Good evening my fellow Zimbabweans and friends

This piece will be broadcast for the first time on Wednesday 31 July 2013 shortly after the voting has concluded but before the result of the elections are known. A good time to reflect once again on whether or not this election was free, fair and credible and the result will therefore be a true reflection of the democratic will of the people of Zimbabwe?

Sadly the answer has to be a resounding no! 33 years after independence, Zimbabwe is yet to hold its first free, fair and democratic elections. For 33 years the people have been denied this basic and fundamental right; the right to have a meaningful say in the governance of the country!

Last week Mugabe reaffirmed that he has never rigged elections, "never ever".

Of course, he was lying because he has broken most if not all the requirements for free, fair and credible election. I will mention five of these requirements:

Must have a free media and freedom of expression. Mugabe and Zanu PF have retained a strangle hold on the country's public print and electronic media. If there is to be public media, then it should not be government controlled much less controlled by a single political party, as it the case here.

The public media must give equal and fair coverage to all the different political points of view and not the one-side coverage we see in the Herald and ZBC.

The media should have been opened up to private competition. Zimbabwe should have at least 5 independent TV stations 10 independent radio stations and 20 independent newspapers.

The Zimbabwe government must lift the shrewd of secrecy covering its activities. All public officials must be accountable to the people.

Only a well-informed electorate can meaningful exercise their right to vote

There must be freedom of association. Although Zimbabwe is on paper a multi-party democracy, in practice it is a de facto one-party state in which Zanu PF's critics and opponents have been subjected to all manner of political intimidation and harassment included political murders.

Compared to presidential run-off of 2008, these elections have been relatively peaceful. But it should be remembered that the March 2008 vote was relatively peaceful too.

Zimbabwe is a Police State ruled by fear; this must end.

There must be rule of law and the institutional independence of the Police, Army, Judiciary, etc. must be restored. Zanu PF has undermined the rule of law by amending the old constitution to suit its selfish agenda or simply disregarded the law.

The new constitution is itself too weak and feeble to end Mugabe's dictatorial powers.

The nation's resources must be shared out in a transparent and equitable manner.

Whilst economic rights are normally addressed whenever the political rights and freedoms are guaranteed, the denial of the later in the 33 years have resulted in rampant corruption and an all-out looting spree by Mugabe and his cronies. Mugabe and his cronies have amassed great wealth and vast resources at the expense of the millions of ordinary Zimbabweans who now languish in abject poverty.

Even with the best will in the world it is doubtful that ZEC will be able to carry out its statutory duties because of the chronic underfunding. Meanwhile Mugabe and Zanu PF are loaded.

Mugabe has used his ill gotten wealth from the sale of Marange diamonds to give himself and his party an unfair electoral advantage. All Zanu PF parliamentary candidates, for example, were allocated brand new Ford Everest trucks.

Elections must be conducted in a transparent way and all voters must be afforded the chance to cast their free vote.

Millions of Zimbabweans outside the country have been denied the chance to register and vote in this election. The failure by the Registrar General Office and ZEC to produce a definitive voters' roll, list of Polling Stations and other vital information on time will result in hundreds of thousands failing to vote because their names are not on the voters roll, or they are in the wrong constituency, etc.

The lack of transparency in the whole process . Zanu PF has deliberately muddied the waters by appointing staunch party supporters to head key organs like the RG's office, ZEC, etc and this will allow the party to rig the vote.

None of the five conditions above have been fulfilled this year, as has happened in the past, and so this was not a free and fair election. Prime Minister Tsvangirai is right to be critical of SADC, AU and the West for their willingness to accept Mugabe and Zanu PF victory regardless of the evidence that the election was not free.

"For some years, there has been a movement towards democratic precondition," Tsvangirai told the UK Observer reporter last week. "But people get tired of the Zimbabwean issue so what do they do? They resign and they say stability is better than democracy and any form of accommodation of normalising 'our relations with Zimbabwe by whatever means, we will do it'.

"That's an opportunistic position because you cannot as a democrat legitimise the illegitimate."

Good night!