CIVICUS CIVIL SOCIETY WATCH programme news
Elections in Zimbabwe... Free and Fair? By Elinor Sisulu
Zimbabweans preparing for parliamentary elections on 31 March 2005, do so with a terrible sense of déjà vu. Since the parliamentary elections in 2000, Zimbabweans have endured nine by-elections and the presidential elections in 2002. All these polls have been characterized by intimidation of voters through widespread and systematic state-sponsored violence through groups such as so-called war veterans and the dreaded youth militia, the police and the army, attacks on independent media, disenfranchisement of citizens through various means such as confiscation of identity documents, manipulation of the voters roll and a ruthless propaganda campaign that legitimizes violence against the members of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on the grounds that they are nothing more than puppets of the West.
Another hallmark of Zimbabwean elections in the past five years has been the uncritical support of African governments. In his analysis of Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential elections, Dr Dennis Kadima of the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa (EISA) noted that all but one of the fourteen domestic observer missions and all nine international observer missions found that the election was neither free nor fair nor a reflection of the will of the people while ten of the fourteen African observer endorsed the election as free and fair.
Dr Kadima’s research revealed that most of the African observer missions’ suffered a serious lack of preparation and inadequate training and funding problems that resulted in late accreditation, preventing them from observing most of the critical pre-election phase. The conclusions of the African observer missions were far more a result of their deep sense of solidarity with the Zimbabwean government than anything they witnessed on the ground.
By far the best trained and most well prepared of the African observer missions was the SADC Parliamentary Forum PF team. It arrived in Zimbabwe much earlier than the other observer missions and had its members travel extensively throughout the country. It was therefore in a position to comment more authoritatively on the pre-election phase and its report was one the most thorough and systematic of all the observer missions. Significantly was one of the four African observer missions that refused to give the “free and fair” stamp of approval to Zimbabwe’s 2002 presidential election. Not surprisingly the Zimbabwe government has not invited the SADC PF observer mission to observe the 2005 parliamentary elections.
President Thabo Mbeki and various senior members of the South African government have recently proclaimed that there is no reason to believe that the Zimbabwean elections will not be free and fair. It is difficult to understand how they arrive at this conclusion in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. While levels of violence may be lower than they were in the run up to previous elections, members of the opposition political party continue to suffer harassment and physical abuse. The electoral environment has in many ways deteriorated since 2002 with the enactment of legislation such as the Public Order and Security Act (POSA), the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act (AIPPA) and the Broadcasting Services Act.
These pieces of legislation combine to deny the Zimbabwean electorate of the basic freedoms of assembly, speech and association. The independence of the judiciary has been severely compromised as a result of state harassment. The voters’ roll is fundamentally flawed. Apart from a few cosmetic changes Zimbabwe has not adhered to the Mauritius protocol in any way.
All indications are that this election will be as flawed and contentious as the 2000 and 2002 elections. If awards were given out for successfully rigged elections, Zimbabwe would rank among the leading nations in the world. Since the parliamentary elections in 2000, Robert Mugabe’s government has become a past master at cynically manipulating elections to ensure victory for the ruling party, ZANU-PF. Under the prevailing conditions, it will more difficult for the MDC to secure victory in the March 2005 than it is for the proverbial camel to go through the eye of a needle.
The outlook is indeed bleak but while it appears that nothing has changed since 2002 there have been some developments that may not affect the outcome of this election but in the long term augur well for the struggle for democracy in Zimbabwe. The first is adoption by the SADC heads of state of the SADC Norms and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections in Mauritius in 2002. Though it is clear that the SADC governments have not intention of enforcing these principles with respect to Zimbabwe, their adoption has placed some pressure on the Zimbabwe government, hence the cosmetic changes that it has made to the electoral process.
The adoption of these principles also assists observers in making a more scientific assessment of elections rather than judging them on some nebulous standard of “free and fair”.
The most positive development from a South African solidarity point of view, has been a sea change in the attitude of South African civil society, most dramatically expressed by COSATU’s protest action and the support from the South African Communist Party (SACP).
The Zimbabwe government may dismiss COSATU’s actions with contempt but such vocal condemnation coupled with protest action by the largest and most powerful labour union in this region if not the whole continent, must give it cause for concern. It is also much more difficult for the Zimbabwean government to dismiss COSATU. The fact that COSATU and the SACP have taken a strong position on Zimbabwe in the face of disapproval with their alliance partner the ANC as well has to be of concern for the South African government as well.
South Africa’s largest non-governmental coalition, South African Non-Governmental Organisation Coalition (SANGOCO) has also joined the fray and come out strongly in solidarity with the suffering people of Zimbabwe. SANGOCO has joined the major church organisations, the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and the South African Catholic’s Bishop’s Conference (SACBC), the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation, the Centre of Policy Studies, the Zimbabwe Liaison Organisation, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CVSR), the Institute of Democratic Alternatives (IDASA) and a number of other organisations, to form the Zimbabwe Solidarity and Consultation Forum.
At a recent solidarity conference reminiscent of anti-apartheid solidarity rallies, students from the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the Young Communist League sang freedom songs while women from the Inter-Denominational Women’s Prayer League prayed. The coming together of diverse groups such as the churches and the communists as well a representatives of civil society groups from Malawi, Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo pointed to the fact that civil society organisations in South Africa and the rest of the region are able to see beyond the myopic vision of the SADC governments and to envision a truly democratic future for Zimbabwe and her neighbours.
