Want to vote for a party that believes private property is fair game for their promotional political posters? Where’s the respect Zanu PF? Oh sorry, not sure you can even spell that word. I drove past a lot of houses this morning that had had their walls plastered with Zanu PF posters; sometimes gates to properties had been Zanu’d as well. So now … if you support Zanu PF, or the MDC and want their posters on your wall or gate, all well and good. But if you don’t, have the bollocks to remove them.

It’s your right.

A wisecrack wrote during Soviet Russia’s communist years that in every hotel room in Russia there is a television, only the television watches you.

I recalled this when a I read about the presidential mouth, George Charamba, frothing over the announcement of 1st TV and that government was looking for ways to “cripple this pirate television broadcast station.”

These men would be comfortable having TVs that do the watching because their paranoia knows no bounds.

But then we already know that Zanu PF honchos love watching themselves on TV, warts and all – literally!

Zimbabweans surely know well enough what they want without relying on “hostile media” that “demonises” Mugabe and Zanu PF.

For God’s sake, these are the same people who extol Zimbabwe’s literacy but still believe that these same educated people cannot make up their own minds without coaching by the British and the Americans! That must be the ultimate insult.

And these are the same people, along with the permanently egregious Tafataona Mahoso who in 2011 infuriated Cont Mhlanga when he (Mahoso) said TV licences would only be granted in 2013.

Well, this is 2013!

To quote Cont: “I fail to understand that man (Mahoso) – where did he get his education from? He thinks we are so gullible and he seems happy to announce that after 31 years of having one broadcasting station, we still need two more years in that state. That is abnormal to say the least. After the announcements I wondered whether we were a normal country. We cannot go on having a single station and even other countries in SADC are taken aback by the way we think because in their countries they is (sic) not scared to have more operating stations. We are seriously abnormal if we continue to live like this.”

There you have it.

Came across this photo and couldn’t help but think of Dumiso Dabengwa “working strenuously” to  block Morgan Tsvangirai’s march to State House back in 2008. The photo shows PF-Zapu supporters during the 1980 elections.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has published a provisional list of polling stations for the 31 July 2013 harmonised elections. To make things easier for would-be voters, we’ve put these into Excel and PDF spreadsheets by province, and made some clickable maps for the country and for major cities of Zimbabwe.

Know where to vote!

Remember, you have to vote in the ward and constituency where you are registered. If you know you are registered, but you can’t remember which ward or constituency you are in, you can use the My Zim Vote site to look up your entry in the voters’ roll and get that information. Just make sure you enter your ID number in the correct format so they can find your entry!

Once you know where you’re registered, look up the provisional polling stations for your area.

You can do this in a few ways:

• View Excel and PDF lists of provisional polling stations by province here
• In Harare? Use the Harare Province clickable map (Includes Epworth and Chitungwiza)
• In Bulawayo? Use the clickable map for polling stations in Bulawayo
• In Gweru? Use the clickable map for Gweru Urban polling stations (includes Chiwundura and Mkoba)
• In Masvingo? Use the clickable map for Masvingo Municipality polling stations
• In Mutare? Use the clickable map for Mutare City polling stations
• Anywhere else in Zimbabwe? Use the map for the whole country (Note this will take longer to load. Just zoom in to your area)

If you’re using the clickable maps, zoom in to the map so you can see the address for the location where you’ve registered, and click there. Cross check that the information you get in the pop-up window is correct for your ward and constituency. The list of polling stations for your ward are the polling stations where you can vote.