Inside Zimbabwe

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.”