When Zanu PF wins, it wins big – 10, 11 and even 13 thousand in some cases. . aside from exceptions like Budiriro and Warren Park. When the MDC wins, it is winning by much smaller margins, and even more worryingly, on the back of far, far lower voter turn out figures.

Zanu PF has long trumpeted its rural strongholds, and the MDC knows how difficult it is to campaign freely in rural spaces. These areas are often tightly controlled by (Zanu PF) chiefs and headmen, and there are high levels of intimidation and pressure on individual voters to toe the ruling party line. These are facts long known and commented on by the MDC and civil society actors, and are one of the key reasons why promises that Saturday’s elections would be free and fair are so laughable.

There are also more voters registered in rural areas than there are in urban centres.

Given these facts, and with a presidential election at stake, not just parliamentary seats, the MDC needs to be claiming bigger victories based on high voter turn out. They need to be seeing more voters coming out to support them in the cities than those supporting Zanu PF in the rural areas – not fewer as is now the case. Zanu PF is getting high turnout particularly in constituencies like Maramba Pfungwe and Rushinga where Zanu PF polled 14,961 and 14,264 votes respectively. Constituencies where voter turn out is far greater than the 40% average – like Maramba Pfungwe (56.91%) and Mutoko South (54.24%) – is where the MDC should focus on challenging the announced results, using their parallel vote cont.

As it stands, based on our own tally of results, Zanu PF has the largest number of votes of any party, but the combined other contesters outstrip Zanu PF.

These results have been recorded by hand off the ZEC announcements, and then transposed onto a spreadsheet, so some errors may have been made along the way, but it looks something like this:

• Total votes cast: 1,184,723

• Zanu PF: 555,189
• MDC (Tsvangirai): 492,346
• MDC (Mutambara): 94,560
• Combined Independents/Other parties: 42,628

So Zanu PF is ahead. But if you add up all non-Zanu PF votes, they don’t look quite so comfortably positioned:

• Zanu PF: 555,189 (46.9% of votes cast)
• Total non-Zanu PF votes: 629,534 (53.1%)

In other words, at least at a House of Assembly level, with 109 of 209 constituencies reported (one constituency was uncontested, and was declared for Zanu PF without an election), Zanu PF has more votes than any party, but not an absolute majority of votes cast.

If this trend continues for the balance of the seats, and extends to the Presidential election, we could very well be looking at a run off, if not an opposition election victory in the first round.

Comrade Fatso tells it like it is. He also re-affirms some of our bloggers opinions. The MDC is not following up their victory press conferences with any campaign to re-engage Zimbabweans after the vote on Saturday. While the MDC rightly has to take time tallying and making sense of the results, they are leaving Zimbabweans in a vacuum. I disagree with those who say that the delay in the announcement of results is causing tension and anger. As Comrade Fatso points out it can have the opposite effect of causing uncertainty and doubt – after all the regime controls all public media, and the MDC’s information capacity has always been weak.

Comrade Fatso says we can’t defend what we don’t know. In Amanda’s recent blog, Show us the figures, she argues that as soon as ZEC announces results, the MDC should be using all of its capacity and machinery to share their own comparative results, highlight discrepancies and make sure that their supporters are aware of the electoral fraud. Whilst it is important that this comparison is being done by initiatives like the Independent Results Centre, freedom is not won on the Internet. It is won by making sure people on the street are kept informed and inspired.

Victory celebrations, confusion, uncertainty. That’s the air that Harare’s breathing today. ‘Zvinhu hazvina kumira bho’ says a well known forex dealer to me. ‘No, its looking good actually,’ I tell him. ‘MDC is beating ZANU by far at the moment.’ Jealous, a quiet waiter, serving me coffee comments ‘So its bad heh?!’ ‘No, they’re winning actually, Jealous,’ I have to affirm. ‘Tsvangirai is ahead in the presidential elections’. The MDC is holding press conference after press conference while many people are holding zvakapressa conferences. Many think things have gone terribly wrong in the elections because the message from the MDC hasn’t filtered to them. And the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is announcing results at the pace of a wheelchair-less cripple making their way down a power-cut Parirenyatwa corridor.

‘Tahwina!’ is the other popular cry that lives beside the uncertainty. Those who have got access to MDC information have erupted into parties. The popular suburb of Highfields was a people’s carnival last night as residents celebrated the MDC success in their constituency. The riot police arrived and politely asked them to carry on partying the following day. The residents, stunned by the calm police force, agreed. The table next to me at the Book Cafe has been an all-day drinking session as they drink to victory and joke about ZANU’s failure. Victory is in the air. But so is uncertainty. MDC has quite likely won a big victory in the polls but the updates aren’t getting out to the people. The townships should be filled with flyers, pamphlets and megaphones updating the people. And the MDC should build this hope so that if ZANU does try and steal this election then the people will resist. We can defend victory. We can’t defend what we don’t know.

