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Delimitation exercise dismissed as a fraud
Caiphas Chimhete and Bertha Shoko, The Standard (Zimbabwe)
January 20, 2008

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/viewinfo.cfm?linkid=11&id=8186&siteid=1

The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) says new constituencies have been demarcated in a way that favours the ruling Zanu PF.

Commenting on the demarcation of 210 constituencies to be contested in the harmonised polls set for March, the MDC anti-Senate formation secretary for elections, Ian Makone said from the outset the whole delimitation method was "fraudulent" because it was based on a "flawed" process.

He said the delimitation was based on a flawed voters' roll, which had thousands of ghost voters, some of them long since deceased, while others had moved from their original constituencies.

"There were very glaring anomalies in the voters' roll," said Makone, "and we pointed that out, but they proceeded against our sound advice. We are therefore not confident in the constituency boundaries."

Asked what the MDC would do about the alleged anomaly, Makone said: "We are still in the struggle for conditions that enable free and fair elections. We have a protest march next week (this week) and we are still negotiating. The trick is to apply a bit of pressure."

The comments followed the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC)'s presentation of a report on the delimitation of constituency and ward boundaries for the harmonised elections to President Robert Mugabe before it is tabled in Parliament.

According to the delimitation report, there are now 210 House of Assembly constituencies, 60 elective Senatorial constituencies and 1 958 local authority wards.

The party claimed the delimitation report was being deliberately made inaccessible so that both MPs and their electorate remain in the dark about the constituencies until the last minute.

Last Friday, legislators, journalists and voters jostled to take a look at the only copy that officials at Parliament said they had.

Most of them left the building frustrated after failing to obtain a copy which would enable them to analyse the report.

But those that did get a glimpse of the report were not very pleased either.

The MDC said some urban areas had been attached to rural areas or been split in a bid to neutralise the opposition party's urban dominance.

They said this pattern was most pronounced in Mutare, Harare and Bulawayo.

Kambuzuma MDC MP Willias Madzimure said his constituency had been split and believed Zanu PF was trying to "disable" the party's support in the area.

Madzimure said Rugare suburb has been merged with Mbare and now formed Southerton constituency.

Meanwhile Kambuzuma has been extended to parts of Mufakose and New Marimba.

"Kambuzuma's voting pattern has been very strong and well-coordinated over the years. In fact, it is one of our strongest areas in Harare and by splitting the constituency all they wanted was to destabilise our strongholds," said Madzimure.

"I just don't get the logic they used to merge these constituencies. Rugare is much closer to Kambuzuma than it is to Mbare. In fact, not many people know that Rugare is not in Kambuzuma."

The party's provincial organising secretary for Manicaland, Prosper Mutseyami, complained that Mutare district, the most populous district in the province, got only one additional constituency while the smaller Makoni district got two more.

Apart from that, several suburban areas of Mutare have been attached to nearby rural areas in a bid to "dilute" the MDC's urban influence.

The leafy suburbs of Murambi, Fan Valley, Yeovil and Greenside have now been linked to rural areas, he said.

"This is daylight robbery by Zanu PF. They have created constituencies to suit their desires in order to rob us of our guaranteed victory," said Mutseyami.

In Harare, constituencies have been heavily split and the MDC claims this was done deliberately to weaken the party in the harmonised polls.

But ZEC deputy chief elections officer (operations) Utloile Silaigwana on Saturday dismissed the allegations as "baseless".

"If you take a critical look, you will notice that urban centres have the highest number of constituencies. Harare has the highest number of constituencies. Why are they complaining?" said Silaigwana.

He asked The Standard to fax questions to his office so he could provide a detailed response. But Silaigwana had not responded by the time of going to print yesterday.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (Zesn), a coalition of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) formed to co-ordinate activities pertaining to elections, said it could not comment because it had not seen the report.

"We went to Parliament but there was only one copy for everyone. It is impossible to make an informed comment because we have not analysed the report," said a Zesn official.

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