Background
In an interview with the Sunday Mail on 3 September 2016, Patrick Chinamasa, the Minister of Finance and ZANU PF Secretary for Legal Affairs, basically dismissed demands for electoral reforms by opposition parties. He described them, rather condescendingly, as: “false prophets peddling falsehoods about electoral laws”. He claimed that there was no need for electoral reforms as the parties had agreed all reforms before the 2013 elections. This view was backed by his colleague Professor Jonathan Moyo, who quipped more than once on social media that ZANU PF would not reform itself out of power.
The statements by Chinamasa and Moyo were met with strong disapproval and condemnation by opposition parties, individually and collectively through NERA – the National Electoral Reform Agenda, a coalition of opposition parties advocating for electoral reform.
However, it has to be admitted that Chinamasa’s account bears deceptive clarity, which the opposition can only take for granted at their peril. While the opposition have rightly condemned Chinamasa’s statements, they have not gone further and carried out a clinical dissection to debunk his grandiose claims so that the public is more informed. There is a real risk that the average voter reading Chinamasa’s glossy statement on electoral reforms might be fooled into believing that Zimbabwe has made great strides and that there is really no basis for demanding electoral reforms.
This article is an intervention dedicated to analyzing, point by point, the claims that were made by Chinamasa. It exposes the weaknesses of Chinamasa’s narrative and, in particular, presents areas of electoral reforms that he conveniently left out of his narrative.
Nature of reforms
The principal argument advanced in this article is that electoral reforms have to be understood at two levels: the paper-based level and the practical level. The paper-based type are reforms of laws and regulations relating to elections, while the practical reforms are the actual implementation of laws and regulations. Paper-based legal reforms are of no use unless they are implemented in practice.
The fundamental weakness of Chinamasa’s glossy electoral reforms narrative is that it is restricted to a fraction of paper-based reforms. It excludes electoral issues that still require legal reforms. More significantly, Chinamasa’s narrative excludes the practical aspect of electoral reforms, where very little has changed. Despite paper-based legal reforms, the electoral landscape is still heavily skewed in favour of ZANU PF.
This article deals with several issues, showing why electoral reforms are still necessary. These issues are: voter registration, delimitation of constituencies, management of election logistics, security sector reform, the role of traditional leaders, management of ballot papers, counting of votes, state media reform and eradicating the atmosphere of coercion, fear and intimidation.
Voter registration
According to Chinamasa, parties agreed on a new model of polling station-specific voter registration to facilitate a system where voters can only vote at the polling station where they are registered. This is different from the previous system, where a voter could vote at any polling station in the constituency. “This time, you register at a polling station and then you can only vote at that particular polling station. This is to avoid any possibility of double voting,” said Chinamasa, confidently, before adding: “We further agreed that registration of voters and compilation of the voters’ roll would be done by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission [ZEC] and not the Registrar-General’s Office. We agreed that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission would do the delimitation of constituencies as required by the Constitution.”
Chinamasa is right that constitutional reforms have given ZEC the authority to register voters and maintain the voters roll. These functions used to be exercised by the Registrar General’s Office, led by the long-serving Tobaiwa Mudede, who seems to be an exception to the civil service’s retirement age requirements. The opposition had lost confidence in the voters’ roll and in Mudede, whom they viewed as partisan and biased in favour of ZANU PF. They believed it would be better to give these functions to ZEC, the constitutional body charged with the duty of running and supervising elections. It is also supposed to be independent and the belief was that ZEC would be able to manage the voters’ roll without political interference.
No electronic voters’ roll
Nevertheless, the constitutional reforms came too late for the 2013 elections. This meant for purposes of that election, Mudede retained his mandate over voter registration and the voters’ roll. This caused a lot of problems, demonstrated by Mudede’s stark refusal to make the electronic copy of the voters’ roll available, contrary to electoral law and court orders. An electronic copy of the voters’ roll is fundamental because it is easier to search and analyse and, therefore, easier to audit and check for any irregularities. It’s not surprising that Mudede refused to give up the electronic copy of the voters roll. When pressed in court, he claimed that his computer was broken. This failure was confirmed by ZEC in its official report of the 2013 elections: “Unfortunately, however, the Commission could not provide any electronic copies of the voters roll to candidates as required by provisions of Section 21 (6) of the Electoral Act [Chapter 2:13].” Unfortunately, the Court gave him free passage, ordering that he was supposed to deliver the voters roll when his computer was fixed. The wily Mudede sat back and did nothing and continued to say his computer was broken.
