They call them the ”walking clubs”, and Grace Sibanda is an involuntary member. The shop assistant rises before dawn and slips out of her tiny home.
Ward B3 of the Gokwe hospital looks much like any other in Zimbabwe’s decaying medical establishments, denuded of medicines, equipment and doctors.
Robert Mugabe was sworn in for a sixth term as Zimbabwe’s President on Sunday within minutes of the declaration of election results.
The young man who gave his name only as Wilson wanted just one thing from Friday’s election in Zimbabwe: the indelible red ink on his little finger.
There’s only one reason Robert Mugabe is going to win the election if you believe the state-run press: the people have finally come to their senses.
If this is the endgame for Robert Mugabe’s regime, the brutality of the tactics employed reveal his determination to win at any cost.
”They hunt the opposition. They said they ate human liver and drank urine during the war and so they were prepared for war again.”
The soldiers and ruling party militiamen herded the people of Rusape to a field at the back of the local sports club and made their point clear.
Zimbabwe’s opposition is under intense political and violent pressure to agree to call off a second round of presidential elections in a fortnight and join a coalition government.
The Zimbabwean opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, has told President Thabo Mbeki that he is no longer fit to serve as the region’s mediator in Zimbabwe’s political crisis owing to a ”lack of neutrality”, and that ”there will be no country left” if Mbeki continues to side with President Robert Mugabe.