Financial Gazette (Harare)
Jameson Timba
17 April 2008
opinion
Harare — ZIMBABWEANS have for the past 19 days been kept guessing as to who their President is. My cell phone rings almost every two minutes with members of my constituency wanting to find out when the results of the Presidential elections will be announced.
Those in business are saying they are holding onto major decisions because of the uncertainty created by the delayed results. Those in employment say they are having concentration problems at work and hence affecting their productivity. Those unemployed and without food are hoping for a change in their fortunes if the candidate they voted for is declared the winner now and not tomorrow.
I have no answers for my constituency. This is not healthy for either the nation or individuals. It is not healthy for me either. It is nerve wracking and frustrating to say the least.
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) is a public body led by a learned fellow, and it is expected in the discharge of its duties to act reasonably in matters that affect the rights of others and in particular the rights of over 14 million Zimbabweans here and in the Diaspora.
Zimbabweans have a right to know the results of the presidential election now and not when it suits ZEC and ZANU-PF. The original reason given by ZEC for the delay in releasing the results was that they were collating and verifying the same. This reason was not believed by anyone including 14 year olds who are yet to qualify to vote. ZEC was dealing with 210 forms or data sets compiled and collated at the constituency centres countrywide.
Most of the data on these forms had by March 30, 2008 been agreed to by ZEC constituency and provincial election officers and all contesting candidates directly or through agents and signed for. The addition of total votes obtained by each of the four presidential candidates should not have then taken more than three hours with the help of Bill Gates's Microsoft excel.
At most, by Tuesday April 1 the results should have been announced. Alas! It wasn't to be.
When the original reason for delaying the results could no longer be sustained, ZEC came up with another one. This time they said they had received complaints from ZANU-PF that they had been robbed in 21 constituencies and therefore they wanted a recount.
In Patrick Chinamasa's words, ZEC had rejected their request serve in 5 constituencies in which he alleges their complaint had been submitted within 48 hours of the announcement of the results as provided for by the law.
This meant in all other constituencies ZANU-PF was expected if it so wished to file petitions in the Electoral court within 14 days of the Poll. Alas that was not to be. ZEC has gone ahead to publish a notice that they will do recounts in the same constituencies that ZANU-PF had raised complaints notwithstanding that this was done out of time.
This time ZEC's actions, in my view and that of any reasonable person, are implying that it can cover up for ZANU-PF's ineptitude by using its power to conduct recounts whether or not the participating candidates had lodged complaints on time.
If that is the case, who wouldn't want to be ZANU-PF if a whole constitutional body can on paper and in practice appear to be acting for you.
The power given by the legislature to ZEC to conduct recounts must be based on a reasonable suspicion that there were miscounts or votes were stolen.
The legislature in its wisdom never intended that this power be used to favour one group of people. The majority of the people that I have spoken to now believe rightly or wrongly that ZEC is biased in favour of ZANU-PF.
Bias does not necessarily have to be actual. Sometimes it is the sum total of the perceptions of those affected by the actions of a public officer or body. ZEC is therefore not doing itself any good in the eyes of Zimbabweans and the international community.
The question on the minds of most Zimbabweans and the international community is that: Is there any reasonable suspicion that votes were stolen from (President) Robert Mugabe as suggested by Chinamasa and buttressed by ZEC's notice for recounts?
Never mind President Thabo Mbeki's day-dreaming that HIV does not cause AIDS and that there is no crisis in Zimbabwe when he is looking it in the eye. He (President Mbeki) seems not to see nor hear any evil when it comes to (President) Mugabe and ZANU-PF. No wonder he lost in Polokwane because he appears to always be fighting with reality and no one takes him seriously anymore.
In addition, both him and (President) Mugabe believe that their respective parties will crumble if they are not on their helm whilst the opposite is true. In addition, the two also have something else in common. Mbeki is determined to ensure that Jacob Zuma does not become South Africa's President while (President) Mugabe vowed that Morgan Tsvangirai will never be President of Zimbabwe irrespective of what the people of the two countries think.
Zimbabwe has an Electoral Commission (ZEC) still appointed entirely by (President) Mugabe, from a shortlist picked predominantly by his party, which until March 28 2008 was the majority party in parliament.
Zimbabwe Police have started arresting ZEC election officials countrywide, alleging they fraudulently deprived (President) Mugabe of votes during vote counting or compiling in the recent harmonised elections. If so, they robbed (President) Mugabe in front of police and numerous other witnesses - without it being detected for a week.
Whatever red herrings people may try to draw now across the trail, all the counting was done in front of numerous witnesses including the police and ZANU-PF's polling agents at every polling station and completed by lunchtime on Sunday 30th March 2008. And over the next couple of days, all the compiling was done in front of numerous witnesses including the police and ZANU-PF's polling agents at every polling station, in every ward and every constituency and the result there in each of the four elections was recorded and put up outside.
No complaints were publicly made, until last Friday when ZANU-Pf allegedly had to explain to (President) Mugabe -on the basis ostensibly and allegedly only of their own polling agents returns, as the official ones are still officially secret - why he lost, and even did so much worse than his party candidates in many areas.(vakarovera bhora musango). In terms of the results published by ZEC at polling stations and collated by MDC, Tsvangirai won the highest number of votes in 123 constituencies and ZANU-PF President Robert Mugabe in 87 constituencies. That is a 58 percent win of the 210 constituencies against (President) Mugabe's 41 percent.
What it means is that based on constituency results and the first past the post system, (President) Mugabe was also defeated by his own party, which won in 97 constituencies, while Tsvangirai defeated (President) Mugabe, Simba Makoni, the other presidential candidate, ZANU-PF and MDC parliamentary candidates in some areas.
The counting was done at each polling station. Present at every count were 11 ZEC officials, accredited observers (all approved by a government minister first) agents for each candidate (with a ZANU-PF agent, inside and out) - and police - as (President) Mugabe had personally and single handedly changed the electoral law just before the election to put his police inside the polling stations. I say "his" police since the Commissioner General publicly said he can only salute (President) Mugabe and not anyone else the people of Zimbabwe in their sovereign wisdom would have chosen as their president.
Other agents, observers, the public etc watched from a short - distance outside. Nobody was allowed in or out during the count. Then six copies were made of every result, from each of the four ballot boxes in turn (presidential, senate, house of assembly, local authority). They were signed not just by ZEC officials, but by party agents - including ZANU-PF.
One signed copy of each return was then put up publicly outside. All 5 others were sent on to the ward centre, then the constituency centre, then the command centre. How could any theft from him have happened so publicly, and been undetected, unreported for so long?
Individual ZEC officials are being arrested by police from around the country for having unlawfully robbed (President) Mugabe of votes, before any official result is released.
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