I am well satisfied.

Now, having said that, let the politician take over. I really mean I am satisfied with things so far. They are all as predicted. And I should not really be satisfied, because I lost. Not just lost, but LOST.

First point, all signs lead to a MASSIVE Zanu PF loss. Lost MPs include

Chinamasa (Minister of ‘justice’), Chombo (Minister of home affairs, the one who illegally fired us Councillors), Elliot Manyika (the Zanu PF Political Commissar, the biggest thug, the chief, ‘enforcer’, who it seems cannot enforce his own backyard), and Zanu PF lost in Zvimba, home of our beloved President. (If our beloved President’s party cannot win in his backyard!)

I went out and looked at the results for Ward 7, then went shopping. Got most of everything I need, even money from the bank! Shops were full, people looked pleased, and since the result was on everyone’s lips, perhaps that is what they were pleased about.

However, what we hear, and what will be announced may well be two separate things, but then things may start. Or, if the word is strong enough, other things may not start. Or be tried.

As for my results (Ward 7):

• Laban (Independent) – 293
• Pamhare (Zpf) – 1192
• Chiwola (MDC M) – 339
• Kapare (MDC T) – 2036

National results (the vote for President, Senator and MP) were about the same, by party and numbers, for Ward 7. Which means Ward 7 voted for an MDC Tsvangirai President, MP and Senator. And Masiya Kapare for city councillor.

Now, I have no trouble with Masiya (although of course I wanted to win). To me, shows exactly what I (and he agreed with me) predicted. That the people will vote for a party.

However, back to Masiya. He was councillor for Ward 5 back when I was your councillor. We were all MDC then. And Wards 5, 6 and 7 then made up Harare Central, so we worked together then. He is a member of CHRA – and I guess I do not have to resign as Chairman of CHRA Ward 7 branch. So the channels of communication are there.

I think we have some new stuff coming. Change has happened. What it will change to depends on us and how we will do it. We must talk and do what is right.

Comrade Fatso updates us again with his perspective on the day after the vote took place in Zimbabwe . . .

Today the streets have a strange energy. People are waiting. Vakamirira maresults. Sundays are normally quiet in Harare’s city centre. Today the streets are shuffling from one foot to another like the thirty fourth person in a snaking bread queue. The streets are unsure. Hopeful. Young police recruits patrol the streets trying to stamp an authority they are no longer sure that they have. The cigarette vendor apologises for the high cost of her cigarettes. ‘Tichadzikisa maprices mangwana’. We will reduce the prices tomorrow. When change comes. The streets are waiting.

We woke today to rumours of Mugabe fleeing to Malaysia and news of the MDC press conference. We carried our bababarazi’d selves to the conference after a night of ragga at downtown Harare’s Tube Nightclub. According to the MDC’s counting process they are way ahead in the polls. Victory is on people’s lips. But so is rigging. Because the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has yet to announce its ‘official’ tally of votes. It has yet to work out how to turn our dream into a nightmare. So expectant Zimbabweans have been subjected to endless music videos and football on the state broadcaster. It’s as if the elections never happened. So the streets wait. Shuffling from one foot to another. Waiting. Hoping.

See www.comradefatso.vox.com
For Daily Election Blogs by other MAGAMBA! poets and activists see www.myspace.com/magamba

OK its almost official but not quite – the Movement for Democratic Change has trounced the “fist of fury”. Way to go. We’ve had two victory press conferences at the Meikles Hotel which are entirely necessary, but its enough already. As Amanda rightly asked, when is the MDC going to reconnect with their supporters who are sitting in the dark, waiting and wondering about the election results? The MDC’s base of support comes from working class people who don’t have access to satellite TV and the Internet.

Morgan Tsvangirai should be doing victory laps around high density suburbs, inspiring and preparing Zimbabweans for the next round of the fight for democracy. As we all know winning elections in Zimbabwe don’t necessarily mean a transfer of “power”.

So where are the MDC trucks and vans and cars filled with campaign workers roaming the cities hooting up a storm of resistance? They were very active and visible pre-election – now where have they gone?

Enough with Press Conferences for Change; let’s have some open air celebrations.

