Zimbabwe is holding general elections today, which brings to an end the power-sharing government between President Robert Mugabe and his long-time rival Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Robert Mugabe (L) and Morgan Tsvangirai. (Pic: AFP)
Here are some key facts about the vote:
Some 6.4-million Zimbabweans, out of a population of 12.9-million, are eligible to vote at 9 670 polling stations across the country.
Voting centres will be open from 7am to 7pm.
Most voters will vote for presidential and parliamentary candidates.
There are five presidential candidates: President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, Dumiso Dabengwa, Welshman Ncube and Kinisoti Mukwazhe.
There are 210 parliamentary constituencies.
60 seats are reserved for women.
37 108 police officers and military personnel have already voted.
Voters will need to be 18 years and above to vote and will have to present a national identity card or a valid Zimbabwean passport.
The results are expected within five days.
If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, a runoff will be held, likely in September.
View the Mail & Guardian’s special report on the Zimbabwe elections here.
I was born outside the small city of Francistown in Botswana. Both my parents were traders so I was familiar with the concept of entrepreneurship from a young age. Like most people of their generation, my parents had never seen the inside the classroom. The only homework they knew was their family but they worked hard to ensure that we all attended school and made our way to university.
My education – from the level of primary public school to university – was sponsored by the government of Botswana. I gained my academic independence and acquired skills that allowed me to prosper in my fields. This journey included studying in Botswana, South Africa and Germany, which is where I gained my passion for education and social entrepreneurship. Fast forward a couple of gruelling years in the private sector. I published three books and spoke publicly on education, poverty reduction, HIV and Aids, corporate social investment and medical tourism for healthcare in Botswana.
I then founded Digital Computer Labs, an initiative to set up state-of-the-art computer labs across the country to improve students’ education. It’s no secret that technology is indispensable to education. Materials accessible through the web increase students’ exposure to real world communication, motivate them to achieve more and – the list goes on and on.
Students in a computer lab at Ngwana Enterprises in Francistown, Botswana. (Pic: Mooketsi Bennedict Tekere)
This project is not without challenges. Technology is shifting fast, therefore we must choose platforms and solutions that can actually work with different devices and in different scenarios. We in Africa don’t seem to appreciate or understand how this will change the education landscape and empower students and teachers.
None of us can stop the outburst of technology, rather we need to embrace it so we can have a better education system relevant to 21st century students.
I am doing my part to ensure that students in Botswana – in schools in both urban and rural areas – have access to a computer with internet connectivity. But to effectively utilise the power of technology for learning, we need flexible yet robust infrastructure for data communications. We require very strong wireless networks which will have the ability to simultaneously handle communication streams with hundreds of devices. And since content and exercises will be more and more in digital format, the platform selected must have the capability of being accessed by the teacher and the student, from their own home through an internet connection.
I have my work cut out for me but I am confident that we will get there.
Mooketsi Bennedict Tekere is the CEO and founder of Ngwana Enterprises. He is one of 10 young Africans shortlisted to be a One Young World delegate at this year’s summit. At this event, the M&G’s Trevor Ncube will be chairing a session on African media and what Africans think of their journalists. To share your views, complete this short survey.
It’s a custom in Ghana for the evening of December 31 every year to be dedicated to church activities. Christians all over the country go to church to pray and keep vigil as a new year dawns. The night of December 31 2011 was a special night. As usual, Christians went for the 31st night watch service; also called Crossover or Passover. I couldn’t make it due to sheer exhaustion so I watched the various church services being screened on television.
The dominant topic among Ghanaian pastors that night was “Pray for a peaceful 2012 election”. Lo and behold, 2012 came to pass and Ghana had a sixth consecutive presidential and parliamentary election in December. I’m not saying that it’s all thanks to God though. I believe that technology played a very crucial role in the election.
This blog post explores the many roles of technology in Ghana’’s 2012 election.
Pre-election
The Electoral Commission (EC) of Ghana announced in 2011 that the 2012 general election would be 100% biometric – i.e. the voters’ register will be a biometric register and voters will also be verified biometrically on election day. This announcement was received with mixed reactions. Supporters of technology thought this was a laudable idea that would go a long way to ensure a credible voters’ register, remove duplicate names, prevent multiple voting and prevent zombie voters. (Zombie voters are people who register under the names of friends or relatives who are dead, so that they can vote twice or more.) I, too, felt biometric was the best way to go. However the opponents of a biometric election ‘cautioned’ the electorate with funny myths. My favourites: biometric devices cause cancer and they can electrocute voters.
A group of prominent Ghanaian bloggers under the umbrella Ghana Decides were very active in a campaign to get people to register. Ghana Decides primarily used social media to drive citizens, especially the youth, to register.
After 40 days, the electoral commission successfully registered 14.5-million voters and thwarted over 10 000 fraudulent registrations. This was not possible with older modes of registration.