Chinamasa omits this clear breach of the law in his sugar-coated summary of electoral reforms. He knows Mudede flagrantly breached the electoral law, reforms notwithstanding. What is there to stop ZEC from doing the same come 2018? Yes: the law was reformed. Yes: parties are allowed access to a free electronic copy of the voters’ roll. But, no: this was never implemented simply because Mudede could not be bothered to comply with the law.
No continuous registration of voters
More importantly, Chinamasa omits the fact that while ZEC is mandated to register voters on a continuous basis, it has not done so since it acquired this new responsibility in 2013. At one point when it was taken to court, ZEC rejected its new constitutional responsibility, arguing that it was awaiting the realignment of the electoral law with the new Constitution – a weak and baseless argument taht was soon exposed, much to ZEC’s embarrassment. Before that case was concluded, ZEC had to perform a somersault and start registering voters after the expulsion of ZANU PF MPs in early 2015 created new parliamentary vacancies that, by law, had to be filled. Suddenly, ZEC acknowledged that it had the constitutional power to register voters, despite its earlier denials. However, it began to register voters only in constituencies where by-elections were being held.
The net effect is that ZEC has only registered voters in the few constituencies where by-elections have been called. Elsewhere, it is not performing its constitutional mandate. Therefore, while Chinamasa may talk glowingly about the new system of registering voters, the reality is that Zimbabwe is where it was in 2013, if not worse, because there is no continuous voter registration taking place. Electoral reforms are not merely about making new rules and creating new institutions. They are also about ensuring that the law is implemented.
A key area of reform relates to requirements for registration where residence requirements have disenfranchised many people, particularly the young people in urban areas, who struggle to get the official documents required to prove residence. This problem was recognized in the 2013 elections, leading to a relaxation of rules, so that various alternatives could be used to prove residence. Thus affidavits by applicants could be used as proof of residence. These relaxations have to be approved by law so that they apply permanently. The citizen’s right to vote is more important and should not be unduly limited by the residence requirements. Other people who were previously designated as “aliens” under the old citizenship laws are still struggling to get recognized. Mudede continues to defy the new Constitution which recognizes dual citizenship and the restoration of these persons’ rights. In some cases, the cost of obtaining new ID documents is prohibitive, which results in exclusion. This is an area that requires reform to avoid excluding millions from the voting system. These are issues that Chinamasa does not address in his sugar-coated narrative of electoral reforms.
ZEC’s perennial complaint is that it has no resources. This plea of poverty shows the fallacy of ZEC’s independence, which is still heavily dependent on the benevolence of government. Institutions like ZEC should receive their financial resources directly from treasury and should not have to depend on line ministries. This compromises their autonomy. The government itself must adequately resource ZEC so that it performs its key functions. Keeping ZEC in a state of perpetual poverty is a strategy to cripple its independence; one of the key aims of electoral reforms is to ensure ZEC’s financial autonomy. What is worse however, is that instead of demanding to be resourced, Justice Makarau, the ZEC Chairperson has been acting like a spokesperson and defender of government. In a recently publicized letter to an applicant for registration, the ZEC Chairperson indicated that the lack of resourcing from government was “understandable” given the government’s financial position. ZEC has no business understanding or justifying government’s failure to fund it. This amounts to condoning government’s failure to resource it when it should be demanding its dues to carry out its constitutional functions.
Delimitation of constituencies
Apart from voter registration, ZEC is also mandated to carry out delimitation of constituencies. This is an important exercise that involves mapping constituency boundaries to ensure there is fair and adequate representation across the country. Constituencies must have more or less similar numbers of voters. Where variations exist, they must be within a maximum threshold of 20 per cent. However, delimitation depends upon the number of registered voters. This is why the voter registration exercise is fundamental and must be done well in advance of the election. It produces the statistics that ZEC uses to draw constituency boundaries.
However, with ZEC failing to carry out continuous registration of voters, this exercise is likely to be delayed. When it is finally carried out, it will be a rushed process a few months before the 2018 elections.
Chinamasa does not talk about these shortcomings when he gives a sweetened version of the narrative of voter registration and delimitation, announcing that the law is adequate and that there is no need for further reforms, when in fact nothing is happening on the ground. Electoral reforms are not just about new laws. It means implementing the requirements of the law: registering voters; carrying out delimitation well before the elections. Failing to address these issues seems to be part of a strategy to do everything at the last minute, with all the inefficiencies and compromises that involves.
