A friend and I were speaking this morning about the upcoming election. We were reflecting on how limited each of the presidential candidates are, in their various different ways. Why aren’t we more demanding, we asked one another. Why aren’t Zimbabweans more insistent that they deserve good leaders. Why do we settle for so much less than the ideal?

This was still on my mind when I came into the office and found this poem by Tawanda Mutasah, extracted from The Zimbabwean:

The Rural Vote

We are their cows
Why else would we be herded
Driven under the whip by these clowns
To the voting booths as if to be graded?
Isn’t it them who should be proving
Their worth to us the electors?
Why do the goal posts keep on moving
At the whims of these pretenders?

Chief’s dog in front, bums rotund from diverting humanitarian food aid
Chief atop brand new tractor, comically close behind
We the people, single file in between
Chief’s enforcers brandishing their whips, bring up the rear
Chief says this is to deliver an orderly vote
We the people, have been assured we are independent
Chief’s made-in-China, bright red tractor, looks quite orderly
Chief’s beard looks well developed, very black, shiny

Miss this queue that’s to be joined by every independent serf
You have lost without recourse even that barren ten-acre erf
Walk a trifle too slowly or too fast
Your tenure in this chiefdom cannot last
Smile to your marching neighbor your amusement at the Chief’s comical traction
An enforcing clown’s whip will administer prompt sanction
Mentally calculate by how much Central Bank underwrites the Chief’s beard
Food aid will be withheld by those much feared

Chief’s overfed dog arrives first at polling station
Chief arrives, chief’s bottom and tractor’s top outpuffing each other where they meet
We the people queue up in the order in which we came
Chief shows off his ballot, a clumsy “X” next to aged face of the Pharaoh
Chief beardedly proclaims: “this is how we vote in this village”
We the people are then told we are free to vote “in the manner of the village”
Chief’s enforcers stand close enough for us to smell their patriotic sweat
Chief’s dog growls steadily when it smells my extracurricular thoughts

Are we their cows?
Or is the power in our hands?
Is it enough to be placid serfs behind pained frowns?
Or, each alone in the voting booth, is it possible to seize destiny’s reins?
But before I can complete the thought
My marching neighbor taps me on the shoulder
Time to single-file back towards destiny still elusively sought
Leaving the embers of the mind yet again to smolder

- Tawanda Mutasah

Over my many years walking, running and cycling the streets of Harare, one unfortunate, recurring theme of my experience has been men’s harassment of women, including myself. In struggling to find ways to deal with the often daily comments, stares, whispers and shouts, I’ve used a variety of tactics. Sometimes I ignore. Sometimes I try and rationalise. Sometimes I engage. But often, often, I think about what I, or anyone, could possibly do, to make it all stop.

A friend of mine and I sometimes discuss WWW: Women With Weapons. A few years ago, cycling to work and back every day, I had a recurring fantasy that my bike was kitted out with a bayonet in the front, and flame throwers out the spokes of my wheels. Pity the poor bloke who made some nasty comment at me, I’d think. He’d be a lesson to all other men. And then maybe, just maybe, eventually, the heckling would stop.

Of course, I know violence isn’t the answer. And I know that if part of what I resent about men’s harassment of women is the ways in which they generalise all women into the category “vagina” and treat them all as a potential fuck, then I also shouldn’t generalise all men as potential harassers.

For a much more constructive and thoughtful approach to issues of gender violence and harassment of women, visit our current eactivism campaign. It discusses the potential of the Vagina Vote for our upcoming elections in Zimbabwe. This is “the belief that a new paradigm can manifest itself in a political as well as spiritual form. It is the decision to ask those running for office as well as those already in office to make ending violence against girls and women a priority.”

Certainly that’s a much more level headed take on the whole thing. But something in my gut resonates much more closely with this poem from the Rape volume of Agenda’s Gender Based Violence Trilogy – Issue 74, 2007.

My vagina wants an Uzi
My vagina is tired of explaining why it needs one
My vagina is ready for the armed (vagina) struggle
My vagina is not my father’s kraal, or anyone’s for that matter
My vagina has its own culture “vagina friendly culture” VFC
VFC = no means no
VFC = justice before the law
VFC = I wear what I want and I walk where I want and I say what I feel, when I feel it

My vagina wants a world where it decides when and how and with whom
My vagina does not want a cock
No man’s cock
Ever
My vagina is a lesbian
My vagina is clear about that

My vagina is tired of being angry and afraid and sad
My vagina is sad more deeply than indigo, the colour of a vivid bruise, the colour of dried blood, the colour of women and children broken on the altar of culture

My vagina wants to be free
My vagina wants an Uzi

- Larissa Klazinga

In the interest of helping people make informed choices for the March 29 election, I’ve been looking for background information on the various presidential candidates and their parties.

