I was particularly disturbed by a recent development whereby ZEC, in clear collaboration with the Registrar General, indicated that it was not yet ready to embark on mobile voter registration because it lacked the necessary resources for that exercise.
This was despite insistence by the finance ministry that it had already availed funds for the initiative. It wouldn’t make sense for Treasury to claim that it has given money to ZEC and Tobaiwa Mudede when it had not. The ZEC fable is nothing but a way of delaying the mobile registration programme which, as we all know, is crucial in ensuring people are on the voters’ roll ahead of the coming poll. It would give potential voters not only the chance to register, but also to scrutinise anomalies on the roll.
No prizes for guessing that some people out there are not yet ready to open the cupboards becausethe skeletons will come rattling out, straight into their faces – revealing the extent of the RG’s contribution to systematic rigging of elections since 1985, when Zimbabwe held the first post-independence polls.
If there was any doubt about ZEC’s political allegiance, its reluctance to conduct mobile voter registration serves as a good indicator. Yet there are so many other examples that I can cite to entrench my point. There is no doubt whatsoever that ZEC is a clandestine function of state intelligence whose purpose is not to facilitate free and fair elections. It is a body stuffed with servicemen and women whose brief is simply to ensure, by hook or by crook, that Zanu (PF) stays in power.
As a journalist, whenever you approach ZEC for comments, they leave you with the feeling that you are under interrogation. They treat journalists like security threats – they are opaque and seem to enjoy it that way. Yet that is nothing compared to what they did during the referendum.
ZEC colluded with line ministries to ensure that any person regarded as having links to parties other than Zanu (PF) was not recruited as a polling officer. They sent the names of the people to the President’s Department for vetting. They did not let the ministries vet their own people. If there is anything spookier than that, I would like to know it.
Of course, I have been told of individuals in that secretariat who are known operatives. Some of them were allegedly part of the team that delayed the 2008 first round presidential poll results. Their role is to advise their bosses on the best strategies to adopt to counter the holding of truly democratic elections and I challenge ZEC to refute this and give me the CVs of each and every member in that secretariat for independent confirmation.
I promise I will come out with an award-winning story if they would dare give me those resumes. I am not sure where Joyce Kazembe’s political bias lies, but she is certainly not MDC, MKD or Zapu. The same applies to Lovemore Sekeramayi. Kazembe, by the way, was also there when the pre-June 2008 presidential results were being “collated”. And, needless to say, she is still in the room. Rita Makarau might be some kind of level-headed judge, but everyone knows who put her where she is now.
The rehabilitation I have mentioned should start by looking at the composition of ZEC. Mugabe, if at all he is thinking of any modicum of reprieve and a measure of legacy, must collaborate with other legitimate leaders in the GNU and redo the board and the secretariat. I would definitively propose the removal of Sekeramayi and all the guys who are running the show at the Zectariat. We need neutral and objective people there.
The second would be to change attitudes. This would have to start with Mugabe himself, so that he doesn’t appoint commissioners who would go in there to serve partisan interests. In essence, the commissioners and secretariat members would have to be taught that they are there to serve the people, and not parochial biases.
The same goes for the RG’s office. Mudede must go, and so should all senior officers at Makombe. The remaining ones would have to undergo thorough training about their non-partisan public duty and good public relations. – For feedback, please write to majonitt@gmail.com
Post published in: Analysis