THE MARCH sun is bright but not hot in Zimbabwe, and on Sunday it brings people out onto the streets. Yesterday the sidewalks of Mbare, Harare's main black "township", were flowing with light and people, and the fleets of buses shunted noisily around the busy Sunday market.
In the midst of all this bustle and colour, the polling station at Mbare's vocational training institute stood gloomy and forlorn, its dusty courtyard empty except for a single bored policeman. Inside, the clerks and officers presiding over the 1996 presidential election sat silently in the gloom, idly waiting for identities to check and papers to stamp.
In the space of 15 minutes, only one nervous voter turned up to brave the rows of curious officialdom. With only the incumbent, Dr Robert Mugabe, still in the race, Zimbabwe's first one candidate election was not a popular draw.
"Despite the densely populated nature of this area, turnout is not so brisk as we expected," the presiding officer, Mr Claude Maredza, said precisely.
By 8 a.m. yesterday morning, the official figures showed that total turn out in the constituency of Mbare East was less than one per cent. Two of the 16 polling stations had processed only one voter and five more had failed to make double figures. Only 295 of the 40,000 registered voters had turned out.
Voting was much brisker in rural areas, where Dr Mugabe is traditionally strong, but by the close of polls last night it seemed certain that national turn out would be significantly lower than the 54 per cent poll of 1990.
Only 15.5 per cent of the country's 4.9 million registered voters presented themselves on Saturday - the first day of the two day poll - despite a strong effort by Dr Mugabe's Zimbabwean African National Union to get his supporters out. Reports from around the country suggested that voting was even slower in some areas yesterday.
The poor turn out represents a serious blow to Dr Mugabe's declining regional prestige and - possibly - to his standing with donors. Even before Bishop Abel Muzorewa and Rev Ndabaningi Sithole withdrew their candidacies on the eve of the poll, leaving him the only declared candidate, the only thing at issue for the President was how well he could run in a one horse race.
The two clergymen were seen as no hope candidates from a bygone era, but a more serious threat came from the opposition groups and human rights organisations who were calling for a boycott. Dr Mugabe, they said, had turned Zimbabwe into a de facto one party state.
Apathy was worst by far in urban areas like Mbare, where harsh reforms dictated by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund have caused state services to decline and poverty to rise.
People in the city are tired of ZANU now, said one young man, enjoying a Saturday stroll around Harare's pleasant Union Square. They are weary of ZANU's recycled promises to create jobs, increase spending on health, welfare and education and seize wealth from Zimbabwe's remaining 100,000 whites. Most of the party's strength was now among the peasantry, who were more gullible, he said.
"Many of the people out there are illiterate and that is what ZANU are banking on," he said. They give them seeds and food and so now they will vote for them."
In the province of Central Mashonaland, a traditional ZANU stronghold, polling was much brisker yesterday. In the town of Bindura, people queued in the sun to vote. At the end of the line a middle aged man in a shirt and tie explained that the people were there because they were legally obliged to vote - which is not true - and because it was a chance for them to show who they supported. Although they had withdrawn their candidacies, the two challengers names remained on the ballot, he said.
"It's very frustrating that these gentlemen did not pull out 21 days before," he said. "It would have saved the country a lot of money."
A younger man in a baseball cap confided that he thought the election was not going very well, even here in Dr Mugabe's heartland. "In 1985 the queue was from here all the way down to there," he said, gesturing off into the distance. "Now mealies (maize) are too high, bread is too high. People are not happy."
Despite increasing anti democratic tendencies, Zimbabwe remains by African standards a very peaceful and stable state. There were no reports of irregularities or unrest on either day of the poll. Counting is to begin today and a result is expected this afternoon at the earliest.