Being in the capital city, the seat of government, does provide one with an opportunity to listen in on political conversations at a very close level, and with what I have seen, the mood could well be different from my past experiences elsewhere not only with elections but the general political atmosphere and conversations centred around politics.

It is true that while political activism in places such as Bulawayo has been very much animated by the rise of Welshman Ncube, people one meets have not been the garrulous type eager to strike political conversation with total strangers, especially in pubs!

In the country’s south-western parts, the sentiment has long been, “you never know who might be listening,” and some commentators have actually opined that this has a historical context dating back to the early 1980s Gukurahundi where government spooks infiltrated neighbourhoods to listen in on conversations that would mention Gayigusu, Thambolenyoka, Gwesela and other notorious “dissidents” of the time.

Yet in the past weeks, I have interacted with all sorts of characters in Harare who seem very emboldened by the prospect of a new beginning for Zimbabwe such that “speaking their mind” is apparently only being realised today as their democratic right.

I listened to young men the other day speak about the future of the country, that it was time the country moved on from the chaos of the past 13 or more years.

An off-duty soldier who sat among us said it wasn’t his style to speak politics as he already knew how he would vote, and this was the same guy who every weekend sits with the lads who complain about virtually everything, it is tempting to say it would be strange if he held views contrary to those of his circle of friends.

We always accepted that people speak in hushed tones when discussing politics in public places, yet one does get the sense that while many anticipate these public spaces to be more open after tomorrow’s election with the much-expected coming in of a new government, the opposite can also be true: the repression could be upped with the victory of the same party many are predicting its demise. It’s a strange scenario.

I spoke with a young man whom I asked if he was going to vote and he replied in the negative, I asked him why, and he said “I’m just not into politics.”

Yet I see him all the time sitting around the same circles with the soldier who listens to his buddies cursing the founding fathers!

Still I replied that voting is not about liking or hating politics. His reply? “I already know the party I support, I support the old man’s party,” he said, further explaining as if to make sense not to me but to himself: both my parents are war veterans! How’s that!

In fact that should have been reason enough for him to go and register and vote for his parents’ party! Wouldn’t that make sense?

But then like many things here, everything ain’t what it seems.

Could be he knew if he registered, he would ultimately vote against his parents’ party, and because some people look for religious sensibilities everywhere, that would betray one of the greatest Commandments humankind has ever lived by: “Honour your mother and father so that your days may be long!” And hasn’t Mugabe said in the past that young people are rebelling against their parents by voting for the MDC-T?

Yet I did get a sense that in Harare, being the MDC-T backyard as it were, some folks have had no heebie- jeebies actually betraying their political loyalty despite all talk about your vote being your secret!

The excitement of tomorrow’s poll is just too palpable, with one chap saying rather loudly this morning that “we are getting rid of this party that has ruled for 33 years. 33 years vakomana. Now we can say whatever we want and not this nonsense where we have been afraid to speak our minds because there is a Zanu PF supporter close by!”

Oh boy, I said to myself.

And he did have a point, and for anyone to be able to say that in public, is enough to tell us a lot about the credibility of opinion polls peddled by state media that predict a Zanu PF landslide.

Of course sentiment expressed by folks in a public lift cannot stand the rigours of scientific scrutiny as representative of wider public opinion, yet it has become so current in the past few days with one chap saying today that he has stopped listening to people who trash Mugabe because some of them did not even register to vote.

It is thus interesting that because ZEC frustrated millions of people, denying them their democratic right to vote, how then does this reflect on the reliability of the public opinion surveys about people claiming they support Mugabe when in fact many failed to register?

One cannot dismiss the possibility that even Zanu PF supporters failed to register despite the widely accepted view that ZEC was particularly bent on disenfranchising MDC-T supporters. Talk about Zanu PF being hoisted on its own petard. It might as well have frustrated its own supporters from voting!

Talk about poetic justice, but then it’s going to be an intense next few hours as “excitable” voters already begin their celebration of Zanu PF’s exit, because like the other fellow commented: “I’m 33 years old and the only leader I have known is Mugabe, is that normal?”

Yet another chipped in with his own wisdom, insisting that “dai ndiri ini ndinopinda panyanga, no MP would live in Borrowdale, they would live in their constituencies and with potholes and cholera like the rest of us!”

With sentiments like these, if Mugabe steals the election, he could unwittingly be inviting street protests, yet the same holds true about a Tsvangirai victory as ZANU PF’s Jabulani Sibanda has already made it know they will “go back to the bush” if the MDC-T wins.

Some Afro-pessimists have previously opined that African elections only lead to political instability, and Zanu PF’s perpetual war mode certainly epitomizes that dystopia, so where does that leave us?

We will soon know.

I did not know whether to laugh or cry when I came across a Zanu PF campaign insert in today’s Herald.

That politicians will say anything to get votes is standard fare for all campaigns, yet the Zanu PF brief shows pictures of blacks being chased by white cops with dogs on leashes back in the 1960s.  1896 photos of Ndebeles shackled.  A sign outside a motel that says “This motel is not multi-racial.” Then we have Joshua Nkomo walking with Fidel Castro, Nkomo and Mugabe smiling at a press conference decades ago, that famous picture of Lookout Masuku with the man then known as Rex Nhongo, gets one thinking where exactly this party locates its relevance in Zimbabwe’s contemporary political space and discourse.

If a party keeps reminding voters of the past 100 years, surely it must be questioned if it has any clue about the future of the nation.

Only the foolish dismiss history’s relevance to a nation’s collective memory, but is that what Zimbabweans want, to be constantly reminded about the “evil settlers?”

Some folks have said Zanu PF has only succeeded in alienating its erstwhile supporters by that obsession with politics of belligerence where anyone who holds divergent views is quickly labeled an associate of the settlers. Even loyal supporters who do not agree with some of the nonsense risks expulsion and lumped together with MDC as a puppet of imperialist!