All of Zimbabwe’s radio stations are state run, and at some point, they’ll start announcing some results for yesterday’s election. So I’ve been listening to Power FM, what I find to be the most tolerable station, all night, and it’s a wonder I’m still sane. There’s nothing announced yet, and people are getting increasingly anxious. Our SMS subscribers are texting us regularly – where are the results? Why the delays? Power FM must be getting similar inquiries, as every now and again the DJ mentions that yes, the results will come out eventually, but they haven’t yet. Meanwhile, the hourly news broadcast has been updated from saying that results will start to be announced “early today” to “starting today.”

But the MDC isn’t waiting. Ballot papers were counted at polling stations, and many of these have finished. Based on these preliminary results, the MDC is claiming victory.

The few results we’ve had emailed in from polling stations support this.

Chiredzi

Chiredzi Gvt A Primary Sch. Polling Station
Presidential: MDC 99 / ZPF31 / SM25
House of Assembly: MDC83 / ZPF 28 / IND 38 / MUT 7
Senate: MDC 89 / ZPF 44 / IND 23

Chiredzi Gvt B Primary Sch. Polling Station
Presidential: MDC 110 / ZPF 44 / SM 22
Parliamentary: MDC 79 / ZPF 44
Senate: MDC 102 / ZPF 19 / IND 21

Marondera Urban

Godfrey Huggins Polling Station
Presidential: MDC 144 / ZPF 39
Parliamentary: MDC 137 / ZPF 48 / Mutambara 7

Borradaile Polling Station
Presidential: MDC / 254 ZPF / 74 Makoni 40
Parliament: MDC 250 / ZPF 8

Good on the MDC for not waiting around. Their proactive approach is a good first step in combating a stolen election. But claiming a win at the Meikles Hotel is one thing – communicating it to the people, and converting it to victory, is another thing altogether. It’s time to the MDC to get out of the press conferences, and onto the pavement.

Some MDC activists that I’ve spoken to have said that the economy – the deteriorating economy – will make victory at the polls pretty much a done deal. Who would vote for a man who has presided over our economic free fall? But one of the first steps in winning an election is making sure that your supporters are registered to vote. An article that we posted on Kubatana.net recently called No joy for pregnant women during economic crisis comes to mind. The author interviews a woman who says that even though a birth certificate is a vital document she can’t afford the nominal amount that she owes the hospital. So they are withholding the birth certificate because of her nonpayment of the medical fees associated with the birth of her child.

With regard to the election, in this environment where transport is incredibly expensive and where you can hardly access any public service without paying a bribe, many Zimbabweans would have thought twice about the cost of registering to vote when their other basic needs like buying food come first. Clearly the deteriorating economic environment has been a thorn in the side of both political parties. The opposition finds “more” Zimbabweans need to be in cash or bread queues, than in freedom marches or voting lines. This might be short sighted but a belly full of hunger needs to be sated, even temporarily.

I went to one of “More” Morgan’s star rallies a week ago. I was surprised by how many people in the crowd were wearing MDC t-shirts. And I questioned the ratio of members of the public (voters) versus MDC campaign workers and their hangers-on. The Mail & Guardian interviewed Kennedy Shoko, a barber at a downtown salon in Bulawayo

He says his only major worry is that the opposition might not be able to turn the crowds it has been attracting in campaign rallies into votes. “Most of these youths who have been running around are not registered voters.”

Another Mail & Guardian article entitled A Day At The Polls made me think of my voting experience yesterday:

If this was the day that the big change would take place, Harare did not look the part. If it weren’t for the posters and the tent structures for polling stations on open land, one would be forgiven for thinking this was just another sleepy public holiday in the capital of Zimbabwe.

Elections aren’t won through posters, t-shirts and press advertisements.

With reports of a low turnout I’m wondering if the MDC leadership can multi-task; whether they can operate outside of election fever? Has the MDC engaged a sustained voter registration campaign since the last election, or have their eyes been solely fixed on negotiations?

