Zimbabwe Election Watch : Issue 4
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The articles selected for Issue 4 of Zimbabwe Election Watch confirm the climate of organised violence, torture and intimidation. They also demonstrate massive irregularities in the voter registration exercise.
Food continues to be used as a weapon. It was revealed this week that the Joint Operations Command was enforcing a deliberate and systematic ploy of using food to ensure President Mugabe and his Zanu PF party retain power.
With respect to voter registration, it was reported that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans could have failed to register their names with the mobile voter registration teams after officials avoided certain areas associated with opposition supporters.
A residential stands-for-votes scam was uncovered in Hatfield, Harare North constituency, where people were being registered in a constituency they did not belong to because they had been allocated stands at a non-existent housing project.
Street vendors at Harare’s Mbare Musika market confirmed they were forced to register as voters in this opposition stronghold by youth militia, war veterans and troops, despite the fact that they resided elsewhere.
Although the scale of violence appears to have been toned down in advance of this week’s SADC Summit in Lusaka, 16 activists from Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise were severely beaten in police custody after taking part in netball and soccer games at a stadium in Masvingo. National University of Science and Technology students’ union president Clever Bere was arrested and tortured in Bulawayo.
JOC plans to starve the nation unveiled
Source Date: 16-08-2007
The Joint Operations Command - a think tank of top security officials - is enforcing a deliberate and systematic ploy of using food to ensure President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party retains power.
Millions of people are going hungry not … because of poor rains but as a direct result of policies … denying food to opposition supporters and enriching its loyalists.
An elaborate plan hatched by the JOC to ban food imports, which has been reversed after being shamelessly exposed, forms part of this broad plan.
Top security officials told The Zimbabwean that control of the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), Zimbabwe’s state-owned monopoly supplier of commercial maize, has been passed to one of Mugabe’s most loyal henchmen, Air Marshal Perence Shiri, an alleged war criminal.
Shiri, who sits in the JOC together with other generals, two weeks ago appointed a new board at the GMB to oversee the elaborate strategy.
… sources alleged Shiri’s mission was to spend a £17 million loan provided by Libya, buying just enough maize to stave off food riots, which would then be supplied through the GMB.
The organisation … has been selling desperately short maize only to supporters of the ruling Zanu PF party. Backers of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change went hungry.
Worse still was the (planned) Food For Work programme. Thousands of opposition supporters would provide 15 days’ labour only to be told at the end there was no GMB food for them…
There is also evidence that the Zimbabwean government, through the JOC, is deliberately blocking the work of international aid groups and keeping the flow of aid down to a trickle… Last month an aid consignment was seized in Masvingo.
“What we are seeing is nothing but humanitarian torture,” an aid worker said. “It takes three months to die of starvation and this is a torture every bit as bad as beating someone with barbed wire or hanging them from handcuffs.”
Identified perpetrators: Air Marshal Perence Shiri
Source: Zimbabwean, The (ZW)
Link to source: http://thezimbabwean.co.uk
SADC standards breached
- 2.1.3: Political tolerance;
- 4.1.1: Constitutional and legal guarantees of
freedom and rights of citizens - 4.1.2: Conducive environment for free, fair and
peaceful elections
Voter apathy expected due to proposed creation of new constituencies
Source Date: 11-08-2007
Many Zimbabweans will be disenfranchised after the delimitation exercise which seeks to introduce 80 more new constituencies in next year’s general and presidential elections leading to massive voter apathy, analysts have said.
They said voters will have to skip from one constituency to another after the Delimitation Commission increases the number of contested constituencies to 200 up from 120 as is being proposed in the gazetted Constitutional Amendment (no.18) bill, which is soon to be tabled in Parliament.
Political analyst and University of Zimbabwe lecturer Professor Eldred Masunungure said given the limited time left before the elections, the only logical thing to do was to postpone the elections.
“There is going to be an artificial voter apathy as most people are going to be disenfranchised after the delimitation of constituencies. Most people would not be able to check their new constituencies and in the end they get disillusioned and frustrated. A sizeable number of eligible voters are going to be turned away after turning up in wrong constituencies,” said Masunungure.
He said the Zimbabwe Election Commission (ZEC) has not done enough about publicizing their activities.
