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Zimbabwe's election: the stakes for Southern Africa
International Crisis Group (ICG)
January 11, 2002

I.  Broken promises

Over the past year Zimbabwe has broken important promises to SADC and the Commonwealth.

Analysis of two major covenants accepted by the government – the Commonwealth Abuja Agreement endorsed by SADC heads of state, and SADC’s own norms and standards for elections – gives the government failing grades. Determined to win re-election, ZANU-PF is betting that these bodies will take no firm action.

A. The Commonwealth Abuja Agreement
The Zimbabwe government heralded the Abuja Agreement, reached with Commonwealth ministers in the Nigerian capital on 6 September 2001, as the answer to the country’s crisis because Britain agreed to fund land reform. Commonwealth members welcomed Zimbabwe’s "commitment to restore the rule of law to the process of land reform", that "there will be no further occupation of farm lands" and that "for farms that are not designated, occupiers would be moved to legally acquired lands". Five days later, Mugabe repeated these assurances to six SADC presidents, who in turn welcomed the "commitment by Zimbabwe at the meeting in Abuja to undertake its land reform and resettlement program in accordance with its laws, ensuring that a stop is put to any further farm occupations; that it would facilitate the de-listing of farms which do not meet set criteria, that for farms that are not designated, occupiers would be moved to legally acquired land; … and the commitment of the government of Zimbabwe to continue to exert all efforts to ensure that land reform is carried out in accordance with the laws of Zimbabwe".

Despite these pledges, farm invasions, violence and abuse of the rule of law and basic human rights have continued. Within two weeks, more than a dozen new farms were invaded, and such actions were repeated through the end of the year. Indeed, violence and intimidation on farms increased in many districts. Following the Abuja Agreement and the SADC follow-up, Deputy President Joseph Msika said that all those who continued to invade farms would be removed. There has been no case where this has happened, although new occupations have occurred with police complicity. ZANU-PF has introduced legislation to allow the farm seizures to bypass the courts and legislation to control the independent press through compulsory registration. On 9 November 2001, President Mugabe issued a decree ordering 1,000 farmers who had previously received takeover notices to leave their land within three months. Ruling party militants still occupy roughly 1,700 farms.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum, a collection of many organisations and activists in the country, produced the most comprehensive analysis of Abuja implementation. It concluded: There is no credible evidence that the violence has ceased, either on the commercial farms or in the country generally … The evidence before the Forum indicates that commercial farmers and commercial farm workers are still the victims of gross human rights violations. The Forum found that the police "still hold[s] a partisan position and [are] frequently either inactive in preventing crimes being committed or in offering protection to the citizens who are the victims of these crimes". The police rarely take steps to investigate crimes committed by government supporters, and "the evidence indicates there is no significant reduction in the perpetration of gross human rights infringements generally. There is no change in the number of gross human rights abuses recorded post-Abuja, with the victims being overwhelmingly the supporters of the MDC or other persons deemed to be sympathetic to this party". The report highlighted "the intended passing of a number of new laws that will all interfere very dramatically with basic human freedoms and are clearly not within the spirit of the Abuja Agreement". It criticised proposed amendments to the Electoral Act as violating SADC standards for free and fair elections.

Like most other local civil society organisations and political analysts, the report concluded: "The Zimbabwe government has no serious intention to adhere to the Abuja Agreement in any of its aspects….In the view of the Forum, there are no grounds for accepting that the Abuja Agreement can have any further validity".

B. SADC's Electoral Norms and Standards
The Mugabe government made its most specific pledge regarding democratic elections when it signed the Norms and Standards for Elections in the SADC Region (N/S), which were adopted by

the SADC Parliamentary Forum plenary assembly on 25 March 2001 in Windhoek, Namibia. The Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN) and the Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee have systematically documented how the government has already violated eleven of the most important provisions.

