Toys out the cot …

The BBC have reported on this piece here.

It looks like Zanu PF, through Mugabe’s mouthpiece, the State controlled press, are leaking a taste of what’s to come. The article in question is copied and pasted below in full.

I need to stew on this. My initial reaction is extreme anger.

It appears to me that Zanu-PF already know the results that ZEC should have announced by now.

That sounds like a bit of a stupid and obvious thing for me to say, given all the delays which have already suggested that they do know. But I wasn’t sure whether Mugabe was delaying and freaking out because he, like the opposition, had visibility of his fate from the scores on the doors. That he knew, that for him at least, the writing was on the wall and the end was nigh. If I am reading this correctly then the scores on the doors would be the ‘V11′ forms mentioned in the state Sunday Mail.

But this piece tells us that ZEC officials have already been arrested (not surprising), and recounts are being demanded in the Presidential.

It talks about anomalies between the V11 and V23 forms. I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think the V23 form is public knowledge. If this is the case then it is outrageous that one party in the country has visibility of the results process before all the other contesting parties.

It is also outrageous that ZEC officials are being arrested (read harrassed, and since this is Zanu PF we’re talking about, possibly intimidated and beaten and threatened) before the final results come out.

They need to announce the results publically, and then we can all deal with the anomalies (or non-anomalies) in a transparent fashion.

I have to confess that there is a part of me that believes that senior ZEC people are in bed with Zanu PF despite the fact that they are supposed to be an independent body. This is because they gave the opposition parties and civil society such a hard time leading up to the elections: for example, not releasing a version of the voters’ roll that the opposition parties could check. It appeared then that ZEC was impeding normal democractic processes, and in Zimbabwe that always looks like an effort to bias the playing field towards Zanu PF.

Regardless, say a prayer for those ZEC officials who have been arrested. They’re going to need them.

Presidential poll result

Sunday Mail Reporter

ZANU-PF has requested the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) to recount and audit all its electoral material relating to last week’s presidential election following revelations of errors and miscalculations in the compilation of the poll result. Consequent to the anomalies, the party has also requested that the commission defer the announcement of the presidential election result.

The anomalies were detected following the close scrutiny of the V11 and V23 forms. A V11 form is an original document carrying results at polling stations and is signed by all agents of contesting parties.

After the signing of the V11 form, information is then recorded in the V23 forms that collates polling station results within a ward. These forms also announce the results of the council elections.

For example, at Rimbi Primary School the V11 form shows that President Mugabe got 612 votes but the V23 form that is then forwarded to the command centre shows that the President got 187 votes.

This anomaly was detected in a number of constituencies.

Reports say some ZEC officials in the Midlands were arrested following these revelations.

In papers submitted to the election management body, Zanu-PF notes that errors and miscalculations that occurred in certain constituencies prejudiced Zanu-PF’s presidential candidate, Cde Mugabe.

The constituencies are Mberengwa East, West, North and South. The party made the request under the advice of its legal representatives.

Part of the letter reads: “As will soon become apparent, the constituency elections officer and his team committed errors of miscounting that are so glaring as to prejudice not just our clients’ candidate but also (in some instances) his co-contestants.”

The papers highlight that votes were mostly miscounted in Mberengwa East and South. Where Cde Mugabe was deprived of 468 votes, one of his co-contestants, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai of the MDC, had the benefit of 100.

In Ward 25 of Mberengwa South, Mr Tsvangirai is said to have garnered 98 votes instead of 116. A total of 8 533 votes were also recorded against Cde Mugabe’s name.

The figure should have been 9 001, thereby showing a difference of 448 votes. Dr Simba Makoni’s total in the same constituency was recorded as 3 191 instead of 1 191.

In Mberengwa East, the sub-total was recorded as 2 718 instead of 2 618. In the same constituency postal ballots for Ward 20 were not accounted for.

In Mberengwa North, according to the party, it was discovered that Dr Makoni’s ballots were recorded as 564 instead of 568 while Mr Tsvangirai’s were captured as 2 153 instead of 2 146.

In Mberengwa West, Mr Tsvangirai was said to have received 77 ballots instead of 189. In terms of Section 67A of the Electoral Act, ZEC is obliged to order a recount of votes in polling stations.

This is in situations where it “considers there are reasonable grounds for believing that the alleged miscounting of votes occurred . . . and that it would have affected the result of the election”.

The party is therefore appealing to the commission to urgently consider its case.

Reads the letter to ZEC: “While it may require statisticians to account for what is plain, and indeed blindly obvious to our client, is that ZEC may be faced with a serious, profound and far-reaching case of miscounting.

“ZEC may also be faced here with an overarching and unpleasant case of misposting of votes. Once one or other of those scenarios is found to be a real possibility, then there can be no doubt that the entire results of the presidential election in Mberengwa’s four constituencies are grossly irregular and (in their current form) cannot stand up to scrutiny.”

This entry was posted by Hope on Sunday, April 6th, 2008 at 9:07 am. You can follow any comments on this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.