Wisps of democracy in Zimbabwe

Kay says the MDC's biggest challenge is the residue of fear from 2000 - and how the ruling ZANU-PF party could manipulate it. "All they need is one public display of violence, and you've got 2,000 to 3,000 people hiding in corners," he says.

But for Kay, the presence of the "swing voters" validates holding the rally in the open, so people could watch without having to commit. He says his advisers had been urging him to have it in the local stadium, "But I just knew people wouldn't be willing to risk walking into a public building," he says.

Such tactical challenges have been constant. Kay has held three meetings in caves to avoid being arrested for contravening the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), which restricts freedom of association and which police use to prevent opposition meetings.

Also, a few days before the rally, his team put up hundreds of campaign posters at midnight. By dawn they'd been ripped down, he suspects, by young ZANU-PF supporters. Next time he tried putting posters up at dawn. By 7 a.m. they were gone.

But with his wife and two grown sons helping out with campaign logistics, Kay perseveres. At the rally, his family jumps and waves along with the chants. He's clearly not afraid of what might happen to him. During the days when their farm was taken, Kay was once beaten up badly - but refused to leave the country.

To be sure, there will be efforts to curb fraud in this election: transparent ballot boxes, more polling stations, and just one day - not two - for voting. Foreign election monitors will be present, though observers from the US and Europe have pointedly not been invited.

"This election will be freer and fairer than almost any in Zimbabwe's history - and many in Africa and the world," says Eddison Zvobgo, Jr., a ZANU-PF member. And compared to the harsh violence that surrounded other recent elections, this campaign has been quite peaceful.

The globally isolated government may have encouraged a more open climate, observers say, because it seeks more international legitimacy. Recent ZANU-PF infighting may have also distracted it.

And the turmoil that surrounded seizures by blacks of white-owned land a few years ago has subsided somewhat.

But Kay and others worry the openness is really a government ploy. For instance, the number of voting stations in his district will jump to 90, from 50 in the last election. That means officials will be able to pinpoint opposition enclaves and single the areas out for possible punishment.

As the rally ends, he stays long into the afternoon, making sure those supporters who'd been trucked to the event get home safely.

"Otherwise," he says, "there'll be trouble tonight."

Asked why he does it at all, he says of himself and his fellow Zimbabweans: "We're worth fighting for."

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