According to Section 12(1) of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Act, the election
report should have been tabled in Parliament by December 30, or six months after the June 27 sham run-off vote, which was boycotted by MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai because of the terror campaign waged against his supporters by Zanu (PF), the police, army and youth militia.
The Zimbabwean understands that the controversial report was submitted to President
Robert Mugabe on March 19. It was subsequently presented to Speaker of House of Assembly, Lovemore Moyo, the President of the Senate, Edna Madzongwe, and to Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Justice and Legal Affairs.
The three main political parties who have now constituted the inclusive government also received embargoed copies pending its tabling in Parliament.
The Commission is satisfied that it conducted the first and second elections efficiently,
freely, fairly, transparently and in accordance with the law, ZEC claimed in its report.
Lying to Parliament constitutes a serious offence under the Parliamentary Privileges,
Immunities and Powers of Parliament Act. The glossy report conveniently leaves out
information on how election marshals led voters to polling stations and bands of government supporters harassed people in the streets, especially during the internationally discredited June 27 vote.
The ZEC report even claims the March vote was run efficiently. Yet the partisan electoral body withheld election results for five weeks as it tinkered with ballots to fit the
matrix of a presidential run-off vote. The win by Tsvangirai and the MDC in the March
vote sparked unprecedented State-sponsored violence that left 200 dead and over 200,000 internally displaced.
ZECs report conveniently leaves out this unprecedented violence, which saw Tsvangirai taking refuge in the Dutch Embassy amid reports of an assasination plot
against him.
On violence in the run-up to the June 27 elections, the ZEC report states: According
to the police, save for some parts of Mashonaland Central and Mashonaland East provinces where some incidents of inter-party violence were reported, the rest of the country was generally peaceful.
The MDC has received the new report with indignation and maintained its accusations
that Mugabes supporters rigged the vote and intimidated the electorate.
This whole thing was a scandal, and everyone knows that, said MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa. We won the election outright, and yet we were given as the outcome some fudged figures meant to save Mugabe and Zanu (PF). The ZEC report is patently false.
In response to allegations of lack of transparency in the processing of postal votes,
particularly allegations that security force members were ordered by their superiors
to vote for Zanu (PF) candidates, the ZEC report describes the allegations as
unsubstantiated. Yet, police officers and soldiers voted in the presence of their bosses
and were forced to show them their ballots. Guardian Newspapers obtained a video from a prison warder who secretly filmed a session where warders in Harare were being harangued at a meeting with their senior officers, who were ordering them to vote for Zanu (PF). It was screened internationally.
Paramilitary police in riot gear were ominously deployed throughout the voting period. Militant Mugabe supporters roamed the streets, singing revolutionary songs, heckling people and asking why they were not voting.
Bands of young men in ruling party T-shirts demanded to see peoples fingers to
check for the indelible ink mark that is put on at polling stations in an operation code
named Mavhotera Papi? The ZEC report is silent on this and other issues that blighted
the credibility of the polls.
Several reports by independent election observers sharply contradict the ZEC report.
A report by the Zimbabwe Electoral Support Network reveals persistent reports of forced voting, peoples names and ballot serial numbers being written at polling
stations and illiterate people assisted to vote by Zanu (PF) supporters.
Several other reports by African observers agreed that the conditions for free and
fair elections did not exist and it was a matter of deep regret that elections went ahead in those circumstances.
The elections that ZEC wants to sanitise as free and fair now were slammed as an
ugly perversion of democracy by the Pan African Parliament observer mission.
The SADC observer team also issued an adverse report that flies in the face of ZECs
sugar-coated election report.
Post published in: News