“I have said it and I have said it again and I am beginning to sound like a broken record now, but these elections are illegal, illegitimate, immoral, unfree and unfair.” – Tendai Biti speaking to Al Jazeera

It’s polling day in Zimbabwe’s harmonised election, and Kubatana has been receiving more updates from our subscribers. Get more election information at our special index page on the 31 July election.  You can also check out our crowdmap of citizen reports and read more vox pops here, here and here.

• I am waiting for a big day from Chimanimani
• Pane kusawirirana pawepo kuNyanga  zanu pf  nenyaya yemagwere (There is some misunderstanding in Magwere Zanu-PF, Nyanga)
• Hi, I live in Mbare. I have just received the water, sewer and refuse bill! So Chombo’s promise to cancel these is just hogwash.
• Zec nezanu vaneuttsinye those  registerd to vote were deployed where they cant vote vanogara kwavaigona kuvota vakanyimwa mabasa.manje takatopanduka chose. (ZEC and Zanu are evil. Those who are registederd to vote were deployed where they cannot vote.)
• ZEC has betrayed most polling officers by deploying us outside our wards yesterday, how then are we going to vote. Beitbridge
• I am a mdc-t  staunch supporter. I was greatly disturbed yesterday midnight by messages i received from zanu pf on my  netone line. I was persuaded to vote mr r g mugabe. My question is how did zanu pf got my cell numbers. I know the culprit is netone. May zimbabweans remind netone that it is illegal. I also witnessed it during referendum.
• Bulk sms sending was banned till after the elections bt i received a political msg on my phone. Shouldn’t i sue the network provider? I hear a lot of pple received the same msg too! Seems we have sacred cows!
• Today Zimbabweans are making a mark for their destiny. I have done my part in Kwekwe Central.
• Voted at Kuwadzana 6 Primary, Harare all is well, queues moving fast, many people voting.
• Harare: Courtney Selous 104 places down the queue. Approx 300 ish. Single file mostly. Quiet. Chisi School Friend is 10th in queue.
• KUMAKONI SOUTH mamwe mastations ene very few presidential ballot papers
• No netone to netone One hr talk untill hameno…. No Telcel to Econet call untill hameno. Econet internet is so and so . Whatsup inteferences untill hameno. Who is to be blamed .  No electonic voters roll until hameno.  No education untill hameno. Today zesa was up and down and who is to be blamed kwanzi nerimwe bato masanctions. Hahahahaha

Food and transport has been unstinting and in the process they have hired hundreds of buses, trains and trucks of every description. I heard they brought in 140 tonnes of poster paper and you can see that everywhere. A very young Mugabe peers out to us from every tree and lamp post. My wife saw one on the wall of a company and asked me who that was, I said it was Mugabe and she could not reconcile the image with the man we see every hour or so, on State TV. One other reason why the Zanu PF posters are so visible is that Zanu PF has had teams at work every night, taking down everybody else’s posters which are now almost nonexistent. Tear down a Zanu poster and you will find yourself in a Police cell and likely to remain there for some days before a Magistrate can be found to impose a fine. We have all complained to ZEC and the Police, to no avail.
- Eddie Cross

Election time is always an opportunity for media hacks to practice a bit of creative writing and come up with that they imagine are funky headlines, puns and even shocking claims, never mind that many have been left ruing their creativity after the elections sprung shocks they wouldn’t have imagined.

Because Zimbabwe’s politics have been defined through very false black/white right/left dichotomies, this has been enough to have any writer or news outlet who favours one particular party to stretch their imagination despite all evidence to the contrary.

It is in news writing where clairvoyants would come in handy as part of the newsroom team!

While not exactly a news item, the International Relations and Security Network (ISN) carried an opinion piece headlined: “Mugabe Likely to Win Elections, But Who Will Lead Zimbabwe Next?” and it is one of those analyses which when you read it, raises questions about the logic of going to elections in the first place when the winner has already been determined. One has to live on the streets of Zimbabwe’s major cities to get a pulse of what such scenarios would mean in the event the people’s will is subverted.

Another local opinion piece carried by Newsday and written by MDC-T senior official Obert Gutu titled “Why Tsvangirai will be next President”
offers another long perspective on why Mugabe long lost his relevance to Zimbabwean politics, but then that can be expected from someone whose leader is contesting against Mugabe.

Yet another headline in the same paper says “Ncube’s journey to State House” in reference to Welshman Ncube whom the Herald, most interestingly, now says is expected to “give a good account of himself as his party has moved from being a splinter group to a full-fledged political outfit.” I imagine this means the Herald is then awake to the possibility that Ncube can indeed cause a major upset and end Mugabe’s political career?

The Herald carried a story headlined “Zanu-PF has transformed lives: Mujuru” and it’s stuff that one reads and says, perhaps I have been away too long. You still get such reports despite these being the same people who have begged President Sata for maize to feed starving millions here, but then in election time, voters are not expected to question such wild claims! And newsmen and women simply regurgitate the speechifying without reminding the speaker of the painful irony of such claims. But then that would mean losing your job!

Of course I found it strange that The Herald would run a story that was lifted from the Guardian (UK) that ostensibly predicts a Mugabe victory where the British paper cites Simon Khaya-Moyo saying rather laughably about Mugabe: “He is a very strong man. He will serve as long as people want him to serve.”

Or from Blessing-Miles Tendi, “a political analyst who has attended seven of the rallies” whom the Guardian quotes: “Mugabe is good at recreating himself depending on the national and international dynamics of the time. That’s why he has lasted so long.” Really?

