One of my favorite Zimbabwean bloggers, Takura Zhangazha, gives us a ten point guide to reading Zimbabwean Political Party Manifestos in 2013. Similar to the constitution, if you don’t read it, discuss it and question it, you’ll be a Rubber Stamper – yes, and who wants to be an RS? So uncool. Read Takura here, and download the manifestos from the Kubatana web site.

It’s shocking the number of people who say they have voted in all elections since 1980 but somehow find their names absent from the voter’s roll, and now these same people are faced with the prospect of not voting at all.

If ghosts can be found in the voters roll, it seems logical that the living can also be exorcised from the roll! And these stories are many.

Some are stories about people who want to vote but have no IDs, and efforts to get these important documents are being frustrated by all sorts of ridiculous red tape such as the person being told to bring parents, if parents are deceased, relatives with affidavits, if these relatives are buried deep in the rural areas, then that’s the end of it!

I watched a video of men and women yelling “they must tell us if they don’t want us to vote,” after trying for days to check their names and also register and couldn’t help must imagine that this is the kind of anger that is already known to exist by the people rushing the poll and their vote is as commonsense will have it, also already known how it will go!

It is thus increasingly becoming clear that many Zimbabweans will merely watch others exercise their franchise, and then we say bad governments are elected by people who don’t vote.

Now we know better: bad governments will make sure you don’t vote!

Sunday, 7 July
Midday, in Borrowdale village, a kombi pasted with election posters and filled with Zanu PF supporters did a drive around. A reminder to the elites that July might not be the month for sleeping easy.

Sunday, 7 July
In the afternoon on Enterprise Road a knot of Zanu PF supporters, one very visibly drunk, vociferous and pumped up in their new election regalia. Tshirts with slogans fade as do any election promises. Don’t they know that?

Wednesday, 10 July
Afternoon at the traffic circle in Newlands; a gathering of people, mostly women, with proceedings being officiated by some green caps with clipboards. Streams of people coming out of the police camp on their way to the gathering. New accommodation is being built for police staff and their families who live at the camp. Curious timing. Just enough built to give people hope that they’ll have some dignified living space but how long until the accommodation is completed?

Zimbabwe Alert
From MISA

Wednesday, 10 July 2013
Journalist arrested while taking photographs

Police in Zimbabwe on Tuesday, 9 July 2013 arrested Leopold Munhende, a journalist with The Mirror, in the southern town of Masvingo. Munhende was arrested while taking photographs of the voter registration process at the Registrar General’s Offices.

The arrest came at a time when Zimbabweans were jostling to register as voters before the lapse of the deadline that had been set on the same day.

The incident took place around 09.20hrs (CAT) and the journalist was taken to Masvingo Central Police station where he was charged with being a public nuisance in terms of the Miscellaneous Offences Act.

More details to follow.

MISA-Zimbabwe

From our subscribers – Zimbabweans share their feedback on the media, voter registration and the upcoming elections:

ZBC s acting like a Zanu-PF entity only serving one party. It shall come to an end come 31st July. Enough is enough.

——

MDC-T should have a TV station on satellite like Evangelist Guti and Prophet Hubert Angel have done.

——

Quite an informative and inspirational letter.It makes me reflect on some self imposed leaders who claim to be commanding a huge following when,in fact they are taking a walk.Secondly,such persons are not accountable to anyone because they are either volunteers or rigged to their way to the appex through coercion,chicanery or any form of pressure on the so called supporters.We have among us some MPs who forced their way through the primaries by hiding some structurers in order to disenfranchise some potential voters who could have blocked their confirmation.Thats an open secrete where l am.The same people are back on the same electorate canvassing for their support vote in the dreaful contest of 31st July.ls that democracy and the really change the Zimbabweans are longing for?Worse still the same chaps l am reluctant to call leaders,boast of enjoying the support of  the second most senior leader in the organisation in their showdy deals.Is that permissible when someone is using his position of trust in an organisation as an organiser to hide structures leaving people in spoiled mood?That trully happened and can such characters be expected to give a full AND transparent report on how they spent the CDF?

