflect on some self imposed leaders who claim to be commanding a huge following when,in fact they are taking a walk.Secondly,such persons are not accountable to anyone because they are either volunteers or rigged to their way to the appex through coercion,chicanery or any form of pressure on the so called supporters.We have among us some MPs who forced their way through the primaries by hiding some structurers in order to disenfranchise some potential voters who could have blocked their confirmation.Thats an open secrete where l am.The same people are back on the same electorate canvassing for their support vote in the dreaful contest of 31st July.ls that democracy and the really change the Zimbabweans are longing for?Worse still the same chaps l am reluctant to call leaders,boast of enjoying the support of  the second most senior leader in the organisation in their showdy deals.Is that permissible when someone is using his position of trust in an organisation as an organiser to hide structures leaving people in spoiled mood?That trully happened and can such characters be expected to give a full AND transparent report on how they spent the CDF?

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Lets ZEC be fair.Kuno kuZengeza paHead Office tirikuswera paQ vachiserver a selected group of people mayouth emusangano achitoboaster kuti tinoregister vedu ava vakawanda ndeveChinja

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I’m from St Mary’s.I Want to tell you what transpired to the CDF.We excavated drains in our constituency and were promised 5dollars per given hours but we just did all for nothing.I don’t know kana Chibharo chakadzoka. Vakazongobhadarwa matop face vamwe vese ruzha rukabva rwapera.

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Some pple in makoni south risk not voting after about 200 lost their ids through a food scam by cios

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Voter registration ended in marondera ystdae at mbuya nehanda hall with a lot of delaying resulted in many youths unable to register disappointment

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Its unfortunate that our mp is late but he abused our cdf. I am in Mberengwa North constituency. Our mp was jabulani mangena. He abused our cdf. In ward 12, nothing was developed becoz thats where  the man he beats in Zanu pf pry elections come from. It was a sort of fixing us. In ward 15, he donated material for building a teacher’s house at Ruzengwe sec school. The material he donated was scrap material. Asbestos sheets were broken and insufficient. Only 150 bags of cement was tangible and worth receiving .The house which was to be built was already on foundation level but when auditors came, he said he had  built the house from the ground.  But it was foundation structured by the school 6 years b4 cdf was disbursed.  Some asbestos sheets , all door frames, windor frames,  money for builders and paint was paid by the school. At first, he had promised to pay builders but when it was due to pay them, he backtracks . He said the school failed to take the money from council in time and was frozen. Finally , the school had to foot the bill. I was there when auditors came  with cameras to see the project. I was totally surprised to find the mp claiming to have sponsered everything. When auditors came only selected zanu pf people were selected to meet them including the local councillor. Infact people were not told they were auditors . They were told they were meeting mp’s visitors. They were told what to reply when questioned. Truly speaking, everything was inflated in terms of prices. Auditors were taking pictures of things the mp had not sponsered. This is  just a microcosm of what was happening in all other wards in mberengwa north constituency.

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For the first time since 2000, Mberengwa is towards election with a peaceful environment.  No youth camps

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Can someone who know how ZINWA works explain to Chimwe Irrigation Scheme farmers in Mberengwa. We buy water  to irrigate our crops from Zinwa on a commercial rate from Chimwe Dam which is 1km from the irrigation scheme. The dam was donated by the Dutch government as poverty alleviation  mechanism . Zinwa is forcing us to pay ZESA  bills for the electricity they use on their pumps to give us water. Which means we pay two bills per month. One for water and the other one for electricity. The reason given by ZINWA for not paying Zesa is that they only sell water not electricity. But they use electricity to supply their product to its customers.  What surprises Chimwe irrigation farmers is, ZINWA has a domestic water treatment plant at the dam which uses electricity and they are paying Zesa for the electricity they use to treat water. Treated water is sold to villagers on  a domestic rate and villagers are not paying electricity used by Zinwa to purify water. What boggles the mind is that raw water sold to irrigation farmers is more expensive than treated water. But treated water has more expenses like electricity, chemicals and many workers who man the plant. I think the minister of water must help correct the rot and make irrigation farmers only pay for water they use than to pay for electricity used by some other entities.

With Parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of this month, we’ve been wondering how to interrogate Zimbabwe’s outgoing Members of Parliament and learn some lessons from their track record. Particularly in cases where an outgoing MP is running for office again, we’re wondering why their constituents might want to vote for them again – or why they definitely won’t.

With this in mind, Kubatana asked our subscribers how their exiting Member of Parliament used the Constituency Development Fund between 2008-2013 to benefit their community.

