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.

What people are saying:

The election date should be announced later on after the fulfillment of the GPA principles. I’m not sure of free and fair elections when the people in the countryside are written down names and ID numbers by ZANU PF members in what they call a party register. Anyway, lets watch and defend our liberty.

I do not know how our outgoing MP used the Constituency Development Fund. He never showed up for consultations, which were supposed to be inclusive, with the electorate on how best & developmental the CDF can be used in our constituency. To date & truly speaking many people in the area do not know of such a fund. Only to be surprised to read an article in the print media where he lied of carrying out developmental projects in the area, which were being done by a legislator aspirant of a different political party thus hijacking projects of others. Shame.

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.

It is hardly surprising to hear cops threatening the MDC-T “against fomenting violence”and threatening to throw both supporters and officials into the dingy Matapi holding cells.

I would like to hear the cops threatening the same for Jabulani Sibanda and other characters of doubtful sanity who are on record saying they will return to the bush if Morgan Tsvangirai wins the elections.

You wonder then what kind of conditions are being set in the run-up to the poll which is only three weeks away.

This is the sort of thing that only buttresses criticism of the force being partisan which they should know alongside Zanu PF that this has quite a bearing on the legitimacy of the poll.

In any case, diplomatic missions who have already been denied observer status are watching and so is SADC, but then these people ceased caring a long time ago.

A flawed poll certainly is what Zanu PF seeks.

With Parliamentary elections scheduled for the end of this month, we’ve been wondering how to interrogate Zimbabwe’s outgoing Members of Parliament and learn some lessons from their track record. Particularly in cases where an outgoing MP is running for office again, we’re wondering why their constituents might want to vote for them again – or why they definitely won’t.

With this in mind, Kubatana asked our subscribers how their exiting Member of Parliament used the Constituency Development Fund between 2008-2013 to benefit their community.

We got around 300 replies, from subscribers in 130 of Zimbabwe’s 210 constituencies. Their feedback was mixed, as was the track record of their Members of Parliament in using the Constituency Development Fund. Around one-tenth of respondents did not know how their CDF had been used. Around two-thirds did not think it had been used for anything constructive (or had barely been used).  And about 30% of respondents were impressed with how their MP had used the fund, and noted this as a worth accomplishment.

It’s important to note that this is crowdsourced information – So it hasn’t been verified with the MP in question or with any public record or audit of the Constituency Development Fund. This also means that it speaks to how thoroughly an MP communicated with his or her constituency. In Bikita West, for example, two subscribers said nothing tangible was done for the constituency with the fund, but three reported the MP fixing schools, building clinics and sinking boreholes.

A few sample responses include:

• Mutare South, he brought us a truck of roller meal and sold us@ $2.50 for 10Kg only once. Also employed us at his farm and paid us one gallon of maize per day.
• In Chipinge central MP Alice Chitima of Zanu pf hapana zvaakaita (did nothing). GO CHITIMA GO! I DONT CARE
• Mhondoro Ngezi, we never saw anything. Taingonzwa pa tv chete kuti kune mari yakadaro asi chayakashanda hatina kuchiona. Hamheno pamwe vedu mp vamatonga havana kupihwa mari yacho. (WE only heard on TV that such a fund exists. What it was used for we don’t know. Maybe our MP Matonga was not given the money)
• Chitungwiza South Constituency. Drilled 6 boreholes, bought a printer, built a flea market, removed raw/solid waste. The fifty thousand dollars was used to the last cent.
• Haina kubatsira vanhu mu Kadoma asi yakashanda  kwaari MP CDF fund (The money did not benefit the people in Kadoma but the MP himself)
• Wakadya yose chivi central (He spent it all on himself)
• Bulawayo. I stay in Mpopoma-Pelandaba district, our MP Mr S. Khumalo  used cdf in schools for repairing chairs, desks and repairing residential chairs and benches, about $11000  is still in the bank.

You can access the full list of responses here. And you can take a look at a map of selected responses here.

When the 31 July election date was first announced, the majority of our SMS subscriber expressed their shock and disbelief, and believed that Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai was right to state that this date was illegal and unconstitutional.

As a follow up, we let these subscribers know about yesterday’s Constitutional Court decision keeping the Harmonised Election date at 31 July. They were largely unimpressed with the Court’s lack of independence, and concerned about the way this move has undermined the election’s legitimacy before it’s even been held.

In their own words:

• That’s undemocratic for the court to make such a cruel decision
• There must be some hidden agenda from those who are dictating the election dates
• But why, but who, but which, but what.  Are we back to 2000?
• It shows how unconstitutional this constitutional court is, its a matter to be decided by three parties in govnt as SADC said.
• Very sad only God knows
• Zimbabweans should decide on that date whom they wanted to be the President
• This is part of a rigging strategy as many people are still to get registered and necessary reforms are yet to be implemented.
• Let Mugabe run his usual solitary race!
• Sadc should help us this time zanu pf wants to rig elections free and fair elections Tsvangirai will win a landslide victory
• Kubatana! If elect day has been declared then election campaign material should b brought to the ground 4 da campaign teams
• We’re headed for the ugliest electoral fraud in recorded history, mark my words.
• This is ridiculous. How come Zim lets bob get away with everything? Enough.
• Says who? With no free broadcasting, the same old gang playing the same old tricks in ZEC, ZNA, CIO & ZRP/BSAP, no money & violence increasing daily even within ZANU? It’s time to call their bluff