The man will not sit down again for several months, perhaps never again. Lying on his stomach in the southern Zimbabwean town of Zvishavane, he pulls his pants down to review two painful circles of raw flesh on his buttocks.
James and Finos Zhou, both in their 30s, were kidnapped before the elections and beaten for two days solid by a gang of war veterans. Their crime, to sign the nomination papers for an opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate. Now James writhes in agony on a hospital bed. The surgery he needs is unavailable, while Finos is in a fresh grave having died of his injuries.
The brothers are just two victims of Texas Ranch, an occupied town 400 kilometres south of Harare.
The once white owned property now serves as a detention and torture centre for the terrorising Zanu-PF militia that has paralysed the area with fear. Those who have survived have emerged with broken limbs, extensive burns and mutilated genitalia.
The others are still missing, some are thought to be at the bottom of a nearby mineshaft. The Texas Ranch war veterans are controlled by a burly man going by the name of Big Citoro whose trademark is a black Texan hat. At the remote polling station of Mataga the very mention of his name inspires fear. "People are afraid of Citoro. He causes havoc when he comes here and they run away," a MDC polling agent said quietly.
The previous day a policeman has watched people from behind the voting booths, making signals to Zanu observers an international observer said. But yesterday voting appeared to be proceeding normally.
A few moments later, a pick-up crammed with young men and marked "Zanu PF" on the door pulls up to the station. A man in shiny boots, combat fatigues and with several daggers hanging from his belt stepped out and introduced himself as Big Citoro.
He swaggered to the top of a line of 80 voters and exchanged jokes with the policemen on duty. The man with him approached the polling clerk and had a short conversation. Afterwards the presiding officer claimed not to have seen the incident.
Before stepping into the pick up Big Citoro said: "What we don't want here is violence. MDC people can hit others with an axe and sometimes we have to defend ourselves". He was too busy to take us to Texas Ranch but might be available the following day. Hlupo Nkomo, another MDC observer at the station asked for a lift to his joinery premises, saying he was too frightened to walk the 500 metre distance.
All that remained of his business was a charred shell scattered with shards of broken glass. His house had also been burnt to the ground and his family had fled. He said he would be able to live in Mataga again. A crowd of townspeople watched silently from a shop across the road. Nobody was willing to answer questions, except for one, a middle-aged man who had lived in London for 12 years before returning home. "There is an atmosphere of fear here. Nobody will speak to you," he said before slipping away. A small number of other premises were also destroyed, including a bookshop owned by the MDC candidates campaign manager.
Later in the morning the ZanuPF candidate, Rugare Gumbo, turned up at the polling station. He said the MDC had instigated all violence with "pistol and teargas and guns".
Gumbo's opponent is Sekai Holland, a feisty grandmother aged 57 who also happens to be related to him.
She said she expected to lose the election due to sustained intimidation.
Many of her supporters had ended up in hospital and 40 women had been moved to safe houses in Harare. Since the beginning of the month her supporters were retaliating and had put the men who killed the Zhou brothers into intensive care. Officially 32 people have died in election violence in Zimbabwe. "This figure makes me angry," she said, "because I know in the end it will be much higher."