BY NORM DIXON
On March 13, Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was officially pronounced the winner of the March 9-11 presidential election with 55% of the vote. Mugabe's "victory" over opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) candidate Morgan Tsvangirai was achieved by systematically robbing hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans of their right to vote.
The presidential election was "certainly was not free and fair", declared Tawanda Hondora, spokesperson for the Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN), a coalition of church, human rights, trade union and other non-government organisations.
"The pre-election period was characterised by a high incidence of politically related violence, primarily orchestrated by state-trained militia... The ruling party and government have, by using terror tactics in rural areas and simply frustrating the voting process in urban areas, ensured that the process favours Mugabe", Hondora told the United Nations news service on March 11.
The Zimbabwe National Student Union (ZINASU), which has been waging a fierce struggle against the Mugabe government's privatisation policies, condemned the "flawed" election.
"ZINASU will not accept the results of an adulterated electoral process ... The beating and abduction of domestic election observers and the MDC polling agents by war veterans renders the election outcome null and void. We wish to state without equivocation that the students will defy any unconstitutional government, which is a result of an undemocratic process. Students join hands with labour and civil society at large in condemning efforts by the government to shortchange the electorate in urban areas", stated ZINASU's Phillip Pasirayi.
"The election results do not reflect the true will of the people of Zimbabwe and are consequently illegitimate", Tsvangirai said on March 12. "We foresaw electoral fraud but not daylight robbery."
Violence
Assaults, abductions and torture were reported daily during the election campaign. Between January and the election date, 31 people were killed and 70,000 displaced.
Across rural Zimbabwe, more than 140 "bases" were established, from which several thousand members of Mugabe's ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) militia — which masquerades as a government-funded "training" corps for unemployed youth — fanned out to intimidate voters, attack opposition activists and create "no-go" areas for the MDC. The police turned a blind eye to, and often openly collaborated with, the government thugs.
However, Mugabe was not confident that repression alone would be sufficient to secure another presidential term. Outright fraud and manipulation were also deemed necessary.
When the courts struck down a raft of undemocratic laws, Mugabe simply reinstated them by decree just days before the poll. They included a law that stripped voting rights from Zimbabweans with one or more non-Zimbabwean parents, depriving tens of thousands of black farm and mine workers of the vote.
Up to a million Zimbabweans resident overseas — except diplomats and soldiers — were also denied the vote, the vast majority being black Zimbabweans working in South Africa and Britain.
Another measure required people to vote in their registered electorates, which disenfranchised thousands of farm workers, nurses and teachers driven from rural areas to the cities by ZANU-PF militia attacks.
These workers were singled out because ZANU-PF was convinced that their trade union membership made them more likely to vote for the MDC, a party backed by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Farm workers and their families are estimated to account for 20% of voters in rural areas.
Voters frustrated
The ZANU-PF regime resorted to a crude and calculated manoeuvre to prevent tens of thousands of poor and working-class urban voters from exercising their right to vote.
In the June 2000 parliamentary election, the ZANU-PF was thrashed in the cities. In Harare, the MDC received almost 76% of the vote, and in Bulawayo it won 83.6%. ZANU-PF did not win a single city or town-based seat in the country.
On the eve of the vote, the ZANU-PF announced that the number of polling booths in urban areas would be slashed by 40-50%, while the number of booths in rural areas — where support for Mugabe is stronger — were boosted considerably.
In Harare, where 15% of the national electorate lives, there was an average of 5300 voters per polling booth, compared to just 1000 in rural areas. The meant that many people — who began arriving as early as 4am on March 9 — were forced to queue for up to 20 hours and even then could not vote.
The ZESN accused the government of "contrived administrative inefficiency" to reduce the number of urban votes cast. At some booths, fewer than 50 people were voting each hour.
Tens of thousands gave up waiting or went home in the hope that the queues would be shorter when they returned later. They only grew longer. Many thousands of others — especially women with children, the elderly and disabled — could not wait in the hot sun.
Large numbers of voters found that their names were not on the voters' roll or were turned away because they did not have proper identification.