“ZEC is being negligent. It’s not doing its constitutional job. We now have less than six months before the local council elections are held and I believe more time should have been devoted to the voter registration process since the delimitation of constituencies is primarily based on the number of registered voters,” said Masunungure.
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) chairperson Noel Kututwa said the organisation has since written to ZEC calling for the extension of the mobile voter registration exercise.
The Registrar General’s office is continuing to register voters until 17 August.
Source: Zimbabwean, The (ZW)
Link to source:
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/viewinfo.cfm?id=5649
SADC standards breached
- 2.1.6: Equal opportunity to exercise the right
to vote and be voted for - 4.1.2: Conducive environment for free, fair and
peaceful elections - 7.5: [The member state holding elections shall]
Take all necessary measures and precautions to prevent the perpetration
of fraud, rigging… - 7.6: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the availability of adequate logistics and resources for
carrying out democratic elections; - 7.8: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the transparency and integrity of the entire electoral process
…
Massive irregularities in voter registration exercise
Source Date: 08-08-2007
There are reports that hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans could have failed to register their names with the mobile voter registration teams after officials avoided certain areas associated with opposition supporters.
MDC legislator Editor Matamisa, who first raised the issue of the irregularities with her party, claimed … that the mobile registration teams did not … visit her constituency, which has close to 10 000 residents who want be added to the voters’ roll.
Matamisa, the Kadoma central legislator, warned that widespread inefficiencies and fraud are already pointing to massive rigging of the poll by Zanu PF. She said she was shocked to learn that many government officials were unaware of the current registration exercise.
“… There are no posters in the town but what scares us is that Zanu councillors have been bragging to me that most of their supporters have been registered. So the question is where did these people register?” asked Matamisa.
The outspoken MP said instead of guaranteeing citizens’ basic rights to register freely, the government and electoral officials were already actively colluding in the rigging of the presidential and parliamentary polls…
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network, like all pro-democracy groups in the country, has proposed that the exercise be extended to at least four months and has called for more public awareness on the on going exercise. The normal voter registration exercise, as opposed to mobile registration, has been taking place at the same time.
Source: SW Radio Africa (ZW)
Link to source:
http://www.swradioafrica.com/news080807/voters080807.htm
SADC standards breached
- 2.1.1: Full participation of the citizens in
the political process; - 2.1.6: Equal opportunity to exercise the right
to vote and be voted for - 2.1.7: Independence of the Judiciary and impartiality
of the electoral institutions … - 2.1.8: Voter education.
- 4.1.2: Conducive environment for free, fair and
peaceful elections - 4.1.3: Non-discrimination in the voters’ registration;
- 7.3: [The member state holding elections shall]
Establish impartial, all-inclusive, competent and accountable national
electoral bodies staffed by qualified personnel … - 7.5: [The member state holding elections shall]
Take all necessary measures and precautions to prevent the perpetration
of fraud, rigging… - 7.6: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the availability of adequate logistics and resources for
carrying out democratic elections; - 7.8: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the transparency and integrity of the entire electoral process
…
Residential stands-for-votes scam uncovered
Source Date: 12-08-2007
The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) continued with voter registration observation.
Visits were made to Hatcliffe, Harare North constituency where the team (found that) people were using letters from a housing co-operative, Enerst Kadungure Housing Co-op, as proof of residence.
This means that people are being registered in a constituency where they do not belong simply because they have been allocated stands at a non-existent housing project.
Those who have been offered the stands and the ‘proof of residence’ by this housing co-operative are ordered to provide five witnesses who are subsequently also given ‘proof of residence’ against the same stand number.
They are also advised to register as voters in the constituency. Thus at least six people per stand are being registered … against these stands.
Teachers who are resident in places as far away as Gokwe have ‘benefited’ from this co-operative and are now registered to vote in Hatcliffe constituency.
ZESN has also noted that there haven’t been any mobile registration teams for Masvingo urban. All the centres covered by the mobile teams are outside the city with the closest being Chikarudzo Business Centre which is more than 20 kilometres away.
ZESN has been inundated by calls from residents of Masvingo who feel disadvantaged by the absence of the mobile registration facility. They said efforts to get assistance from the Registrar General’s office in the city had been futile as the officers … allegedly told them the registration exercise currently taking place “is for rural areas.”
