Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

By 2:30a.m. Monday morning, we are informed Vice President Chiwenga was able to relax on the basis that the election was pretty much in the bag. Was he correct? Let's break it down? Nelson Chamisa is almost certain to do better than Morgan Tsvangirai did in 2013, especially in the urban, peri-urban and growth point areas. But we are likely not to get anything resembling the 2008 results. No GNU is in the offing, unless it is on the Mnangagwa's terms, with Nelson Chamisa as a quarrelsome supplicant. The root of this scenario is the failure by the NPF and Thokozani Khupe to be factors in this election. Mnangagwa is doing better than most would have expected in the urban constituencies and wards. Nelson Chamisa has managed to consolidate the vote of the opposition around his presidential ambitions here. But the opposition numbers have never managed to overwhelm ZANU PF nationally, even when consolidated. It may not look like it, but apathy also played a part. Apath

Former President Robert Mugabe endorsing Nelson Chamisa today his Blue Roof mansion under the watchful eyes of Grace Mugabe and his first born, Bona Chikore. The choreographed dance between Nelson Chamisa and Robert Mugabe, which started on this last Saturday, came out in the open on Sunday. The two scheduled simultaneous press conferences in anticipation of each other's big reveals. It is a classic Jonathan Moyo move, designed for nothing else but to give the impression of momentum. What this move on Sunday telegraphs is an alarming state of affairs in the opposition camp. Because, you see, this is an extreme move. In other words, a last-ditch effort. One does not go broke unless one knows they have nothing left to lose. Desperate times, they say. Desperate measures. The strategy's risks are not lost on a man of the smarts and intelligence of Nelson Chamisa. Not at all. So, knowing this, aware of the fire-breathing electoral dragons that live down this road, Ne

Birds of a feather? Whoever advised Nelson Chamisa to declare open support for Mugabe today at his crossover rally is evil. If it was Chamisa's own idea, well, then he has authored the burial of his own political career. People who marched in November last year to celebrate the fall of Mugabe are apparently supposed to cheer and be happy that Nelson Chamisa has decided that Mugabe is a good guy after all, his policies were spot on and should play a role in the future of the country if Nelson Chamisa wins the elections. Addressing the crowd at his rally earlier today, the last day of political campaigning as mandated by law, Chamisa directly said, Mugabe, "who was spurned and rejected is the one I will take and start a love affair with." In Shona, so that we have no doubt at all about his intent or his meaning, he said, " Wacho anenge arambwa iyeye ndiye wandinotora ndodanana naye." Ok. This level of lack of judgement has us stumped. For the longest

President Mnangagwa with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Harare earlier this year. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has spoken to Vladmir Putin in South Africa who promised to alert American President Donald Trump of what the ZANU PF government considers unfair prejudging of the elections by elements in the American Senate, specifically. We received this information earlier today. Both Mnangagwa and Putin were in South Africa for the BRICS summit, together with the Chinese President. The discussion with Putin was to discuss the various investments that Russia and Russian companies have committed to Zimbabwe, such as the Darwendale Platinum Group Minerals mining project. The Russians are also setting up a refining and smelting plant in the area. It was during the course of that discussion that President Putin asked about Mnangagwa's prospects in the coming election. The Zimbabwean leader responded by telling Putin that all indications are that he, Mnangagwa, is

All the drama that Nelson Chamisa is currently engaged is completely unnecessary and utterly self-defeating. The MDC Alliance and all the opposition candidates are well placed to stop any supposed rigging without damaging the institutions of our country that are needed to make sure democracy endures and Zimbabwe becomes prosperous. And stopping any potential rigging is so easy one now understands why most observers are now of the view that Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance are cry-babies who do not want to go elections at all for fear of a loss and to push for a non-elected GNU. ZEC has said that the Voters' Roll they gave out is clean, it has not ghosts on it. Chamisa and his people do not believe them. Fine. Skepticism is a good thing. But there is a better and more ironclad way to not only check this, but also protect the vote of Zimbabweans. Instead of insulting the ZEC Chair, alarming and demotivating his supporters will constant talk of a basically already-stolen vot