We got around 300 replies, from subscribers in 130 of Zimbabwe’s 210 constituencies. Their feedback was mixed, as was the track record of their Members of Parliament in using the Constituency Development Fund. Around one-tenth of respondents did not know how their CDF had been used. Around two-thirds did not think it had been used for anything constructive (or had barely been used).  And about 30% of respondents were impressed with how their MP had used the fund, and noted this as a worth accomplishment.

It’s important to note that this is crowdsourced information – So it hasn’t been verified with the MP in question or with any public record or audit of the Constituency Development Fund. This also means that it speaks to how thoroughly an MP communicated with his or her constituency. In Bikita West, for example, two subscribers said nothing tangible was done for the constituency with the fund, but three reported the MP fixing schools, building clinics and sinking boreholes.

A few sample responses include:

• Mutare South, he brought us a truck of roller meal and sold us@ $2.50 for 10Kg only once. Also employed us at his farm and paid us one gallon of maize per day.
• In Chipinge central MP Alice Chitima of Zanu pf hapana zvaakaita (did nothing). GO CHITIMA GO! I DONT CARE
• Mhondoro Ngezi, we never saw anything. Taingonzwa pa tv chete kuti kune mari yakadaro asi chayakashanda hatina kuchiona. Hamheno pamwe vedu mp vamatonga havana kupihwa mari yacho. (WE only heard on TV that such a fund exists. What it was used for we don’t know. Maybe our MP Matonga was not given the money)
• Chitungwiza South Constituency. Drilled 6 boreholes, bought a printer, built a flea market, removed raw/solid waste. The fifty thousand dollars was used to the last cent.
• Haina kubatsira vanhu mu Kadoma asi yakashanda  kwaari MP CDF fund (The money did not benefit the people in Kadoma but the MP himself)
• Wakadya yose chivi central (He spent it all on himself)
• Bulawayo. I stay in Mpopoma-Pelandaba district, our MP Mr S. Khumalo  used cdf in schools for repairing chairs, desks and repairing residential chairs and benches, about $11000  is still in the bank.

You can access the full list of responses here. And you can take a look at a map of selected responses here.

When the 31 July election date was first announced, the majority of our SMS subscriber expressed their shock and disbelief, and believed that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was right to state that this date was illegal and unconstitutional.

As a follow up, we let these subscribers know about yesterday’s Constitutional Court decision keeping the Harmonised Election date at 31 July. They were largely unimpressed with the Court’s lack of independence, and concerned about the way this move has undermined the election’s legitimacy before it’s even been held.

In their own words:

• That’s undemocratic for the court to make such a cruel decision
• There must be some hidden agenda from those who are dictating the election dates
• But why, but who, but which, but what.  Are we back to 2000?
• It shows how unconstitutional this constitutional court is, its a matter to be decided by three parties in govnt as SADC said.
• Very sad only God knows
• Zimbabweans should decide on that date whom they wanted to be the President
• This is part of a rigging strategy as many people are still to get registered and necessary reforms are yet to be implemented.
• Let Mugabe run his usual solitary race!
• Sadc should help us this time zanu pf wants to rig elections free and fair elections Tsvangirai will win a landslide victory
• Kubatana! If elect day has been declared then election campaign material should b brought to the ground 4 da campaign teams
• We’re headed for the ugliest electoral fraud in recorded history, mark my words.
• This is ridiculous. How come Zim lets bob get away with everything? Enough.
• Says who? With no free broadcasting, the same old gang playing the same old tricks in ZEC, ZNA, CIO & ZRP/BSAP, no money & violence increasing daily even within ZANU? It’s time to call their bluff

Yesterday, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court confirmed 31 July as the polling date for the country’s Harmonised Election. The Court’s decision was unanimous, and rejected all applications which had been pushing for an extension of the election date.

The election date case was being heard by the Constitutional Court because it was their decision of 31 May which created the 31 July deadline, which Mugabe responded to on 13 June, in the first place.

The push for the election date extension was motivated by several factors, including:

• The llegal act by President Mugabe which used the Presidential Powers Act to change the electoral laws
• The fact that the election date required nomination court to be held before the voters roll had closed, which is unprocedural
• The fact that the Global Political Agreement stated that election dates should be decided in consultation, not declared unilaterally as Mugabe did

However, as frustrating as yesterday’s decision is, it is not surprising. The government had several ways around the original Constitutional Court ruling. Amongst other things, the actual ruling says the President should proclaim the election “as soon as possible,” and  that it “should be” (note: not must be) held no later than 31 July. As Veritas points out, the President should have relied on the principle Lex non cogit ad impossibilia [the law does not require one to do the impossible].

