Zimbabwe state broadcasting says that the government is still collecting presidential ballots from across the country. Yeah right, pull the other one. I know we do things slowly in Zimbabwe but this is ridiculous. Never mind water torture, try listening to Zimbabwe state radio and television day in and day out whilst waiting for the drip feed election results. The national broadcaster has been filling their programming time with a mixture of local dramas which feature a lot of wailing, and aged documentaries on subjects like the manufacturing of artificial limbs and the rescue of wayward dolphins. Meanwhile someone suggested the delay is really because its takes an awful long time to pack up a mansion that has too many rooms to count.

Harare central feels quite relaxed with an air of expectancy. On my way to the bank someone smiled and called out to me, A New Zimbabwe! I guess most of us here on the ground are thinking we’ll believe it when we see it. More than ever I get the sense that Zimbabweans are willing to take Mugabe on, unwilling this time to be taken for a ride by Robert.

At the moment I hear that the MDC is holding a another press conference claiming victory, this time backed up with their parallel vote tabulation figures. So now we wait a little longer to see what the regime’s reaction will be to this public statement. And if the MDC manage to get this information out to Zimbabweans on the street, what groundswell it will create.

This entry was posted on April 2nd, 2008 at 2:05 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.