As Zimbabwe prepares for the 31 July election, a subscriber in Raffingora shares this unverified report of political violence in  Mashonaland West.

A Zanu PF war vet by the name Yondo has beaten a supporter of a independent candidate Mai Chombo today, 11 July at Raffingora Business Centre. She was accompanied by other war vets, whose names are Kangachepe Kufaingano and Mutokoti Vongai.

Wednesday, 10 July
In the afternoon, a stone’s throw away from a big fat 4×4 with a SADC Observer sticker on it, a woman and her two dogs browse curios for sale at a market in Newlands. Election, what election?

Thursday, 11 July
As Harare wakes up, there are some signs of life from the two main political parties as election posters start to appear on the street. But they are far outnumbered by bright yellow posters advertising a night of stand-up comedy at a local theatre. Then again maybe that’s exactly what these elections are. Kombis – the people’s taxi service – have started to mobile message the election.

At the moment, if you go onto the official Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) website, you can download a list of all the polling stations in the country, arranged by province. This would be great if the document wasn’t almost completely useless!

On opening the document, a 632-page PDF file, you find that the table (which should display where you can vote for your respective constituency) is too wide for the document, and so none of the information is lined up correctly, making all the information irrelevant. The important part (the bit about where you can vote) is all at the bottom rather than lined up with the correct constituency – it could have been a 316-page document.

Therefore, to work out where to vote you’d have to print the entire document and match up the lines of the table (not that the table is complete) or, do as I did and copy and paste the entire document (page by page) into various different programs before finally getting all the correct information in the right place. Speaking from experience, this takes 5 solid hours (not including the extra time spent trying to work out what some of the words are meant to say).

It shouldn’t be this hard to find out where to vote.

It’s going to be an interesting election!

Benefit from Emily’s copy/pasting, make your life easier, and access the spreadsheets of the polling stations as Excel files on our website. – Ed

You have to marvel at the picturesque language and the quips that have found their way into our ears as political parties hit the campaign trail.

Bloomberg wrote “Tsvangirai’s Bid to End Mugabe’s Zimbabwe Rule Fades” without showing how that bid was fading. The MDC is ‘doomed by its failure to end police support for Zanu-PF,’ said Valentia Kaseke, a security guard in Harare’s northern Emerald Hill suburb. “All they can do is wait for Mugabe to die and then Zanu-PF will be in disarray.” Turns out Tsvangirai’s bid for power is fading not because of being unpopular but because Mugabe is showing no signs of expiring any time soon!

The Daily Maverick called “Mugabe, the hot favourite” and a wise crack appeared on Twitter “literally or figuratively.”

The Herald not to be outdone by the incendiary headlining wrote: “Revolutionary party ignites star rallies” a headline that came a day after a Harare garage went up in flames with the Harare fire brigade reportedly failing to put out the fire. Next time the fire brigade must be on stand-by with plenty of water outside a Zanu PF rally in case it ignites!

Another Herald headline announced rather confidently “Zanu-PF stretches election lead.” Indeed, talk about stretching it!

Then another wise crack on Twitter: When is Mugabe hitting the campaign trail? He could always use a wheelchair to go around the country kana zvaka-presser.

Another added, “Even the Zanu PF manifesto launch was not free and fair. Once inside the venue, there was no exit until Mugabe’s speech ended.”

It’s going to be a beautiful few short weeks to 31 July.

In the past five years these two parties have worked together in an inclusive government. More plundering than job creation happened. Now that 31st of July is just three weeks away we are being promised over a million jobs and a growing economy. Going for this election both parties know that youths want jobs so its no wonder there are promises of jobs but some figures are just too good to be true. I had some time today comparing the two parties’ manifestos and here I quote some interesting hopes and dreams.

The 2013 field is set and this year it seems it’s all about JUICE for the players if they are going to score “Bhora Mugedhi”.

MDC-T highlights that,

“The MDC plan is aimed at uplifting all citizens in all corners of the country and will create 1 million jobs by 2018 and a $100 billion economy by 2040.”

27 years of one party rule so that the economy dream is fulfilled? I don’t think so.

In every match coaches battle to come up with strategies to counter opponents and since MDC-T is already attacking, not be outdone ZANU-PF is also on the offensive hoping to score  “Bhora Mugedhi” with 2,265 million jobs in the next five years.

“Creating value of US$7,3 billion from the indigenisation of 1,138 companies across 14 key sectors of the economy and over US$1,844,223,157,000 created from the idle value of empowerment assets unlocked from parastatals, local authorities, mineral rights and claims and from the State.”

There are also promises from Zanu PF for more flea and vendor market stands to be created and houses for low-income earners. And this comes along with revolutionary commitment to address and meet the goals of all Zimbabweans regardless of their social, economic, cultural or ethnic affinity, background or affiliation.

With all this on the table I wonder what strategy the merged team of MDC-N and ZAPU will have to come up with to defeat this leading pack?

The frenzy for presence on social media platforms by politicians as we approach the poll is fascinating as these folks apparently seek to ride on the back of Baba Jukwa’s popularity.

Yet the “short bursts” of information limited by a platform such as Twitter for some still cloaks ambitions to use social media space to replicate how it’s been harnessed in other countries, recalling of course that Obama’s first election into the White House is widely celebrated as being thanks to his campaign team’s use of social media platforms to reach out to younger voters.

For us here, only a while ago, Zanu PF’s Rugare Gumbo was bamboozled when asked about Baba Jukwa, responding that Zanu PF had no business being on Facebook!

Now Gumbo has changed his mind.

He says his party will use all platforms available, “everything that is there, we’re going to use,” Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and this is obviously informed by one of many recent reports.

Gumbo is no doubt a late convert, and this could indeed play against him as chief spokesperson, and also Zanu PF’s attempts to win over the youth vote, youths of course being purportedd to have a large social media presence in Zimbabwe.

But it is still curious that Zanu PF would require a World Wide Web-based campaign that targets that demographic considering the revolutionary party has long claimed disgruntled young unemployed urban youths – the born-frees the party calls them – have seen the light of British machinations as the cause of their suffering!

So why stalk them online, hmm? Or Zanu PF seeks new converts?

This youth vote has certainly been bagged going by the conflation of “urban grooves” and the Third Revolution where desperate youngsters took to the microphone to eulogise an aging politician as the source of their inspiration. Why hell, the youngsters even performed duets with the party’s political commissar slash Minister of Information! It doesn’t get any better than that surely.

Never mind that thousands of their colleagues have over the years been unable to graduate from university and polytechnics after failing to raise tuition fees and know pretty well the author of their misery.

And you should see some of the youths’ sentiments on these social media platforms Zanu PF is only embracing now.

I looked up some of the Zanu PF senior officials who are on Twitter for example and was tickled by the frugality of their “tweets.”

Years after the “invention of Twitter” a chap who fancies himself the epitome of propaganda only posted a couple of Tweets and went to sleep, surely now that a campaign for political survival is here, will these men and women be equal to the task? Or like everything else the power of social media will turn out to be nothing but misplaced hype as Zanu PF knows a better manual of “how to win an election”?

Would love to read one day that Zanu PF’s imminent loss of the 2013 election was saved by its use social media!

I am laughing already.