The Great Game

But now men like Mr Ndlovu have no choice. He eats okra and picks weeds from the fields to boil into a sauce, and drinks tea to fill his stomach when there is nothing solid to eat.

The rains have not fallen and his village's maize crops have shrivelled in the fields. But that is not why he is hungry.

As Thursday's parliamentary election approaches, the government has taken sole control of food distribution in rural areas.

These elections, observers say, will bring less of the outright brutality that scarred previous polls. Instead, according to accounts given to the Guardian, the government party, Zanu-PF, is offering villagers a simple choice - vote for us or starve.

In Mr Ndlovu's village, east of Bulawayo, people pooled money to buy maize flour from the state-owned grain marketing board. Last Saturday the food arrived.

Mr Ndlovu, 62, said: "Sitting on top of the heap of maize [sacks] was the district chairman of Zanu-PF. He said that maize would be distributed to supporters of Zanu-PF only - not to supporters of the MDC [the opposition Movement for Democratic Change]."

Each villager who reached the head of the queue was given a 50kg (110lb) sack of maize, said Mr Ndlovu. But anyone believed to support the opposition was ordered to leave.

"It was announced that MDC supporters should go out of the queue so as not to be embarrassed," he said. "But I stayed in the queue because I was hungry."

Instead of a sack of maize Mr Ndlovu, an MDC voter, was given back the 37,000 Zimbabwean dollars [now equivalent to only £3.25] he had put down as an advance payment three months ago.

Now he survives on one proper meal a day. "In the mornings we take tea. In the afternoons, when the children come home from school, we take tea. In the evenings we have some sadza [maize porridge]. (Link)

# posted by Jacob @ 3/26/2005 01:26:00 p.m.