/ 31 July 2013

Long lines and bated breath as Zim waits for Mugabe’s vote

Long Lines And Bated Breath As Zim Waits For Mugabe's Vote

Elections kicked off to a smooth start in Harare and neighbouring townships on Wednesday, as people prepared to cast their vote for a new government. Zanu-PF president Robert Mugabe is expected to cast his vote at Mhofu Primary School in his hometown Highveld just outside the capital city, Harare, while Movement for Democratic Change leader Morgan Tsvangirai cast his vote just before 11am.

In Mbare, an overpopulated township on the outskirts of Harare, voters commended this year's peaceful elections and what by this morning appeared to be an efficient start to the big day. Polling stations opened at 7am. Two hours was the maximum time most voters spent standing in the queue.

Douglas Kupara voted at the biggest polling station in Mbare after waiting on a snaking queue from 5.30am until just after 8am. "It's amazing what's going on today," he said. "The weather is calm, everybody is happy and wants peace." It took Kupara less than five minutes inside the voting tent to cast his vote.

First time voter Darlington Makhina (21) voted for change, he said. Just like other voters, he refused to say which party he voted for, an indication that the scars of the 2008 violent election remain. A small business owner, Makhina believes that with the choice he made, "my life will be changed for the better". "We want jobs," he said. Makhina operates a small window frame store in Magaba in Mbare.

At an impromptu press conference held at State House on Tuesday, Mugabe said he was ready to give up power should he lose the election.

He also made it clear his aim was not to be in a government of national unity with MDC as it's been since 2008, but did say he has worked well with the two MDC leaders: Tsvangirai of the MDC-T and Arthur Mutambara of the other MDC faction.

Odds stacked against Tsvanigirai 
Despite Tsvanigirai entering into the election race with a "heavy heart" and the odds heavily stacked against his favour, the MDC has refused to back down from the election contest.

Months leading to the national election, Zanu-PF resisted key political reforms as outlined by the power sharing agreement signed in September 2008, while the military's top brass has publicly lent its support to Mugabe.

A partisan state media has also been instrumental in giving free live coverage of all 10 of Mugabe's rallies held nationwide throughout the month – while denying the MDC media space.

A belligerent MDC became fiercely critical in the days leading up to the election contest, perhaps having a sudden realisation that victory could be stolen away from it again by Mugabe.

In the last elections held in 2002 and 2008, the MDC claimed victory was stolen from it by Zanu-PF.

In the days leading to Wednesday's national election, Tsvangirai had become unusually bold and not shy to step out of the cocoon and take a pot-shot at the Africa Union Commission chairperson Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma for glossing over the shortcomings of the election preparations and not calling on the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) secretariat to resign over its "shenanigans" in managing the election.

'Misleading'
Tsvangirai claimed that Dlamini-Zuma's assessment of the Zimbabwe election was "misleading".

In addition, he accused the ZEC of working hand in glove with Mugabe's Zanu-PF to rig the election.

In between his public outbursts, Tsvangirai has however been able to draw large crowds at his rallies where the "change" and "Mugabe must go" mantra reached fever-pitch. The final MDC rally held in Harare on Monday, dubbed the "cross-over" rally, was estimated to have drawn a crowd of nearly 50 000 MDC supporters.

In response, Mugabe has dismissed his arch-rival Tsvangirai as a "cry baby" for running to outsiders for help over every disagreement, mainly the Southern African Development Community and the African Union. The state media also dug into Tsvangirai and made fun of him; saying that he would concern himself with making babies should he win the election, instead of governing – in a veiled dig at Tsvangirai's string of sex scandals last year.

Political analyst Khanyile Mlotshwa based at Rhodes University said it was in Mugabe's interest to win in the first round of voting and avoid having the election spill into a run-off contest. The date for the run-off election is September 11, should the election go into second round of voting.

"If it goes to the second round, then all opposition parties will gang up against Mugabe and I don't see him winning. I also don't see him rigging the second round," said Mlotshwa.

"No one would believe that Mugabe can beat the combined effort of opposition parties in the country. For the first round, it looks like there is so much balance and no single party can get over 50% of the votes. That is just not possible. So a second round is likely and the end of Mugabe is upon us. If he is to have another life, he just has to steal the first round; otherwise he can't get 50% of the votes".

'Red card'
Obert Gutu, the former deputy minister of justice, legal and parliamentary affairs under the unity government, said Wednesday's election would finally see voters give Mugabe and Zanu-PF a red card after having reduced what was once the jewel of Africa into a hopeless and desperate basket case.

"Mugabe and his corrupt legion have ransacked and looted the country into becoming a small, impoverished economy, which now ranks lower than the economies of little Lesotho and Swaziland. This is the hallmark of Mugabeism", said Gutu.

"It has been a rollercoaster of kleptocracy and obscurantism; a cocktail of disastrous and toxic economic policies such as the notorious economic structural adjustment programme of the early 1990s to the lunatic and self-serving … so-called indigenisation and empowerment."

Mugabe also denied that he had the backing of the military, which he said had individuals who had lent support to him in their personal capacity and did not reflect the position of the entire military establishment.

"You are talking as if it was all of them. It was just one or two; they are not the army and not the authority".