‘I’m a teacher and have lived and worked in Mberengwa for so many years but I was amazed at the sheer number of people who asked to be assisted because they claimed they couldn’t read or write,’ Shumba told S W Radio Africa.
Shumba said more than a 100 voters were "assisted" to vote at this one Polling Station he was monitoring. The Village Heads and Chiefs assisted, just to ensure the voters voted for Zanu PF.
The picture Shumba has painted is hard to believe but since it is repeated over and over again right across the length and breadth and better the picture is supported by empirical facts - the high cast vote count against equally high voters denied the vote because their names were not on the voters' roll, etc.
I do not agree with Shumba's conclusion though. "For me personally, I would urge the opposition to demand for a biometric voters roll that eliminates chances of massive rigging,’ Shumba concluded.
The voting system Zimbabwe was using here has been used by other countries for a long time without resulting in the "massive rigging" we have seen here!
It is easier to blame the system but it only serves to underline our fundamental weaken always look for a scapegoat. We should be seeking a solution here and changing the system will not solve anything. The massive rigging was because of the people running the system and not the system itself.
Zimbabwe can invest billions of dollars (which it can ill afford) in a biometric state of the art voting system but as long as people like Tobaiwa Mudede are charged to run it with no meaningful supervision, as was the case here, there will still be massive rigging!
Tsvangirai and MDC had five years, FIVE YEARS, to implement the GPA agreed democratic reforms everyone agreed were necessary for free and fair elections. If the reforms had been implemented people like Mudede would been properly supervised and there would have been no massive rigging!
6 comments:
There is overwhelming evidence that there was massive vote rigging in last week's elections. Mugabe has never tried to deny that this was so because he knows that an audit would show that this was indeed the case. The very fact that his first public comment since the voting is that MDC was backed by the British and her allies goes to show just how sick this tyrant really is!
How does continued denial of the ordinary people of Zimbabwe their basic rights and freedoms including the right to a meaningful say in the governance of the country equates to dealing a blow to the British!
If Tsvangirai and MDC had not been so breathtakingly incompetent and had implemented the agreed reforms; Mugabe would have failed to rig the elections, at least not massively as happened last week. MDC have five years to implement the reforms and failed to get even one reform implemented. Not one!
This is a really excellent piece, one of the best I have read in a long time. Thank you.
To judge SADC and AU's performance on the basis of what happened in Zimbabwe after the country's 16 th March 2013 referendum is not right because by then the country had gone past the point of no return. There was no way the country was going to have free and fair elections with implementing the democratic reforms. The approval of the new constitution in the referendum slammed the door shut to reforms.
The blame for failing to get even one reform implemented must be laid at Tsvangirai and MDC. Either they did not appreciate the critical importance of the reforms or they were naive to think they could win the elections regardless. Tsvangirai's breath-taking incompetence was a major factor in all this mess.
It should be said that as the facilitators, SADC's hands were tired. Tsvangirai has never complained to them about Mugabe stopping him implementing the reforms and so the regional body had no cause to step in even if they wanted.
Once it was accepted that the elections would go ahead without the reforms; this was like allowing the goats to swim across a crocodile infested river. Of course the poor goats were attached.
What SADC and AU did was move the goal post; they would accept Zimbabwe's election if there was no violence. As for the rigging everyone knew that would happen; it was more convenient to ignore.
“In 2008, our party went into a negotiated process and in doing that our sole and primal interests were to save Zimbabwe from burning at the hands of Zanu PF,” Ncube said. Well what a load of bull!
There was absolutely no reason why MDC failed to implement even one democratic reforms other than that Ncube, Tsvangirai and the rest of these MDC guys were enjoying political power and too comfortable. They forgot about the democratic changes they had promised!
THE MDC-T has blasted the continued deployment of armed anti-riot police outside the party’s Harvest House head office in Harare since the announcement of results from last week’s elections.
Here we go again, MDC doing what they have been doing all these years fighting little fires right, left and center without ever doing anything to stop those deliberately staring the fires; addressing the root causes.
Tsvangirai had five years to implement the reforms and failed to get even one reform implemented. If he had, then the elections would not have been rigged. This court action is nothing other than the proverbial closing of the stable door when the horse has bolted!
@ Yepec
I can see that you still have your head stuck in Tsvangirai's backside otherwise you would know that it is not a matter of MDC "might have anticipated getting back on the gravy train"! That was all they thought about and forgot about carrying out the reforms.
Are you going back to Bohera with Tsvangirai? Well the experience will wake you up. Having you head stuck in the backside of the Prime Minister is one thing and having it stuck in the backside of a goat-herder is another!
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