——

Lets ZEC be fair.Kuno kuZengeza paHead Office tirikuswera paQ vachiserver a selected group of people mayouth emusangano achitoboaster kuti tinoregister vedu ava vakawanda ndeveChinja

——

I’m from St Mary’s.I Want to tell you what transpired to the CDF.We excavated drains in our constituency and were promised 5dollars per given hours but we just did all for nothing.I don’t know kana Chibharo chakadzoka. Vakazongobhadarwa matop face vamwe vese ruzha rukabva rwapera.

——

Some pple in makoni south risk not voting after about 200 lost their ids through a food scam by cios

——

Voter registration ended in marondera ystdae at mbuya nehanda hall with a lot of delaying resulted in many youths unable to register disappointment

——

Its unfortunate that our mp is late but he abused our cdf. I am in Mberengwa North constituency. Our mp was jabulani mangena. He abused our cdf. In ward 12, nothing was developed becoz thats where  the man he beats in Zanu pf pry elections come from. It was a sort of fixing us. In ward 15, he donated material for building a teacher’s house at Ruzengwe sec school. The material he donated was scrap material. Asbestos sheets were broken and insufficient. Only 150 bags of cement was tangible and worth receiving .The house which was to be built was already on foundation level but when auditors came, he said he had  built the house from the ground.  But it was foundation structured by the school 6 years b4 cdf was disbursed.  Some asbestos sheets , all door frames, windor frames,  money for builders and paint was paid by the school. At first, he had promised to pay builders but when it was due to pay them, he backtracks . He said the school failed to take the money from council in time and was frozen. Finally , the school had to foot the bill. I was there when auditors came  with cameras to see the project. I was totally surprised to find the mp claiming to have sponsered everything. When auditors came only selected zanu pf people were selected to meet them including the local councillor. Infact people were not told they were auditors . They were told they were meeting mp’s visitors. They were told what to reply when questioned. Truly speaking, everything was inflated in terms of prices. Auditors were taking pictures of things the mp had not sponsered. This is  just a microcosm of what was happening in all other wards in mberengwa north constituency.

——

For the first time since 2000, Mberengwa is towards election with a peaceful environment.  No youth camps

——

Can someone who know how ZINWA works explain to Chimwe Irrigation Scheme farmers in Mberengwa. We buy water  to irrigate our crops from Zinwa on a commercial rate from Chimwe Dam which is 1km from the irrigation scheme. The dam was donated by the Dutch government as poverty alleviation  mechanism . Zinwa is forcing us to pay ZESA  bills for the electricity they use on their pumps to give us water. Which means we pay two bills per month. One for water and the other one for electricity. The reason given by ZINWA for not paying Zesa is that they only sell water not electricity. But they use electricity to supply their product to its customers.  What surprises Chimwe irrigation farmers is, ZINWA has a domestic water treatment plant at the dam which uses electricity and they are paying Zesa for the electricity they use to treat water. Treated water is sold to villagers on  a domestic rate and villagers are not paying electricity used by Zinwa to purify water. What boggles the mind is that raw water sold to irrigation farmers is more expensive than treated water. But treated water has more expenses like electricity, chemicals and many workers who man the plant. I think the minister of water must help correct the rot and make irrigation farmers only pay for water they use than to pay for electricity used by some other entities.

I couldn’t help but laugh at what can only be described as unintelligent remarks attributed to Zanu PF chair Simon Khaya Moyo – yes the one with a stuffed face that tells you he only knows hunger from news reports – who actually said: “you don’t provoke the military, let’s not pretend that our own security forces are not sensitive to insults. They have been insulted and when they respond let us not cry foul. They are not only security forces but liberators.”

I would love to hear Paul Themba Nyathi’s response!

You see Paul Themba Nyathi recently reminded one Chris Mutsvangwa that he (Paul) also fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe and he is not Zanu PF!

And Paul Themba Nyathi and Simon Khaya are both supposedly ex-ZAPU! Irony of ironies.

So much for Simon to try and tell Paul that he should be grateful for being liberated by people who are today blocking Paul and other progressives on their march to a liberated Zimbabwe, 33 years after Zanu PF handed back the country to black Zimbabweans! What bollocks.

Yet as polls approach, we can be sure of such wild statements that one day will only expose the futility of trying to reverse a revolution whose time has come.

But then Zanu PF knows a revolt as a violent takeover, yet these polls are an opportunity for a “peaceful revolution” of sorts that will serve as a rather painful reminder to the plutocrats (read kleptocrats) that Zimbabweans have had enough of this nonsense.