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Report on the 29 March Harmonized and run-off elections
Zimbabwe Election Support Network
August 30, 2008

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Executive summary

While the 29 March Harmonized Election and 27 the June Presidential run-off have come and gone, they are poised to leave an indelible imprint in Zimbabwe's post independence electoral history. The limelight and controversy they generated within regional and global contexts have no local electoral parallels save those witnessed during the legendary 1980 Independence Election.

They set in motion a chain of events which if not urgently addressed are set to see the current socio-economic meltdown in the country worsening to unprecedented levels. For the first time in its history, Zimbabwe went for almost half a year without a popularly elected Government in place, for that matter at a time when bold decisions were needed to bail out the country from its socio-economic meltdown.

Controversial as they were, the elections marked a significant departure from past electoral experiences. For the first time since independence in 1980, Zimbabwe conducted four elections rolled in one, hence "harmonized" elections. Until 2005, presidential and parliamentary elections were held separately with presidential elections after every five years and parliamentary elections after every six years.

In contrast to the overly restrictive electoral frameworks under which past elections were conducted, the 29 March and 27 June Elections were conducted under a visibly reconstituted electoral framework following the Electoral Laws Amendment Act [2008] and amendments to POSA, AIPPA and the Public Broadcasting Act.

Also, votes were to be counted at polling stations, presiding officers obliged to record them on Return Forms [VIIs] and post them outside polling stations before submitting them to constituency centers, electoral changes that visibly enhanced transparency and accountability in the counting and tabulation of election results.

Equally instructive is to note that while in past elections a presidential candidate with the highest number of votes, even if below 50% of the total vote cast would be eligible for presidency, the 29 March's new electoral dispensation mandated the presidential candidate to meet a stipulated 50% + 1 vote. Also unlike in previous elections, the electoral framework explicitly provided for a run-off and also outlined the specific frameworks that will apply in the event of this scenario, thus attaching a precautionary measure never attached before to any election.

The electoral administrative framework was also reconstituted with the dissolution and placing of the functions initially undertaken by the Delimitation Commission, the Electoral Supervisory Commission under the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission with the Registrar-General of Elections and the Election Directorate directly under it. However, as shown in the section below, the electoral framework is still fraught with several gaps, in need of urgent intervention.

While the run up to the 29 March Harmonized Elections and the polling day itself were relatively calm, post poll scenarios cast an incomparable trend. For the first time in the nation's post independence electoral history, the electorate had to contend with an anxiety-laden six-week delay in the release of the presidential poll.

The delay was so unprecedented that the regional body, SADC, was galvanized into convening an emergency meeting in Lusaka [Zambia] to drum up pressure for the release of presidential results in Zimbabwe. As if this delay was not nerve-racking enough, the Zimbabwean voter was in for yet another electoral first when ZEC, the body tasked for the overall management of elections, ordered a recount of results in 23 constituencies before the release of the presidential poll, a decision that generated animated debates and speculations within and across the globe.

When the results were finally released on 2 May 2008, it took almost two weeks to have the run-off date announced on 15 May 2008 during which the run up to the run off degenerated into a run over leaving in its wake a trail of destruction, houses burnt down, many people displaced and homeless, many children orphaned, and community relations torn asunder. Freedom of assembly and movement were heavily restricted with rural areas virtually sealed off from opposition rallies, the opposition leadership subjected to sporadic arrests and detentions, their campaign activities under total blackout on national electronic and press media. Hate speech, incitement of violence, and threats of war characterized electoral campaigns, with the ruling party presidential candidate threatening to go back to war if he lost the election to the MDC presidential candidate, whom he considered a puppet of the West.

The intensity with which this retributive violence was perpetrated was so shocking that a week to the 27 June run-off saw Thabo Mbeki, the South African President making spirited effort to cancel the run-off, urging ZANU PF and the MDC to bury their hatchets and start negotiating for a Government of National Unity [GNU], a suggestion which however did not carry the day as Zimbabwe defiantly went ahead with the Election. Calls for the cancellation of the run off were also echoed by African luminaries such as Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and Kofi Annan, as well as from the UN Secretary General, Britain and United States of America.