The Herald also picks a story from the Independent (UK) titled “Odds stacked against Morgan Tsvangirai as Robert Mugabe scents victory in Zimbabwe” and chooses to ignore the sidebar: “Odds stacked against Tsvangirai as opposition candidates are harassed and fake voter registration appears widespread.”

The same Independent has another story headlined: “Fear and optimism mix as people face into another Mugabe-rigged election.” Just to lift one paragraph from that piece: Little wonder that for all their usual threats, abuse of patronage and ballot-rigging, Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party was trounced in 2008. Mugabe was, reportedly, ready to stand down. Instead, the generals and goons who really run the country and rip off its resources unleashed a campaign of extreme violence while they fiddled the vote to keep their man in power. I would like to see the Herald quote that!

An editorial comment in South Africa’s Timeslive titled “Zimbabweans must accept that freedom is not easily won” The comment continued: “With many seeking a better life abroad instead of working at home for the change they want, we are likely to have a Zimbabwean problem for years to come. It is said that the day the citizenry is willing to suffer for a better tomorrow is the day their fortunes will turn for the better. Have Zimbabweans reached that stage? Are they willing to roll up their sleeves to shape their tomorrow? South Africa and other countries that have fought oppression and mismanagement by a few went through a painful process to achieve their desired outcome. Zimbabweans should be prepared to do the same.”

But this drew outrage from readers with one writing under the headline: “SA is complicit in Mugabe’s tyranny” that “Zimbabweans have demonstrated their opposition to the tyranny of Robert Mugabe often enough, only to be subjected to brutal repression by the security apparatus, leaving many dead and maimed, and others homeless.”

The writer added: “As long as the African Union, the South African Development Community and our own government turn a blind eye to intimidation and accept the flawed outcome of the elections Zimbabwe will continue on its downward spiral.”

Newsmen and women are surely being kept busy by this election!

From Brian Raftopoulos:

Is Zimbabwe heading towards another disputed election?
29 July 2013

In September 2008 the three major political parties in Zimbabwe entered an inclusive government following a contested election in June that year. The Global Political Agreement (GPA), as it was called, was facilitated by the Southern African Development Community (SADC), and the facilitation was led by the South African government.

After nearly five years under a very problematic and intensely contested inclusive arrangement, the people of Zimbabwe face another election on the 31st July in a battle for the presidency, parliament and council representatives. The setting of the election date was announced unilaterally by President Mugabe, following a decision by the constitutional court clearly directed by Mugabe’s party. This was contrary to the terms of the GPA which set out that this decision would be made by consensus of the three political parties, Zanu PF, MDC-T and the smaller MDC formation. Mugabe’s failure to abide by the terms of the GPA on this issue represented the latest in a long list of infringements by his party on the terms of the agreement.

Many of the key reforms envisaged under the GPA, such as media reform, substantive changes in the electoral laws and security sector realignment were blocked by Mugabe’s party in the last five years. The latter issue was particularly important given the fact that the security establishment effectively blocked the MDCs from translating their electoral victory into state power in 2008. As a result, the forthcoming election is taking place under conditions which once again bode ill for the conduct of a free and fair plebiscite. The combination of a shortened voter registration period and a voter’s roll which, according to recent reports contains serious irregularities, point to further problems around the electoral process. The chaos surrounding the recently conducted special vote for the security forces provided yet another indication of the lack of readiness of the national electoral body for the July election.

The current state of unreadiness for the election has also been a cause of continuous concern for SADC. Since 2011 a series of SADC summits has pushed the GPA partners to implement all the political reforms set out in the GPA. At its June summit in Maputo the SADC facilitator on Zimbabwe, South African President Zuma, once again stressed the need for all matters agreed on under the GPA to be implemented speedily in order to ensure adequate preparations for a level playing field for the forthcoming elections.

Among the range of issues raised by Zuma in his report was the key point that security sector realignment could not be postponed any longer. The summit also called on the Zimbabwe parties to seek an extension of the election date from the Zimbabwe constitutional court, in order to ensure greater readiness for the election. Once again Zanu PF ensured the constitutional court decision endorsed the 31 July election date. In response to the recent disorganised special vote process, SADC stated that it wished its advice had been heeded on the need for a delay. There have clearly been tensions between Mugabe and his SADC colleagues over the problems of implementing the GPA. Mugabe’s recent attacks on one of the SADC facilitatiors, Lindiwe Zulu, over her alleged criticisms of the electoral process, point to some longer terms problems that Mugabe’s party have had with Zuma’s arbitration.

Additionally the growing convergence between SADC and the EU since the beginning of 2013 over the conditions for a free and fair election, have triggered concerns in Zanu PF. For much of the 2000′s including the period of the inclusive government, Mugabe has skillfully used the division between SADC and the West over the sanctions imposed by the latter in the early 2000′s on the Mugabe regime, to maintain the support of the region. The gradual movement away from the sanctions position by the EU, from 2012, and the clear movement of the EU towards an EU-Zimbabwe re-engagement dependent on the status of the upcoming election have closed the ground between the EU and SADC.

The pressure is therefore on the regional body to carry out the mandate that it set itself when the facilitation began in 2007. In that year the SADC mediation set out to establish conditions for a generally acceptable election in Zimbabwe and to “ensure that everybody concerned accepts that the results of the elections as truly representative of the will of the people.” The facilitator at that time, the then South African President Thabo Mbeki, was keen to keep the West at bay and to push for an African solution to an African problem. That task remains to be completed in Zimbabwe, and the stakes in the forthcoming elections are high not only for Zimbabweans, but also for the credibility of SADC.

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!