In previous years it was very difficult to access the manifestos of political parties and/or stay up to date with their campaigns. With this election though, political parties went beyond television, billboards, newspapers and radio to reach voters. Candidates harnessed the power of online advertising and social networking to connect with their constituents.
And when prospective voters were required to verify their names in the biometric voters’ register, technology saved the day. The electoral commission, having learnt from previous experiences of low turnout during the verification period, decided to add SMS verification to the traditional verification system. Hitherto, voters would have to travel to their polling stations to physically verify their names in the register. By applying technology this time around, Ghanaians were saved from the inconvenience of travelling and electoral officials could put the time saved to better use. The SMS verification system made it easy for errors in the voters’ register to be corrected in time to prevent confusion on election day.
In a bid to ensure accuracy and integrity of content in both online and traditional media, the Ghana Police Service established a media monitoring unit to swiftly deal with election-related issues.
The African Election Project, in collaboration with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology and EnoughisEnough with support from the UK’s Department for International Development also established a Social Media Tracking Centre (STMC). The STMC was to monitor the use of social media during Ghana’s 2012 elections.
Google Ghana also launched the Ghana Election Hub, an information portal where citizens could keep track of news and information related to the election.
The efficient application of technology gave an indication that Ghana was going to organise a successful election. The European Union election observers even said they were not going to observe Ghana’s 2012 election. I am tempted to believe that the use of technology gave the EU assurance that our elections was going to be free, fair and peaceful. Perhaps they also realised how easy it would be to monitor the elections online; there was no need for them to travel to Ghana.
Election day
A woman casts her ballot at the Bole polling station, in the Bole Bamboi constituency of northern Ghana on December 7 2012. (AFP)
The election was held on December 7 2012 in over 26 000 polling stations across Ghana. All polling stations used the Biometric Verification Device (BVD) to verify voters.
It is claimed that this was the first time biometric verification was used during an election, and a record number of people were biometrically verified in one day. However, 1.6% of polling stations were forced to postpone the election to December 8, mostly due to some technical hitches. The hashtag #GhanaDecides trended on Twitter from December 7 – 9 2012.
Post-election
Social media continued to play a key role in Ghana’s election even after polls closed. There were healthy debates on Twitter, Facebook and in the blogosphere.
The electoral commisison’s website was a reliable source of information and certified election results. All media houses relied on it. In previous elections, the media houses would announce provisional results which were at odds with the electoral commission’s. These conflicting results generated tensions among voters in the past, as depicted in Jareth Merz’s documentary An African Election.
The efficient use of technology made it possible for the electoral commission to collate and declare national election results in less than the usual 72 hours after the close of polls. The world also learned about the beautiful story of another successful and peaceful African election via the internet.
The main opposition party is currently challenging the results of the presidential election in court. It is worth noting that technology again made it possible for the opposition to gather and analyse evidence for the court case, as a key witness admitted in court.
On the whole and thank to technology, Ghana’s polls were acclaimed as the most free, fair and transparent, raising the bar for other African countries.
On the night watch service on December 31 2012, the theme prayer was “all thanks to God”. Hallelujah!
Divine Puplampu is the co-founder of a technology start-up company called Zottech, which provides technological products and solutions to Ghanaian businesses and organisations. He is one of 10 young Africans shortlisted to be a One Young World delegate at this year’s summit. At this event, the M&G’s Trevor Ncube will be chairing a session on African media and what Africans think of their journalists. To share your views, complete this short survey.
“I just hope we won’t go back to 2008. That is my only wish.”
With just two days to go before Zimbabweans go to the polls to cast their votes, this is becoming a refrain one hears more and more of when the topic of elections is raised in offices, homes, kombis and at social gatherings alike.
View the Mail & Guardian‘s special report on the Zimbabwe election here.
If you know anything about Zimbabwe, you will appreciate the dire situation that was 2008. In short, our nation was imploding with political unrest and violence, an ailing economy, a cholera outbreak, runaway inflation and widespread food shortages chief among our challenges.
The spectre of that year – its challenges remedied, albeit incompletely – returns to many Zimbabweans as a point of memory, sometimes even a point of jest.
But rarely do we consider it a reality that could be relived.
A few weeks ago, resilience that had not been asked of me for quite some time was tested as I went through the voter registration process. Having arrived at about 2pm at the designated site for my constituency and ward, I figured the process wouldn’t last more than a couple of hours at best.
How wrong I was!
As the hours chimed forward and wintry shadows grew longer, I felt as though I had been transported back to the time of snaking queues for basic commodities; the spectre of 2008.
My five hours waiting patiently in line however did not yield a loaf of bread, or a bag of sugar. When 7pm hit, the head of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) voter registration unit callously told us that they were closing up and that we ought to return the next day if we wanted to register.
