Facing intimidation, still they queued all day long (3 pix warning for dial-up)

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Every time I see this kind of zeal to have one's voice heard despite gigantic obstacles it makes me more pissed off that lazy Americans don't bother to vote. This brought tears to my eyes and a huge lump to my throat.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/facing-intimidation-still-they-queued-all-day-long-802601.html

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In spite of the obstacles being put in their way – and blatant attempts by Robert Mugabe to stuff the ballot boxes – the people of this devastated African country came in their millions to deliver their verdict on his 28-year rule

They had slept at polling stations. Many others were heading there before first light, and, as the sun set, they stayed to make sure their votes were cast. From dawn to dusk, when the polls closed, this appeared to be a country that was not only voting for change, but yearning for it as well.

Whatever malevolence Robert Mugabe's vote riggers may yet contrive, there was no doubting yesterday that the people of Zimbabwe were doing their best to make life as difficult as possible for the old poll fixer.

For this is a nation that has seen too many hopes dashed against the intractable mathematics of an election held under the Mugabe regime to feel confident that change would happen.

Yesterday, election monitors and opposition reported a number of grounds for anxiety. In one place, opposition party agents were barred from polling stations; at others, six stuffed ballot boxes were found before voting got under way in one district, and the longest queues in Harare were at two polling stations on the edge of a vacant plot where 8,450 people had registered as residents.

In the face of such entirely predictable shenanigans, people did the only thing they could: vote. As the sun came up in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe's second city, they were already waiting to do so. Heavy green tents threw back their entry flaps to find patient but determined queues had already formed.

At the Burnside shopping centre in what was once an affluent suburb of Bulawayo, hundreds were waiting within an hour of dawn. For those at the front there would be a few minutes in the comparative dark, ticking boxes, folding papers, posting their vote, then emerging into the light with a little finger stained pink with permanent ink.

Paul, 23, was on the last leg of a voting odyssey. Like millions of others of his countrymen, he works in South Africa but had been persuaded to go home to vote. "My boss said take 10 days if you need, but vote. At the border they don't look at your face; they just stamp your passport."

Before crossing into Beitbridge he saw a billboard on the South African side, it read: "Zimbabweans please go home. (Make a change.)"

Paul finally reached the polling station at his old school to join another long line. The feared police presence in the poorer townships was nowhere to be seen. The only fear was of the government tactic of limiting the number of polling stations in the high-density opposition strongholds. A polling agent at the school explained: "There are only 10 polling stations here for 7,000 people. We're worried there won't be time for everyone to vote."

South-east of Bulawayo lies a symptom of the country's staggering economic ruin. It should be boom time at How's gold mine. The government buys all the gold at How at state-regulated prices and in worthless Zimbabwean dollars. The result has been to bankrupt a gold mine. A band of hitch-hikers waits by the gate. They have all voted for Tsvangirai and repeat the mantra that this time "change is coming".

Then one of them leans forward and asks if anyone wants to buy gold. A mine that should be worth billions of any dollars has been reduced to a source of a handful of black market nuggets, sold by men who would rather be mining.

This is why, in the face of 30 years of unfulfilled promises, they were still queuing to vote as the sun set.


Zimbabwe: queues started before dawn


Police hold back voters



Awoman shows the ink stain that proves she voted