Zimbabwe: The Blame Game

9. 27 June 2008

81 9 27 June 2008 hen I arrived at the voting station at Zengeza 7 primary school for the ward seven, where I was a registered voter; I was told I had to first go to a ZANUPF village headman. I was told this by a gang of ZANUPF youths stationed at the gates to the school. I asked them whether they were village headmen, in the towns. They told me they were there now. They told me that for me to be on the safe side, I had to go there. They told me that the ZANUPF militias, the headman, and the ZANUPF youths were going to do a reconciliation of all those who would have voted for the opposition party, against the details that they now had. They also threatened they would also carry out a reconciliation anyway, of all those who couldn’t have voted. Everyone had to vote whether they liked it or not. They pointed for me where I had to go. It was at the home of the local ZANUPF headman, who stayed in Dovi Street. The place was just a couple of streets away from the voting station, in sight of the presiding officers of this polling station. Some of these officers were even stationed at the gates where these ZANUPF youths were turning people away from the station to this residence. When I arrived at the residence there was this very long queue, of people registering their details. I followed the queue of those registering their details. When I got to the front of the queue he asked for my details, that is, my full name, address, telephone number and identity numbers. I gave him all these, and then this village headman gave me a blank piece of paper, which I was told; I had to fill it in with the serial number of my ballot’s paper. At the voting station I voted, but also wrote down my serial number, on that blank piece of paper, when I was behind the booth. I took that piece of paper to the village headman who recorded that serial number against my details. It meant that whether I liked it or not I had to vote for Mugabe. It was in the afternoon, at about 3, W 82 when the headman and the militias were arrested. Most of the people had been forced to participate in this shame election. To think that it was happening in many parts of Harare, also that most of the presiding officers knew about it, especially those in my ward where the voting station was a stone’s throw away, in sight of this headman’s residencies, left a lot to be desired. But this is how we elected our president, who is the president of Zimbabwe, on 27 June 2008 ...