Observers say they are stunned at the complete absence of any strategy or campaign at the constituency level by Nelson Chamisa's MDC Alliance. It is a criminal neglect of a key pillar of his success as a presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa, the presidential candidate of the MDC Alliance so carefully and thoughtfully put together by the late Morgan Tsvangirai, is running an utterly criminal election campaign that focuses solely and almost entirely on his own personal ambition only. Chamisa has convinced all watchers that he does not believe in the Alliance he purports to lead. Evidence of this is scattered all over the electoral landscape like bodies on a battlefield. Parliamentary candidates for the Alliance have been neglected and their dejection is on full display around Zimbabwe, in contrast with the candidates of Khupe's MDC and Mnangagwa's ZANU PF. Even independents like Fadzai Mahere in Mt Pleasent are outgunning Alliance candidates in terms of energy,

This qualifies as one of the top of the images from the 2018 Zimbabwean election. The various Mapostori Christian sects in Zimbabwe number more than a million. The Johanne Marange sect, whose Passover celebrations President Mnangagwa is seen here attending is by far the largest, followed by the Masowe sect. Now, just wondering: we all know about the rivalry between these two sects and the many others scattered all over Zimbabwe. Does this mean the other sects will now boycott Mnangagwa and vote someone else because they hate the Marange faction? Not entirely sure if all of them are registered to vote, but this sect has become a stomping ground for ZANU PF leaders and they have tended to support the ruling party. Getting this bloc to support you and vote for you is a prize coveted by every politician in Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa, seen here sitting right in the middle of the throng, sitting on the dusty ground like everybody else, has taken this to another level. Mugabe and Chiwen

JUSTICE Chigumba, the ZEC Chair, briefing observers at the Harare International Conference Centre earlier today, doubled down on a trend of refusing or failing the transparency test. She is within the law on everything she has done, but ignoring the key test of transparency impacts massively on the credibility of this poll, to the detriment of whoever end up winning this election. We have always defended ZEC against the baseless accusation thrown against them by an opposition that is bent discrediting the election in the hope of it being declared not free and fair and thereby, hopefully, forcing a Government of National Unity with Nelson Chamisa as Prime Minister, but the needless lack of transparency by the electoral body is now wildly carvoting in sabotage territory. Take Justice Chigumba's briefing with Observers today at the Harare International Conference Centre. One thing that has raised alarm bells is her announcement that the electoral body will not be using indeli

Welshman Ncube of the MDC Alliance, at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo today, where police voted today in an incident made a scandal only by the fact that ZEC appeared not to know that ballot papers that it should be in charge of were now in Bulawayo, at a police camp   It is a blunder of monumental proportions, no doubt and we do not need to recount to you what transpired at Ross Police Camp in Bulawayo. But just in case you have been on Mars today, here goes: An alert was sent to the MDC Alliance by a policeman at Ross Camp saying the policemen there were being "forced" to vote in the presence of their superiors and crying out for help. The Alliance immediately broadcast the alert across social media. The Acting Chief Elections Officer for ZEC denied that there was any voting taking place, saying he was still processing postal vote applications. Videos and images soon emerged showing that there had indeed been voting at that Camp and ZEC Commissioners scrambled t

Things are getting very interesting now although I doubt Nelson Chamisa and his Alliance will be amused. It's stunning, I tell you. Although Nelson Chamisa believes he is going to meet Justice Chigumba tomorrow (Thursday July 12 2018), the ZEC Chair has decided that neither she nor her Commissioners will meet the opposition leader or any of his cronies. In a heated phone call today with Justice Minister Ziyambi, Chigumba threatened to seek a court injunction barring the Alliance from "harassing" ZEC and disrupting, interrupting and impeding the implementation of its mandate at law. The Justice Minister made it clear that he would not support that move, although he could not stop the ZEC Chair from proceeding with the action if she thought it suitable. He even went so far as to declare that his government would publicly distance itself from the move if it happens, just to register the position of government, since he could not order to proceed or not. After

According to sources close to the development, the reason we are seeing Nelson Chamisa going ballistic in the last few days is because of a message delivered to him by a representative of President Mnangagwa, whom he met this last week. The message was in response to Chamisa's repeated attempts to meet with Mnangagwa and the two letters he has sent asking for a meeting. The first one, already published, asked for the meeting as a "courtesy visit". The response to Chamisa has been that President Emmerson Mnangagwa will only meet Nelson Chamisa in the presence of Thokozani Khupe, who also claims to be the legitimate leader of the MDC-T. The visit last week from an ED representative was to update this position and the message, we are reliably informed, was: "We had hoped to arrange a meeting after the court case you had brought against Khupe and the other MDC-T. That court case would have settled who really is a representative of the MDC-T. Unfortunately, y