Election logistics: the National Logistics Committee
If ZEC is the vehicle of the elections management system, the National Logistics Committee (NLC) is its engine. Chinamasa did not talk about this committee in his narrative of electoral reforms because it is inconvenient. Nevertheless, it is important for citizens to understand why this committee is absolutely crucial and deserves more attention than any other cog in the electoral management system.
The NLC, more than ZEC itself, is the nerve centre of the election management system. To appreciate the important role of the NLC, it is useful to refer to ZEC’s own report on the 2013 elections, where it stated: “Because of the magnitude of the task of resource mobilization, the Commission relied on assistance from other state institutions that came together to set up a National Logistics Committee (NLC), which met regularly to co-ordinate mobilization of all the above resource requirements and also to supervise similar structures at provincial and district levels … The Commission commends everyone and NLC: and reiterates that ZEC would not have delivered on its mandate without the support, at both the institutional and individual level.”
Such is the centrality of the NLC in the management of elections. But what exactly is the NLC? It is important to understand the nature of this institution and why it is so important.
The NLC is a creature of statute. By law, it is a committee of ZEC, established in terms of the electoral law. It is not well known, probably because it is only really relevant during the short but critical period of the election. Afterwards, members of the NLC go back to their normal jobs – in government. This committee is the hub that brings together all the different departments of the state for purposes of running the elections. It is fair to say that it is this committee that actually runs elections, with ZEC as a front. While it is a ZEC committee, in political and practical terms, it is actually bigger and more powerful than its mother institution.
As for the NLC’s nature, ZEC described it well in its 2013 elections report:
“Broadly, the NLC comprised high level management drawn from the Ministries of Justice and Legal Affairs, Finance, Information and Publicity, Local Government, Public Works, Water Resources, Transport and Communication, Home Affairs, Education, Sports and Culture, Health Services Board and Local Authorities. Assistance was sought and obtained from the Public Service Commission, the Office of the Registrar General of Voters (RGV), the Zimbabwe Republic Police, the Air Force of Zimbabwe (AFZ), the Zimbabwe Defence Forces (ZDF), the Department of Roads, the District Development Fund (DDF), the Central Mechanical Equipment Department (CMED), the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority (ZESA), the Rural Electrification Agent (REA) and Tel-One, among many others.”
This paragraph broadly encapsulates the nature of the NLC. Evidently, it covers the entire span of government. It is government! While ZEC is the front office of the elections management system, the NLC is the actual centre of operations. This is the committee that organizes all the logistics, from ensuring that ballot papers are printed and delivered to polling stations to making sure polling officers have pencils and note pads pens, and that there is toilet paper at the polling stations. This committee ensures tents are provided at polling stations and that polling officers are fed and paid. It recruits election agents and manages their transportation and accommodation. All aspects of elections, great and small, lie in the NLC’s hands.
The centrality of the NLC in the elections management system means it is absolutely critical that its composition is more representative and inclusive. However, as described above, the NLC is a hub of government appointees, who are effectively ZANU PF appointees. The people you find in this committee include the Chairman of the Civil Service Commission, Mariyawanda Nzuwa, a long-serving public officer with strong attachments to ZANU PF. This committee is almost entirely comprised of public officers whose political umbilical chords lie in ZANU PF. The net effect is that ZANU PF actually runs the elections, albeit under the guise of ZEC.
ZEC generally sub-contracts a lot of its functions to these government departments. For example, the Civil Service Commission is responsible for recruiting election agents, who carry out the actual functions of the voting process. They are usually recruited from the ranks of teachers and workers in parastatals and statutory bodies. These recruits outnumber the actual ZEC staff. This dilutes ZEC’s role, given that these recruits are subject to the dictates of their employer, which is still largely ZANU PF dominated. ZEC’s report on the 2013 elections shows that it is aware of this concern. The report states: “While they [seconded staff] are governed by regulations pertaining to their seconding agencies, they operate under the full control and direction of the Commission as if they are full employees of the Commission, also receiving allowances included within the ZEC budget.”
While ZEC claims to have full control of seconded staff, their allegiance to their permanent employer cannot be underplayed. Ditto its role in shaping their behavior while performing their duties. Some of the reforms should include broadening the pool from which election officers are recruited beyond the civil service and state bodies. There must be a transparent, competitive and fair process of recruiting election officials. Other countries in the region already recruit beyond the civil service, and Zimbabwe can draw lessons from them. The opposition must still be careful that the ruling party does not take advantage of broadening the pool beyond the civil service. This could happen if broadening the pool actually results in exclusion because the ruling party only draws from the pool of its own supporters. This could present a worse problem to the opposition parties. Therefore, recruitment needs to be closely monitored to ensure it is broadly representative.
