Zim Standard 24 February 2008
By Vusumuzi Sifile
ON Friday last week, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) was still
“working flat out” to finalise the list of candidates to contest the 1 958
wards in next month’s harmonised elections, a week after nomination courts
sat across the country.
This, and the way a few nomination courts failed to complete their
business on time, in some instances continuing until the next morning, has
sparked speculation on the commission’s preparedness to run the harmonised
elections.
Observers and analysts last week said if the confusion at the
nomination courts were to be taken as an example, then the ZEC has shown
“very little by way of readiness” for the 29 March polls. Commentators noted
“it is still legally possible to postpone the elections” as there are still
a number of “fundamental issues requiring more time to correct”.
Noel Kututwa, the chairperson of the Zimbabwe Election Support Network
(ZESN), said the same problems encountered at nomination could spill into
the elections.
“This was to be expected,” Kututwa said. “I anticipate the same
problem with the voting … It would be undesirable for polling to go on and
on beyond 7PM given the on-going power cuts and no electricity in some rural
constituencies.”
Last week, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) said
the situation was not ideal for elections next month.
But ZEC officials insist they are ready, as they have been “preparing
for over a year”.
ZEC spokesperson, Shupikai Mashereni, on Thursday acknowledged they
faced challenges putting together results of the nomination court.
“We had nomination courts sitting throughout the country,” Mashereni
said. “Results were sent mostly by phone or fax, but when we got them, some
of them were not very clear. Each ward had an average of six contestants,
and we had to tabulate the information ward by ward,” he said.
Asked whether this was not an indication that ZEC was not fully
prepared for such a massive election, Mashereni said: “ZEC now has all the
logistics required for the elections…We did not start preparing for the
elections this year. Remember, we are employed full-time and our job is to
prepare for and run elections. So what do you think we have been doing all
along?”
But Mashereni could not disclose the exact figures of the various
logistical requirements, such as the translucent ballot boxes, indelible
ink, motor vehicles, generators, fuel and mobile phones, among others.
Early this month, Mashereni told The Standard “ZEC has arranged for
air transport” to access areas rendered inaccessible by the recent floods”.
Among other things, it was reported last week that the commission
would set up 11 000 polling stations for the harmonised elections.
Kututwa said considering what had happened in previous elections “11
000 polling stations may not be enough to allow all voters to exercise their
right to vote within a reasonable time in this election”.
“These harmonised elections are the first time that Zimbabwe will be
holding four elections at the same time,” he said. “This has never been done
before. I would have expected that the polling stations would have been
doubled to take into account the fact that each voter will be given four
ballot papers to cast. Just the time that it will take to go through four
ballot papers will unduly lengthen the voting process and it would have been
preferable to increase the number of polling stations.”
But others believe if the number of polling stations is increased,
political parties and their candidates would face another challenge:
spending a lot of money on polling agents.
Every candidate needs at least one agent at each polling station.
Considering there would be four elections running simultaneously at 11 000
polling stations, each political party would need to field at least four
candidates at each polling station. Parties fielding candidates in all
constituencies would need 44 000 polling agents. They don’t come cheap
either.
But Kututwa said “it is better for the election to be expensive for
parties than to have voters’ democratic rights to vote prejudiced by having
few polling stations”.
He proposed that the political “parties would rather take the risk”
than let people fail to vote because there were fewer polling stations than
could cater for all the voters.
He said some candidates could also volunteer their services.
David Coltart of the MDC Mutambara faction said this was not likely to
be a problem for the “serious political parties”.
“For example, in Bulawayo we already have a surplus of people who want
to be polling agents,” said Coltart. “Maybe this could be a problem for the
smaller parties and independents. But generally, we share the same concerns
with them. So we can say they will be covered by other opposition party
agents.”
In the past, voters could vote anywhere in their constituency. This
year, voting will be ward-based, but not much has been done to enlighten
voters on the new arrangements.
“Very little voter education is being conducted by the ZEC,” Kututwa
said. “The solution is to change the whole administrative set-up and ensure
that adequate human and financial resources are in place to be able to carry
out these activities properly.”
Paul Themba Nyathi, also from the Mutambara faction, said the
distribution of polling stations “should be based on the mathematical factor
that there are four entities being voted for simultaneously. It is not
something one can just do from the air.”
Political analyst, Felix Mafa, the spokesperson for the MDC Tsvangirai
faction in Bulawayo, said with the current number of polling stations, the
“voting process will definitely need more time for each voter to cast four
votes”.
“If each voter takes about 10 minutes inside the polling station in
order to cast his/her votes, there are many votes that will be lost, as many
eligible voters might not afford to spend the whole day in a queue to cast
their votes,” he said.
Some candidates – especially those from newly established political
parties – appear not conversant with the new regulations relating to the
election, which could result in their papers being rejected as not being in
order.
Others, like perennial loser Egypt Dzinemunhenzwa, went to the court
without enough money to file the papers.
Others, like Moreprecision Muzadzi of the obscure Vox Populi, were not
aware that presidential candidates, for example, have to be over 40 years
old. The Christian Democratic Party (CDP) says it would have fielded eight
candidates “but many fell by the wayside for various reasons”.
The party ended up fielding only two.