Video: Challenges to Mugabe in Zimbabwe’s Election

ZIMBABWEANS began queueing before dawn yesterday to cast their votes in an atmosphere of open defiance as people dared to think the unthinkable – that they could finally oust Robert Mugabe after 28 years.

Years of repression and rigged elections have left Zimbabweans resigned to the 84-year-old president using all means at his disposal to secure a sixth term. But this time round they seemed eager to have their say.

“Everyone was quite open,” said Grace Harabwa after voting in Harare. “We were saying, we are going to kill the cock [Mugabe’s election symbol] and then bury it deep underground.” The opposition is carrying out its own parallel count in the hope of announcing results before the official election commission and thus encouraging a public reaction.

“If Mugabe declares victory this time it will be a monumental fraud,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). “He’s not going to get away with it this time.” Some in the cities had camped overnight to avoid what happened last time when polling stations closed before everyone had voted and thousands of voters were driven away with tear gas and batons.

At Waterfalls primary school in Parktown a queue stretched for about 400 yards by 6.30am, half an hour before polling stations opened. In Victoria Falls there was almost a stampede as people jostled to get into a polling station in Chinotimba township.

Fed up with the lack of food and inflation of 150,000%, people seemed undeterred by the presence, as in previous elections, of army trucks patrolling the streets with water cannons and jets circling the skies.

Voters in the queues alongside knee-high piles of uncollected rubbish outside polling stations in the townships of Harare spoke openly about change and waved the open-palm salute of the MDC.

“I may be old but my grandchildren deserve a better future, a future where they can be guaranteed clean water, electricity and goods in the shops,” said Vitalis Chinyama, 77, standing in a long queue in the Harare township of Mbare with his 74-year-old wife. “If I don’t vote, it means I am happy with the way Zimbabwe is being governed.”

These elections were given new impetus by the entry into the race of Simba Makoni, the former finance minister from Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF. Although he lacks the grassroots popularity of the MDC leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, Makoni’s candidacy has split the ruling party and security services and might force the election into an unprecedented second round run-off.

“He [Mugabe] is 84 years old now,” said Wellington Phiri, an elderly, Malawi-born labourer. “He got 28 years in the job. Now he want more! What for? He must go.”

The whites came with camp chairs, coffee flasks and books. “Is this for bread or for petrol?” an old white man joked as he joined a queue just after dawn.

Many complained about the slowness of the process. Some suspected that it was a deliberate ploy to frustrate urban voters, who form the bulwark of MDC support. Inside the polling stations, they said, they had to wait up to 10 minutes as officials sifted through the voters’ roll, checking for their names.

Some people were turned away when their names were not found. One 36-year-old Harare woman who was unable to vote said: “I have to vote. I have to register my disapproval with the way Mugabe has run this country.”

Theresa Makone, the MDC candidate for Harare North, was shocked to find a large tent had appeared in a forest, teeming with unknown people who were voting. By mid-morning yesterday, four ballots boxes had already been filled. Upon checking the voters’ roll, Makone discovered that more than 8,000 people were registered to vote at something called Glen Hat Housing Cooperative. The addresses listed on the roll were nonexistent – the area is thick bush.

Surprisingly, Mugabe said yesterday after casting his vote with his wife, Grace: “If one loses an election and one is rejected by the people, one should accept it is time to go.”

Most believe that the president will not allow himself to lose these elections, fearing he would share the fate of Charles Taylor, the former Liberian leader on trial in The Hague. Mugabe was quoted in the state-owned Herald last week as saying: “You vote for them [MDC] but that will be a wasted vote. You will be cheating yourself as there is no way we can allow them to rule this country.”

In the three elections since 2000 independent observers have concluded that Mugabe’s victories were the result of violent intimidation; partisan electoral laws and security services; and outright cheating. Indications of the same patterns have been spotted this time round.

The heads of the army, prison service and police have all said they would not accept orders from an MDC government.

The voters’ roll contains the names of long-dead people, among them the law and order minister during the Rhodesian era, Desmond Lardner-Burke, who was born in 1909. His name was found on a ward list for Mount Pleasant.

Tendai Biti, secretary-general of Tsvangirai’s faction of the MDC, said there were “many reports” of voters being turned away in areas known to be hostile to the government.

The MDC claims that the election commission distributed 8.8m ballot papers when the number of registered voters is 5.9m. Biti also alleged that the commission printed 600,000 ballot papers for postal votes when there should be only about 20,000.

In the village of Concession yesterday morning, Ibbo Mandaza, chief strategist to Makoni, found a government lorry loaded with postal votes. Mandaza, who was contesting the local parliamentary seat, said when he confronted the driver he was told the postal votes were going to be dropped at various polling areas. “The envelopes were not sealed,” he said.

Despite such irregularities, Tsvangirai said he had been buoyed by last month’s elections in Pakistan, which were more or less free and fair against all expectations, and declared that he was confident of victory. “There’s such an upsurge in the country across the rural and urban divide, which may overwhelm the whole machinery of rigging,” he said. “If Mugabe steps down gracefully we will give an honourable exit.”

Asked what will happen if Mugabe announces victory, he replied: “This election is not about me – it’s a people’s election. If the people’s will is subverted by the security forces, then it’s the people who will have to confront them, not me.” Tsvangirai was much criticised after the 2005 elections for not having a “plan B” after Mugabe’s party declared victory. But he insists the strategy this time is to expose rigging through the party’s own parallel count and hope for international pressure rather than encourage a Ukrainian-style uprising.

“If I’d put people on the streets last time, they would have been mauled to pieces,” he said. “I don’t want to be responsible for this. Do you want a repeat of what’s happened in Kenya, with people chopping each other, then at the end of the day you still end up with reconciliation, so what was the point of all those lives lost?”

Additional reporting: Jan Raath and Tagu Mukwenyani in Harare

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