SW Radio Africa (London)
Tererai Karimakwenda
29 March 2008
Reports from around the country Saturday indicated that many people woke up early on election day in order to get into a good position in the queues.
But some polling stations opened late while others ran out of ballot papers after just a few hours. There were reports that some opposition polling agents were being denied access to polling stations in various parts of the country. The worst situation was reported in Bikita West where riot police allegedly assaulted any person suspected to be linked to the NCA or the Youth Forum.
Many cases of 'assisted' voting were also reported. Robert Mugabe amended the Electoral Act earlier this week to allow the police into polling stations to assist "illiterate" voters. This was criticised as an attempt to influence these voters and to intimidate others, through the presence of uniformed police.
As for the turnout, political commentator Dr. John Makumbe described it as a "mixed bag". He said some areas had "phenomenal" participation and these were mostly the high-density suburbs in urban areas. But Makumbe was astonished that other areas had such low turnout that there were no queues at all.
Makumbe is monitoring the elections for the Save Zimbabwe Campaign, a coalition of civil and church groups that also organises prayer meetings and rallies. He said in Harare there were police units stationed outside the polling stations. At one location, the police were telling people to go home after they voted. But Makumbe said they intervened and questioned the police as to what section of the electoral law stipulates that voters must leave as soon as they cast their ballots.
Our Harare correspondent Simon Muchemwa visited the low-density suburbs, including Chisipite, Avondale and Borrowdale. He found that there were no queues and voting was proceeding at a comfortable pace.
But there were long queues in the high-density suburbs of Mufakose, Kambuzuma and Glen View. Muchemwa said the queues were moving very slowly and people were getting frustrated.
Our correspondent then visited the polling station at ward 42, Hatcliffe Extension, where there are 1,500 stands that have no houses built yet. But suspicious information from the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said that 8,500 voters were registered there. He spoke to some voters there who admitted that they had been bused in from other constituencies, in the new buses that were distributed by Mugabe at his rallies in Harare recently.
They also admitted that they would be voting in their home constituencies as well. This is clearly rigging, but the government might not be able to get away with it this time because observers from the Pan African Parliamentary delegation were in the area and heard the voters talking about the situation.
In Bulawayo our correspondent Zenzele reported that voting was peaceful, but there were unconfirmed reports that a house had been bombed in Luveve. There were short queues at the polling stations in Makokoba, Nkulumane Hall, Sizinda and Ntabazinduna. The polls opened late at Plumtree, Pumula South and Magwegwe.
There were some problems with polling agents at some stations, including Makokoba and Magwegwe. Contesting parties had assigned 2 polling agents to each station but they were told they would be allowed only 1 agent.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 SW Radio Africa. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
