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Inflation hobbles electoral commission
Jason Moyo, Mail and Guardian (SA)
May 09, 2008

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=338748&area=/insight/insight__africa/

A picture is emerging of a Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) crippled by what one official described as "a flat purse" and difficulties in attracting fresh staff to run the elections.

Tomasz Salomao, Southern African Development Community (SADC) executive secretary, said ZEC officials had assured a ministerial committee of the regional body that a date for the presidential run-off would be announced once all the logistical requirements were met.

Salamao, from the SADC's organ on politics, defence and security, was part of a four-member team. The other members included the foreign affairs ministers of Angola, Swaziland and Tanzania.

Senior ZEC officials met on Tuesday to discuss "our state of preparedness", deputy chief elections officer Utoile Silaigwana said. He gave no details.

However, a government source said it was something of a miracle that the commission had pulled off the first round of voting and that, in terms of funding, the ZEC was now in an even worse position.

The ZEC is still busy drawing up a "provisional budget" for the election, the source said. But a firm figure is a moving target -- while government bureaucrats pore over ZEC's initial funding forecasts the costs are soaring daily.

A new exchange rate regime was announced by the Central Bank last week, effectively ending official currency controls. Within hours of the announcement, the Zimbabwe dollar dropped from Z$30 000 to the US dollar to Z$160-million on a new official interbank market.

At the close of trade on Wednesday, traders were quoting the US dollar at Z$220-million -- and they forecast even sharper falls before the rate stabilises.

This means that the ZEC's initial budget for imported election materials, such as ink, has been decimated.

The commission received less than a third of what it needed to run the March 29 election, officials disclosed, and there was no budget provision for a second round. Inflation is running at 165 000%.

The source said five million new ballot papers would have to be printed and that thousands of polling officers were needed. "I don't think that will happen within 21 days," he said.

Having rejected offers of foreign support the government will have to borrow from local markets or print more money, government officials conceded.

Spending for the first round was funded entirely by internal borrowing, leaving state debt at a staggering Z$6,5-quadrillion as at April 17.

In the post-election period dozens of polling officers -- drawn entirely from the civil service -- were jailed, accused of deliberately understating votes for President Robert Mugabe.

Few are likely to take up the offer this time round, the Progressive Teachers' Union warned. This week the union said schools in many rural areas had failed to open for the second term, amid escalating violence against teachers.

The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace urged a delay, saying Zimbabwe was too "traumatised" for a new poll. It said polling agents of opposition parties had been scattered by the violence and were unlikely to return for the run-off.

News flash
The editor of the Mail & Guardian's sister newspaper in Zimbabwe, The Standard, was arrested this week in Harare because the paper published an article written by an MDC leader who criticized government.

The Standard's editor, Davison Maruziva, was taken to the Harare central police station on Thursday morning by two police officers from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID).

He was charged with contempt of court and communicating false statements that prejudice government.

These charges stem from an article written by the MDC's Arthur Mutambara and published by The Standard on April 20.

"Our country is characterised by extreme illegitimacy where we have an abrasive caretaker president and an illegally constituted Cabinet in cahoots with an imbecilic and cynical military junta, running the affairs of our country," wrote Mutambara.

"There is clearly criminal collusion between ZEC and Zanu-PF. To add insult to injury, this unholy marriage is dutifully consummated by a compliant and pliable judiciary typified and exemplified by Judge Tendai Uchena's unreasonable and thoughtless decision not to order ZEC to release the Presidential results."

The Standard is published on Sundays and has a circulation of 30 000. Iden Wetherell, group project editor of The Standard and its sister paper, The Independent, said that the Zimbabwean government preferred to "shoot the messenger" rather than arrest Mutambara on the basis of his statement.

"To arrest an editor will make a fuss for a while but it will die down. If they arrested Mutambara it would attract too much attention."

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