On 21 June 2008, the MDC presidential aspirant withdrew from the race alleging gross retributive state violence against his supporters, a development that relegated the election to a one-horse run off.

The Polling Day was characterized by poor voter turnout in urban areas, an extraordinarily high number of spoilt ballots [39 975 in the March Election against 131 481 in the June Election] with a significant number reportedly carrying insulting messages, an unusually high number of assisted voters, and recording of serial numbers, incidents that point to a banal breach of voter rights and secrecy. In most rural constituencies, voters were reportedly herded to polling stations by traditional leaders, instructed to vote for the ruling party candidate and also ordered to record their ballot papers' serial numbers and after polling give them to the local leaders. Soldiers and police presence was reportedly heavy such that in some cases their presence reportedly overshadowed that of voters.

In stark contrast to the six week delay that accompanied the release of the 29 March elections, the 27 June results were speedily released and within 24 hours, the winner had been sworn in as President of Zimbabwe at a function whose regional and international presence however least resembled past experiences.

The 27 June "run-off" received round condemnation in both process and outcome with a number of countries such as Botswana, Zambia, Britain and the United States openly declaring their rejection of the elections, terms such as "farce" and "sham" generally used to characterize it. The Government of Botswana openly called for the expulsion of Zimbabwe from the SADC and the AU while the African National Congress youth league Chairman Julius Malema called the run off "a joke of the worst order".

Reports by the Pan African Parliament Observer Team, the African Union Observer Mission, the Botswana Observer Team, and the SADC Election Observer Mission [SEOM] Preliminary Report also roundly condemned the election process and outcome as generally "not giving rise to the conduct of free, fair and credible elections", "falling short of accepted AU standards", "not representing the will of the people of Zimbabwe", "not conforming to SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections', among other characterizations. The Group of Eminent African leaders that include Nelson Mandela also expressed visible disquiet on the conduct of elections, generally describing the election as illegitimate and in fact a dark patchy in Africa's electoral history.

Observed electoral gaps and the way forward

Such a highly agitated electoral environment hardly suffices for free and fair elections. The two political parties must engage in power-sharing talks in order to find a lasting solution to the political impasse. Such dialogues should however be guided by the "will of the people" as anything short of that constitutes a truce and not a permanent settlement. The message of zero tolerance to political violence must also cascade from the top leadership structures to the grassroots, with political leaders publicly denouncing political violence in both words and action.

While Zimbabwe continues to conduct its elections within the Westminster system of first past the post [FPTP] based on the "winner- take-all" model, the solution to the political stalemate in Zimbabwe lies in an electoral paradigmatic shift to more inclusive, accommodating, win-win electoral systems based on proportional representation [for Senate] and Mixed Electoral Models [for the Lower House].

On voter registration and inspection of the Voters' Roll, it was noted with concern that the exercise started late with little time allocated for voter registration and inspection; that the voters roll is not up to date and that the problem of ghost voters remains a problem and that in some cases, insufficient and incorrect information was provided to citizens about the registration process. Voter registration must be approached as an ongoing process, stringent requirements which discourage people from registering as voters must be done away with, and that the voter registration exercise be sufficiently publicized to ensure maximum voter participation.

While the Electoral Act obliges ZEC to conduct voter education it was disturbing to note that voter education started late and in some cases with reports of "little voter education" having been conducted by ZEC by the time of elections. ZEC should be availed with adequate resources for voter education and that adequate monitoring mechanisms should be put in place to ensure that voter education is conducted in a uniform, professional and non-partisan manner. ZEC should also provide more space to NGOs to provide gap filling voter education.

Although ZEC now has direct responsibility over the delimitation exercise, its management of the delimitation process was far from satisfactory. Insufficient time was allowed for people and parliamentarians to participate in the process. The final Delimitation Report was tabled in Parliament very late in the electoral process leaving little time to educate the public on changes to boundaries [ward and constituencies]. Delays in the finalization of the delimitation exercise resulted in voter registration and inspections being done before the exercise leading to costly re-runs of primaries in several constituencies. ZEC must be obliged to give public notice before embarking on a delimitation exercise and "so far as is practicable within the time available" entertain representations from political parties and other interested parties who are likely to be affected by it.

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