Another example of contracted services is in transport and related logistics. This role is performed by the Central Mechanical Equipment Department (CMED), which is owned by the government. As ZEC states in the 2013 elections report: “The major source for transport and fuel mobilization is the Central Mechanical Equipment Department (CMED), which manages, generally, government vehicles of all makes and sizes, including hired ones from the private sector and individuals. The CMED must also ensure there are adequate provisions of appropriate fuel, including, at times, fuel for helicopters that are required to reach areas with very poor and at times non-existent roads.” These helicopters would most likely be supplied by the Air Force of Zimbabwe. Given that most of the staff of these institutions are likely to be aligned to the ruling party, it’s easy to see why the opposition parties would be concerned about the handling of these logistical issues. These are the practical issues that require serious analysis to ensure inclusivity towards the opposition.
In the past, opposition parties have focused on changing ZEC Commissioners. This approach wasn’t bad. But, with all due respect, the Commissioners don’t actually run elections. In the greater scheme of things, they are symbolic figures. They operate on a part-time basis and most are happy to earn their free vehicles, fuel, phone and cash allowances and whatever other benefits the ZEC’s meagre resources can afford them. In fact, they are heavily dependent on public officers for these benefits, because they are the ones who process them and run ZEC’s day-to-day affairs. In the end, most Commissioners are likely to be captured by those they are supposed to supervise and direct. Before 2013, opposition parties spent too much time focusing on the Commissioners instead of focusing on the ZEC secretariat and its committees, such as the NLC.
The NLC needs to be broadened in terms of representation. Other countries in the region have co-opted opposition parties into logistics and planning for elections. This has not always made things smoother, but it’s a start. As the centerpiece of the election machinery, the NLC needs equitable representation that includes representatives nominated and approved by the opposition. It has to be open and transparent in its operations and, above all, it must be accountable to ZEC and the election contestants. This is a reform that Chinamasa does not want to talk about because it dilutes ZANU PF’s influence in the engine room of elections.
Ballot papers
According to Chinamasa, there was agreement that “political parties participating in the election, once known, will have an oversight role in the printing of ballot papers, as well as oversight of distribution of ballot papers. What it means is that we agreed that the number of ballot papers printed must be made known to participating political parties.”
This would suggest that political parties are involved in the logistical processes of designing, procuring, printing and distributing ballot papers and related election materials, such as indelible ink, pencils and ballot boxes. This was envisaged in the legal reforms, which also brought in the use of translucent ballot boxes to enhance transparency.
However, this rosy picture obscures the reality of what actually transpires in practice. In practice, the NLC plays a central role in this process, which also offers a wide range of rent-seeking opportunities and, therefore, corruption.
During the 2013 elections, the design, printing, procurement and distribution of ballot papers was plagued by a lack of transparency and seriously affected the credibility of the elections. Other stakeholders, including the opposition parties, were either excluded or given a peripheral role. ZEC failed to provide details regarding the identity of those who had been given the contract to print the ballot papers or where the printing was taking place. Distribution and accountability for ballot papers were also lacking. Details only emerged in the ZEC 2013 Elections Report, which disclosed that the printing was carried out by two state-owned companies – Fidelity Printers and Print Flow, which ZEC describe as “very reputable printing companies wholly-owned by the state but running as private companies”.
More importantly, there was an excessive discrepancy between the number of ballot papers which were printed and the number of registered voters: its 2013 elections report shows that ZEC printed 8,793,200 ballot papers against a voting population of 6,441,157. That’s 2 million ballot papers more than the number of voters on the voters roll. The excessive number of ballot papers was unnecessary and criticised for creating room for rigging. Why was it necessary to print more than 2 million extra ballot papers? Even the African Union Observer Mission criticised this excess number of ballot papers, which is out of line with regional and international best practice.
In addition, ZEC gave no information on the number of ballot papers printed and used for the Special Voting facility. This is designed for members of the security service and took place two weeks before the main election. The special voting system was abused because there was no credible way of ensuring that service personnel who had voted on the special voting days did not vote again on the main polling day.
