Saturday 20 July 2013

The chaos following the Special vote proves ZEC will not up to the demanding July 31 vote!


MDC’s blundering incompetence is insufferable. One senior MDC is condemning the special vote and the other is giving it his thumbs up!

“The law stipulates that the special vote shall take place for two days and those days shall not be less than 16 days from the actual date of polling. It was allowed to take place on the third day and it means that the process breached the law,” said Tendai Biti.

“If the law is breached it means the whole special vote is a nullity and we are going to contest if ZEC decides otherwise.”

Well the Constitution Court has thrown out MDC’s challenge to have the special vote declared null and void. The Judge refused to give his reasons contended these would be given at a latter day. No doubt, the reasons will be given when Mugabe has won and sworn in and challenging those reasons will be purely academic!

Meanwhile ZEC started verifying and tallying ballot papers from the special vote on Friday in the presence of representatives from Zanu PF, the MDC-T and other political parties.

Speaking at the opening of the ballots, MDC-T representative and deputy justice minister Obert Gutu, said: “The process has gone well. There has not been any serious logistical challenge. I think it’s almost fool-proof.”

Well if it is indeed “FOOL-PROOF” then what is all the farce about? It is clear Tendai Biti and Obert Gutu are speaking out of terms; the right hand does not know what the left is doing.

The fiasco of the special vote exposed one key ZEC weakness; that it does not have the organisation ability to manage these elections. ZEC had to 90 000 ballots to delivery to 209 Polling Stations so voting could take place in two days and yet failed to get that job done properly. Many Polling stations did not get the ballot papers, voters’ rolls, etc. until a day later; some got the wrong ballot papers for the parliamentary candidates; wrong voters’ roll and there are reports of some voting taking place with no voters roll; etc.

No one at ZEC could say how many special ballots were printed, explain what happened to the ballot papers they had send out initially but had clearly failed to arrive, etc.

How is ZEC going to manage sending out 6 000 000 ballots to near 9 000 Polling Stations so that voting can take place in one day?

There is going to be total chaos on July 31 there is no doubt about that. And in all this chaos and confusion the opportunity to rig the elections, for those with the organizational finesse and intention, is limitless!

We all know Mugabe and Zanu PF have both the organizational finesse and intend to rig these elections. Tendai Biti was right to say many people working for ZEC are in fact taking their orders from the Joint Operation Command, the shadowy Zanu PF Junta that has ruled Zimbabwe for decades.

This July 31 election is not going to be free, fair and credible because hundreds of thousands, if not millions will be denied their vote because their name is not on the voters’ roll, it is on the roll but appear in another constituency, etc., etc. In the confusion there are too many opportunities to “manufacture” vote, to destroy valid votes, etc., etc.

Obert Gutu was one of those MDC leaders who praised the Copac Constitution to the high heavens right up to the referendum day, confident that it would delivery free and fair elections. That was all nonsense of course because it was self-evident the new constitution was too weak and feeble to end the Zanu PF dictatorship. Gutu and a few others were doing what they do best – talking nonsense. Now he is at it again!

Only a certified idiot can call this year’s chaotic Zimbabwe electoral process “fool-proof”!

5 comments:

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Mike

SADC should have made sure MDC implemented the reforms instead they allowed Tsvangirai to waste time globe-trotting and chasing women of ill repute. How SADC and the nation is going to get out of this mess is going to be a real challenge!


What a mess!

Zimbabwe Light said...

Two weeks before the elections and Zimbabwe is still to issue the definitive voters’ roll. This is of course another of the many subtle ways Zanu PF is mudding the waters so they can rig the election without anyone being able to head or tail of what has been going on.

MDC-T’s Tendai Biti claimed that Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede has created three to four dif-ferent voters roll databases, for the purposes of rigging the upcoming elections.

Zimbabwe Light said...

"If things didn't go right in the special vote, those things need to be looked into by the time of elections on 31 July," Zulu told AFP.

But the African Union after its Peace and Security Council meeting on Friday said it was possible to have fair elections.

"According to our observers on the ground we believe that it is possible to have free and fair elections in Zimbabwe," said Aisha Abdullahi, AU commissioner for political affairs on Zimbabwe.

Here we go again, SADC saying one thing and the AU saying another and the greatest and only beneficiary of this confusion is Mugabe himself! The question everyone on AU commissioner should answer is do they really expect Mugabe to deliver free and fair elections without even one democratic reform implemented?

What the AU is doing here is experimenting with a whole nation’s hopes and dreams. Zimbabweans have been denied free and fair elections for 33 years and now they are once again being denied this basic right; the AU is helping Mugabe to do so by pretending not to see and hear what the latter is doing.

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Yepec

You clearly believe MDC has the answers to all Zimbabwe's problems, it is the party of strategies. The sad really is none of those answers and strategies seem to work.

My answer to Zimbabwe's mess is that people should stop believing idiots like Tsvangirai who led the nation from one blunder into another. You, Yepec, can continue to believe in Tsvangirai; you are a half-shilling!

Zimbabwe Light said...

@ Zimb United

Well let us take the argument to the next level; why should the ordinary Zimbabweans be denied their right to free and fair elections because of ZIDERA?

Zimbabweans have been denied their basic rights and freedoms for 33 years under one pretext or another, ZIDERA being just one of these feeble scapegoats!