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Preventing electoral fraud in Zimbabwe: A report on the voters' roll in Zimbabwe
South African Institute of Race Relations
May 30, 2011

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The primary objective of Zimbabwe's coalition Government, born of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) of September 2008, was to lay the foundations for free and fair elections. The GPA itself only emerged after the elections of March-June 2008 in which the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won a parliamentary majority. This was then followed by a presidential election campaign of such surpassing violence that the MDC candidate, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, withdrew rather than expose his followers to further brutality. After some pressure from Zimbabwe's neighbours in the Southern Africa Development Community (SADC), the GPA was signed. This allowed President Robert Mugabe to remain in power with Mr Tsvangirai as Prime Minister. The GPA called for a new constitution and new elections which would resolve Zimbabwe's decade-long crisis.

This arrangement necessarily entrusted an utterly key role and mandate to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC). This was problematic, for the ZEC has major credibility problems due to its past use as a politicised and partisan tool of the ruling Zanu-PF Government. Hence, if fresh elections are to work, the credibility and capacity of the ZEC will be pivotal.

Over the years numerous reports have been compiled and submitted to the electoral authorities about the grave deficiencies of the voters' roll, itself the responsibility of the Registrar-General of Elections, Mr Tobaiwa Mudede, a self-acknowledged Zanu-PF die-hard. On the sole occasion when any notice was taken of these exposés - the last report by the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network (ZESN), a network of civil society organisations - the ZEC merely referred the problem back to Mr Mudede. This, of course, resulted in no remedial action.

This report sets out the detailed problems with the latest version (as of October 2010) of the voters' roll. It also suggests why some members of the ZEC are unfit to sit on a body which is currently the most important institution on which a democratic future for Zimbabwe depends.

The Report also suggests that Mr Mudede cannot be the right man for the post of Registrar-General, for he has been largely responsible for the defective voters' rolls used in elections since 2000 and for the extremely flawed electoral processes witnessed in these polls. Any serious attempt to give Zimbabwe a free and fair election requires his replacement by a properly neutral civil servant.

The three parties in the current Zimbabwe Government - Zanu-PF, MDC (Tsvangirai) and MDC (Ncube) - have been and still are negotiating a Road Map to free and fair elections. The GPA requires that there must first be a new constitution, approved by a popular referendum. However, it would be difficult for a credible referendum to take place without a new voters' roll. To be sure, current legislation caters for such a possibility in theory, but in practice a referendum held when there is such controversy over phantom voters would be bound to be challenged. The earliest conceivable date for presidential and parliamentary elections following a proper referendum would be 14th June 2012. Any difficulties in negotiation either at the level of the three negotiating parties, or at the level of the SADC, can only delay this date further.

The Road Map is supposed to be endorsed soon by the SADC, by which time all contentious issues are supposed to have been settled. It is hoped that the present Report will assist in this process. However, the issues raised in this Report are not susceptible to last-minute fudges or minor alterations. They are not only fundamental but also require time. To draw up a new voters' roll from scratch will require months of work and considerable organisation and expenditure. A new Registrar-General needs to be appointed and to work himself into his job, and a new set of personnel for the ZEC will need to do the same. If the Road Map is to succeed at all, these issues must be confronted and dealt with right away.

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