ZIMBABWE: The real tragedy engulfing Zimbabwe is not manifesting itself in a political or economic form, reports Bill Corcoran in Harare.
The dozens of queues which formed in central Harare last Thursday morning never abated over the course of the day. They snaked their way around street corners, twisting and turning to avoid hawkers and street urchins who scurried along their length in the hope of earning a few Zimbabwean dollars.
In size, they resembled the large queues that formed on polling day during Zimbabwe's last general election in 2002, but that is where the similarities between the two events ended.
Rather than signifying the desire for a change of government, or highlighting a nation dealing with a chronic food shortage, they indicated nothing more than the public's desire to have a good bank holiday Easter weekend: the queues ended at ATM machines.
With just under a week to go to Zimbabwe's general election, the mood in the country has little of the charged atmosphere that engulfed it during the previous two elections. If anything, the public atmosphere could be described as apathetic in comparison.
While intimidation and oppression are still the tools with which the ruling party, Zanu PF, goes about its business, the unfettered violence that was perpetrated against the public in the past has yet to materialise.
The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), has been given access to the state media, albeit severely limited, and its candidates are also being allowed to run election rallies in rural areas - something that was unheard of three years ago in the so-called Zanu PF strongholds.
In public, President Robert Mugabe and his state-run media are predicting a landslide victory in Thursday's election, with unashamedly biased headlines and full-page adverts that urge the public to "bury Blair" and "A vote for Zanu PF is a vote for development".
Evidence of the 82-year-old president's confidence is reflected in his surprising decision to allow a significant number of western journalists to enter and cover the proceedings at the last minute - although the extortionist price of US$700 cash from each accredited journalist must be paid for the privilege.
Even though Mr Mugabe is running his campaign under an anti-western banner, his pet hate, the British press are walking the streets somewhat bewildered at their own presence in their once-colonial outpost.
While Mugabe supporters have already claimed victory before the fact, followers of the MDC are expressing increasing levels of quiet confidence in relation to their chances of exacting regime change.
Rather than viewing the relative levelling of the playing fields as a sign of supreme confidence on Mr Mugabe's behalf, they see it as a brief opening of political space in which there is room to manoeuvre. The key issue for the MDC is how to stop its counter-parts rigging the vote.
If that can be achieved it believes it is in with a chance of carrying the day.
Who is right and who is wrong? Only time will tell, but local political analyst Prof Brian Rofftopolus from the University of Zimbabwe in Harare seemed to sum up the situation when he said on Thursday during a seminar: "There will be many surprises in this election."
Outside the political arena, the suggestion that Zimbabwe is on the verge of famine does not stand up to scrutiny. The country is experiencing a harsh drought that has severely damaged such staple crops for the rural people as mealie (corn).
But as I drove the 400km or so from Bulawayo in the south of Zimbabwe to Harare in the north, vendors with small stalls were selling tomatoes, peanuts and other vegetables every few miles along the way.
Many Zimbabweans are hungry and are reduced to two rather poor meals a day, but they are not starving - yet.
Rather than getting worse, the economy has shown a small improvement in recent months, although inflation is still out of control. Last year Zimbabwe's rate of inflation ran at 640 per cent and according to a waiter who served me recently, the price of the steak I ordered had trebled in the past few weeks.
Shops have numerous products to sell but the type of currency one can use varies. The US dollar has taken precedence over all others, with the local Zimbabwean dollar having lost value dramatically.
One could get Zim $6,500 for a single US dollar on the official exchange rate yesterday, but if you bought on the black market the former amount jumped to nearly 11,000 in some instances.
But the real tragedy engulfing Zimbabwe is not manifesting itself in a political or economic form. One in four Zimbabweans has contracted the Aids virus and they have no access to the anti-retroviral medicines that help to prolong the life of a sufferer.
At a cemetery in Bulawayo I attended during the week, the graves of the Aids victims stretched on and on. Funeral processions to and from the graveyard were omnipresent, and the spectre of death which hangs over the greater population is difficult to miss.