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Is there any reasonable suspicion that votes were stolen from Mr Mugabe?
April 10, 2008

Zimbabwe has an Electoral Commission [ZEC] still appointed entirely by Robert Mugabe, from a shortlist picked predominantly by his party.

Zimbabwe Police have started arresting ZEC election officials countrywide, alleging they fraudulently deprived Mr Mugabe of votes during vote counting or compiling in the recent Harmonised Elections.

If so, they robbed Mugabe in front of police & numerous other witnesses - without it being detected for a week.

Whatever red herrings people may try to draw now across the trail, all the counting was done in front of numerous witnesses including the police and ZANU-PF-s polling agents at every polling station and completed by lunchtime on Sunday 30th March 2008;

And over the next couple of days, all the compiling was done in front of numerous witnesses including the police and ZANU-PF-s polling agents at in every ward and every constituency and the result there in each of the 4 elections was recorded and put up outside.

And no complaints were publicly made, until last Friday when ZANU-PF had to explain to Robert Mugabe - on the basis ostensibly only of their OWN polling agents returns, as the official ones are still officially secret - why he lost, and even did so much worse than his party candidates in many areas.

The counting was done at each polling station. Present at every count were:

• 11 ZEC officials,
• Accredited observers [all approved by a government minister first]
• Agents for each candidate [with a ZANU PF agent, inside & out] - and
• Police - as Mugabe had personally changed the electoral law just before the election to put his police inside the stations

Other agents, observers, public etc watched from a short distance outside. No-body was allowed in or out during the count.

Then 6 copies were made of every result, from each of the 4 ballot boxes in turn [Presidential, senate, House of assembly, Local Authority.] They were signed not just by ZEC officials, but by party agents - including ZANU-PFs. One signed copy of each return was then put up publicly outside. All 5 others were sent on to the ward centre, then the constituency centre, then the command centre. How could any theft from him have happened so publicly, and been undetected, unreported for so long?

Single ZEC officials are being arrested by police from around the country for unlawfully robbing Robert Mugabe of votes, before any official result is released.

1. Everything was done at every level with many other people watching - the counting of the ballot papers and the collating. For any theft or fraud to have occurred at any stage, many other people would have needed to be accomplices, including ZANU-PF party agents and police. Why have they not ALL been arrested?

2. Every result was recorded in multiple copies, and signed by ZANU-PF agents. Every polling station result was put up publicly. 5 copies were kept for ZEC. Can anyone hope to defraud Robert Mugabe in quintuplicate?

3. The number of copies made of every Constituency return is unknown, but can be easily discovered. One was put up outside for the public for each election. Winners were announced. The time when all this happened at the constituency level can also be proved. Most, if not all, were finished by Sunday or Monday.

4. Long after each local announcement of the Parliamentary seats, ZEC also announced the results at its National Command Centre. It said its delay was while it checked each one. ZEC is well staffed and has computers. If a local official cheated or perhaps made a mistake in entering or adding any returns - undetected by all those others watching him - ZEC would have discovered this before it made its own public announcement for that seat. Yet it is ZEC-s public announcements that are being disputed now by ZANU-PF. If there was any fraud or error in any tally by some official, it was an error ZEC also made; yet no-one from its National Command Centre has been charged.

5. While every Constituency result has been broadcast, all ZEC presidential results remain secret. Like ZANU-PF, the police should not have any official records of that vote yet. Can they explain on what evidence therefore are they now arresting any ZEC official for theft of votes or defrauding Robert Mugabe? Are they too relying on the results reported by ZANU-PFs own agents? Has ZEC laid a complaint against some officials, rather than merely rectifying any errors?

With so public a process, there surely can be no reasonable suspicion that Robert Mugabe has been robbed by anyone. Why now open the ballot boxes? There seems to be no credible grounds to do so, but there is every reason to fear that the real reason for doing this is to suddenly "find" more votes for Mugabe inside, in boxes kept guarded only by his officials, sealed with only their seals.

Before ZEC does that, it must inform every accredited observer, and let them also attend. It must show these observers all the polling station returns, and let them take copies of that, and explain why it thinks there are any grounds to reopen and recount, when ZANU-PF was present at the time and made no complaint for so long.

Or it must tell observers it received complaints within the allowed time of 48 hours, but ignored them and announced the results anyway; and explain why neither it nor ZANU-PF told observers that they had any complaints.

Regardless of any recount, every winner announced at the constituency centre remains the winner unless and until that result is set aside by the Electoral Court after petition & trial. ZEC cannot change it. A recount cannot change it. Section 66(4) of the Electoral Act specifies that.

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