There was also no accountability on the number of service personnel who were eligible for special voting. For example, the number of voters who were approved for Special Voting by ZEC was 69,000. But this figure did not tally with the actual number of officers in the police service, which was said to be 44,000 at the time. This deliberate inflation of eligible voters and the lack of information on the number of ballot papers printed for Special Voting raised credible concerns about rigging. Furthermore, ZEC failed to account for the number of ballots used on the special voting days. As in: how many were printed and distributed; how many were unused and how they were disposed of.
A review of the voters’ roll in 2013 also showed that there was duplication of names on an industrial scale. An assessment of an earlier version of the voters’ roll by the Research Advocacy Unit (RAU), a local research organisation, demonstrated at least 300,000 names were duplicated on the voters’ roll, even though they were given different ID numbers. There were also thousands of people who were on the voters roll but had never registered. Some were overseas and had never voted before. Deceased voters were also still on the voters roll. The implication is that that voters’ roll was highly inflated and it was not a true reflection of the number of actual voters. This flaw meant that when ZEC printed an extra 2 million ballot papers, this was based on flawed data and that the extra ballots far exceeded 2 million. The duplication of names and the extra ballot papers raised the risk of multiple voting and unaccounted ballots.
Chinamasa might talk about parties having a role in the management of ballot papers. The reality is that this function remains a ZANU PF affair.
ZEC Secretariat and security services
According to Chinamasa, the parties agree that members of the security services should not be involved in ZEC affairs. “We agreed – not that it was a problem – that there should be no serving members of the uniformed forces working for ZEC. There never have been serving members working for ZEC, but of course there could be one or two retired members. You can’t stop people developing another career after they retire from their jobs.”
In any normal political environment, there should be nothing wrong with retired servicemen taking on new career paths, even in the civil service. But in the Zimbabwean political context – in which security service officers have been openly partisan in their allegiance to ZANU PF, and whose livelihoods and business connections are closely tied to ZANU PF – this proposition comes with some qualifications. The presence in ZEC structures of former members of the security services, especially from the intelligence services, has been a major cause for concern among opposition parties. In fact, the opposition believes that serving members of the security services are involved in elections, through the ZEC secretariat or through committees such as the NLC and service providers, such as CMED or Fidelity Printers, which also handles ballot paper printing. This is why there has been a long-standing call for an overhaul of the ZEC Secretariat as a key area of electoral reform.
While Chinamasa focused on soldiers at ZEC, the big question relates to the issue of political neutrality of security services members. This chronic problem is common knowledge. In almost all elections since the 2002 Presidential election, security officers have had a significant influence in elections. More than once, the security generals have issued partisan statements directed against the opposition and in favour of ZANU PF. Credible reports demonstrate that after Robert Mugabe lost to Morgan Tsvangrai in the first round of elections in 2008, members of the security services took over the political campaign for the presidential run-off election, resulting in a violent campaign which took at least 200 lives and displaced thousands of people. Opposition parties believe that members of the security services are released in advance of elections and sent to rural areas, where they campaign on behalf of ZANU PF.
All this is against the Constitution. Section 208 of the Constitution prohibits members of the security services from acting in a partisan manner; furthering the interests of any political party or causing or prejudicing the lawful interests of any political party or cause. Yet, the fact that these prohibitions exist has never stopped ZANU PF from abusing the security services and its members for partisan purposes. Members of the security services have, on occasion, exposed themselves to the risks of political partisanship. On one occasion last year, a top general was introduced at a ZANU PF rally as the party’s “real political commissar” by Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The close relationship between ZANU PF and the security generals is obviously a product of a complex political and military history in which ZANU PF, the political unit, had a military unit, ZANLA; while ZAPU had ZIPRA. Diluting the bonds between these units, with relationships rooted in the liberation struggle, has been a slow process. But it has not been helped by a lack of will on the part of those involved, who benefit from mutual association and linkages. In 2013, the opposition’s proposal for a Code of Conduct to guide the conduct of security services members during elections was rejected by ZANU PF. This was part of the electoral reforms the opposition was demanding. The issue remains outstanding but, again, Chinamasa does not talk about it.
Media reforms
The issue of state media reforms is something else that Chinamasa omitted from his narrative of electoral reforms. Yet the media is a critical part of the elections environment.
Its role is recognised by the Constitution and electoral law. Section 61 of the Constitution places specific obligations on state media to be “impartial” and to “afford fair opportunity for the presentation of divergent views and dissenting opinions”. In addition, section 155(2)(d) of the Constitution requires the state to “provide all political parties and candidates contesting an election or participating in a referendum with fair and equal access to electronic and print media, both public and private”. Section 160K of the Electoral Act mandates ZEC to monitor and regulate the media during an election period. In this role, it is assisted by the Broadcasting Authority of Zimbabwe (BAZ) and the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC). This is to ensure the law governing the conduct of media coverage during the election period is observed.
