It will also require a large number of observers, one at each polling station from each political party contesting in that constituency and independent observers from organisations such as ZESN, CCJP and ZimRights as well as from international organisations like the UN, AU and SADC which have a right to be concerned and a credible number and variety from other countries, both government and non-government.
There is nothing against observers applying and being accepted from political parties in other countries friendly to one of our contesting parties, as long as their preference is noted and doesn’t influence the conduct of the election. Their relationship to one of our parties may well affect their interpretation of what they see, but if they publish a full report that will show how credible their conclusions are. To all these lists I should have added “among others”. Unfortunately, nothing like this variety and number of observers will be possible unless all the conditions listed in the previous paragraph are met.
We should not need to go to the Supreme Court to prove that we do not have the peaceful and free environment necessary for any meaningful election. The palpable fear of a repeat of 2000, 2002, 2005 and 2008 in high-density areas of our cities and the even greater fear in more remote areas that bore the brunt of the violence, rape, coercion and rigging in those years is obvious to everybody, especially the leadership of SADC and the AU.
They may not be able to dictate to our more recalcitrant politicians and securocrats, but we need to convince them that we have changed our ways if we expect them to cooperate with any government that might emerge from an election.
We cannot ask help from any government or international organisation, whether to run an election or to reconstruct our national institutions and restart development afterwards, if we don’t give them the opportunity to see that we are changing our ways. We have a bad track record, so they will be careful who they help.
We don’t have to sign up to all the policies of the US Republicans or Britain’s Conservatives, but we do need to show friends like the recent Swedish ambassador, Sven Rylander, a supporter of our struggle in the ‘70s, and the Scandinavian social democrats who supported our development efforts in the ‘80s, that we are reviving our democratic aspirations for which they too made sacrifices in those years.
Meeting these conditions is more than six months’ work, counting from today. If delaying elections until we can put our house in order means that we are without a parliament for more than four months, does that really matter? Has any parliament we have had since 1965 deserved the name of parliament? Can you name one in all that time that wasn’t just a rubber stamp to approve the actions of the ruler of the time? Things weren’t much better before that, but they took a nosedive between the removal of Garfield Todd and the emergence of Ian Smith from which we haven’t recovered.
Doing our housecleaning without that rubber stamp for a while might show the world and, we hope, our own hardliners, that we are serious about the job now.
Post published in: Opinions & Analysis