The issue of producing verified voters’ roll is an important one. Without an audited voters’ roll it is impossible to verify that all those eligible to vote are on the roll and only those eligible to vote are on the roll. When the voting takes place; only those on the voters roll vote and vote once. Without a verified voters’ roll it is impossible to have free, fair and credible elections because it is impossible to stop vote rigging; impossible!
In the last elections nearly one million, mainly opposition supporters were denied the vote because their details were not in the constituency voters’ roll they expected. Meanwhile Zanu PF was able to bus its hooded youths and army recruits from one polling station to the next, casting multiple votes. Everyone, including the few foreign election observers, witnessed the blatant vote rigging but with no verified voters’ roll, the smoking gun, it was impossible to prove anything.
The 2013 AU election observer team, headed by Chief Olusegun Mathew Okikiola Aremu Obasanjo former Nigerian President, noted in their report Zimbabwe’s failure to produce a verified voters’ roll a month before the elections, the very latest, as demanded by the country’s constitution. The AU let Zanu PF off the hook by noting this serious failure as an “irregularity” the regime must put right in future.
The whole world is watching the AU election observer team for this year’s election to see if the team will once again let Zanu PF get away with yet another rigged election. Because the regime has still done nothing to ensure there is a verified voters’ roll before this year’s election and thus comply with the country laws and AU’s demands.
“The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission has refused to provide election stakeholders with copies of the provisional voters roll which was being inspected by voters for the last ten days,” reported Zimeye.
No one who has been following the chaotic way Zanu PF, through it surrogate body ZEC, has conducted the whole registration exercise is surprised to hear that. The whole voter registration exercise was started very, very late; September 2017 when it should have started January 2015, at the latest. Even with all the good will in the world, there was no way ZEC was going to register 7 million voters in the allocated five months; in the end only 5.4 million were registered. Even then, no one has had the time to audit the 5.4 million registered voters.
The 5.4 registered voters were given 10 days to check the provisional roll; another impossible task.
The voter registration exercise was started very late and now everything is being rushed through without being checked; this was all deliberate and for one purpose – to ensure there is no verified voters’ roll.
Yesterday, Tuesday, the Elections Resource Centre filed a court application demanding that ZEC release the provisional voters’ roll.
As of today, President Mnangagwa has set 30 July 2018 as the day the nation will go to the polls to elect a new government. The voting day has been set and still the nation has no clue who are on the voters’ roll and, no doubt, will never know who voted at the end of the day.
“This is a critically important case. The question is why the ZEC has to be taken to court at all to get this information? If this was a truly independent body, and not controlled by the military, one would think it would be committed to transparency,” said David Coltart, former MDC Senator and an aspiring MDC Alliance candidate in this year’s elections.
No Mr Coltart; the most important question here is why is the opposition dragging the nation into flawed and illegal elections, yet again. You, yourself admitted the folly of contesting the 2013 elections knowing there was no verified voters’ roll, amongst many other irregularities.
“The worst aspect for me about the failure to agree a coalition was that both MDCs couldn’t now do the obvious – withdraw from the elections,” you admitted in your book.
“The electoral process was so flawed, so illegal, that the only logical step was to withdraw, which would compel SADC to hold Zanu PF to account. But such was the distrust between the MDC-T and MDC-N that neither could withdraw for fear that the other would remain in the elections, winning seats and giving the process credibility.”
The MDC family has since regroup to form the MDC Alliance. What is your excuse this time for once again failing to do the “obvious” thing and withdraw from these flawed elections? Zanu PF is blatantly rigging these elections and you, Mr Coltart and your MDC friends are giving the process the modicum of political credibility for the sake of the few gravy train seats Zanu PF is giving away as bait to the oppositions.
“If this was a truly independent body, and not controlled by the military, one would think it would be committed to transparency!” Yeah right! As if the penny has just drop! Well, now that the penny has dropped, you now know that know ZEC was controlled by the junta, that there will be no verified voters’ roll, that Zanu PF is blatantly rigging these election as we speak, etc.; are you finally going to withdraw from participating in these flawed and illegal elections?????