While these paper reforms are welcome and present an admirable picture, the reality is different. State media, both print and electronic, is unashamedly pro-ZANU PF and government. They operate as ZANU PF mouthpieces and are decidedly anti-opposition. During the 2013 elections, the ZBC showed its partisanship when it selectively gave live coverage to ZANU PF’s launch of its election manifesto. When the MDC-T invited the ZBC to provide similar coverage, the ZBC quoted $165,000 – a ridiculously high amount of money to cover a single event. MDC-T protested because they had been treated differently from their ZANU PF rivals, who had received free coverage. Whenever the MDC-T and other opposition parties were mentioned in their state media coverage, it was to criticise and denigrate them. State media essentially acted as a campaign tool for ZANU PF.
Surprisingly, ZEC’s 2013 elections report shows the electoral body saw nothing wrong with the way state media had covered the elections. It stated: “As an output of the continuous engagement of all stakeholders by the Commission, there was general compliance with the relevant laws that govern media conduct by both public and private media during the election period. This notwithstanding, the aspect of plurality and diversity of media was subdued by the mere fact of third party endorsement of political candidates by media houses.” However, ZEC totally ignores the fact that state media has special constitutional responsibilities. ZEC should have a clear section that monitors and analyses the conduct of state media, which has special constitutional obligations on account of its nature as a publicly-funded institution. This misleading assessment by ZEC is further evidence that it is not fit for purpose in its current state. Even the AU, SADC and other observer missions noted that state media coverage was overwhelmingly skewed in favour of ZANU PF.
Clearly, the media reforms that are contained in the Constitution and the electoral law have not had any significant impact on state media practice and ZEC has been complicit in condoning and not criticising this behaviour. Is there need for reform? Definitely – not so much at the paper level, but at a practical level, as with the security services.
Appointment of ZEC Commissioners
Chinamasa also made reference to the reforms in the appointment of Commissioners. He wrote: “We also agreed the composition of ZEC itself; that Parliament was to have a role in the election and appointment of commissioners. Parliament now interviews persons to be appointed to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.”
It is true that reforms were made to the appointment procedure. In fact these reforms were effected during the Inclusive Government era. They seemed to work well then, as politically each party in the GNU was allowed to sponsor candidates to represent their interests. However, this worked because there was a political agreement. It was not perfect because others who were not party to the GPA were excluded. At least, however, it brought more diversity to ZEC and other independent commissions. Nevertheless, the operating environment resulted in two of the Commissioners resigning in protest just before the 2013 elections. They realized they had no power and did not wish to be used to sanitize a flawed election process.
Since 2013, there have been new appointments to fill vacancies that have arisen. However, after the lapse of the GPA, the political balancing act that defined the appointments of Commissioners during that era came to an end. While Parliament still has a role in the appointment process, the fact that it is overwhelmingly dominated by ZANU PF means Zimbabwe is back to the pre-2009 days when appointees reflected ZANU PF rather than national interests. Joyce Kazembe, a long serving Commissioner who has been with ZEC since the days of its predecessor, the Electoral Supervisory Commission, was recently retained after a round of interviews. She was a part of the ZEC that gave glowing approval to the violent, widely condemned and discredited 2008 elections. Applicants with an opposition background have generally been excluded, unless they have crossed over to ZANU PF.
Therefore, although Chinamasa may give a positive picture about the appointment procedure of Commissioners, in practice it has remained a ZANU PF affair and the current ZEC Board is probably no better than the one that handled the discredited 2008 elections.
Manning the polling station
Chinamasa says parties agreed that all polling stations should be manned by representatives of candidates and political parties to ensure that no cheating takes place inside the polling station. These representatives must be present at all times to keep an eye on the voting and counting process.
This is partially correct. What Chinamasa does not say, however, is that there have been problems at some polling stations, particularly at remote stations and in ZANU PF strongholds, where opposition representatives have faced threats and intimidation that compromise their ability to carry out their duties. The reforms required in this case are not necessarily in law, but in the practice of elections.
Distance from polling stations
Chinamasa says parties agreed on the distance from polling stations at which parties and candidates could campaign. This measure is designed to prevent undue influence on voters and to avoid violence between supporters at polling stations.