The MDC (Tsvangirai) was pretty straightforward. Their policy document is on our site, and their website is updated fairly regularly.

Similarly, Simba Makoni’s website features a range of statements, photographs, and even Makoni’s CV.

I found “really dark horse” presidential candidate Langton Towungana’s phone number on the Telone directory online, of all places. And I was pleasantly surprised when he answered the phone himself. And was completely charming. As sceptical as I am about this election, and as convinced as I am that the “Plan B” – how we defend our vote after its been stolen – is an absolutely critical part of preparing for this election – I do have a soft spot for Towungana. It started when I first heard him in an interview with Studio 7. When asked about his election manifesto, he said “It’s there. But what’s more important than any manifesto is how we turn this economy around.” He reckons he’s on an assignment from God because of Zimbabwe’s “terrible situation.”

But what disappointed me entirely was trying to get some information out of Zanu PF. I saw that the Herald had published the introduction to the Zanu PF manifesto which they launched on 1 March. The investigating I did down various pathways online looking for the manifesto or the Zanu PF site all came up short. So I decided to give them a call. Even though they’re listed in the directory, it took four phone calls to find their correct number (+263 4 774 146). And I ended up having the most gobsmackingly ridiculous conversation with the woman on the other end of the line (who wouldn’t tell me her name). It went something like this:

Me: Hello, my name is Amanda. I’m phoning from Kubatana. I’d really like to find out more about Zanu PF. Please may you tell me your email address.
Her: Why do you want that?
Me: Because I saw that you launched your manifesto last week. I read Mugabe’s introduction to it. I want to send you an email to request that you send me your whole manifesto document and some other information about Zanu PF.
Her: I can’t give that to you.
Me: Why? Is your email down?
Her: Our email is there. But I can’t just give you the address.
Me: Why?
Her: Because I don’t know you. I can’t just give that information out to you without knowing you.
Me: Oh. That’s alright then. How about you just tell me the address for your website. Then I can go and have a look for myself. Maybe I can find your manifesto there?
Her: But who are you?
Me: My name is Amanda. I work at Kubatana. We help Zimbabweans find out more about issues that matter to them, like this upcoming election.
Her: I don’t know you.
Me: That’s alright. What is your website address?
Her: I can’t give that to you.
Me: Do you not have a website?
Her: The website is there. But I can’t just give you that information.
Me: Why not?
Her: Because I don’t know you. I cannot give you this kind of information over the phone. Best we sit down face to face and we see each other and we discuss. And then once I know you I can decide if I want to share this information with you.
Me: So you can’t tell me your website address unless you’ve met me?
Her: Yes.
Me: That’s interesting. Many political parties these days are hoping that people will vote for them. So they are sharing their information with all Zimbabweans so that the people know more about them so that they can win their votes.
Her: Yes they are.
Me: So I’m confused. I don’t understand why you would not want to share this information with me and with others. Why do you have a website if you don’t want people to go and view it?
Her: I don’t care what you think. This is our organisation’s policy. I cannot give you that information.
Me: Really? Not even an email address.
Her: No.
Me: So what is your name?
Her: Why?
Me: So I can come and see you and we meet face to face and then maybe you’re more comfortable giving me your website address.
Her: Why do you want to do that?
Me: So that I can learn more about your party.
Her: You don’t need to know my name.
Me: So then how am I going to come see you?
Her: Good bye.
Me (To the dial tone): Alright then. Thanks ever so much for all your help.

“Let the people’s voice thunder,” Mugabe said in launching the manifesto. But how are you going to thunder if you’re only willing to speak with people you know?

Not that I have anything against these commemorative days of this and that. I’m sure that, somewhere along the line, increased media attention raises awareness, and makes at least a few people think differently, at least for a little while. But as International Women’s Day approaches on 8 March, I’ve been flipping through the Rape volume of Agenda’s Gender Based Violence Trilogy – Issue 74, 2007. The poem below really stood out for me. How far do our efforts at advocacy and information really go? How do we better ensure that our media campaigns and good intentions can effectively encounter day to day experiences and exposure that tell a very different story. Otherwise, what will our boys – and girls – grow up to think, say and do?

