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No free, credible and fair elections under Mugabe
Mandla Akhe Dube
October 28, 2007

The government has recently announced that there will be harmonised elections in March 2008 to elect a Parliament, Senate and president.

Parliament will increase from 150 to 210 MPs while the Senate will balloon to 93 from 66. This is well beyond the capacity and requirements of a country with an official government inflation rate of 7 000% or an unofficial rate of 13 000%.

Having worked on elections in the various Southern Africa Development Community states, namely Mozambique, Lesotho, South Africa and Zimbabwe, I am sufficiently experienced to share a few comments with regards to the March 2008 elections in Zimbabwe.

Sad as it is, the existing Zimbabwe government has no capacity or intention to conduct a credible election in March 2008. President Robert Mugabe is not ready to vote himself out of power or talk himself out of office. South Africa's Thabo Mbeki has not been successful as yet in his SADC-mandated role to mediate between the ruling Zanu PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

A credible and accessible electoral roll is the cornerstone of a democratic election but Zimbabwe's roll is in a shambles. Only the Registrar-General's office, under the watchful eye of Tobaiwa Mudede, knows who is still on it. Everywhere else in the world, the roll is a public document. Not in Zimbabwe.

Electoral campaigns anywhere require travel, mass media access, a credible and independent judiciary, just laws and non-partial public authorities. But in Zimbabwe there is no fuel and that which is available is for the ruling elite.

Media access is only guaranteed to the ruling party, which also appoints key figures in the judiciary, police force, army and intelligence. All party appointees owe their allegiance to the ruling party through Mugabe.

Zimbabwe's media laws are in the league of the most repressive. The Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Public Order Security Act infringe on basic human rights around movement, assembly and association. These laws make it virtually impossible for any other political contestant to meaningfully engage and access the mass media.

The State-controlled electronic and print mass media are gagged from giving balanced coverage before, during and after the elections. In the last elections they would not accept advertisements from opposition political parties and voter education material from non-governmental organisations.

Elections in Zimbabwe are a game in which one team has the players, linesmen, referee and support staff. Winning under such terms requires a miracle.

While opposition parties are yet to launch their campaigns and or publicly declare participation, Zanu PF launched their campaign on 11 March 2007 when they brutalised such figures as MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai, Grace Kwinjeh, Sekai Holland and far too many more. MDC activist Gift Tandare was murdered. A former Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings cameraman, Edward Chikomba, believed to have sent the gruesome footage to the world press, was also murdered.

New Zealanders will hear firsthand testimony of Sekai Holland's gruesome experiences when she tours under the auspices of Save Zimbabwe Campaign next month. She is undergoing deep tissue therapy and treatment in Sydney for more than 80 injuries and broken bones.

Back home, repression and violence have escalated according to Zimbabwe's Human Rights Forum who document cases. These attacks have been carried out by youth militias, war veterans, police and the army whose leaders have recently been rewarded with plush four-wheel drive vehicles.

Since 1985 those charged with electoral violence have been guaranteed presidential amnesties and some rewarded with overseas appointments or ministerial posts.

Mother Nature for some reason also tends to make life easier for Mugabe's party when elections come. Often there is famine and the ruling party has intercepted food to deliver to voters as a political tool.

The most obvious non-violent course of action post elections is through the courts. As the MDC found in 2002 cases are routinely not heard, contending parties are not given access to key evidence and there are no judges available and so the cases are postponed until they become academic exercises. In rare glimpses of court hearings, the judiciary has no latitude to find otherwise than in favour of the State.

The ruling party appointed commission to suit the interests of its paymaster will decide constituency boundaries. People in certain rural areas are rewarded with a high number of constituencies while the more critical urban population are given smaller numbers.

The Registrar-General's office decides the number and location of polling stations. In previous elections, notably in 2002 this tactic was used effectively to make sure that urban registered voters could not cast their vote. A High court order to extend the polls was simply ignored.

The 2005 Operation Murambatsvina is likely to disenfranchise nearly a million eligible urban voters who were forcibly displaced and are unlikely to be allowed to reregister.

What then is different from 2008? So far nothing. With the failure of the SADC to mediate effective change, the election outcome may as well be lying in someone's drawer ready for release in March.

How then can progressive forces within and outside Zimbabwe make 2008 a watershed election?

Discard the electoral roll and use the national identity card vote for voter identification.

One-day election. An extended one-day only poll would maximise the meagre resources and take away challenges around overnight security of ballot boxes. The obvious way to achieve this is to increase the number of polling stations nationwide and use clinics, service centres, schools, boreholes or water points, chief's homesteads as polling centres. Let there be a record number of polling stations in Zimbabwe so that no one has to walk more than 5km to access democracy.

Results processing should be done at each polling station and made public to everyone present. They can be broadcast to a national live command centre.

One constituency concept. Every eligible Zimbabwean within the country casts his/her ballot at the nearest polling station. There they will vote and hand over their ID for 24 hours to eliminate double or triple voting. In
2000, I like many Zimbabweans did not know the candidates. We entrusted the party we chose to give us credible candidates. In a land with no resources such as Zimbabwe, it is easier and practical to cast a vote for the MDC, Zanu PF or any other party rather than for individual candidates.

Diaspora vote. Those Zimbabweans living in neighbouring Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, Malawi and Zambia could vote at border posts unless the UN can facilitate a better process. Voting tallies should be made public. The Diaspora vote will only be credible if the Zimbabwe Embassies are not involved, thereby preventing Zanu PF involvement in transmitting the votes.

The Diaspora vote is estimated to be about 4 million. Denying suffrage to such a huge constituency is a major travesty of justice. These are the Zimbabweans whose remittances have kept the nation afloat.

In the meantime, Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have to collectively demand their vote. We do not owe that vote to Zanu PF or any political party but to the nation, Zimbabwe. Let us mobilise.

The closest to a free, fair and credible election was in 1980 when many Zimbabwean ID-carrying persons, 18 years and over, cast their ballots at the nearest possible polling station. Twenty-eight years later, Zimbabwe would be wise to unwind the clock and run the election on similar terms.

*Mandla Akhe Dube is a Zimbabwean journalist.

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