Nelson Chamisa, it turns out, is playing straight into the hands of ZANU PF with his constant agitation around the voters' roll and the ballot paper. This was revealed to us yesterday, Sunday, 08 July, entirely by accident. We were not supposed to hear what we are about to tell you and I hope we will not get into trouble for it! ZANU PF, like the Republicans in the USA, the Tories in the UK and many other parts of the world, knows that one of the most effective ways to "rig" an election is to ensure that your opponents' supporters do not show up on voting day. It is called voter suppression. It is a micro strategy that the Republicans used in the USA for decades before the Dems and the Independents woke up to what was happening (and it involved manipulating local laws to demand the sort of ID documents the Republicans knew Democratic supporters were unlikely to have). Demotivating MDC supporters is ZANU PF's number one prize, and Nelson Chamisa and hi

"Nelson Chamisa is embarrassing and Emmerson Mnangagwa is very very dull," is what one American journalist with an international news network put it to me when she called this morning to get an update on the election and sentiment on the ground. It is a stunning turn of events, this complete ignoring of Zimbabwe's 2018 elections by international media. For the first time since 2000, the international media (CNN, BBC, SKY, even China Global Television) are almost completely ignoring the Zimbabwe elections. Haru Mutasa, at Al Jazeera, is the only international journalist who is getting the story of this election out, but in very small drips. Previous Zimbabwe elections were a daily fixture on international news platforms before. Mugabe's rallies were covered on a weekly basis from the week he started campaigning to election day. Tsvangirai was never covered as much but featured as a counterpoint to the fiery rhetoric of Robert Mugabe. This time around, ther

Justice Chigumba meeting with the European Union Observer Mission to Zimbabwe earlier this week Under immense pressure from the government of Zimbabwe and the opposition parties, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will now take the step of appointing an international audit firm to monitor the printing, transportation and storage of ballot papers and boxes throughout the Zimbabwe electoral process currently under way. An epic battle has been under way behind the scenes between President Mnangagwa's government and the Electoral body around the issue of transparency. The ZEC Chair, Justice Chigumba, who has been described as "intransigent" by government sources, has been adamant that she and her Commission must not be seen to taking instructions from any body or organisation in Zimbabwe. Her main argument has been around the precedent set by being seen to be commanded by parties or even government in Zimbabwe. Two weeks ago, a suggestion was then put to Justice Ch

The EU Observer Mission giving a press conference in Harare, at which only one journalists, from Openparlyzw, proved to be the only real journalist operating in Zimbabwe today. The European Union Observer Mission to Zimbabwe for the 2018 elections held a press conference today in Harare.  That press conference should be a cause for grave concern for ZEC and for the government of President Mnangagwa. The statement itself was full of diplomatic speak but it was the question and answer that really bust the whole thing wide open. Zimbabwe and the government should thank the guy called Daniel from Openparlyzw, who is the only journalist in that room who asked a real and pertinent question. All the other so-called journalists in that room appeared to have been there just to eat the sandwiches and are disgrace to the profession. Daniel asked about the process of observing the printing of the ballot paper and asked the observers to say whether they had come across similar issues in

President Emmerson Mnangagwa's office has been alerted that the new American ambassador to Zimbabwe will carry a special message from Donald Trump to the Zimbabwean leader, sources within government tell us. The message is said to be "friendly". It is an interesting development in the wake of a memo sent by two US senators, both of whom are anti-Trump, to the main Foreign Relations Committee in the American Senate declaring that the elections in Zimbabwe are not free and fair even before they are held. The reason for the unusual step of alerting Mnangagwa's team to the special message is that Washington would like the new ambassador to be received by Mnangagwa before the elections. If that happens, as is looking likely, it would be the fastest reception of a foreign ambassador by the Head of State in Zimbabwe's entire history. That is because Ambassador Brian Nichols is only expected to be Zimbabwe a week before the elections. During his confirmat

American Senator Jeff Flake, who is due to retire from the Senate this year, under pressure from President Donald Tump. Senator's Jeff Flake and Christopher Coons have already declared to the Foreign Relations Committee in the US Senate that the elections yet to be held in Zimbabwe are not and will not be free and fair, documents at hand show. Sent by staffers and assistants in the two Senators' offices, whose identities we will protect for now, the opinion was submitted as sealed to the main FRC by the Africa Relations sub-committee with the intention of specifically directing Senators' attention to areas unfolding in the Zimbabwe election which the two Senators believe make it a foregone conclusion that the elections will not be free and fair. These areas are: The "failure" by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to give carte blanche to the opposition to inspect and monitor the ballot paper printing. (The Senators wanted the opposition to be given