While this is correct, Chinamasa ignores the fact that this rule has been violated by ZANU PF supporters and no action has been taken against them by law enforcement authorities despite complaints from opposition parties. In some cases, government officials, who are known to be ruling party supporters, have been seen loitering in and around polling stations when they should not be there. These practices violate agreed principles that there should be no undue influence upon voters. Again, implementing this reform does not necessarily mean changing the law. It means ensuring the law is properly and fairly implemented on polling day.
Vote counting at polling stations
According to Chinamasa, parties “agreed that votes were to be counted at polling stations after the close of voting, and that the counting in the presence of representatives of candidates and political parties must be signed for to indicate the correctness of the counting.” He added that it was agreed the outcome would be announced at the polling station and results must be posted outside the polling station. There was also agreement on the collation and transmission of results from polling stations to the constituency command centre.
All things being equal, this sounds good and fair. However, Chinamasa excludes problematic areas such as postal votes and voting by members of the security services, which has traditionally been affected by a severe lack of transparency. In the past, soldiers, police officers, prison officers and other members of the security services have voted in advance of the polling day at their barracks. The justification has been that these members of the security services would be involved in providing services on polling day and would not, therefore, be able to vote in their respective constituencies. Voting in advance gives them an opportunity to exercise their democratic right. However, the biggest problem has been a lack of transparency in this voting process, where the opposition has consistently complained that it is marginalized and often kept in the dark. The rules on vote counting which Chinamasa so eloquently put across do not seem to apply to this voting process. The lack of transparency leaves a grey area in which there are serious concerns of vote manipulation. The opposition is also concerned at reports that officers voting in this process are often commandeered to vote for the ruling party, under threat that dire consequences would follow if they voted differently.
To appreciate the extent of the problem, it is useful to consider how members of the security services voted in the 2013 elections. Provision was made for Special Voting by these voters two weeks in advance of the main election. This Special Voting procedure was supposed to be an improvement on the old system, which was plagued by a lack of transparency. However, because the elections were rushed, it was a chaotic process that created even more challenges, a fact that was acknowledged by ZEC in its 2013 elections report. The chaos and lack of transparency caused numerous problems. A significant number of security forces members who failed to vote on those days were eventually allowed to vote on the normal voting day, but this brought its own problems of double voting. Another problem was that votes from the special voting process were not counted separately, as required by the law. Instead, they were mixed with votes from the normal polling day. This breach of the law was deliberately ordered by ZEC nationwide. ZEC issued new forms which were different from the normal forms required under the law. The V23A form requires all postal votes and special votes be counted and recorded separately. However, ZEC issued a new manual and a new form which was different. It was a de facto amendment of the electoral law outside the confines of the Constitution. Furthermore, lists of those who actually cast special votes were not made available to the public.
In summary, although the rules on counting votes are clear, the problem is that these rules have not been followed in letter or spirit. The process of counting votes remains problematic. But the type of reforms needed here go beyond changing the law. They are about changing the practice of elections. The weakness is in the implementation of existing rules.
Observers Accreditation Committee
One committee which receives a lot of attention is the Observers Accreditation Committee (OAC), another of ZEC’s key committees. The purpose of this committee is to accredit observers. It is an important committee since it has the power to determine who is permitted to observe elections. In recent elections, ZANU PF has been selective in its approach, refusing to accredit Western observers and preferring the African or related observer groups. This has created conflicts with the opposition, which has preferred a more open system arguing that if Zimbabwe has nothing to hide, it should open its doors to anyone and shame those who accuse it of rigging, if that is the case. This was a big issue before the 2013 elections, which split the main parties. In the end, ZANU PF prevailed, ensuring that no observers outside the usual circle were permitted to observe elections. This was despite “reforms” to the OAC, which had apparently expanded its composition.
The problem was that even after the legal changes, the composition of the OAC was still largely dominated by members of the executive arm of the State. This imbalance was evident during the Inclusive Government, where ZANU PF controlled all but half of the Ministries whose representatives formed the OAC. The OAC comprises representatives from the Ministries of Justice and Legal Affairs; Foreign Affairs; Home Affairs and the Office of the President and Cabinet. The others are the Chairperson and Deputy Chairperson of ZEC and three other commissioners. This was an improvement on the previous situation, where there were only two ZEC representatives on the committee. However, political representatives are still more influential and it is not surprising that the ZANU PF position always carries the day when it comes to accreditation of observers. There is no room for representation of other groups in opposition or civil society who would give balance to this committee.
