The other day, I listened to a kombi driver chat with a female cop and perhaps like everywhere, their banter ended up touching on the coming elections.

“I hear you will be voting earlier than everyone,” the driver said. “Yes,” the cop answered not hiding the excitement of the privilege.

Then the guy complained that he wasn’t going to vote because he had failed to register after being frustrated by the long queues.

Ah yes, the queues were frustrating, the cop agreed.

I sniggered imagining the cop was relishing the moment that a few voters would mean she had her work cut out – literally.

A few voters will certainly mean cops are not kept busy manning long winding queues, but the exchange between the cop and the kombi driver was a conversation that has gained common currency in the run up to the poll, where the question “did you register” has become the favourite topic like the British asking each other about the weather!

And with the MDC-T’s estimates that more than 300,000 people in Harare failed to register, such conversations do give a picture of the magnitude of the very flawed voter registration process.

While the figure offered by the MDC-T might look wild, word on the street does point to worse if read with the disgruntlement that prevails in other parts of the country where old women of Malawian origin for example with metal ID they got before independence were told to bring their birth certificates!

It’s not funny but Zanu PF Svengalis manipulating the electoral processes imagine they will have the last laugh.

Comments attributed to First Lady Grace Mugabe that Mr. Morgan Tsvangira’s looks gave First Gentleman Robert Mugabe nightmares just show how low-brow the politics of State House can become.

Critics have long said our politics is not issue based, and Mrs. First Lady seems to confirm that.

It highlights she not only has very low regard for Tsvangirai (she doesn’t have to: Tsvangirai wants to take her husband’s job!), but most importantly perhaps, the low regard she has for her audience.

The favoured phrase for many people would be “don’t insult our intelligence.”

Imagine expecting to swing votes by telling voters that you need a more photogenic fellow at State House! That would help in international photo opportunities!

You are simply implying that your audience has no clue about the real issues that seek to address their impoverished livelihoods, but such has been the nature of Zimbabwean politics, recalling the rather unpalatable comments by one “nationalist” and “national hero” that if a baboon stood for Zanu PF in elections, you vote for that baboon.

Surely Zimbabweans deserve better.

Zanu PF posters for the July 31 election have been put up on the Makoni South Constituency Parliamentary Information Centre notice board. Whilst clearly it’s tempting advertising space, surely that’s the kind of space that should advertise equally for all parties, or none. A public service. Oh, like the public broadcaster, ZBC. Right.

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