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Election monitors allege food was used to influence vote
IRIN News
November 02, 2006

http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=56184

HARARE - As Zimbabwe's ruling party romped home to victory in the recent rural district council elections, an independent election monitor has expressed concern over the alleged hold traditional leaders had over voters.

"The influence of the traditional leaders over voters was widespread. In many areas they abandoned their neutrality in the community," claimed Reginald Matchaba-Hove, chairman of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), an electoral monitoring organisation.

In many districts, traditional leaders used access to state-subsidised maize to influence voters, alleged a ZESN report on the elections. "It was reported that residents were told that if the election outcome was not favourable to ZANU-PF the price [of the state-subsidised maize] would be increased. Voters who were turned away on polling day were disgruntled because it would mean that they would be unable to purchase maize. Even a polling officer who was ineligible to vote in that ward, asked to have her finger dipped in the indelible ink so that she could claim to have voted and have access to purchase the maize".

ZESN observers said they had also received reports of delivery of state-subsidised maize in districts a week before the elections. The election monitor said intimidation and threats to influence the vote were electoral offences and has urged action.

The weekend's rural district council elections were the first to be held under the supervision of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission since its inception in 2004. The last rural council polls were held in 2002.

Utoile Silaigwana, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, told IRIN that they had not seen any anomalies during the elections.

"The elections went on smoothly and we did not experience any problems that had been anticipated by some. Everything was in place when the elections kicked off. It was a tranquil and peaceful election."

The ruling ZANU-PF, whose support-base is largely rural, took 1,247 out of the 1,340 seats, with the two factions of the largely urban-based, main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, managing to make a small dent with 89 seats in the elections held on 28 October.

Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of one of the MDC factions, cited alleged intimidation by traditional leaders as a reason for their failure to make significant inroads in the rural areas and said there was no consultation on issues such as voter registration and location of polling stations. "...We had polling stations being moved away from MDC strongholds and being located in ZANU-PF strongholds".

However, in one significant result in the Kariba rural district in the northern Mashonaland West province, the home of President Robert Mugabe, an MDC faction snatched two rural wards away from the ZANU-PF.

The election was also marked by a low voter turnout, according Matchaba-Hove. The ZESN had yet to calculate the numbers of votes registered in all the district councils, but said the voter turnout was as low as nine percent in themayoral election in the town of Kadoma in Mashonaland West, which was also held on the same day.

"People are aware of the uneven playing field - they know they will not be able to bring about any meaningful change," explained John Makumbe, a senior political science lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe.

ZESN has proposed an intensification of the voter education exercise. 

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