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Alarm as army scuppers census preparations
Women's Institute for Leadership Development
August 15, 2012

Zimbabwe's power-sharing government is heading off attempts by the army and other security agencies to interfere in the national census starting on Friday.

The military which is notoriously meddlesome earlier threatened to deploy nearly 10,000 officers for the two-week census, which is traditionally conducted by teachers. Soldiers disrupted a countrywide training exercise for civilian enumerators last week, forcing the cabinet to organise emergency negotiations between coalition members.

Zimbabwe holds a census every 10 years and the results are used in the delimitation exercise that determines the number and placement of constituencies. Results of this month's count are scheduled to be published in time for October's planned constitutional referendum. General elections must be held next year under the power-sharing deal between Zanu (PF) and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations.

Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, who heads the smaller of two MDC factions in the government, has held a series of urgent meetings on the census with acting Finance Minister Gorden Moyo and the military's top brass, among them Defence Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa, State Security Minister Sydney Sekeramayi and the joint home affairs ministers, Kembo Mohadi and Theresa Makone.

Acting Finance Minister Gorden Moyo was quoted in the State Media as having assured the nation that normalcy had returned at the various training centres around the country, and that the army had stood down from their earlier stance of wanting to take over the census. The general public remains apprehensive though as the army's actions happened in spite of repeated protestations by the aforementioned minister and other Cabinet Ministers. The Zimbabwe National Statistic Agency has recruited about 30,000 enumerators and political sources say any involvement by the armed forces would taint the process.

The MDC said the military's goal was to falsify census results to help rig next year's elections in favour of Zanu (PF), which has been in power with Mr. Mugabe as president since independence from Britain in 1980.

"Over the past few days the national population census exercise has been marred by unprecedented chaos and confusion," MDC spokesman Douglas Mwonzora was quoted by The Daily News "This has been caused by an unprofessional move by the army, police, intelligence agencies and Zanu (PF) militia to dominate the process...."

Political analyst Charles Mangongera said the security forces would obtain vital data if they were allowed to take control of the census. "This kind of information is strategic when it comes to elections because it determines, for instance, the size and nature of the voters' roll, how many constituencies are in rural and urban areas, and how to manage or manipulate the polls in general." The recent actions of the army bring fresh question marks about the country's readiness to hold free and fair elections, and also ZANU PF's willingness to commit to reforms demanded by the general public and SADC mediator President Jacob Zuma. The military's involvement will, in particular, bring alarm to the international community that has been hoping the country has made strides away from the heady violence, intimidation and instability that rocked the country in the aftermath of the botched 2008 presidential and parliamentary elections. A botched census will scupper the Constitutional referendum process and ruin the credibility of the long-awaited elections.

And as a point to ponder, if the militarization of civilian affairs and institutions renders society in general vulnerable, what then is the plight of already vulnerable groupings of society like women and children? They will obviously suffer the brunt of the whole commandist attitude that pervades the country and its institutions.

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