Sokwanele enjoys the privilege of being a non-partisan organization committed to achieving democracy through non-violent means. Over the years we have established a broad spectrum of relationships with political parties, civil society and NGOs. Following the harmonised elections we have continuously monitored the situation on the ground through our diverse networks. We have come to our own conclusion as to the final seat count of the House of Assembly results, extracted from both MDC formations and Independent candidates, cross referenced with ZESN findings and the independent Zimbabwe Election Result website (www.zimelectionresults.com).

MDC Tsvangirai – 99
MDC Mutambara – 11 seats
Independent – 1
ZanuPF – 96

(Please note that 3 bi-elections will have to be held following the unfortunate deaths of certain candidates, hence a total of 207 seats in the House of Assembly).

Sequence of events

On Thursday last (March 31) a theft of breath-taking proportions took place in Zimbabwe. Stolen from the citizens of this land was their constitutional right to elect their own representatives to Parliament. So great was the scale of the national heist that effectively it took from the people the government of their choice and foisted upon them a government they did not want and had not voted for.

The Mugabe regime had been planning to rig the elections from the moment the date was announced – indeed from long before that, for this regime knows well enough it would be trounced by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) opposition party in any free and fair contest. So the preparations to rig the poll had to begin early. Without the months of careful preparation and total manipulation of the electoral process ZANU-PF knew it would face extinction in the poll.

But the purpose of this short piece is not to describe the months of cynical scheming, including the manipulation of the entire food delivery system and the cunning re-writing of the country’s electoral laws, effectively to put Mugabe appointees in command, with the military to control it. That story has been told elsewhere (see our own “SADC Checklist” which reviewed the electoral and security legislation, and our weekly feature “Mauritius Watch” which chronicled events on the ground). Nor is it our purpose here to review the widespread and systematic abuses of the SADC election guidelines which occurred on the day of voting - such as the use of a supposedly indelible ink to mark the fingers of those who had voted, which it transpired could be easily removed by the application of a mild detergent. These abuses will no doubt be documented by others before too long.

No, our purpose here is to take our readers through the events of the evening and night following the poll, specifically between 7.00 pm when voting ended and 11.00 pm, for it was during these few hours that ZANU-PF’s central rigging strategy was carried out.

11.00am: We had intended to bring you two sets of results for each constituency – alongside the official results provided by the partisan Registrar-General Tobias Mudede, setting down the best count available from the polling stations themselves. In order to do this we were relying upon ZANU-PF to adhere to the electoral law of the land. This includes a provision (under the Electoral Act section 64 (2)) requiring the presiding officer of each polling station to affix a copy of the polling station return outside the polling station immediately upon the completion of the count.