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

Against the backdrop of a blatantly unfair pre-election environment, Zimbabweans voted on 29 March to indicate the direction they want the country to go. According to electoral laws, all votes are counted, verified and displayed outside each polling station. This is especially useful since much of the rigging has taken place in the counting of the vote. Voting ended at 7pm and, in an unprecedented move, Zimbabwe Electoral Commission delayed announcing results for at least 36 hours and only started a slow process of announcing results at 6am on Monday, 31 March. The MDC, through its elections directorate, simply collected and collated all votes displayed outside polling stations and announced a resounding victory for Tsvangirai’s MDC.

Because of the highly suspicious behaviour of ZEC of taking too long to announce official results, there are genuine fears that Mugabe and ZANU PF want to subvert the will of the people and silence the people who have spoken through the ballot by fixing figures and announcing that Mugabe and ZANU PF as winners. There are rumours now swilling in Harare that security chiefs are in marathon meetings preparing to rig elections and prepare to crush any challenge to their electoral fraud.

I must say the conduct of ZEC is reckless and inconsiderate as it puts the nation at risk of a Kenya style revolt as the absence of official results for no apparent reason creates tension and anxiety in the people. It is criminal and treasonous for security chiefs to interfere with the counting of the vote and the announcements; security chiefs must be warned that days of lawlessness and mayhem in Zimbabwe are over. In a new Zimbabwe we will hold them to account for their actions. If Zimbabwe’s army and police think that they can hold the nation hostage they are dreaming; no-one can stop the wind of change that is sweeping across Zimbabwe, not Mugabe, not Chihuri, and not Chiwenga. Mugabe has said his conscience will not let him sleep if he steals an election (l wonder how he has managed to sleep since 2000), so he must heed his conscience and do the honourable thing of respecting the will of the nation. Zimbabwe needs a new political leadership with fresh ideas. Zimbabwe cannot move on with Mugabe at the helm; Mugabe must go, and he must go now before he plunges our beloved country into chaos and bloodshed.

ZANU PF may want to take comfort in the knowledge that they have rigged before and there was no uprising and South Africa and others looked away and pretended all was well. That was then, this time the people of Zimbabwe will defend their vote; the prospect of another disastrous five years with Mugabe and ZANU PF is motivation enough to take the struggle to the next level, on the streets. What Zimbabwe needs is a new leader with fresh ideas, not the look-east nonsense and diet of starvation that we have known with Mugabe. This time the rigging is easier to expose because results are displayed at polling stations; so we must defend the vote and pray that all patriotic and peace loving security forces must join the people of Zimbabwe and say no to Mugabe. Let us all stand up and act to stop Mugabe squandering our future.

The people of South Africa must stand in solidarity with us in Zimbabwe during this, our hour of great need, and prevail on Thabo Mbeki to demand that Mugabe respects the will of the people. The African Union has rejected all forms of unconstitutional changes of government and the massive electoral fraud unfolding in Zimbabwe is clearly unconstitutional and must be severely condemned as such by AU. In the case of Kenya, the African Union led the international community in activating the international duty to protect the fundamental rights of Kenyans, sadly, it was after considerable loss of life. My appeal to Mbeki and SADC is that they help stop this madness in Zimbabwe now before Mugabe plunges us into total darkness. It is with a heavy heart and tears in my eyes that l write this appeal. Now that the people have spoken, Mugabe and ZANU PF have a moral and legal obligation to give expression to the voice of the people and the respect the outcome of the elections. In Shona we say, Chisingaperi Chinoshura – which extorts all to know that everything has an end; for Mugabe and ZANU PF’s leadership of Zimbabwe the end has come and l urge them to accept it.

It’s 47 hours after polling closed in Zimbabwe’s 29 March Harmonised Election, and the phrase on everybody’s lips is: Where are the results?

Of course, the longer it takes them to announce, the more suspicious we’re all getting. But whilst it’s 47 hours of suspense, it’s also 47 hours which the MDC has had to compile its own independent tally of results. The MDC has declared victory, but where is its substantiation of this claim? Election results have been posted outside polling stations and Constituency counting centres around the country, so it’s possible to add them up for yourself, if you have the capacity to track them all down, and the patience to add them all up. This is what, it would seem, the Independent Results Centre has been doing. But scratch the surface of their website, and there is a national percentage tally, but no constituency level results to compare with the 39 constituencies for which results have been announced.

