* Why were 100's of rural voters declared "illiterate" and on this premise helped in the polling booth itself by polling station officials from the ruling party as to how and where to  place their "X" on their ballot paper, yet when later interviewed by the writer in a safe place away from the polling  station, a cross section sampling of these same people  revealed on every occasion that they had a clear and demonstrated ability to both read and write for themselves?

* Why did many rural voters have to "run the gauntlet" of having to pass by and/or stop and show their ruling party membership  cards to groups of ruling party war veterans and/or youth  brigade members positioned between the front of the waiting  queue of voters and the entrance to the polling station - the very people who have terrorised and raped and beaten and burnt down their homes for the past 2 long painful years?

* Why were officially accredited opposition party [MDC] election monitors occasionally asked to step out of the polling station for periods of time during voting days?

* Why were so many rural voters forced to show they had voted to ruling party polling officers after having finished placing  their "X" on their ballot paper in the polling booth and before  folding it and placing it in the ballot box, by first showing them they had placed their "X" on the ballot paper and then getting the ballot paper "stamped" before doing so?

* Why were so many rural voters forced to stand in line in  alphabetical order outside the polling station and wait for their  respective village head to call out their name, hand them a [pre-marked?] ballot paper, before they proceeded through the uv light, name verification from the voter's roll and the hand inking  steps?

* Why were so many rural voters told that Sat 9th and Sun 10th March were the days set aside for voters wanting to vote for the ruling party and that Mon 11th and Tue 12th March had been allocated for all those wanting to vote for other parties?

* Why were so many rural voters in areas suspected to be opposition  party strongholds, denied their right to vote by ruling party polling  officials deliberately ensuring that insufficient ballot papers were made  available at polling stations in that area and either not "topped up" until  the last minute or not at all?

* Why were so many rural voters denied access into polling stations to vote if they were not able to satisfactorily chant the prescribed ruling  party slogans and/or "toyi-toyi" in the correct manner before assembled  ruling party war veterans and/or youth members ["green bombers"]?

* Why were so many rural voters seen to be told they were not registered when polling station staff were seen to be informed in advance of such people's entry into the polling station by their headman, who positioned himself just inside the entrance door to the polling station?

* Why did so many rural voters have their National Identity cards confiscated by ruling party officials, war veterans and/or youth members either before or on arrival at poling stations?

* Why do the opposition party's monitors' physical tally of total votes cast  across their entire rural constituency monitored, in no way tally with the  total number of valid + spoilt ballots cast announced by Mudede for that  particular constituency's "verified results?

* Why, after departing from our constituency with all our opposition party monitors on the afternoon of Mon 11th March [having delivered every  ballot box monitored accounted for with every seal intact, was the senior opposition party official left in the counting centre to confirm verification and vote counting, later abducted forcibly from the said centre by ruling party  officials [thugs?], severely beaten and dumped nearby - he is now in  hospital in serious to critical condition?

* Why, after carrying out the above abduction of the senior opposition party  official before vote counting had been completed, did the total number of  votes cast for this particular area mysteriously increase by some 12,000  ballots?

* Why did we spend the entire voting period having to rush and dodge from polling station to polling station and to/from our basecamp constantly trying to avoid being stopped and interrogated [or worse?] by ruling party officials driving official Government vehicles, who chased us about in a most threatening manner?

Should I go on?   Our list of blatant abuse of the official process in the above constituency by "official" ruling party government personnel, is by no means exhausted by the above.

However, space dictates I cannot possibly itemise every violation individually.    Suffice to say, I trust the above highlights the most prominent and most frequent "irregularities" observed.

If the above is what we personally observed and experienced in just one small section of this constituency [we only covered 11 polling stations out of the total of 51 in the entire constituency], what in the heck went down in other constituencies?

I appreciate that this is somewhat lengthy, but I ask you to please publish the same in the interests of continuing the struggle we started until we get what we set out to achieve.

This utterly shameless, fraudulent mob of cruel, reprehensible gangsters [not of the gay variety] must not be allowed to relax for a moment at this critical juncture in our history - don't forget we still have no sugar, mafuta, upfu, et al, plus now we have absolutely no friends left.