A disbelieving and angry hush came over me and the rest of the people in line, now steeped in early evening darkness.
“If you don’t want us to vote, then we won’t,” shouted one of the frustrated people in line. “That’s what you wanted all along, after all!”
A few other people murmured their disapproval and with that, we forlornly dispersed, reminded that just as with basic commodities, basic rights can be scarce to come by.
A woman (2nd R) waits to obtain her national identity card during a voter registration drive in Harare on May 9 2013. (Pic: Reuters)
While we stood in that line, I had been reminded of the Zimbabwean brand of perseverance, mixed with a healthy dose of innovativeness that we call kukiya kiya. This strategy – of finding creative ways to survive the direst circumstances – is one that we have all had to employ in our recent past, and one which has come to define us in many ways.
There was the stocky woman with a shrill voice who everyone had taken to calling ‘Moms’. She kept engaging one of the police officers in charge of the line in idle conversation, which disconcerted him and caused us to peal with laughter. A Rastafarian in the bright colours of the movement, and whom we nicknamed ‘Dread’, offered general political commentary which aroused much emotion and discussion. And the softly spoken women with the six-month-old baby on her back, who had been denied the right to go to the front of the queue, became our symbol of silent strength.
It was cruel to be turned away from that place, but it was also a reminder of the fact that come what may, Zimbabweans hold strong.
I returned to the line the following day to find that most of the people who had promised to return were nowhere in sight. Justifying taking one day off from work for registration would probably have been hard enough; a second day would have seemed indulgent.
I watched as teenage first time voters took to the line with zeal and enthusiasm, sadly whittling away in their numbers as the morning sun reached its peak in the sky. In my mind, I took stock of how the past five years of relative economic stability, of no queues and rare long waits for basics, may have been the reason these young people could not withstand the wait; because they did not have a reference point from which to remind their bodies how to stand in the same spot for hours.
After six and a half hours, I finally managed to register my name to vote in my constituency. A white handwritten slip was given to me detailing all the facts that would be important for me on election day.
Relief overtook me. And ironically, a sense of achievement also.
How could the accomplishment of a mere single task – over two days and almost 12 hours – make me feel so accomplished, I wondered.
Was it normal to celebrate this?
Given the circumstances, yes. But I do not want to make it the norm to find comfort in hollow victories like buying a packet of milk or a cake of soap or getting certification to vote.
I do not want to return to 2008 with all its dehumanising elements.
My resilience – Zimbabweans’ resilience – is much better used for something more progressive than this.
We cannot go back to 2008.
Fungai Machirori is a blogger, editor, poet and researcher. She runs Zimbabwe’s first web-based platform for women, Her Zimbabwe, and is an advocate for using social media for consciousness-building among Zimbabweans. Connect with her on Twitter.
While the army is battling rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s unstable east, models prepared to sashay down the catwalk at the first Fashion Week in the capital Kinshasa.
Gloria Mteyu (29) told AFP that she had organised the three-day catwalk and fashion exhibition “to show that in Congo, there is not just war”.
Back-to-back wars that ravaged DR Congo from 1996 to 2003 have given way to a complex web of rebel groups still terrorising the eastern provinces, which are rich in mineral assets.
Even the world’s largest UN peacekeeping force has not managed to stop atrocities including the killing of civilians, using child soldiers and rape on a scale that has given the country the label of “rape capital of the world”.
Mteyu, who lives in New York, said ahead of the catwalk that beyond showing another side of DR Congo, she also wanted to give homegrown talents a platform.
“Because I myself am a designer, and since I have had the chance to go to other countries on several continents … I wanted to come home, do the same thing and organise a catwalk to showcase our talent, our Congolese style,” she said.
“We have not seen many Congolese at other Fashion Weeks so here is the first chance to showcase Congolese designers who work well,” she said.
(Pic: Kinshasa Fashion Week’s Facebook page)
Twelve Congolese designers including Okasol, who dresses Papa Wemba, one of Africa’s most popular singers, and eight foreign designers including South Africa’s David Tlale, have been invited.
According to the event’s Facebook page, the organisers also made a casting call for models in Kinshasa this month.
Local residents however complained that ticket prices to the show were out of reach to most in the country where two-thirds of inhabitants live on less than a dollar a day.
A regular seat costs $150, while a package including two nights of catwalk and access to exhibitions costs $300.
“It is shocking. No one has access, only the rich are targeted. There is no chance for everyone to experience this. Even the middle class can’t go,” said Clarisse, who earns $200 a month.
Decrying the “astronomical prices” on the show’s Facebook page, Muriel T. Munga asked: “Who are you targeting? The Kinshasa High Society? If that’s who you’re targeting, then you have succeeded.”
“The first three rows will be packed… but the other rows will be empty,” she said.
