The first thing that we have to put in our constitution so that we do not see a repeat of what happened in the last election is to ensure that the election process is designed in such a way that there has to be a clear winner. What this means is that, for Presidential elections, there has to be a "One Man, two or three votes." You vote for your first choice, and it must mandatory that you have a second and third choice too. You vote once but you make 3 choices. If there is no clear majority winner for the First choices then a count of the second choices is considered. Further to that, If there is still no clear winner after the second choice count (which is highly unlikely, probability plays the game here !! the third choice settles it). This system does away with election re-runs. The system is used in Sri Lanka and some other Asian countries !! The problem of no-clear winner is a growing cancer: Kenya, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan and Iran are just but a few examples where no clear winners emerged....so we need a very SMART system that produces a clear winner. We do not this Government of National Unity Arrangement at all in future. We do not need electoral re-runs for Presidential elections (we are a poor country, election re-runs are a waste of resources). Our Constitution must not have ambigous terms, the Constitution must state that there has to be a clear winner after each Presidential election, and not littered by "ifs and buts." That leaves room for cheating !!
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Zimbabwe Civic Action Support Group. Campaigning non-violently for freedom and democracy in Zimbabwe.
Presidential elections - the second, third choice system.
The first thing that we have to put in our constitution so that we do not see a repeat of what happened in the last election is to ensure that the election process is designed in such a way that there has to be a clear winner. What this means is that, for Presidential elections, there has to be a "One Man, two or three votes." You vote for your first choice, and it must mandatory that you have a second and third choice too. You vote once but you make 3 choices. If there is no clear majority winner for the First choices then a count of the second choices is considered. Further to that, If there is still no clear winner after the second choice count (which is highly unlikely, probability plays the game here !! the third choice settles it). This system does away with election re-runs. The system is used in Sri Lanka and some other Asian countries !! The problem of no-clear winner is a growing cancer: Kenya, Zimbabwe and Afghanistan and Iran are just but a few examples where no clear winners emerged....so we need a very SMART system that produces a clear winner. We do not this Government of National Unity Arrangement at all in future. We do not need electoral re-runs for Presidential elections (we are a poor country, election re-runs are a waste of resources). Our Constitution must not have ambigous terms, the Constitution must state that there has to be a clear winner after each Presidential election, and not littered by "ifs and buts." That leaves room for cheating !!