Despite assurances made by the electoral authorities and government ministers that all in the queues would be allowed to cast their votes, thousands were turned away at the end of March 10. Riot police were reported to have used tear gas and batons to disperse angry voters at at least four Harare booths.
Large numbers of voters were also turned away at the close of polls in Bulawayo and the major towns of Gweru, Mutare and Masvingo.
On March 10, the High Court accepted a MDC motion and ordered that the government extend voting by an additional day. The government announced it would abide by the court order "under duress". It refused to open the booths across the country as ordered, claiming that the ballot boxes had already been transported to the counting centres. It only permitted voting to resume in Harare and the nearby Chitungwiza township.
However, most booths did not reopen until midday. As it was a work day, many workers who did arrive early to vote on March 11, were forced to leave when the booths did not open on time.
The government ordered the polls to promptly close at 7pm, stranding thousands of people without having had the chance to vote. Foreign election monitors prevented police closing one Harare booth 45 minutes early. Police again attacked frustrated voters with tear gas and fired shots in the air after they refused to go home.
The ZANU-PF succeeded in reducing the urban vote considerably. On government figures, in Harare and surrounding townships, the turnout averaged just 48% of registered voters. The people of Bulawayo, the region's major city, had the same difficulties imposed on them as in Harare.
Tampering
In contrast, the three key ZANU-PF strongholds in rural Mashonaland, the government claimed that participation ranged between 52% and 75%. In rural Masvingo, the turn-out was announced as 61% and in Manicaland it was 55%. These all represented big increases compared to the turn-outs in 2000 (for example, Mashonaland Central registered a 75% turn-out, compared to 56% in 2000).
There are strong suspicions that the claimed participation rates in the ZANU-PF's rural strongholds were inflated to allow the introduction of bogus ballot papers. Government figures show that, late on March 10, there was a significant jump in the number of people who had voted in rural areas, even though it was widely reported that polling booths there were largely deserted after the first day's voting.
In most rural areas, militia violence ensured that no independent election monitors or MDC representatives were present during much of the voting. This provided ample opportunities for the stuffing of ballot boxes and other poll tampering.
The government refused to accredit the ZESN's 12,500 independent election monitors, only allowing a token 420. Even then, ZESN monitors were required to "observe" the polling booths from 100 metres away to prevent "overcrowding". Non-government organisations have provided the official election monitors for all Zimbabwe's elections for the past 15 years, but the government suddenly banned them for this election.
Other irregularities reported included: the secret registration of 40,000 voters after the electoral rolls had closed; the removal of large numbers of eligible voters from the electoral rolls after they had closed; and thousands of police and soldiers being forced to cast postal ballots for Mugabe by their commanders; ballot boxes arriving at counting centres with broken seals; the discovery of ballot boxes in a police vehicle involved in a crash; and too many ballot boxes at a counting centre.
Crackdown
MDC secretary general Welshman Ncube was seized by police at Plumtree, near the Botswana border on March 11. Police claim that Ncube, who was interviewed by police on February 26 over claims he was involved in a plot to kill Mugabe, was attempting to flee the country. He appeared in court on March 12 and charged with treason, before being released on bail. Another MDC leader, Gift Chimanikire, was arrested in Harare.
"They are charging Welshman now to prepare to formally charge Tsvangirai in court, too", Brian Raftopoulos, chairperson of the Crisis in Zimbabwe Committee told the March 13 British Guardian. "We believe the government is planning to go after the MDC, trade union leaders, civic groups and the media."
Tsvangirai is facing treason charges over allegations that he plotted to "eliminate" Mugabe. On March 7, Mugabe told a ZANU-PF rally that the treason charges against Tsvangirai would be pursued after the poll. "Nobody we know to have planned such deeds will escape", he warned.
The Zimbabwean army has been placed on high alert to deal with any popular unrest in Harare and other cities in response to Mugabe's return to power. Around two-thirds of Zimbabwe's armed forces, including troops recently withdrawn from Congo, are on standby to move into working-class townships.
On March 14, Zimbabwean police banned a meeting of the ZCTU's highest body under the provisions of the Public Order and Security Act.
From Green Left Weekly, March 20, 2002.
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