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Zimbabwe's Elections 2013 - Index of Articles
Civil society took eye off election ball
Daily
News
September 30, 2013
http://www.dailynews.co.zw/articles/2013/09/30/civil-society-took-eye-off-election-ball
Civil society
in Zimbabwe is guilty of celebrating minor issues during the tenure
of the inclusive government instead of pushing the reform agenda
ahead of the election, Election
Resource Centre (ERC) director Tawanda Chimhini has said.
At a discussion
convened by political think tank, Zimbabwe Democracy Institute (ZDI)
last week on progression and regression post-the unity
government, Chimhini said civil society has to change its approach,
if it is to attain democratic reforms. The opposition has alleged
fraud in a July election that kept President Robert Mugabe in
power.
“The GNU
was supposed to drive and conclude the reform agenda but we tended
to be contend with little morsels of reforms like wording of the
Constitution
and appointment of a commissioner to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission
(ZEC) purportedly supported by political parties,” Chimhini
said.
“However,
we forgot that commissioners do not run the electoral process it
is the secretariat that some quarters were clamouring for the audit
of the same. The secretariat remained compromised up to election
day and to this day nothing has happened or changed.”
In a report
issued just before the July 31 vote, ZDI claimed that the Zec secretariat
was infested with members of state security arms.
Chimhini said
civil society failed to push for reforms and was silent when the
country plunged into polls without fundamentals such as the voters’
roll.
“It baffled
my mind that we all agreed to go to election and seemed to turn
our attention at every turn to Sadc even on the issue of the voters
roll,” Chimhini said.
“This
despite the fact that internal political jostling revealed cries
for tangible voters’ rolls.
“Opposition
political parties cried foul that they went to elections without
the voters’ roll.
“How then
did we expect a transparent and inclusive election without the register
of who will vote and where?”
The ERC director
said issues to do with transparency of the election management system,
transmission of results and accountability were never dealt with
prior to the July harmonised poll.
“We instead
concentrated on cosmetic changes to the Constitution and Zimbabwe
is still the only country in the region where election results are
transmitted using police walkie-talkies,” Chimhini said.
“The July
election is still in-auditable despite the Constitution demanding
that any election has to be auditable. Civil society lost touch
with the people and in Sadc saw the Alpha and Omega of our problems.
We forgot Sadc was not Zimbabwe.”
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