Just recall Jonathan Samkange who actually sued a fellow “party cadre” after the comrade said Samukange was an MDC plant. Samkange sued, saying that accusation was enough to get him killed!

“Defendant, in associating the plaintiff with the MDC party, intended to injure plaintiff’s reputation and personal security especially in light of Zanu-PF’s slogan, namely, ‘Down with MDC’ means kill MDC members. Defendant is inviting Zanu-PF members to kill plaintiff. The threat is real and potentially injurious to plaintiff’s physical being, feeling and association with other members of the Mudzi community,” Samkange said in papers filed in the Harare High Court.”

That Zanu PF stokes racial hatred is fact well known, and this campaign has become no different, but I would like to believe voters are more sophisticated than Zanu PF imagines.

As Tsvangirai said the other week: “Just wear their T-shirts, but you know what is deep down your heart.”

It is always refreshing watching what you can only interpret as genuine zeal to better a politically and economically wounded country, this is despite some of that enthusiasm bordering on what can only be described naïve optimism.

Yet in a time like this, optimism can be the only thing to have.

That’s the sense I got when I attended the Women in Politics Support Unit-led Why Vote for a Woman series in Harare yesterday where female candidates got to stand in front of other women and take questions on why they think they deserve the people’s vote.

Most of the female candidates who spoke at one such platform were eying office as councilors, and local government issues of service delivery naturally became their focus.

The passion was astounding as female candidates from MDC, MDC-T, UDM, Zanu PF stated their cases, much to the applause of the virtually all-female crowd who had an opportunity to fire questions at the candidates.

The fact that this was a mix of political parties under one roof articulating issues pertinent to women was refreshing considering the kind of sparring we have seen on the national stage among men who see themselves as entitled to our vote one way or the other.

A contribution from the floor did make some pause to reflect on the push for more women to take up public office, with the question: “is it mere breasts and vaginas we want to take to parliament or issues?” and this was apparently asked in reference to what was felt were poorly formulated responses to questions about what exactly of value these candidates were bringing to public office.

Yet my humble submission would be not to judge the women candidates too harshly, like their male colleague, they also must start somewhere, and a chap sitting next to me actually commented that it is time women got their time in the sun as public officials, adding that “at least women are not as corrupt as men.”

Another “well-meaning” stereotype perhaps, but the fact that someone could actually make such a comment does indeed say a lot about the need for leadership renewal in this country.

Minister of Minister of Labour and Social Welfare Paurina Mpariwa was there to provide inspiration, and the jolly crowd certainly forgot they were from different political backgrounds and it was the kind of thing that political parties always waffle about but see no need to practice.

Like one candidate declared: “ITS NOT A MAN’S WORLD SISTAZ, ITS A WOMAN’S WORLD.”

And these are issues of gender and class Zimbabwe has to grapple with. These elections offer that opportunity.

The Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI) yesterday became the latest in a string of CSOs to launch an adverse report on the July 31 poll, highlighting the flaws that have bedeviled the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s preparations.

ZDI launched Electoral Battleground: Voters Roll Rigmarole, which I thought was a play on the rigging apparatus Zanu PF has already put in place!

And indeed it has been endless talk about the country’s preparedness, or lack thereof, to hold such an important national process, with Zanu PF’s insistence coming under scrutiny and wide speculation that the “revolutionary party” already has a poll outcome in its favour, and most disturbingly, in collusion with ZEC.

Yet ZDI insists on the vigilance of not only itself but other CSOs working for a better Zimbabwe.

But with Tobais Mudede fashioning himself as the sole custodian of the voters’ roll, the ZDI remains awake to the fact that this has become the arena where Zanu PF will cook the numbers to rig the poll.

And like many critics of these rushed elections, ZDI raises concerns of the flawed reading of the pre-election conditions which so far have seen little or no violence as a template to give these polls as clean bill of health.

The rigging machine has been re-fashioned, and only yesterday, a senior South African government official actually made reference to the violence-free atmosphere as reason not to condemn the poor preps plaguing the ZEC.

Among many issues the ZDI report raises is the disenfranchisement of millions by deliberate exclusion from the voter’s roll through the frustrating voter registration exercise, the role of the security apparatus where the report comments that “ZANU-PF and the military have proven to be inseparable” and also laments the arrest of human rights defenders and raids on CSOs.

These are concerns that have been raised before, and as the election beckons next Wednesday, all these remain unresolved, and the logical “therefore” is a poll that does not meet the benchmarks of normal practices.

Only today, we read from Patrick Chinamasa that poll funding had been secured from domestic resources, and we long thought it was finance Minister Tendai Biti’s mandate to make such an announcement!

But as Pedzisai Ruhanya, the ZDI director said, “We are not here to cause chaos; we are here to manage ZEC chaos.”

And one needs not be a clairvoyant to foresee mayhem on July 31.

That Mugabe is a bully is now a historical fact, and the he brooks no criticism or censure from fellow African presidents is a fact that has made a spoof out of Nepad’s much vaunted African/Peer Review Mechanism.

And it’s even worse when African diplomats and presidents alike are very much awake to the fact that Mugabe can indeed tell them off despite all efforts to knock sense into his head.

This became apparent with the arrival of Nkosazana Zuma-Dlamini into the country where she said there was no guarantee that African Union Mission chairperson Olusegun Obasanjo was going to be allowed into Zimbabwe, “saying it depends on whether Government will allow him.”

“I think he will come. If he is allowed he will come. They allowed me to come, that is all I’m saying.”

Why go ahead with the goddamn charade then when it is already known that even African observers are not viewed too kindly, not by government but, by Zanu PF?