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Zim election commission comes under fire
Agence France-Presse (AFP)
April 07, 2008

http://zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=18544

Zimbabwe's electoral commission (ZEC) has been accused of pro-government bias by the opposition and of rank incompetence by the ruling party as it sits on results of last weekend's presidential polls. The theoretically independent body has come under fire not only from both sides of Zimbabwe's political divide but also from abroad, with the US querying its impartiality because President Robert Mugabe appointed its leadership. In its pre-emptive announcement last Tuesday that it had won both the parliamentary and presidential election, the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) made clear its lack of faith in the commission. "We don't trust the ZEC, which is not independent," said party secretary general Tendai Biti before either the presidential or parliamentary results had been announced. Even though the ZEC has since declared the MDC beat Mugabe's Zanu PF in the parliamentary elections, the opposition is still not convinced. "Instead of verifying, they are modifying the results in the presidential elections," chief MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said yesterday.

The MDC, convinced the delay in the presidential election results is a tactic to buy Mugabe time, has launched a legal bid to force the commission to declare the outcome. However, as its lawyers spent the weekend in the high court, the ZEC has also had to fend off flak from Zanu PF. The ruling party now wants a complete recount, both of the presidential election and 16 key parliamentary constituencies. "This the worst-run election I have ever experienced," Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa said in announcing plans to contest some of the parliamentary results. In revealing Zanu PF's demand for a complete recount of the presidential election, the state-run Herald said the party was particularly concerned about the outcome in four particular constituencies.

In a letter to the commission, Zanu PF's lawyers wrote: "The constituency elections officer and his team committed errors of miscounting that are so glaring as to prejudice not just our clients' candidate but also (in some instances) his co-contestants." Amid the accusations, one provincial elections officer has been arrested. The ZEC replaced the Electoral Supervisory Commission in 2006 after complaints from the opposition that it had helped Mugabe rig previous elections. According to the law, the ZEC's chairperson is appointed by the president after consultation with the judicial service commission. It consists of four other commissioners appointed by the president from a list of seven nominees submitted by a parliamentary committee.

But Lovemore Madhuku, a constitutional lawyer and long-time government critic, said it would be a "fallacy" to describe the ZEC as independent. "There is no difference between the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and its predecessor, the Electoral Supervisory Commission. What we had was just a name change and no fundamental change," he said. US State Department spokesperson Tom Casey suggested last week that delays could be down to the "somewhat politicised composition" of the ZEC. But with the parliamentary results having confounded predictions that the ZEC would hand victory to the ruling party on a plate, some commentators say such criticism is unfair.

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