Ndesanjo Macha is Sub-Saharan Africa Editor of Global Voices, which monitors citizen media in the developing world. Thomson Reuters is not responsible for the content of this post — the views are the author’s alone.

In countries such as Zimbabwe where media and political freedom is extremely restricted, new technologies have become powerful tools for political campaigning, communication, advocacy and mobilisation. Bloggers and civic organisations have resorted to using new tools and applications such as Flickr, Facebook, SMS text messages, YouTube and mashups to fight for democracy, media freedom and good governance.

SMS Text Messages

If you are in Zimbabwe and your phone rings, you might be receiving news headlines from SW Radio, election updates from Kubatana.net or political jokes about Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. Widespread mobile phone access in Africa has made SMS a powerful and useful tool for activists. Comrade Fatso, a Zimbabwean blogger, writes about the many political jokes circulating on SMS in his blog:

“… Another joke walking the streets of Harare is that the only difference between an election and an erection is that you can’t rig the latter.”

The UK-based SW Radio uses SMS to send news headlines to mobile phones:

“We now have an SMS news headline service sent to mobile phones.
If you have a friend or relative in Zimbabwe who would like to receive this service please email their mobile phone number to: talk@swradioafrica.com”

Kubatana, an online community of Zimbabwean activists, uses FrontlineSMS to send election news to their SMS subscribers and facilitate conversations. The organisation has also used this technology for its campaign, “What we want in Zimbabwe?” Amanda Atwood from Kubatana writes, “As announcements by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission have been trickling out, we’ve been forwarding them to our SMS subscribers, many of whom do not have access to television or radio, or who are hit by Zimbabwe’s persistent electricity shortage.”

FrontlineSMS, a service designed for non-profits, was also used by the Nigeria Mobile Election Monitors last year. Ken Banks, the creator of Frontline SMS, describes his work with Zimbabwean activists in his blog.

Electronic Postcards

Sokwanele-Zvakwana is another pro-democracy civic organisation using new media tools to fight for democracy and rule of law. Its website offers free satirical e-cards as part of its non-violent campaigns for change. The cards are organised around different themes, here is an example:

Economy e-cards:

Zimbabwe’s economy is in free-fall and it’s no laughing matter. Spread a bit of cheer by sending a humorous e-card, or send a card to alert someone of the reality of our country’s economic state.

They have posted a video of the e-cards on Jumpcut.

Mashups

Sokwanele has also created a Google map of election rigging using data from their Zimbabwean Election Watch series:

Explore the map and then consider whether elections held in this context can ever be considered ‘free and fair’. Information on how to use the map, the map data limitations, and the background to how we mapped the data is provided below the map. Please visit our Zimbabwe Election Watch section, and explore our database for a comprehensive look at the many ways the articles listed in the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections have been breached by the Zimbabwean government.

Videos and Pictures

Sokwanele has a channel on the popular video-sharing site, YouTube and a Flickr account. Visit their Album of Terror to see the extent of state brutality against the opposition. There is a also a Flickr account from another user with Zimbabwe Playing Cards:

On the outside this looks like an ordinary set of playing cards. But take them out, it is a fantastic political weapon - against the murderous, corrupt, hypocritical regime of ‘Robber Mugabe’.

Social networking

Various groups including Sokwanele have established their presence on social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. There is a “Remove Robert Mugabe from Zimbabwe” group on Facebook. And a “Revive Zimbabwe” group. There is also a group supporting the presidential candidate, Dr. Simba Makoni.

A cultural activist network, Magamba!, has a MySpace page where they publish blog posts about the situation in Zimbabwe. The most visible member of the group is Comrade Fatso who also keeps a personal blog at Vox.

Mobile Phones

The South Africa-based election monitoring group, The Independent Result Center, set up a website to publish independent election results. During the elections, their trained monitors in Zimbabwe were sending information to South Africa via satellite and mobile phones.

This is how their monitors obtained information:

“ZimElectionResults.com obtained the results using polling agents who were specially trained to obtain data officially displayed. This information was transmitted to a results centre in South Africa using cell­phones and satellite phones to the centre which was manned by call centre operators.

Since election results were displayed publicly the agents were able to take photos of the actual results:

Polling agents were also equipped with a camera to photograph the actual official results posted by the ZEC. These will be archived on this web site later as forensic evidence. The polling agents also counted the number of people entering each polling station.”

Blogs

Immediately after the government started muzzling the media during the elections, Zimbabwean bloggers became one of the key sources of information and commentary on the political and economic situation in the country. Visit Global Voices’ Zimbabwe Elections 2008 page for links to posts written by Zimbabwean bloggers.

Online Political Jokes

According to one joke, Robert Mugabe is twittering! He joins the Kenyan President, Mwai Kibaki, on the popular microblogging site, Twitter:

… meetings, meetings, meetings. very boring.
12:03 PM April 04, 2008
Ooooo, nervous morning. Sending the wife shopping. She is getting on my nerves. Thinking of shutting the electricity down for laughs.
09:21 AM April 01, 2008
Thinking of live blogging the election results. Good idea?
06:42 PM March 31, 2008
Forcing people to eat election posters. Hey, at least they get fed this week. 01:49 PM March 29, 2008
just voted. Guess who I voted for?
01:49 PM March 29, 2008

The website Zimbabwe Democracy Now also has a Humour page on its website.

A longer version of this article is posted on Global Voices.

The judicial problems in Italy of former Justice Minister Clemente Mastella’s wife Sandra signaled the start of the political crisis that forced Italians back to the ballot box on Sunday and Monday, and she was back in the news over a ringing cellphone as she cast her vote.

Italy’s interior ministry has banned Italians from carrying cellphones or any device that can take pictures or videos into the voting booth, over fears of corruption. Sandra Mastella caused a minor stir when her cell phone started ringing while she voted in the southern town of Ceppaloni on Sunday, prompting electoral workers to call in the police. It turns out her cell phone did not double as a camera, meaning she was not violating the law.

“It was a banal distraction, I had it in my pocket,” Mastella said.

There were minor hiccups at other polling stations as well. In the northern town of Sant’Orsola, the head of a local polling station showed up drunk, prompting colleagues to call in the police. The chief was fined and a new, sober polling booth chairman was instated.