The nice bits

4 15 years old girls walk by in a restaurant
hair scrapped and plastered
smooth, upright bodies
not a kink or a wrinkle
giggle driven with flushed cheeks
little girlhoods sprouting breasts

‘ooh 15 year olds’ says a table sitting says 47 year old male
‘nah they have nice bits but nothing upstairs’ says father 49
pupils slither along the neck line
‘good to look at though’
middle age spread with white teeth chortling

7 year old son looks and laughs
collapses into a cell phone
wide eyes flickering left right left
and I wonder
what will he be?

- Jane Caroline

I was listening to Studio 7 last week, and I heard the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission’s Chief Operations Officer, Utolile Silaigwana, say that they would only be using translucent ballot boxes in the 29 March election.

This piqued my interest. A friend of mine got a ZEC flyer in her post box the other day, in which, among other things, it said there would be both cardboard ballot boxes and translucent ballot boxes in this election.

But then again, the flyer also had a host of other mistakes, including:

• Blind people will be assisted with their voting by the presiding officer and a Zimbabwe Republic Police Officer. This is not the case. Only the Presiding Officer and two other electoral officers or ZEC employees can assist a voter.
• The four different ballot papers (President, MP, Senator and Councillor) are each supposed to have a different coloured ballot paper. The ZEC flyer says they’ll each be coloured, but doesn’t explain which colour paper is which.
• Legal identification required to cast your ballot is your National ID OR your valid Zimbabwean passport – not both, as the flyer implies, and you don’t need to bring your proof of residence – the flyer my friend got had this bit scribbled out in blue ink!

Clearly, other people have been complaining about these errors. The ZEC has issued a press statement clarifying things, and in his interview, Silaigwana distanced himself from the flyers, saying that the education department handled the flyers, not him.

All this is a worry. When the MDC agreed to the 18th Constitutional Amendment last year in the South African mediated talks between them and Zanu PF, they were criticised for making too many concessions. But, the MDC insisted, it had to agree to the amendment, because it would legislate the ZEC, and enable the commission to start it work in time for the upcoming election. Now the MDC’s lost its foothold, and the ZEC is constituted, but its competence is questionable.

This year’s harmonised election poses an enormous logistical feat. It will feature an estimated 11,000 polling stations, each with four ballot boxes and four different types of ballots, each needing supervision, voters’ rolls, ballot papers, and other supplies. And never mind vote counting and results verification. All this would be difficult enough in a “normal” economy where basics like fuel supplies, electricity, paper and transport were guaranteed. We’re four weeks away, and it’s a pity we can’t have more confidence that the ZEC is up for the challenge.

Contact the ZEC with your concerns – or suggestions – on zecpr@gta.gov.zw

So we’re four weeks away from the Mother of All Elections, but in some ways, the country is only barely starting to come to life around it.

IRIN News reports that you wouldn’t know there’s an election coming. And a friend of mine working out in rural Mutoko, Mashonaland East, tells me “there hasn’t been much talk of it out in the sticks here.”

At the shops by our office here, Zanu PF posters have been up for weeks. They look exactly like they did last time around. Same old picture of Cde Bob in his Chimurenga gear, same stark design. I was joking with a friend of mine that of course Mugabe had to run as Zanu PF president again – they had all these old posters from 2002 that they have to use up!

For a while, these Zanu PF posters were the only ones around, but my colleague just came back from the bank, and she said she’d seen some MDC youths putting up posters all over the show – with an energy and enthusiasm for their work that she really enjoyed.

Meanwhile, my workmate went to Guruve in Mashonaland West on the weekend, and he found people in MDC t-shirts, and walls plastered with MDC posters the whole way from Mvurwi to Guruve – but none for Zanu PF.

Apparently MDC (Tsvangirai) Secretary General Tendai Biti reckons that “there is no government in this world which can win an election when inflation is over 100,000%, 80% unemployment and three million of its people are living abroad. Victory is certain for us.”

Tsvangirai’s crew might think that victory is certain, but it’s good to see they’re putting some effort into campaigning all the same. What’s even more certain than their victory is that this election is going to be stolen. So is the MDC ready to talk about victory? Or to work for it, come April Fool’s Day when they find it yet again snatched from under their nose.