The electoral playing field is unequal and unfair – the MDC has been criticising this since the 2000 election – so I, like many others, am sick and tired of the opposition crying “foul play”. That multi-tasking question comes up again: with the certainty of Mugabe rigging the election in his favour, has the MDC been preparing their supporters for Plan B, or does a phrase like “defend your vote” equal their idea of a Plan B?

Change in Zimbabwe has to come from an inspired political leadership backed by courageous citizens. But we do need leadership. We need leaders who do more than spout vague slogans like “defend your vote”.

Okay so maybe it’s not such a good idea to go and watch a film about the Rwandan genocide a week before Zimbabwe’s umpteenth election, and with groups of Zanu PF trawling Harare’s streets wearing t-shirts emblazoned with Mugabe’s face and the slogan “Fists of Fury”, but a girl’s got to get out of the house, and it was Francophone week after all. After the film, to calm my nerves, I trundled through dimly lit Harare to have dinner at a little Portuguese place called Cascais Cascais, otherwise known as Cash Cash because they don’t, like everyone else, accept cheques anymore. My partner and I sat down and looked at the menu, and then we looked at each another knowing that we didn’t have enough cash on us for the house special – peri peri chicken and chips. Gideon Gono, the Governor of Zimbabwe’s Reserve Bank, recently ruled that Zimbabweans can only withdraw Z$500 million (less than US$10) a day. Yip, that’s right. As we were counting our wad to see what we could afford the lights went out. And the candles came on but luckily this power cut was a short one. In the end I opted for cheap pork chops which arrived at the table quivering with floppy fat looking like they’d been grilled over a one bar heater. Nearby a group of Southern African Development Community (SADC) election observers chowed down like there was no tomorrow.

On Easter Sunday I thought I’d pop in on a rally organized by Morgan Tsvangirai, the president of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). I was spurred into action by a text message from a friend: This is Big, it read. So I threw on my bright green and yellow Brazil t-shirt, donned my Fendi sunglasses and headed across the city to an open space next to the Sheraton Hotel. I arrived to find a couple of thousand MDC supporters chanting and dancing in anticipation of the fat man arriving. To my delight the throngs thought I was some Brazilian diplomat and stepped aside to let me pass unhindered shouting “This is how we do things in Zimbabwe!”

I didn’t hang around for the political speeches which are always terrifically boring and went, instead, in search of an Easter Egg. A hunt like you’ve never seen before – I stopped at three supermarkets where there were no eggs of any kind, no bread, no milk. In fact not much of anything at all. What we do have on our shelves are very expensive South African imports when what we need are reasonably priced Zimbabwean products. Instead of an Easter Egg I bought a packet of Simba Mexican Chili chips for Z$100 million. But speaking of what’s available, there doesn’t seem to be a shortage of the local brand of condom – Protector Condoms. Granted they’re really cheap but often I see men making sure to buy protection. The staff of life – the odd loaf of bread and a packet of condoms. Walking and running the streets of Harare its common to find discarded used condoms on the road side and on cycle tracks. Zimbabweans are fucking their pain away.

I was running my dog along a road in Greendale and I came upon a group of Mugabe’s Zanu PF youth busy putting up posters of the old dictator shaking his fist. I let them know what I thought of them pasting their Bob posters over all the MDC and Simba Makoni election posters, saying it’s evident that their boss is fearful of legitimate and credible opposition.

At a recent dinner party people joked about Zimbabwe’s version of the Bermuda Triangle. We have the Bob Triangle – people have lost their livelihoods, farms, vendor stalls, businesses, their sanity and their self-esteem. We Zimbabweans might be on our knees but where there’s an election, there’s hope. There is much to hold dear in Zimbabwe, even still, even now after all these years of repression. Novelist John Berger sums up how I feel in one of his dispatches on survival and resistance:

With hope between the teeth comes the strength to carry on even when fatigue never lets up, comes the strength, when necessary, to choose not to shout at the wrong moment, comes the strength above all not to howl. A person, with hope between his or her teeth is a brother or sister who commands respect. Those without hope in the real world are condemned to be alone. The best they can offer is only pity. And whether these hopes between the teeth are fresh or tattered makes little difference when it comes to surviving the nights and imagining a new day.