chairman of the district and therefore a strong member of the party. I have got together with the youth in the area and I now feel weak knowing what I have left behind. We hear that people have been killed. So all the houses of my councillors and agents and me the MP have been destroyed, so I hope the party will be able to assist. Right now my election agent’s home – they burned it. The set up he had was like a house in town in Borrowdale that was in our area. MM is his name. His car was also burned. They kidnapped him, they have been beating people very badly in our area. [interview 22 April] Figure 6: AFFILIATION OF VICTIMS: 30 March to 30 April Monday they started beating people in ward two and five houses got burnt down. My election agent, Mr N they burnt all of his houses and they axed two of his cows. The councillor for ward 4, Mrs M, they burnt her home down too. At my home they beat my Mother who is 63 years old. They beat her so badly that at the moment she can’t walk. I didn’t know how I could get her into town. Myself I walked from Murehwa to here in town on foot because I had no money for a lift. There’s a man called Zingwina, the messenger of court in Murehwa who is moving in a sky blue Mitsubishi – it’s the one they are using together with the Maguta people from Murehwa, and another one called Fanuel Mavungire and George Dandara and a militia called Musonza. These are the people who are going around beating people. Some of our boys have been shot. One of them is called NM and SM who was run over by a ZANU car. I think he’s gone to the hospital. He has both arms and legs broken. We also have SN who is in police custody even though he is badly injured with two broken arms. We don’t know how we can get help to these people because they were in the hospital. They were taken by the Militia who still have them. These people must be retrieved because there is no way to get help to them. [interview 22 April] The MDC effectively has no structures left on the ground in many districts at this time, and this pattern has been repeated wherever MDC had begun to make inroads into traditional ZANU PF areas. While some people have been made sufficiently angry by the attacks that it has hardened their resolve, others have been devastated and the authors doubt that such people will return and vote in a run off. One defiant MDC official from Shamva is among those enraged rather than terrorised by the violence: As you can see my house was burnt, all the property inside it was destroyed. Approximately it is 35 houses that were burnt. The reason for burning these houses is that we support Tsvangirai… What has clearly emerged in Zimbabwe is that an election is not an election, since ZANU PF 42