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Post-election update: July - September 2008
Zimbabwe Election Support Network
October 09, 2008

http://www.zesn.org.zw/pub_view.cfm?pid=224

Introduction

The report covers the period from 1 July to 5 October 2008 and captures the political, economic and social developments that took place in Zimbabwe. Though ZESN's core business is the promotion of a Zimbabwe where democratic electoral environment and processes are upheld, the political, economic and social developments in the country had direct impact on the electoral issues and processes.

Election-Related Court Cases and petitions: ZANU-PF and MDC-T election petitions seeking to invalidate results of the March 29 parliamentary elections citing electoral irregularities continued to crumble at the Electoral Court. The parties' failure to comply with the provisions of Section 169 of the Electoral Act which stipulates a time frame under which one can file a petition resulted in all petitions being thrown out by the court.

Furthermore, Section 69 of the Electoral Act stipulates that all petitions are required to be served upon the respondent personally or by leaving these at his or her residence or place of business and this should be done within 10 days of the presentation of the petition. Petitions filed by both parties were dismissed on the grounds of failure to comply with the electoral law.

Judge President Rita Makarau and Justice November Mtshiya in their judgements, quoted the then Indian Chief Justice Mahajan, who said "Statutory requirements of any election law must be strictly observed and that an election contest is not an action at law or suit in equity, but is purely a statutory proceeding unknown to common law and that the court possesses no common law power."

There are now about 51 out of 105 petitions that have so far failed at the Electoral Court since the commencement of petition hearings in June. The rest of the petitions are likely to face the same fate because of the precedent set by the former.

Presidential petitions: Mr Justine Chiota, a presidential aspirant lodged an application in the Supreme Court for an order setting aside the Presidential election. On 1 August 2008 Mr Chiota and Mr Shumba, another presidential hopeful won their Supreme Court case against the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

The judgment was that the nomination court's refusal to accept the applicants' nomination papers was not in accordance with the law and therefore null and void. Mr Chiota is now seeking a Supreme Court order to nullify the Presidential election results.

The matter has not been set down for hearing. It has been reported that Mr Chiota has also made a similar application to the SADC Tribunal. On the other hand Mr Shumba is arguing that he filed the papers on time and therefore the presidential election result should be annulled.

Proclamation Summoning Parliament: Statutory Instrument 119A/2008 was gazetered to proclaim and fix the date for the swearing-in of members of the House of Assembly and Senators. The House of Assembly swearing-in was conducted followed by the election of the Speaker and Deputy Speaker.

The Senate swearing-in was also conducted followed by the election of the President and Deputy President of the Senate. The oath was taken by all those who were sworn in as per the First Schedule of the Constitution. Election of Speaker and President of Senate was through secret ballot.

It was interesting to note that some parliamentarians voted against their party candidates and failed to toe the party line. The election of Lovemore Moyo of the MDC T party as Speaker of the House saw him garnering 110 votes against MDC party that had gone into an alliance with ZANU PF to field a single candidate Paul Themba Nyathi who got 98 votes.

This therefore means that 7 people from either the MDC or ZANU PF voted for the MDC T party. This raffled feathers in both parties especially the former where the president of the party was viewed as having lost the mandate and following of his party.

There was heckling of the President when he read his speech in parliament which drowned most of the content of his speech. The disturbances were emanating from the MDC T party who booed and sang songs during the speech. The ruling party parliamentarians, supporters including the state media condemned the act as immature and demeaning to the President and called for the arrest of the said parliamentarians.

Supporters and sympathisers of the MDC T were pleased that the President was humiliated for the violence that took place during the presidential run-off election and they felt justified for the act as parliamentarians in other countries even fight inside parliament.

Professor Jonathan Moyo, an Independent Member of Parliament and three others from the MDC party filed a court application to nullify the Speaker of Parliament "s election arguing that the election of MDC T Lovemore Moyo on 25 August was not conducted in secret as required by the law.

Lovemore Moyo argued that it was wrong for the Independent MP to bring the case to court because under the separation of powers doctrine, courts should not interfere in parliamentary business as the election was an internal matter and that he should have brought a motion to parliament to reverse the election.

Attempts for a political settlement: The talks between the MDC formations and ZANU PF were initiated and were on and off since 2004. The then President of Nigeria Olusegan Obasanjo tried to bring about a political settlement without much success.

The engagement of SADC to resolve the political impasse between the two major political parties reached a stalemate and collapsed with the two MDC formations dismissing the talks jointly for lack of progress. The talks were resumed which culminated in the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding thereby paving way for the sharing of power among the three political parties.

There were celebrations and jubilation as people celebrated the brokering of the political impasse that had brought about political and economic suffering. Others were sceptical of the deal and wait with much enthusiasm as to the implementation of the provisions of the deal.

