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Bob’s full house
J.O's, The Economist
August 01, 2013

http://www.economist.com/blogs/baobab/2013/08/zimbabwe-s-election

At noon on August 1st, just a few hours after the last votes were cast in Zimbabwe’s elections, Morgan Tsvangirai effectively conceded defeat. “It is a sham election that does not reflect the will of the people,” he said. By the day’s end, with Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF winning the bulk of the seats in parliament declared so far, it seemed likely that Mr Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) had been trounced. The scale of the lead suggests Mr Mugabe may also have claimed at least 50% of the votes in the presidential contest against Mr Tsvangirai and two fringe candidates. A majority would extend his 33-year rule as Zimbabwe’s leader.

If Mr Mugabe indeed proves to be the outright winner, he will owe his victory to a clever manipulation of the list of those permitted to vote. An analysis of the electoral roll (as it stood on June 19th) by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), a non-partisan body, showed that city dwellers, who are more likely to tick the MDC box, were not nearly as well represented as rural folk. ZESN reckons that 68% of urban adults made it onto the list compared with close to 100% of voting-age people in the countryside. Up to 1m urban voters (out of an electorate of around 6m) had “systemically” been denied the chance to register, it concluded

The urban voters who had managed to register faced other barriers on election day. ZESN found that urban voters were more than twice as likely to be turned away from polling stations for administrative reasons.

The results have left MDC supporters in shock. Some of its leading figures have lost their seats. Yet the party went into the election campaign knowing that the voters’ roll (as well as the broadcast media) would be biased against it. Mr Mugabe had decreed a snap election that left little time for voter registration, analysis of the voters’ list, or a correction of any irregularities. The MDC contested the elections anyway. Even on election day its leaders still seemed confident that disgust with Mr Mugabe’s often violent rule was sufficient to level the playing field.

Did they miscalculate? A final electoral roll was produced two days before polling day and then only in hard copy. Once it is analysed it may prove to have been tilted more in Zanu-PF’s favour than had seemed possible. But if Mr Mugabe’s party has indeed won handsomely, such a victory could not be explained by rigging alone. Perhaps there was a bedrock of support for it that was more solid than its opponents had guessed. Perhaps the results reflect a greater degree of disenchantment with the MDC than many had suspected. The party’s failure to make a mark in an uneasy four-year coalition with Zanu-PF robbed it of a strong platform to campaign on.

A faint hope for the MDC is that election observers will say the vote was not credible. The Southern African Development Community (SADC), a regional body, is due to give its judgment on August 2nd. But a subcommittee of its mission has already said the poll was conducted in line with SADC principles. It seems unlikely the overall judgment will be much different. The head of the African Union mission to the elections, Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, has likewise said the elections were credible based on his personal observation. The sense is that the generally peaceful conduct of the election will persuade observers to accept the result. It is an open question whether everyone in Zimbabwe will do likewise.

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