Zimbabwe vote brings hope and resignation

HARARE, ZIMBABWE —  Costa Mizha’s eyes blinked open at 4 a.m. Saturday with a sense of anticipation he hadn’t felt in years. This was it, March 29. Election day.

It was like waking up on the day of a big party.

“His time is up now,” Mizha thought. He even felt a strange twang of sympathy for the “Old Man,” unwanted by his country. He was certain in his bones that Zimbabwe’s 84-year-old president, Robert Mugabe, would be chased away in Saturday’s election like a broken-down horse.

“He’s old,” Mizha said. “We feel sympathy for old people.”

Before dawn in another part of Harare, James Moyo was up too, hurrying to the polling booth in the darkness to vote for change.

“Today really is my special day, because this is my last day of hope,” Moyo said. “Today I was happy. I was excited because I said, ‘This is my D-day.’ If we fail to make it this time around, it will be doom.”

That people got up so early and turned out in large numbers to vote was a sign of desperation among a population hoping to escape raging hyperinflation and 80% unemployment. But it was also testament to their faith in democracy after successive flawed elections that have seen Mugabe maintain his grip on power despite big swings against the ruling ZANU-PF party.

Their faith may be tested anew in this election, even as Mugabe faces his toughest challenge in 28 years in power, from within his own party. Political analysts predict that Mugabe is unlikely to cede power and fear the count will be rigged.

There were some reports of irregularities Saturday -- voters turned away in opposition strongholds and fraudulent rolls with nonexistent voters. But there was very little violence compared with previous Zimbabwean elections, and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, a pro-democracy group, said most people seemed to have been able to vote freely.

This, however, had been expected. Activists say the problem usually occurs later, in the central tabulation of regional counts.

‘We’re fed up’

Election day dawned balmy and warm. Police stood on every corner here in the capital.

At about a quarter past 10, traffic froze as Mugabe’s convoy sped out over the potholed roads so the president could vote. Soldiers lined the intersections he passed, and his security detail bristled with automatic weapons.

After the convoy rushed by, it was as if a spell had passed and the city could breathe again, shaking itself back to life.

“We will succeed,” Mugabe said while voting in Harare. “We will conquer. Why should I cheat? The people are there supporting us. The moment people stop supporting you, then that’s the moment you should quit politics.”

But Brian Mwale, 27, saw it differently. A trained but unemployed engineer who scrapes out a living as a trader, he woke up early Saturday, sniffed the air and was sure he could smell it: change.

“There’s change, of course,” he said. “There’s definitely change. The feeling is good. I feel great. I know I have won. There are no doubts about that.

“People are talking very openly. They’re saying, change. We’re fed up. We need the Old Man to go.”

Mwale, tall, slim and hard-wired with self-confidence, speaks rapidly and never allows himself a moment’s doubt or despair. He’s confident of Mugabe’s defeat.

“I never feel hopeless. I know one day I’ll be a rich businessman. I’m educated. I’m a hard worker,” he said. “All this is going to pass. It might take years, but it’s going to pass.”

Zimbabwean elections always seem to evoke irresistible dreams. It’s hard not to be swept away by the hope people feel. But sometimes, for opposition supporters, waking up the day after the count is like the hangover without the party.

Moyo, 43, from the crowded, poor neighborhood of Mbare, on the outskirts of Harare, is a round-faced former bricklayer with a slight potbelly, all that is left of the hard-working, larger-than-life fellow he says he used to be before he lost his job in the government a decade ago.

He makes money now by selling small bags of sugar or salt to support his wife and four children. Not only does it seem his hopes are depleted, but his very essence has dried up.

“If you could have seen me 10 years ago, I was a very big man. Huge,” Moyo said mournfully, recalling the days when a generous belly was a sign of a good life. “Now I am shrinking, I’ve changed the size of my shirt and my trousers. I’m just a useless person. We don’t have anything. I can’t afford to feed my family.”

He picked up the sole of his shoe to show where it was peeling away. “Look at this, look at how we live,” he exclaimed. Then off came the shoes too, revealing the soles of his feet peering through a fine web of sock holes.

Fear of violence

Despite the disappointment for opposition supporters in elections in 2000, 2002 and 2005, people have not given up. They woke up Saturday convinced that this time things were different. Mugabe would not dare cling on.

“He won’t do that,” Mizha said. “If he does, people will rise against him.”

“People are angry,” Mwale said. “They’re hungry. There are no jobs, no transport. Anything could happen.”

In previous elections, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change has planned mass “people power” protests in Harare when Mugabe emerged victorious despite flawed counts. But past protests have been violently crushed, and in recent days Mugabe and his security chiefs warned their opponents to accept the official results or face the consequences.

Mugabe has played cleverly on recent postelection violence in Kenya, and many Zimbabweans fear violence and killings more than the continued economic nose-dive they believe Mugabe represents.

Agnes Moyo, 30, a secretary, is angry about the chaos in her country under Mugabe, and the pointlessness of going to work. Yet, unlike many other anti-Mugabe voters, she said she didn’t see victory as inevitable.

She woke up feeling peaceful and serene, yet slightly troubled by the air of tension and excitement she had sensed in people the day before.

To her, it seemed as if everyone was rushing excitedly in the same direction, without quite knowing why.

“People were very excited, as if they had actually predicted the election results,” she said. “They thought there was going to be change.”

Asked if she felt the same sense of an impending Mugabe defeat, she paused, looking straight ahead. Her voice was soft and flat when she finally spoke.

“I don’t really feel there will be change,” she said. “I just pray to God that there is peace.

“I strongly believe that whatever comes our way, nobody lives forever. There’s going to be change, either naturally or by the ballot. There’s definitely going to be change.”

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