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Sitting on tenterhooks
Keith Goddard
April 02, 2008

I sit here at my desk at GALZ, on Wednesday 2nd April, refreshing the home page of www.kubatana.net every few minutes hoping to see something more from the final results of the 2008 harmonised elections. I haven't been able to work for two days and I have never watched so much ZTV in my life, most of which has been jive dancing and dated documentaries. I saw one about saving a sick dolphin, another about the filming of a rare species of baboon and a beginner-s class for djembe drummers. I watched one on Zimbabwean sculpture three times - and I'd already seen it before!

On Saturday, I got up at 5:00 a.m. and was in the queue at Blakiston School by 6:00. The queue became long very quickly. Voting started exactly qt 7:00 and I was number 15. I had not had a chance to check if my name was on the roll because I had been out of the country at the time but I had checked the roll at Blakiston last time. I was nevertheless nervous that something had happened. There were two polling stations so I chose the second. The atmosphere was very solemn. The man checked for my name on the roll, then turned over the page; then turned it back again. I was not there and I started to panic.

I was directed to a woman at a desk who took my passport and gave it to a policeman so that he could check with the Control Centre. After what seemed an interminable age (I had to be told twice to sit down), he returned and whispered to the woman serving me. She then informed me that I was not on the roll but suggested that I try Milton Park School which I had never heard of. She said it was just across the road so I decided to check at Sharon School. By now I was determined to claim that I was a hopeless cripple in order to make sure that I got to the front of the queue. But the queue was short so I waited my turn. My name was duly checked and there it was 'Keith Anthony Goddard' Like a real Queen, I clasped both sides of my head and gasped squeakily with delight and relief. I was in ward 5, not ward 6! I dipped my little finger in the pink ink and went to the second polling booth. I was shaking so much that I voted for the 'wrong' faction for the House of Assembly. Luckily I was more careful with the others.

I had to be guided when putting my votes into the correct boxes. I was still shaking and they were marked in a very odd way. I went home and, although it was only 8:30, I opened a bottle of white wine and got drunk. I spent the day staring at my pink finger, reading a Shona grammar and staring at the TV.

GALZ decided to close the office on Monday so that people could watch the election results. We didn't realise it would all take so long. The waiting got on my nerves and the releasing of results in small batches of 14 (later 10) and the neck-and-neck scenario worried me. In 2000, Morgan seemed to be home and dry and then Mugabe romped home as results from the rural areas came in: this scenario seemed different and too carefully orchestrated.

The slowness of the results has led to rumours flying everywhere including evidence of rigging and that Mugabe has already left. At the moment, the prediction is that both factions of MDC combined will give a majority over ZANU in the House of Assembly and that MDC will rule the Senate.

And the President? The staff here believe that it would be too humiliating for Mugabe to agree to a run-off and that he already knows that it could be very much worse for him the second time round. Most of the small percentage for Makoni would probably go to MDC and we have to remember that Zimbabweans tend to vote for the person they think is going to win. It would also be impossible for him to rule even given the results we have at the moment. Again, what would his election message be? Obviously Zimbabweans didn't buy the sanctions lie and Mugabe doesn't have anything positive left to campaign around. There is also a strong argument for the Zimbabwean Diaspora to be included in the run-off.

I was not in agreement with having a Senate but it seems that it has backfired on Mugabe horribly. We are assured that fast-track constitutional changes are now a thing of the past but we also have a very evenly balanced Lower House. I believe this is good for Zimbabwe and will force politicians to work for the people and not for themselves.

And what of the government-controlled media? I'd said to my mother the other day that neither radio nor television will have any programming if it goes the 'other way' - not that they have much anyway. Not only did this turn out to be true, the slowness of the results coming in has made it even worse for them. Mugabe is strangely quiet and no one else is saying anything. TV might as well have gone blank. By now we should have been seeing those reruns of the old liberation-war documentaries and endless reporting on victory parades.

In all, there is one message that is loud and clear: Zimbabweans now realise that governments and Presidents belong to them and that people do not belong to their rulers. Other than the 1980 elections, Zimbabweans have never experienced the ability of being able to change a government. They now know they can.

It is too early to tell what the election will mean for lesbian and gay people. If regime change materialises, the new government will have a list of major priorities to deal with. GALZ would have to do all it can to help with this national reconstruction.

*A personal account of the Zimbabwe 2008 harmonised elections by GALZ Director, Keith Goddard

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