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.

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

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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?

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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

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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.

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

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

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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.

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

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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.

Internet security remains a major talking point what with the PRISM controversy where the US government snooped on virtually everyone’s internet traffic.

I recently participated in a training workshop in South Africa themed around protecting ourselves from cyber spies who apparently are now making themselves permanent features in the World Wide Web.

It was instructive that the monitoring of private online conversations has become a matter of concern as Zimbabwe heads for polls amid reports that the former ruling party is pulling all the stops bringing in Chinese and Israeli internet minds to launch an assault on people using cyber platforms to “push the regime change agenda.”

And the presence of characters like Baba Jukwa has made issues of internet security even more pertinent in the aftermath of claims that Zanu PF was hacking into the Facebook page in a bid to unmask BJ.

Yet not many people will consider internet security as something of major concern.

Ours is a country that has become a very bad model of freedom of information and freedom of expression where a simple political comment is enough to get you into trouble, yet as we celebrate social media and how it has provided space for conversations about political developments, it still remains open to snooping by a paranoid State.

The workshop I attended brought insights into a multitude of security options, yet like everyone else who attended, I found it amazing if not scary that we are virtually naked each time we are on Twitter, Facebook, sending emails etc.

There is a huge footprint that we leave, and for anyone seeking to rage against the machine, you are effectively having someone standing over your shoulder watching.

A mobile phone application called Layer enables you to read other people’s Twitter feeds, and if that is not scary, I don’t know what is.

The us of cell phone technology is increasing in Zimbabwe with nine in every ten people having access to a mobile phone. Making calls, receiving and sending text messages are some of the major uses of mobile phones. In a sample size of 1200 adults who took part in a survey conducted by Mass Public Opinion Institute (MPOI) in October 2012, nearly 24% of people have access to the Internet and they access the Internet using mobile phones. Of those interviewed 21% use the Internet for social media and 16% use it to get news.

Radio is still the leading source of information, and among the radio stations in Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation’s radio stations ranked as the most common source of information for public, political and current affairs in the country.

People in Zimbabwe place a lot of trust in information coming from schools and religious leaders both in urban and rural areas. But very few have trust in councils and government representatives as sources of information. Since its inception in 2009, the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee remains unknown to about 62% of the people who took part in the survey, and in areas like Matebeleland North and South people had problems accessing JOMIC.

An overwhelming response from people who took part in the National Census show that almost every household was covered in the census as the country’s ten provinces scored above 90% in visits to households during the census.

As the nation prepares for elections 59% of young people interviewed are affiliated to a certain political party and Mashonaland Central recorded the highest number of youths who are active in party politics whilst Bulawayo youth have less interest as shown by a low figure of 36%.

However fear of political intimidation during election campaigns is still high and many young people are uncomfortable talking about politics. 71% think that in the event of political violence being perpetrated by any political party, reporting it to the police is the most effective way of dealing with the situation. 56% believe the police have the influence to stop violence.

A high percentage of young people interviewed strongly agree that women should have the same opportunities as men in getting elected to political office and of those who agree, 71 % also believe that women should have equal rights and should be treated the same as men.

On democracy and one party rule many youths denounce autocracy, 75 % disapprove of military rule and a majority believe open and regular elections should be used to choose leaders. A democracy with problems is how young people view Zimbabwe but youths are optimistic that five years from now the economy will be better with improved living conditions.

No Laughing Matter? : Humor And Protest Arts
Deadline: 30 July 2013

The University of Zimbabwe and Savanna Trust invites you to submit your abstracts for conference presentations on the 24th and 25th of October 2013 in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In both popular and academic imagination, protest arts have been generally associated with ‘angry’ and ‘gloomy’ ‘subversive’ images. Consequently limited attention has been paid to the use of humour in protest arts. The possibilities, complexities and limitations of humour in protest arts deserve serious recognition. Several questions can be raised in this regard.  Why in the first place do artists and the public include humour in their protest arts?  Is humour compatible with radical transformative protest arts?  What are the aesthetic and ideological implications of deploying humour in protest arts?  How have state actors, elites and the general public responded to humour in protest arts?

Sub-Themes
-Aesthetic quality, humour and protest arts
-Ideological possibilities/complications of humour in protest arts, (eg gender, class, race, ethnicity disability political identity etc)
-The reception of humour in protest arts
-Humour, ethics and morality
-Writing/performing humour in protest arts
-Media/technology, humour and protest arts v    Protest music and humour
-Humour in protest marches and demonstrations
-Humour in protest and graffiti
-Popular jokes and/as protest arts

Submit your abstracts in not more than 350 words to: kchikonzo [at] arts [dot] uz [dot] ac [dot] zw and copy paifst [at] gmail [dot] com

About state media fiction writers:

“Masks beneath masks until suddenly the bare bloodless skull.”
Salman Rushdie, The Satanic Verses

Source: http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/full-page-ad-for-turkish-democracy-in-action