* Any views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.
When my niece Vimbai (*not her real name) turned 18 in April 2010, she was really excited about her new found ‘adulthood’ and had her life and career plans well laid out. Now, just three years later and armed with a business degree from the local university, she is disillusioned due to the serious lack of employment opportunities in Zimbabwe and urgently wants to register as a voter in the presidential elections this week.
Together with my two nephews, we agreed that they would all take advantage of the 30-day mobile voter registration blitz. They made their intentions clear that Saturday June 22 would be the big day that they would go to register as voters and they asked me, as their guardian, to prepare affidavits declaring proof of their residence with me. With all the excitement bubbling up in our house I decided to join them and check my name was still on the voters roll as there have been numerous reports that up to one million people’s names have been deleted from it without their consent. So, the night before we agreed we would leave the house early the next morning in order to be at the registration centre for 6am - early birds catch the fattest worms, or so we thought…
We had already heard stories of long, chaotic queues, but nothing prepared us for the scene we were greeted with on arrival. The queue, at 6am, was already about one kilometre long and was packed with young women with sleeping babies strapped to their backs. There were lots of first time voters between the ages of 18 and 22, just like my niece and nephews, and the elderly were leaning on walking sticks and talking in the hazy sunshine. There was a mood of great excitement among the youth people especially, many of them on the threshold of becoming eligible voters for the first time!
In a country where most freedoms are curtailed, the opportunity to register as a voter creates an intense feeling of exhilaration and enthusiasm. We joined the back of the queue and immediately were given our position number by cards (99 – 103). We knew we were in for a long wait, but nothing was going to stop the exuberant young people I was with.
Soon after we arrived, rumours started to filter down the unmoving queue that the staff inside were working with just one computer, and that the pace was painfully slow. After about three hours stuck in one place, four buses suddenly arrived carrying a group of young police recruits, complete with clean shaven heads and kitted out in their free issue ubiquitous blue tracksuits with a bright yellow stripe. They were immediately ushered to the front of the queue, causing grumblings from those waiting which were quickly stifled by the dark penetrating stares of the recruits’ commanders, armed with their assault rifle of choice: the AK47. Of course, the officials did not even think of moving the elderly and young mothers with babies on their backs to the front of the queue so we continued to wait in uncomfortable silence.
Twelve hours later, with only one hour left until the mobile office was to close and close to a hundred people still in front of us, we decided to call it quits. I could easily discern the disappointment and frustration on my young niece and nephews’ faces. It was obvious that they felt cheated and that they had been deliberately disenfranchised – one of the few small freedoms that they could claim had been cruelly taken away from them.
Unfortunately, this discontented group of young people is growing by the day in Zimbabwe and they are becoming more and more agitated. My fear for the July elections is the possibility of yet another stolen vote and subsequent descent into the abyss in which the country found itself in 2008.
As we trudged back home, jacaranda trees were dropping beautiful purple flowers on the streets, creating a vivid contrast to how we felt inside. I knew I had to deal with my niece and nephews disillusionment somehow, but I just didn’t know how, and I couldn’t help feeling that being forced to walk away was exactly what they wanted.
