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Punishing dissent, silencing citizens: The Zimbabwe elections 2008
Solidarity Peace Trust
May 21, 2008

http://www.solidaritypeacetrust.org/index.php?page=reports

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Introduction

1. Executive Summary

The 2008 Harmonised Election in Zimbabwe was arguably the most historic of the post-independence elections, as for the first time in the last 28 years the ruling party lost its parliamentary majority and the President lost the first round of the Presidential election. This result represented the culmination of a decade of political and civic opposition to a former liberation party whose legitimacy has been greatly eroded by nearly three decades of intolerant rule. At a national level it is a clear message that despite the extremely harsh and repressive political environment in which elections have been conducted in Zimbabwe, the people of the country found the "resources of hope" required to say no to continued authoritarian rule. For the former liberation movements in the region this is also a message of the capacity of once venerated liberation parties to degenerate into unpopular cleptocracies. However it is the violence that has been unleashed by the Mugabe regime on Zimbabwean citizens that has demonstrated the hollowness of Mugabe's anti-colonial message, with the real targets of his party's onslaught being the impoverished and battered citizens of the country. The conduct of ZANU PF since the March 29th elections has encapsulated the degeneracy of the Mugabe legacy, and the security threat that this regime now poses to Zimbabweans and the region. The report that follows is a narrative of hope, thwarted by a leader and political party who view the source of their legitimacy not as the electoral process, but the combination of a selective imposition of a liberation legacy and the brutal deployment of political compliance.

The election took place within the context of the SADC mediation process led by South African President Thabo Mbeki, which provided limited electoral reforms and engendered a more free and fair electoral environment. The mediation's intention was to get political parties in Zimbabwe to agree on processes that would lead to a generally acceptable election. However, the mediation ended in early 2008 with key issues, such as a new constitution, undecided and the unilateral decision by President Mugabe to set the date for the election on March 29th 2008. Nevertheless one of the electoral reforms agree on in the mediation process, namely the requirement to post all election results outside polling stations in the presence of candidates and election agents, was to provide the opposition with a key mechanism to track election results.

After over a month of delay before the release of the election results the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) finally announced that the combined MDC won a majority of 109 seats in Parliament against ZANU PF's 97 seats, thus defeating the ruling party's majority in the House of Assembly for the first time in the post-independence period. The more controversial Presidential count gave 47.9% of the vote to Morgan Tsvangirai, 43.2% to Mugabe, 8.3% to Makoni and 0.6% to Langton Towungana. However the less than 50% plus one victory for Morgan Tsvangirai means that there will have to be a re-run of the Presidential election. This will take place on the 26th June 2008.

After the enormous controversy surrounding the delay and the final count of the election the most shocking development of this election has been the state-sponsored brutality that followed the ZANU PF parliamentary and first round Presidential defeat. As the report makes clear the violence that has been inflicted on the Zimbabwean citizenry was carefully planned by a combination of army, police and CIO officials at a meeting in Nkayi in mid April. This followed the threat of violence made by both Mugabe and the security chiefs in the pre-election period, threatening retribution against the people of Zimbabwe in the event of a ZANU PF electoral loss. In the words of the brigadier at the Nkayi meeting, "if we lose through the ballot we will go back to the bush."

The Report makes it clear that ZANU PF has embarked on a systematic programme of retributive violence in response to its electoral defeat. The major features of this violence are:

• Key polling agents and election observers have beaten, threatened and/or displaced.
• There have been 22 confirmed deaths since 1st April and there are increasing numbers of reports of well known activists being abducted.
• The Joint Operational Command (JOC) composed of representatives from the army, the police, the CIO and the prison service have been implicated in 56% of the post election violations, with the perpetrators acting on the assumption of total Immunity. The police are under instructions not to arrest perpetrators, even when they file cases and victims know their assailants as they often do.
• Although there have been shootings, most of the deaths and injuries involve simple beatings and other forms of torture committed with ordinary objects such as sticks, fan belts, chains, burning plastic bags, rocks and logs.
• While no violation reported to us was attributed to the MDC it is nonetheless clear that there have been cases of defensive responses on the part of the MDC in the wake of the current violence.
• In several constituencies in Mashonaland, the winning ZANU PF MPs have been shockingly implicated as spear-heading the violence. The two most appalling examples of this is the alleged involvement of Minister of Health David Parirenyatwa in orchestrating and inciting violence in Murehwa North, and the direct involvement of Major Cairo Mandhu in the public beatings of at least six people in Mazowe North.
• An alarming aspect of the violence is the fact that the community members and even family members are committing these brutal acts against one another.
• Between the 30th March and 30th April there were more than ten times as many violations as in the previous month of March, with 618 political violations.
• By the 16th May doctors in Harare reported that they had treated 1,600 victims since April 1st.
• During the first two weeks of May the pace of rural civilians fleeing to Harare has clearly escalated.
• The majority of violations (46%) have taken place in three Mashonaland provinces. These provinces have traditionally been the stronghold of the ruling party. However in this election, there was a swing towards the MDC, which won 12 out of 60 parliamentary seats in these provinces. The violence in Mashonaland can thus be seen to be both retributive, and as an attempt to reverse the flow of support to the opposition. In all these areas the violence has been highly structured and coordinated, with JOC in charge.
• The strategy to win the run-off has been implemented in Matabeleland North and South, but without much of the violence evident in Mashonaland.
• 77% of the victims since March 30th have been affiliated to the MDC.
• The average age of the victims has been 37.5 years.

2. Recommendations

1) A run-off of the Presidential election in the current environment is neither practical nor desirable. The SADC mediator should therefore take urgent steps to bring the major parties together into a renewed mediation process to discuss the following:

• Immediate demobilization of the ruling party structures orchestrating the violence in Zimbabwe. SADC observers should be sent into the country immediately to observe and assist this process.
• Discussions around the creating of a transitional government composed of representatives of the MDC and ZANU PF to map out conditions for political stabilization, humanitarian assistance and interim measures to help stabilize the economy.
• Such a transitional authority should then map out the process for the creation of a new constitution, and the conditions necessary for such a constitution to come into force.
• Recognition by both the mediator and SADC that the central obstacle to a peaceful transition in Zimbabwe is Robert Mugabe and those elements in his security and political structures for whom a political alternative is unthinkable.

2) SADC and the AU should combine a strategy of assisting and supporting such a transitional process, with a clear message to the Mugabe regime that it can expect no further diplomatic support in the event of its continued recalcitrance in the political process.

3) Peace-building measures in civil society, building on on-going initiatives in the country, should be strengthened and supported by the presence of regional church and civic actors. Such an initiative could help to contain and roll back the zones of violence in the country.

Finally there needs to be a general recognition that Zimbabwe is sinking fast into the conditions of a civil war, propelled largely by the increasing reliance on violence by the ruling party to stay in power, and the rapidly shrinking spaces for any form of peaceful political intervention.

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