Many people on this site
and others have said MDC-T (the same is true of the other two MDC factions)
should not be trusted to handle the implementation of the democratic reforms necessary
for free, fair and democratic elections because they will mess things up. One
has only to read Mr Gutu’s comments to MDC-T really do not have a clue what is
demanded here and if the nation was to listen to them then we will never have
free elections.
Take MDC-T’s two demands
on ZEC for example:
- “The
Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), should undertake a biometric national
voter registration exercise that will give rise to the creation of a clean and
accurate voters’ roll. The voters’ roll that was inherited from the Registrar -
General’s office by ZEC is littered with gross irregularities that include, but
are not limited to, the inclusion of thousands of names of deceased people;”
Having a biometric based
voters roll alone will not eliminate all the many problems the voters roll can
be abused in rigging the vote. Yes the number of registered voters last time
was 6 million, in impossible figure given the country’s population was just
over 12 million. No one knows for certain how the regime came up with this
figure because the voters roll was never released. Even if all the extra voters
were “deceased” the regime can still make up the number by entering the same
voter a multiple times.
The Zanu PF then used
the higher than expected registered voters to its advantage by allowing its
supporters to use voter registration slip as proof of identity and then cast
multiple votes. It is not hard to see why they cannot do the same again next
time with a biometric voters roll.
- “The secretariat of ZEC is largely composed of military and State security agents. This secretariat has to be completely dismantled in order to come up with a professional and unbiased secretariat that is capable of conducting a free and fair election at any given moment in time;”
- “The secretariat of ZEC is largely composed of military and State security agents. This secretariat has to be completely dismantled in order to come up with a professional and unbiased secretariat that is capable of conducting a free and fair election at any given moment in time;”
Zanu PF’s response on
this will be to appoint party loyalists but with no military and State security
background.
Will this be enough to
guarantee that ZEC will from hence forth deliver free and fair elections? Hell
no!
If we are to have confidence
with a ZEC that will deliver free and
fair elections then there will have to be far reaching democratic reforms of
the commission to ensure its independence and impartiality. For example
parliament should vet the suitability of commissioners and have the power to
question ZEC’s performance without reference to the executive branch.
Zanu PF has always
failed to provide ZEC with adequate resources to carry out its statutory duties
properly; many would say this was done deliberately.
There are other State
Institutions like the Police and the other security organs that would require
democratic reforms to stop them interfering adversely in the elections as they
have done in the past. Indeed all the democratic reforms agreed in the 2008 GPA
must be implemented as originally agreed.
With an overwhelming
Zanu PF majority in the current parliament it is clear the party cannot be
trusted to implement all the democratic reforms properly; this is why it was
important that the task was done during the GNU. The only way out now is for a
new body to be set up to carry out this important task. Since both Zanu PF and
MDC failed to implement any reforms during the GNU it is self-evidence neither
parties can be allowed to play a leading role much less have the power to veto
anything.
It is important that the
reforms are done properly next time and not waste time and money tinkering with
a few reforms here and there and then cry foul again!
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