Many thanks to Maurice Gerard, who will be blogging for Coffee House from inside Zimbabwe over the next week. Here’s his first post – Pete Hoskin
Driving to Harare down acacia-lined highways from Zimbabwe’s border post at Victoria Falls and the casual visitor could almost mistake the country for being normal – albeit with occasional touts peddling black market luxuries like Coke and diesel fuel in rural lay-sides.
In the run-up to Friday’s poll Zimbabwe has become a hybrid country, oscillating between queasy tranquility and sporadic outbreaks of extreme violence. Some areas, such as Matabeleland, home of the fiercely anti-Mugabe Ndebele people, have almost escaped the political violence altogether. One Bulawayo resident, an Ndebele, reasons as such: “Beating us delivers nothing for the government. We might be bloodied but will not vote Zanu-PF. Bobo [Mugabe] knows that its useless to target areas that have never voted for the government in the first place.”
Mashonaland, alas, is different. The epicentre of opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) swing votes that helped it defeat the government for the first time in March, Zimbabwe’s undulating north-east is now ground-zero for government supporters hell-bent on burning, raping and killing former Zanu-PF supporters into submission.
The violence is a spectacle. Its implicit message is easily inculcated even by those not directly touched by it: “Vote ZANU-PF or face the consequences”. At least 90 MDC supporters have been murdered so far.
A brave – perhaps foolhardy? – few refuse even now to be swayed. Ben, an office worker from Mashonaland who lives in Harare, has friends whose villages have been burnt to the ground. “Still,” he reasons in the aftermath of Tsvangirai’s exit, “there will be two ballot boxes on Friday. I don’t care what cost anymore, I am voting MDC.”
Such determination is rare. The surge of hope that followed the MDC’s March victory has evaporated. In the wake of Tsvangirai’s withdrawal from tomorrow’s poll, the atmosphere is tense and no longer expectant. Back to the Sisyphean grindstone of scraping a living amidst 4,000,000% plus inflation and waiting in vain for the Old Man, as Mugabe is derogatorily called, to go.
The signs for an early exit are not good. Tsvangirai remains holed up in the Dutch embassy in Harare in fear of his life, while hundreds of his supporters have sought refuge in the nearby South African embassy. They are the lucky few.
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