The growing sceptism was heightened by the delayed appointment of cabinet posts through sharing of ministries amongst the three parties and this was supposed to be done jointly by the presidents of ZANU PF and the MDC parties. The delayed swearing in of the Prime Minister, Vice Presidents and the disagreement on sharing of the said four critical ministries brought in more sceptism on whether the deal will hold.

The signing of the deal has paved way for a political settlement to take place and people await the implementation of the same in order to restore the political and economic rights of citizens as well as bring food on the tables of many.

ZESN also waits that the provisions in the deal be incorporated through Amendment Number 19 but is concerned about the continued holding of ministerial positions by losing candidates.

Reports from provinces indicate that the talks between the two rival political parties has given some sense of relief to victims of political violence in areas such as Shamva in Mashonaland Central with displaced victims being allowed back into their homes and assured of protection by the police.

In areas like Hurungwe, photographs of Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe shaking hands have opened up communities to dialogue on the political violence that saw the murder of one of ZESN's short term observers.

Some sectors have seen the signed agreement as an elitist pact and that it imprecise language leaving the meaning and scope of several provisions unclear. However, assuming that the talks do finally succeed, there is potential for the opening up of democratic space in most of the country's rural constituencies, but if they fail, further clamp down on democratic forces should be anticipated.

The peace and reconciliation measures put in the MOU need to be immediately be implemented in order to heal the wounds of the victims. The process must be all inclusive, open and to cascade to the rural areas. Women and other vulnerable groups must form the core of the process in order to achieve lasting peace and national development.

The appointment of Provincial Governors

The President appointed 10 provincial Governors from his party and this will ensure that ZANU PF have the majority of Senate Seats. The re-appointments of Governors in Matabeleland North and South, Bulawayo and Harare came as no surprise as well as the appointments of new governors in the Mashonaland provinces and Manicaland.

The appointments of Martin Dinha (Mashonaland Central), Aeneas Chigwedere (Mashonaland East), Christopher Mushowe (Manicaland) and Faber Chidarikire (Mashonaland West) as well as the appointments of Joseph Msika, Patrick Chinamasa and John Nkomo were expected as these were viewed as cadres who had worked tirelessly for the party and the latter were senior party officials.

ZESN notes with concern the lack of gender balance in the Governors' appointments. The new appointments were supposed to be in line with current gender local, regional and international instruments that saw the country calling for gender equality in decision making positions.

The premature appointment of Provincial Governors from the ruling party only is in bad taste given the major strides that were taken for a political settlement to take place. Although the sharing of provinces among Governors was not in the agreement, if genuine political will was fostered, it could have resulted in the appointment of Governors from all the three political parties.

If the other two MDC parties succeed in pushing for the appointment of Governors from their parties, it means that some Governors already appointed will have to be asked to step down to pave way for the appointment of Governors from other political parties, a move which may upset the political situation.

Currently ZANU PF has 30 elected Senators and with the 10 new appointments of Governors plus chiefs most of whom have traditionally voted for ZANU PF gives it the majority. ZESN recommends the abolition of appointed seats as these are detrimental to democracy and circumvent the people's will. It was inevitable that the President and Deputy President of Senate be ZANU PF cadres given the executive appointments. Below is a table of balance of power in parliament including the provisions set in the signed agreement:

By-elections

There are three vacant seats in the House of Assembly and three vacant constituency seats in the Senate. The House of Assembly vacant seats: Gokwe-Gumunyu resulting from the death of the incumbent and Matobo North seat vacated by Mr. Lovemore Moyo who was elected Speaker of the House.

The Senate vacant seats are Chegutu seat vacated by Mrs Madzongwe on election as President of the Senate, Chiredzi seat vacated by Mr Maluleke on appointment as Provincial Governor of Masvingo Gokwe South vacated by Mr. Machaya on appointment as Provincial Governor, Midlands and recently the death of Guruve North Member of Parliament.

Reports from the Matobo North constituency say ZANU-PF supporters moved into by-election campaign mode immediately after Mr Moyo's election as Speaker and are employing intimidatory tactics. However the MOU stipulates that there will not be by-elections because the country is not ready for another election, a development which will compromise the will of the people.

The agreement suggests that if there in a death or withdrawal of a candidate the party from which the Member of Parliament was from will appoint another member. There are however technical aspects of the agreement to be discussed what if the member is an independent candidate or what if another party not involved in the agreement decides to field a candidate.

In the absence of a constitutional agreement, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission will have no choice but to call for a by-election as per the provisions of the Electoral Act and the constitutions which is above the provisions of the deal.