Unfortunately, the President went ahead to declare an illegal and unconstitutional election date, and the Constitutional Court has confirmed that this date holds.

Last week, Zimbabwe’s political parties submitted their candidates at Nomination Court, though only the MDC led by Welshman Ncube has made its candidate list publicly available so far. Zanu PF and MDC-T are planning to launch their party manifestos this weekend.

So much for Morgan Tsvangirai’s promise that he “will not accept a situation where Zimbabweans will yet again be railroaded and frog-marched to another illegitimate election.” That is exactly where Zimbabwe is headed on 31 July.

Zimbabwe’s election is in legal shambles – But no one really seems to mind. Yesterday, Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court postponed indefinitely Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa’s half-hearted application to have the Court’s 31 July election deadline extended. Chinamasa’s application came at the recommendation of SADC, which, understandably, was concerned that President Mugabe’s proclamation of a 31 July election date was done unconstitutionally, and set Zimbabwe up for an election which was illegal before it even started. Instead, the court will hear Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube’s applications about the need for an election extension tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Nomination Court is also scheduled for tomorrow, in which parties wanting to contest in the illegal and unconstitutional 31 July election will put their candidates forward. Zimbabwe’s political parties have had their primaries, fair, rushed or otherwise. According to David Coltart, the Movement for Democratic Change led by Welshman Ncube will nominate candidates tomorrow because “although 31 July election is illegal, we must contest.”

Attempts to get an answer to the question “Given that 31 July date for #ZimElection is illegal, will yr party be nominating candidates tmrw?” from the MDC led by Morgan Tsvangirai have yet to be responded to, but it seems likely they will also be fielding candidates at nomination court tomorrow.

But, on 13 June, Morgan Tsvangirai himself said of the 31 July election date: “As Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister of Zimbabwe and the President of the MDC, I will not accept a situation where Zimbabweans will yet again be railroaded and frog-marched to another illegitimate and violent election.”

So – What does refusing to be railroaded mean, exactly, if it doesn’t include refusing to contest in an illegal and unconstitutional election? As Marko Phiri pointed out when the 31 July date was announced, “if Mugabe can unilaterally call for polls, what is to stop him from declaring himself the winner” (regardless of whether he actually won or not.

If you contest in an election which you know is illegal just based on the date for which it was scheduled and the way in which it was proclaimed, what leg do you have to stand on if you try and protest its legality later?

On 13 June, Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe announced that elections were to be held 31 July. On the same day, Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai rejected this announcement as unconstitutional, and stating that he would not accept Zimbabweans being “railroaded” into “another illegitimate election.”

We shared this information with our subscribers, and asked them to share their opinions with us.

About two-thirds of respondents agreed with the Prime Minister, suggesting that the July 31 date was too sudden, and that it did not allow adequate time for the necessary reforms and legal process to be followed. Around a quarter said the President was right, and were eager for Zimbabwe to hold elections and move forward. And around a tenth of respondents were of mixed opinion, wanting to wait for SADC to step in and comment, or more concerned that elections simply be non-violent, free and fair, regardless of when they are held.

As a few examples, messages in support of Tsvangirai’s position included:

• How can he do dat alone .enough tyme is needed reform first
• They want 2 prolong their stay in power to loot more.NO TO 31/07/06 ELECTIONS whats the rush for
• Mugabe shouldn’t declare election date .Zimbabwe new constitution says election is set amoung the principals
• Hazviite Reforms first what’s the rush about?
• Thus grossly unfair to many zimbabwean given the scenario in media and electoral sides which need reforms, PM is right

Messages in favour of a 31 July election included:

• We are sick and tired we want election today
• Elections ar overdue, & we’re ready as voters. The economy is suffering. MT must accept the date & prepare.
• All we need are nuetral observers. Other issues wil b taken care of by whoever wins. The int’l community wil assist. We don’t want to be bogged down in the current situation any longer.
• Lets get over this thing called ‘election’ coz it has been dragged far 2 long! 31 July is indeed gud.
• The court has already made a ruling and the President is simply abiding.

Where possible, we mapped this opinion, colour coded by category (use this link to open the map full screen, then click on a point to view that point’s comment in a pop-up window):

View full screen

Read more comments on this election announcement by downloading the full list here.