Clearly Zimbabwe’s opportunistic opposition cannot be trusted to do the obvious thing and boycott these flawed elections. One hopes that the international election observers, including the AU and SADC, will have the courage to do the right thing and judge these flawed elections null and void! How can elections be free, fair and credible when there is no something as basic to elections as, verifiable voters’ roll!!!
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Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) chairperson Priscilla Chigumba has taken the final step needed to give legal effect to polling station-based voting.
These elections are waste of time, opportunity and resources because there are not free, fair and credible!
There is no arguing that we can have free, fair and credible elections without implementing the democratic reforms agreed at the onset of the 2008 to 2013 GNU; we tried that in 2013 and Zanu PF blatantly rigged the elections. How anyone can say these elections are free and fair when there is no free public media, no verified voters' roll, when Zanu PF is spending billions of dollars of looted public wealth to bankroll its vote rigging schemes, etc., etc.
The international community members who have been officially invited to observe these elections must judge the process honestly as they would want elections conducted in their own country; that is not too much to ask!
What will happen to Zimbabwe if the international observers were to judge these elections null and void, some people have asked. Zimbabwe will revert back to the situation the country was in after the rigged 2008 elections; this time the nation will see to it that the democratic reforms agree then are implemented.
"As the PDP led by Adv. Tendai Biti, we have noticed with great disgust the manner in which we have been treated in the MDC Alliance by members of the MDC-T led by Nelson Chamisa. We will not stand for it."
"MDC-T (Chamisa) promised to stay away from constituencies that our members would be taking part in. However, this is not what is happening on the ground," PDP was quoted as saying.
PDP threatened to withdraw its support from the MDC Alliance if its grievances were not "immediately addressed".
The real shock for Biti, Ncube and all the other partners in the Alliance will come on 17 June, 2018; the morning following nomination day; when Biti and company will wake up to the reality that there are MDC-T candidates in the constituency allocated to them! "We will not stand for it!" they can scream then but knowing fully well there is nothing they can do about it!
SADC told both Zanu PF and MDC politicians in 2013 that elections should not go ahead until reforms are implemented. "If you go into the elections next month, you will lose: the elections are done!" they warned MDC leaders.
Events proved SADC leaders right, Zanu PF did blatantly rig the 2013 elections. It is really pointless to contest elections without implementing the reforms designed to stop Zanu PF rigging elections!
I disagree that "Zimbabwe needs a revolution and not an election!" Just because President Mnangagwa and Mugabe before him cannot hold free, fair and credible elections does not mean the country is incapable of implementing the reforms to make that possible!
This is laughable, here is someone who has just stage a coup to remove his own former boss worried sick that some disgruntle party members may sabotage his vote rigging schemes and deny him the chance to remain in office just as former VP Joice Mujuru had done to Mugabe in 2008. Which one is worse, "Bhora musango!" or being probed with a loaded gun!
Those who refuse to be remove from office through the ballot have necessary opted to have their marching orders from someone with a gun. By the way VP Chiwenga there is no guarantee that the individual hold the gun to you will not have a twitchy finger!
President Mnangagwa has named the date for elections when we do not even have a verified voters' roll! He knows exactly who is going to vote and delivery him a landslide victory and then claim it was the democratic wish of the people! Well enough of this nonsense!
No free, fair and credible elections are possible without agreeing who is on the voters' roll and a clear system to ensure only those on the roll vote and vote once only! These elections are therefore not going to be free and fair. Since President Mnangagwa, just like Mugabe before him, cannot be trust to hold free and fair elections the nation must look for someone who will do it.
The only thing holding back this country, and has done so for the last 38 years, is the failure to hold free and fair elections. The nation is not getting out of this hell-hole until we hold free and fair elections!
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