In Harare at least, this would be entirely possible – reveal the figures for Harare’s polling stations. One Kubatana subscriber suggested that maybe the MDC was reluctant to pre-empt the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s results, because they government has been very clear that it would view such an act as verging on coup potential.

But at the very least, the MDC should be comparing the ZEC’s announcements with what it has. Not to sound trite about what is, clearly, a massive undertaking. But the ZEC announced the first 6 results at 7 this morning – 11 hours ago. They announced another 12 at noon – 6 hours ago. Where is the MDC’s confirmation – or disputing – of these initial results? Even if their figures tally exactly with ZEC’s the MDC should announce this – doing so would lend credibility down the track if they do want to dispute other constituencies. Surely it’s not illegal to share your take on what the ZEC has announced?

Moreover, if we’re serious about freeing Zimbabwe from dictatorship, some defiance of unjust – or specious – laws is in order? But the Elections Results link on the MDC website still reads “coming soon.”

In some ways, the MDC could use the ZEC’s delay to their advantage – and contest results in areas where they’ve tallied the votes independently. But if they don’t take advantage of this window, it will get slammed shut on their fingers. In a country where mass media is state controlled, how is the MDC letting Zimbabweans know what it makes of ZEC’s results – and what it plans on doing about it?

One of my favourite journalists in Zimbabwe is Jan Raath. He’s just written this great piece for The Times (UK) which is worth a look:

We are on the knife edge now. There is little doubt in the minds of a very large slice of the population that Robert Mugabe was dealt a severe blow on Saturday. They laughed in the voting queues about how they were going to skewer the rooster (Mr Mugabe) and roast him. They cast their votes and went home to await the result. The slack Sunday morning was interrupted repeatedly by cars hooting long and loud, with young men whistling and waving wide open palms. One crowd was singing: “Saddam is gone, and now it is Bob’s turn.” Wilson, who used to work for me, called me in the afternoon from Epworth, an old squatter camp where the only light at night is from candles. He said: “People woke up this morning and they were cheering that MDC had won in our area. Then the riot police came. They said, ‘Someone from Zanu PF reported to us that people were making violence here, but you are just having a nice time and being happy’. They said, ‘Carry on being happy’ and they went away.” A text message came from Langton, his brother-in-law. “Hi Mr Raath,” he wrote. “We are celebrating for our new president.”

And yet the day wore on and there was nothing from state radio apart from endless reggae. There are also fears in the minds of many, many people that Mr Mugabe is trying to reverse The Great Unthinkable by sucking large numbers out of his thumb to secure his Historic Victory. Maybe he is being told that you can’t cheat this, you will be caught with your pants about your wrinkly ankles. At your age, your Excellency, go with a little dignity. Or maybe they are preparing edicts to be announced over the radio that, instead of the election results, they are declaring a state of emergency and in the morning we will be woken by the sound of MiG jets overheard and troop carriers in the townships enforcing a curfew. In February 1980 I drove out one afternoon to find paratroopers of the Rhodesian SAS on the street corners in full combat dress and dangerously armed. It took me a while to catch on that the Rhodesian generals intended to obliterate the nascent Zimbabwe and install a doomed new Rhodesia run by deranged white military men. Then someone spoke calmly to the generals, and the soldiers were collected and taken home. Maybe someone is talking to Mugabe. Maybe his wife can do the trick. Anyone.

So I’m sitting here in Harare on Monday morning wondering what it exactly was that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) intended to gain from their two weekend victory press conferences. Yes, their announcement got a lot of international news coverage, not local. And I’m sure it put Bob on the back foot. But what now? What is the MDC waiting for . . . the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s “official” results which everyone is suspicious of? It seems odd to temper a wonderfully audacious move (claiming victory) with the predictable path of comparing results.

What will the MDC do when ZEC announces Mugabe the winner? Across the country Zimbabweans agree that the MDC has trounced Zanu PF but they don’t believe (correctly) that this automatically translates into Mr Mugabe handing over the keys to State House, and his black Mercedes. So what can the MDC, showing decisive political leadership, and the Zimbabwean people activating their courage, do to seal the victory and challenge our collective disbelief that we can actually have change in Zimbabwe?

Eldred Masungurure, a Harare political analyst recently disagreed that Zimbabweans will actively resist a stolen election saying that fear is too pervasive in this country. And certainly we live in a country where Zimbabweans willingly hang Mugabe’s portrait in their shops and businesses even though there is no law requiring them to do so. And where, over this election period, Zimbabweans have had their private property Zanu-fied with posters of Bob’s fist and have been too fearful to take them down.

All of us have to ask ourselves how willing we are to get up and get out and support the political change that is happening in Zimbabwe. My fear is that the MDC leadership and the Zimbabwean people will once again, wait for each other to make the first move.