One reform would involve leaving the decision entirely to ZEC and exclude all government and political representatives. Another would be to ensure that the composition of the OAC is broadened to include representatives of the opposition parties, religious groups and professionals. All parties that are involved in elections must have a voice when it comes to choice of election observers.
Apparatus of coercion, fear and intimidation
Chinamasa’s glossy narrative of electoral reforms does not include the drivers of fear and intimidation which have plagued elections on several occasions. Even the 2013 elections, which had the façade of calm and peace, belied the deep levels of fear and intimidation among voters, particularly in the rural areas. These areas are particularly affected because ZANU PF knows they are home to the bulk of the voting population, given that 67% of Zimbabwe’s population is rural. However, there is an intricate system here that furthers ZANU PF’s political interests at the expense of other political parties. The core of this system is the traditional leadership, from village head right up to chief. It works in conjunction with local authority structures, including state entities such as the District Development Fund (DDF).
The partisan role of traditional leaders is completely against the Constitution, where Chapter 15 forbids them from taking partisan roles in politics, including furthering or stifling the interests of political parties. The fact is that the law has already been reformed, as evidenced by the Constitution. But traditional leaders have not changed their behaviour. They still behave like a department of the ruling party. This, however, has always been the nature of traditional leaders in Zimbabwe. Most are fickle and myopic, bending to the prevailing wind in politics. During the colonial era, most chiefs were instruments of the colonial regime. However, after independence, they switched sides and have become instruments of the ruling party.
In my engagements with chiefs during the constitution-making exercise, I observed that they would prefer not to be co-opted into the politics. It is a system created by ZANU PF, which makes them dependent on it and forces them into a relationship they would rather avoid. Chinamasa does not talk about traditional leaders, their role in commandeering voters during elections, using food aid as a political instrument and generally furthering the interests of ZANU PF because it is an inconvenient issue. Yet it is also an important electoral issue which needs to be addressed at a practical level. ZEC’s role is to supervise elections. It has a responsibility to bring political actors to account when they abuse their power to unduly influence elections. Their courageous counterparts at the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission have already condemned ZANU PF’s abuse of food aid, which they said is being distributed in a politically partisan manner. ZEC must take a leaf from ZHRC’s book and learn that they can condemn politically partisan practices that impact on Zimbabwe’s electoral landscape.
What needs to be done?
According to Chinamasa: “All these matters were embodied in the electoral reforms that we all co-sponsored and enacted into law. These electoral laws were reinforced by provisions in the Constitution that address issues pertaining to elections… So, the point I’m making is that the MDCs have no basis to demand any electoral reforms, and in fact as you are aware, they fear to lose elections. So what we find now are false prophets peddling falsehoods about our electoral laws. The problem is not the Constitution, the problem is not the electoral laws; the problem is that none of these parties have viable alternative policies to those pronounced by ZANU PF.”
Chinamasa’s statement suffers the burden of hyperbole. It is only partially correct that there have been several electoral reforms in the past decade, most of them achieved through negotiations between ZANU PF and the MDC formations. The Constitution also contains important reforms. However, it is wrong to suggest that all matters that require reform have been attended to. In fact, the legal reforms that have been achieved constitute only a quarter of the task because the most critical elements of reform lie in implementation. It is at the practical implementation level where the electoral system remains woefully inadequate. That ZEC has the power to register voters is one thing. But if it is not exercising that function, that is hardly reform.
But typical of ZANU PF politicians, Chinamasa gets arrogant. He says, “What I understand they are saying, and which is not possible, is that we should put into the law that people should vote for them… It’s unheard of that we put in the electoral law and the Constitution that the opposition parties must win.”
This is hardly what the opposition are asking for. Chinamasa’s own narrative of electoral reforms is weak,selective and deceptive. He paints a picture of a perfect system which has been achieved through negotiation and requires no further reforms. Yet, as this article points out, there are vast areas that need reform, primarily at a practical level. It is one thing to design a system on paper, but quite another to convert it into a working model. Zimbabwe’s electoral system is still work in progress and there are many areas in need of attention. Chinamasa tried to sugar-coat the narrative of electoral reforms, but the reality is that the current electoral system still leaves a sour taste in the mouth. Hopefully, the opposition and civil society will be guided by the arguments advanced in this article and in this regard, I draw particular attention to the key pocket of power and influence called the National Logistics Committee. As long as the opposition parties have no role in that key space, whatever reforms are achieved elsewhere will yield very little. The engine is what makes the vehicle and in the case of the elections management system, that engine is the National Logistics Committee.
waMagaisa