The death of Guruve North Member of parliament Mr Cletus Mabharanga brings to six by elections. There are also heightened fears that ZANU PF will go ahead and participate in the by-election against the terms of the agreement.

ZANU PF National Commissisar Elliot Manyika in an interview with The Chronicle said his party was gearing up for the by elections in Chegutu and Matobo North and that his party had started the selection of candidates. The party held a "sensitisation" rally in Maphisa to inform voters of the impending election.

Manyika noted that his party was awaiting the legal process of ZEC'S announcement of the vacancy of the seats before primary elections are held. This is a very disturbing development and a violation of the agreement which will have severe consequences for the political settlement.

Appointment of councillors

Mr Chombo, the current Minister of Local Government appointed nine councillors in Bulawayo among other towns and cities as per the provision of the Urban Councils Act. The Act allows the appointment of additional councillors to represent special groups in council.

However, a ratepayer, a Bulawayo resident and MDC ward Chairperson filed a High Court application challenging the appointment of the nine and arguing that Chombo abused his powers as seven out of the nine appointed did not represent special groups but were just ZANU PF cadres who were being brought through the "back door".

The Minister has been accused of interfering with the management of council business. There have been reports of losing Zanu PF councillors refusing to hand over to the winning MDC councillors.

The Basic Commodity Supply Enhancement Programme (BACOSSI) is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe where the bank procures food, which is then distributed, to the people mainly in the rural and high density areas.

The programme was introduced to cushion people against continuous price hikes that are being effected by the business community as well as businesses that have been allowed to charge in foreign currency. It leaves to be seen how sustainable the programme is given the fact that the bank buys the goods in foreign currency outside the country and more people are now living below the poverty datum line.

In the interim, the government through the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe introduced what has become known as BACOSSI, Basic Commodity Supply Side Intervention.The initiative originally meant to benefit marginalized communities access basic commodities, quickly ran out of steam just when it was supposed to move into towns.

Communities were required to pay the equivalent of $150 billion old currency to secure a 100ml tube of Colgate, shoe polish, Vaseline, bathing soap, cooking, flour, sugar and salt among many other things, the total cost at market rate would be about USD 100.

There are reports from the RBZ suggesting that the programme is still ongoing but with difficulties in accessing the commodities which are imports. It is difficult to understand how feasible it is to continue with such a venture considering the costs of importation and the little amounts communities are paying to access the commodities.

On the other hand Bacossi is viewed as a new frontier for politically - motivated food discriminations. Reports of partisan distribution of the basic commodities have been received in most provinces especially Mashonaland East and Central with allegations that the officials running the project are being instructed by ZANU PF structures.

The biggest challenge associated with the project is the use of traditional leaders and what are referred to as local government structures to distribute the food are widely perceived as partisan.

The Herald reported that residents of Ezimnyama in Plumtree have hailed the Government for introducing the Basic Commodity Supply Enhancement Programme saying it has gone a long way in helping them access scarce basic commodities at affordable prices.

In an interview with The Herald at Ezimnyama Business Centre where the residents were waiting for the distribution of the goods, they indicated that BACOSSI had helped most of the poor who could not afford the prices being charged by local business people. Most businesses in the surrounding area import their goods from Botswana, and re-sell them in foreign currency or in local currency at very high prices.

The sustainability of the programme is questionable what is needed are long-term economic strategies. Zimbabwe currently suffers the world's highest rate of inflation last estimated at one and half million percent with millions depending on food aid.

Activities of civil society organisations: Some humanitarian organizations have resumed their operations but the delay caused untold suffering to villagers. NANGO is concerned that the conditions set for NGOs to operate are stringent and will impact negatively on activities. It is hoped that government will remove the conditionalities and allow the free flow of humanitarian aid.

Political Violence

According to the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) politically motivated violence has declined but there are disturbing reports of cases of violence in most areas where assaults, harassment and intimidation have been reported.

Tolerance to freedom of expression and different views is still rampant with clashes over different opinions on the signed agreement between Zanu PF and MDC supporters. Political intolerance has been reported throughout the country and opposition supporters still cannot wear their party regalia.

Despite the signed agreement there is generally fear and polarisation as the pre-election experiences are still fresh in many people's minds.

Matabeleland was reported to be calm with very little incidents of political violence. Although the deal has been signed among the three political parties to pave way for power sharing, the spirit has not yet cascaded to some communal areas and there is lack of awareness about it.

Cases of communities demanding instant justice from perpetrators were reported. It is important for truth, justice and reconciliation programmes to be put in place as a way to heal the nation.

Conclusion

Zimbabwe emerged from the 2008 harmonized election, politically, socially and economically battered given the political violence that took place during the run-off.

ZESN calls for electoral and major political reforms in order to have a conducive environment that will facilitate the conduct of free and fair elections.

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