Source: Zimbabwean, The (ZW)
Link to source:
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/viewinfo.cfm?id=5641
SADC standards breached
- 4.1.2: Conducive environment for free, fair and
peaceful elections - 7.5: [The member state holding elections shall]
Take all necessary measures and precautions to prevent the perpetration
of fraud, rigging… - 7.6: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the availability of adequate logistics and resources for
carrying out democratic elections; - 7.8: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the transparency and integrity of the entire electoral process
…
False voter registration ongoing in MDC controlled ward
Source Date: 06-08-2007
Street vendors doing business in the bustling Mbare Musika market on the outskirts of Harare say they have been forced to register as voters in the opposition stronghold by youth militia, war veterans and troops though they reside in other areas.
Vendors from other suburbs such as Sunningdale, Kuwadzana and Mufakose said the alleged forced voter registration drive started early last week…
One vendor at Mbare Musika, who is a resident of Sunningdale, speaking on condition that she not be named, (said) ZANU-PF officials had been providing such vendors with documents indicating residency in Mbare.
Source: VOANews (USA)
Link to source:
http://www.voanews.com/english/Africa/2007-08-06-voa64.cfm
SADC standards breached
- 4.1.3: Non-discrimination in the voters’ registration;
- 7.5: [The member state holding elections shall]
Take all necessary measures and precautions to prevent the perpetration
of fraud, rigging… - 7.8: [The member state holding elections shall]
Ensure the transparency and integrity of the entire electoral process
…
WOZA activists beaten, released but two more arrested
Source Date: 09-08-2007
Activists from the Women and Men of Zimbabwe Arise, who had been arrested by state security agents earlier in the month while playing netball and soccer at Macheke Stadium in Masvingo, were finally released this week.
WOZA co-ordinator Jenni Williams said the 16 victims, who had spent two cold nights in police cells, had been badly beaten…. Two members of their support team, who were going to take food to those in custody, were also subsequently arrested and were in police custody….
Source: SW Radio Africa (ZW)
Link to source:
http://www.swradioafrica.com/news090807/woza090807.htm
SADC standards breached
- 2.1.2: Freedom of association;
- 2.1.3: Political tolerance;
- 4.1.1: Constitutional and legal guarantees of
freedom and rights of citizens - 4.1.2: Conducive environment for free, fair and
peaceful elections - 7.4: [The member state holding elections shall]
Safeguard the human and civil liberties of all citizens …
Student leader finally released; badly tortured
Source Date: 10-08-2007
National University of Science and Technology (NUST) students’ union president, Clever Bere,… who was arrested on 6 August in Bulawayo, was dragged in handcuffs all the way to Bulawayo Central Police Station and detained…
NUST said that charges related to Clever’s arrest were unclear and highly political. They said he was verbally accused of being aligned to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)… and that the torture Clever went through was clearly politically manifested.
Identified victims: National University of Science and Technology (NUST) Students’ Union president, Clever Bere
Source: Zimbabwean, The (ZW)
Link to source:
http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk
SADC standards breached
- 2.1.2: Freedom of association;
- 2.1.3: Political tolerance;
- 4.1.1: Constitutional and legal guarantees of
freedom and rights of citizens - 4.1.2: Conducive environment for free, fair and
peaceful elections - 7.4: [The member state holding elections shall]
Safeguard the human and civil liberties of all citizens …
Zimbabwean civic groups stress the need for a new, democratic constitution
Zimbabwean civic groups, including the Zimbabwe Election Support Network, the National Constitutional Assembly, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition and Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) met officials from the South African government in Pretoria this week to offer their input into ongoing talks to resolve Zimbabwe’s seven-year old political crisis.
In a communiqué issued after the meeting, the civic groups said any attempts to resolve the Zimbabwe crisis should be premised on the penning and adoption of a new, democratic constitution for the country…
President Robert Mugabe has already rejected opposition demands for a new constitution saying his government will forge ahead with plans to unilaterally amend the constitution in Parliament where Zanu PF has a majority. …
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=1853
August 26th, 2007 04:20
Are you in Zimbabwe?
August 26th, 2007 04:26
Reason being, you have binoculars on this page. Are you sure they are in focus?