From a voter

For sure a budget election. Pictures not good. To be sure you need to be able to read, or have had an affair with the person. Example: I have warned my parents to take their time and take their glasses.

Reports received that several voters are not on the voting rolls where they were expected. This means they cannot vote in their constituencies, and are expected to attend thousands of kilometers away. This makes it impossible for them to vote.

Reports in also that there is a heavy presence of security personnel observing who is going in and out of polling stations.

The ballot paper is also confirmed as problematic, ZANU PF candidates are in bold, and easily identified, candidates from other parties are blurred or not easily identified.

Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum

I went to get some fuel on my way to the office this morning. The petrol attendent asked me whether I’d voted and I said no. He spent the next 5 minutes telling me passionately why I should go vote and why my vote was important. He didn’t seem particularly worried about the vast rigging that’s been taking place, instead he felt that the will of the people would trump any electoral trickery. He also said that it just wasn’t right that a 90 year old man should be governing Zimbabwe. One of his most uplifting observations was that Zimbabwe belongs to us – its citizens – and not the power toting politicians who have chosen to turn Zimbabwe into their personal playground. Finally I said, so what happens when Mugabe claims victory; what then? He said that a Mugabe victory is just not possible this time.

Vince Musewe reminds Zimbabweans that we have a major role to play in keeping our politicians accountable and our electoral process credible. We must not accept a flawed election:

Zimbabwe’s 4th Chimurenga; a battle of ideas and not guns

As Mugabe sleeps on the bed he has created, so, must those that have been complicit in creating that bed.

It is incontrovertible that, when leadership ceases to be sensitive to the needs and aspirations of its followers, the followers will rebel and choose those leaders whom they think are most likely to represent their aspirations.

The art of leadership, therefore, is the ability to anticipate and understand the shifting trends, opinions and aspirations of the people you may seek to lead, and then act to meet those needs otherwise, one will be rendered irrelevant.

By criminalizing open dialogue, criticism, freedom to associate and stifling personal liberties, as a leader, you inadvertently starve yourself from information on new ideas and trends, which are critical for you to continue to be an effective leader. Inevitably that vacuum, is then filled by informers, spies and charlatans who manufacture and manipulate the information you get so that they may continue to gain favor from you.

That eventually makes you irrelevant as you become unaware and uninformed of the true reality on the ground. You can be then are perceived as insensitive to the needs of your followers and incompetent, no matter what good you may have done in the past.

That is the bed Mugabe has made and must now sleep on it. The use of violence and coercion, to force Zimbabweans to agree with his ideas has not created a loyal followership, but an unwilling and anxious people who will at the first opportunity they get to vote, dismiss him from power.

This is the reality that those in the military, the police and intelligence services have help him to create but are refusing to accept the inevitable consequences. As Mugabe sleeps on the bed he has made, so, must those that have been complicit in creating that bed.

The 4th chimurenga has arrived; it is a battle of ideas about the future and cannot be won through the use of a gun as was the 3rd.

I think this should be instructive to those that are seeking political power in Zimbabwe. Our politics have to change, and the relationship between the governing and the governed has to be based on respect. In order for that to happen, it is up to all of us Zimbabwean citizens to realize that as long we remain quiet and unconcerned, we are bound once more, to afford an opportunity for our leadership to abuse our vote.

I expect that we will insist that it cannot be business as usual when a new government comes into power. No longer must we expect them to shape our future without our participation. No longer must we allow them to prescribe solutions to our problems while ignoring what we think should happen.
We will need to be activists to breathe life into a new participative democracy enshrined in our new constitution. Zimbabweans can no longer be spectators in their own country nor should they be afraid.

The opening of the media space is going to be critical for this to happen. Zimbabweans have, in the past, been starved of new information that they could have used to think and act differently. This created a sense that there is no outside to ZANU (PF).

The repetitive narrative that has been regurgitated in state media sought to create conformity based on lies and the manipulation of events through the media, to justify a centralized political system with no new ideas about the future. It justified the continued political and economic domination of many by a few.

The suffering we have endured must surely be a lesson to all of us that, as long we remain passive our circumstances will not change.

In my opinion, freedom comes with responsibility and I doubt that most of us are aware of the power we have to change our circumstances.

Vince Musewe is an economist based in Harare. You may contact him on vtmusewe [at] gmail [dot] com
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Our Zimbabwe needs a new vibrant, corrupt-free government which is pro-poor, people centred & respects people’s rights, freedoms & rule of law. And, more importantly uphold the constitution.
- Obvious in Chikomba East

An excerpt from the latest Bill Watch published by Veritas:

Most of the issues raised in this Bill Watch are basic to the electoral process and should be easily answered, but it has taken a great deal of time and effort wading through the oft-amended, sometimes contradictory provisions of the Electoral Act to find out what the law really is.

If one wants to understand the provisions of the law, one has to look at:
- the Electoral Act, which has been amended five times, the last amendment being published only the day before the electoral proclamation, which was 44 days before polling day;
- the general regulations of 2005, which have also been extensively amended — no fewer than 19 times;
-  specific sets of regulations published in 2013 and regulating such matters as the nomination of candidates and the accreditation of observers.

On the ZEC official website there are two documents purporting to be the consolidated version of the Electoral Act.  The first one  does not show the latest amendments.  The second, which does, is not entirely accurate, e.g. it leaves out a whole sentence in Section 38(1).  The website also purports to have a consolidated version of the Electoral Regulations.  It is impossible to download it or even view it.

This Bill Watch would have been much easier to prepare — indeed, it might not have been necessary to prepare it — if the amendments to the Electoral Act had been more clearly drafted, and if ZEC had done its duty under sections 5(d) and 191 of the Act and kept the public informed about all matters relating to the electoral process and ensured that copies of the Act and regulations were available to members of the public at all times.

The Constitutional Court ruling that the elections had to be held by 31 of July led to a headlong rush into elections.  This undoubtedly caused ZEC considerable problems.  But ZEC should have opposed the application and pointed out its difficulties if the election was held so soon.  It is no use ZEC assuring the public that the logistics are in place for the election when there is a lack of communication and transparency and the very obvious fact that in the special voting there was chaos.