Business as usual in MDC’s Bulawayo

– In the opposition stronghold of Bulawayo, Zimbabwe’s second city, the election results were greeted with resignation rather than protests despite allegations that the ruling party had won overall by fraud.

“It will be the same as last time,” said barman Tendai as the results were broadcast on TV, referring to 2013 when Robert Mugabe won the last of his fraud-tainted polls.

In Bulawayo at least, opposition MDC-Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa easily beat the ruling Zanu-PF’s Emmerson Mnangagwa, winning with more than twice as many votes.

Opposition protests in the capital Harare against alleged fraud were crushed on Wednesday by soldiers who opened fire in violence that left six people dead.

But Bulawayo has seen no demonstrations, despite its deep well of support for the MDC, which insists that it won the election and that Chamisa had the presidency stolen from him.

“There’s been no protests in Bulawayo because people here keep themselves to themselves,” said Tanako, a hotel porter. “They wake up and go to work – there’s been nothing like the violence in Harare.”

Bulawayo was once the industrial heartland of Zimbabwe before economic collapse under Mugabe, whose brutal security forces targeted opponents and crushed any sign of dissent during his 37-year reign.

Investors fled Zimbabwe due to land seizures, hyperinflation, corruption and indigenisation laws that forced foreign firms to cede majority stakes to locals.

“The industrial areas are closed for now because of economic hardships. Companies closed,” said Jonah, a driver, as he sat beside a large textiles factory now used as a church. “It was a very vibrant industrial area but it’s all gone now. It’s like they feel they are deserted.”

Nearby, on the city’s Herbert Chitepo Street, Zanu-PF election posters were pasted to storefronts, but few MDC posters were visible – a sign perhaps of the party’s chronic shortage of funds.

Here, in the southwestern region, much of the opposition to Zanu-PF is due to the Gukurahundi massacres of the ’80s that claimed the lives of about 20 000 regime opponents. – AFP