'The Bank of Lisbon fire was not the only fire to have sent Johannesburgs emergency services scurrying on Wednesday. Scores of people in the Angelo informal settlement in Boksburg lost their homes when a fire destroyed 30 of them.'
This is according to country's state-run paper The Herald.
In an article titled "US think tank, George Soros behind MDC-T poll announcement bid", the paper claimed the "Mail & Guardian and Google have assembled a team to co-ordinate the illegal publication of results of the Zimbabwean election".
The paper cited a single anonymous source, saying the move was "part of the MDC-T strategy of 'defending' the vote" and is "designed to feed manipulated results that portray an MDC-T lead in the presidential poll with the hope that this [will] drive MDC-T supporters into the streets celebrating so that by the time the official results come out, there would be hordes of people who would resist any official result against their party".
This "was meant to poison the environment and prepare party supporters for some Arab-style revolts", it said. The article was published as early voting results started to come in on Thursday. "The party's [MDC's] incessant claims of alleged rigged [rigging], the sources said, were meant [to] subliminally prepare supporters to refuse to accept the official [results]."
The article appeared to be based on a substantial misunderstanding of the M&G's Zimbabwe Elections Voting Trends Map site, which this week sought to track election results in real time. The map was based on official preliminary results of counting published at poll stations, aggregating that data and making it easier to interpret on a national level as numbers became available – a function typically handled by an independent electoral body in countries such as South Africa. But this data, The Herald warned, would be manipulated.
In response to the article, M&G Online editor Chris Roper said: "We've put up several disclaimers on our Zimbabwe Elections Voting Trends Map site. The main one reads: 'These results are preliminary (not official), and they are based on returns posted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission at the polling stations, wards, provincial and national counting centres. Preliminary results are not meant to announce or declare that any particular candidate or political party is the winner.'
"We've also stressed that these are preliminary results posted by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, as they are legally obliged to do. The interpretation bit is what governments hate. Citizens aren't supposed to think, they're supposed to listen. It's incredibly old-fashioned.
"We happen to believe that people are capable of analysis and interpretation, and can tell the difference between unofficial preliminary trends and final, legally approved results," Roper said. "You have to wonder why it's already assumed that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's final results will be different to the preliminary results they're posting.
"The BBC is reporting that a senior source in Mugabe's Zanu-PF party said 'We've taken this election. We've buried the MDC. We never had any doubt that we were going to win', so you also have to wonder why they assume that the premature celebrations won't be Zanu-PF celebrations."