1. The SADC N/S calls for complete independence and impartiality of the Electoral Commission, with commissioners selected by a panel of judges in consultation with all political parties and other interested stakeholders (Section C-Part 2.5, i, ii). Zimbabwe contravenes this by the presidential appointment of an Electoral Supervisory Commission in consultation with the Judicial Supervisory Commission, whose members are also presidential appointments. The election process is controlled by a Registrar-General appointed by the president. The chairman of the Electoral Supervisory Commission and the Registrar-General are widely viewed as highly partisan.
2. The N/S states that the Electoral Commission should recruit its own support staff on the basis of professionalism and competence (Cpart 2.5, iv). Zimbabwe, however, allocates the Electoral Supervisory Commission insufficient funds to hire staff and run an office. The government-proposed amendments to the Electoral Act would require monitors to be government civil servants, thus preventing independents from exercising the function.
3. The N/S states that the Electoral Commission should be required by law to provide an adequately funded education program to acquaint voters with procedures and other aspects of civic awareness (C-Part 3.2). The government has not provided the Commission funds to carry out a timely program before the spring elections.
4. The N/S states: "The role of civil society, mainly in election monitoring and civic education, should be recognised by governments (C-Part 2.4 iii). The government-proposed amendments to the Electoral Act specifically forbid any nongovernmental organisation from monitoring or conducting voter education or civic awareness campaigns. The government has indicated that it will permit only its own civil servants to work at the polls and that observers from "friendly countries" will be invited.
5. The N/S says that SADC observer missions should witness the pre-election (including voter registration), election and post-election periods in any member country without waiting for a formal invitation (C-Part 3.15 ii, v). The proposed amendments to the Electoral Act, however, state that all international observers must be invited and can witness only the actual polling and counting. A delegation from a U.S.-based organisation (International Fund for Electoral Systems) has been required to leave the country, and permission has been refused for an observer delegation from the European Union. President Mugabe stated that observer missions would only be invited from "friendly" countries and that he did not want to invite "white men".
6. The N/S states that the right to vote should be accepted as a birth right in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (C-Part 1.1 i). The government-proposed amendments to the Electoral Act would limit postal votes to diplomats and armed forces abroad. Ordinary citizens in South Africa, other SADC countries, or elsewhere would be denied the right to vote. The amendments would also authorise the Registrar-General to refuse a vote to anyone who cannot prove current residence in Zimbabwe. Amendments to the Zimbabwe Citizenship Act passed in June 2001 will prevent large numbers from voting and may cost them their citizenship, which is denied to anyone whose parents were born abroad and who does not renounce a claim to a second citizenship. This affects 40,000 of British and more than one million of Malawian, Mozambican and Zambian parentage. The potential mass disenfranchisement is being challenged in the courts. Many Zimbabweans attempting to vote in by-elections in September 2001 were turned away at the polling stations with no reason given.
7. The S/N requires continuous voter registration and that an updated register of qualified voters be available to the public. In the June 2000 parliamentary elections, however, the Registrar-General denied such access. To date no access has been given for the March presidential elections although a survey in 2000 indicated as many as 20 per cent of names carried on the register were deceased, duplicated or fictitious.
8. The S/N calls for governments to refrain from actions to thwart the private media. In Zimbabwe, editors and journalists working for independent and foreign news media have been deported, tortured, illegally detained, threatened and declared "supporters of terrorism". The government-proposed Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Bill would place severe restrictions on the press.
9. The S/N says opposition parties should be given equal access to the public news media. No access is given to opposition parties and candidates in the state media, which routinely vilifies them with a shrillness that many monitors consider tantamount to incitement to violence. The state media has a monopoly on all radio and television broadcasts.
10. The S/N states that all candidates and parties should be able to campaign freely and openly throughout the country (C-Part 1.3 i). Opposition parties and non-partisan civic groups have been regularly denied the right to assemble and demonstrate. ZANU-PF supporters have declared large rural areas to be "No-Go zones" for the opposition, whose supporters and candidates have been beaten, tortured and murdered. People found in possession of opposition pamphlets or t-shirts or independent newspapers are likewise subject to violence and even murder. Police in those rural areas have not provided protection, in some cases have participated in the violence, and have not arrested or charged ZANU-PF supporters identified as taking part in the violence.
11. The S/N requires government security forces to act impartially and professionally. The Commissioner of Police, Augustine Chihuri, has declared his loyalty to ZANU-PF and has demoted or fired any police officers suspected of supporting the opposition. The police have ignored court orders and have applied the law selectively. The Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), a secret security organisation with thousands of agents answerable only to the president, has acted against all opposition to ZANU-PF. War veterans, the armed forces, and members of the ZANU-PF militia have been implicated in numerous acts of violence with no action taken against them.

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