Denford Magora's Latest Zimbabwe News Blog

A Zimbabwe voter gets his name checked (manually) against the voters' roll. The process has opened the door to cheating by parties and there is no one worried about the loopholes at all. Notice that the voter is holding his identity card and the harassed polling officer has to simply check to make sure the name is on the roll.  Harare, Zimbabwe, 24 November 2009 There are the beatings. And the intimidation. Everyone knows this is how Mugabe rigs elections to get elected. But something else has now come to light which should prompt the government to put in place measures that can curb an even more difficult rigging process that is almost impossible to stop right now. Here's the deal. With more than five million registered voters in Zimbabwe (almost six million), we always get around 3 million people only voting. There are also people who are not registered to vote, either because they can prove residence (a house they live in and so on) or are lain lazy to do so. Parliament has ...

Amos Midzi (above), a former Mines Minister, is now the new Harare Province Chairperson for ZANU PF, after beating Mugabe's favourite for the post, Hubert Nyanhongo. This was the third or fourth election held in Harare as Mugabe attempted to get Nyanhongo elected, repeatedly nullifying the votes that returned Midzi. Now the game is up. At least Nyanhongo has the consolation of being a Deputy Minister in the Inclusive Government. Harare, Zimbabwe, 11 November 2009 Hubert Nyanhongo, Robert Mugabe's favourite for the post of ZANU PF Provincial Chairperson in Harare Metropolitan Province, has lost internal elections in the party to Amos Midzi. Midzi is now the ZANU PF Harare Provincial Chairperson. Nyanhongo is the only ZANU PF MP in Harare, with all the other seats held by the main faction of the MDC, led by Morgan Tsvangirai. Midzi got 1052 votes while Nyanhongo got 807 votes. Nyanhongo had appealed to the ZANU PF Politburo to nullify the vote, saying Midzi had been paying people...

Villagers in Uzumba, a stronghold of ZANU PF, have started getting patronage from ZANU PF with the distribution of the party promises to be thousands and thousands of bags of fertiliser and seed. It is a clear indication that Mugabe is now in electioneering mood and has started buying votes. Harare, Zimbabwe, 21 October 2009 That money ZANU PF has been stockpiling from the plunder of the Chiadzwa Diamond Fields is now being put to use buying votes. Yesterday, the Member of Parliament for Uzumba, Simbaneuta Mudarikwa, distributed 100 bags of fertiliser in the ZANU PF stronghold while promising the delivery of 10 000 more bags. The gypsum fertiliser is being distributed to communal farmers only, identified as "deserving" through the ZANU PF structures in that constituency. This is a boon at a time when most other ordinary farmers are failing to access inputs such as seed and fertiliser, with banks demanding collateral to the extent of forcing farmers to use their livestock as s...