The queue to register to vote is long and slow-moving. The room is hot and uncomfortable. Tempers fray. A woman is told her identification papers are too tattered to be valid. "This is all rubbish," she says. "You cannot push us around any longer. I have the right to vote and I know it. This new constitution is rubbish and I am going to vote No." Others in the queue nod their heads in agreement.
Zimbabwe is palpably tense as the country goes to the polls this weekend to vote on whether to accept the draft constitution presented to the people by Mr Robert Mugabe. Violence has already marred the referendum campaign.
President Mugabe is asking the Zimbabwean people for an endorsement of his rule at a time when discontent has never been higher. For more than a month the country has been gripped by a fuel shortage. Inflation is 60 per cent, unemployment is 50 per cent, corruption is rampant, crime is rising and living standards are falling.
The creation of a new constitution was supposed to unite the nation behind a framework for good governance. But the draft is widely viewed as designed to extend the rule of Mr Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.
"There has been a groundswell of opposition to this draft constitution, particularly in the cities," says Trevor Ncube, editor of the Zimbabwe Independent newspaper. It is "a monumental fraud. It is a misrepresentation of what the people said they wanted. The president has the arrogance to pretend to consult the people and then ignore them."
Twenty years ago Mr Mugabe was credited with bringing peace and racial reconciliation to wartorn Zimbabwe. Today his reputation as an international statesman is long gone. His rule has been marked by vitriolic tirades against whites and by human rights abuses. Zimbabwe's once prosperous economy is in tatters.
Harare, Bulawayo and Zimbabwe's other cities are hotbeds of opposition to the new constitution. But Mr Mugabe is counting on support in rural areas, where some 70 per cent of Zimbabwe's 12 million people live. He has altered the constitution to say that if Britain does not pay for land seized from Africans during colonial rule, the state can seize white-owned land without compensation. Rural peasants have been told: "Vote for the constitution, and Comrade Mugabe will give you new land." But Mr Mugabe has promised them land before.
The government has used its command of the state media to flood the public with beguiling images calling for a Yes vote. Groups campaigning for a No vote have been largely prevented from advertising and have been the targets of a smear campaign. Opposition workers have been beaten and arrested by police.
However, despite massive opposition, it is almost certain that the constitutional referendum will pass. It is expected that less than 30 per cent of the electorate will vote.
Many believe the vote will be rigged. But even with a small turnout and suspect counting, the referendum will not be a huge mandate for Mr Mugabe.