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.

Washington Post

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, February 20, 2008;

One of the most reckless and cruel acts of government is the destruction of
a currency.

During the hyperinflation of Germany’s Weimar Republic, the number of marks
in circulation went from 29 billion in 1918 to 497 quintillion in 1923.
Workers were paid twice a day and given breaks to spend their money, carted
in wheelbarrows, before it became worthless. Most Germans lost their life
savings, leaving many prepared to blame others for their impoverishment. The
Nazis blamed the Jews.

This kind of hyperinflation is rare in history, but we are seeing it once
again, in Zimbabwe. Government officials claim an inflation rate of 66,212
percent (most months they refuse to release inflation figures at all). The
International Monetary Fund believes the rate is closer to 150,000
percent — about the level reached by Weimar Germany. By some estimates,
about 50 percent of Zimbabwe’s government revenue comes from the printing of
money. At independence in 1980, the Zimbabwean dollar was worth more than
one U.S. dollar. Recently, the state-controlled newspaper raised its cover
price to 3 million Zimbabwean dollars. Two pounds of chicken were recently
reported to cost about 15 million Zimbabwean dollars.

A Zimbabwean friend who runs a business recently told me, “If you don’t get
a bill collected in 48 hours, it isn’t worth collecting, because it is
worthless. Whenever we get money, we must immediately spend it, just go and
buy what we can. Our pension was destroyed ages ago. None of us have any
savings left.” Zimbabwean nationals who work on the U.S. Embassy staff in
Harare have seen all their retirement funds wiped out. American government
officials in the country carry boxes of money to pay at restaurants and must
begin counting out currency at the beginning of the meal to finish by its
end.

The government of Robert Mugabe has responded with the normal economic
policy of tyrants: price controls. And these have naturally emptied the
shelves in grocery stores and caused shortages of most basic goods. My
friend’s wife travels to Botswana to buy flour and sugar.

Mugabe manages to pay off his military leaders and political cronies with
hard currency that comes from mining gold and platinum. He also sells
farmland to Chinese and Libyan speculators — land expropriated from white
farmers, supposedly in the cause of Zimbabwean nationalism. Mugabe is
literally putting his country on the block to maintain his power.

So why don’t the impoverished people of Zimbabwe revolt? “The tragedy is
that nobody is in the streets,” says my Zimbabwean friend. “People are dying
silently.”

Zimbabwe’s odd stability has several causes. More than 3 million
discontented people have fled the country — often the talented and
educated — leaving Mugabe with less internal opposition. Many of the
Zimbabweans who remain avoid starvation with the help of international aid
and remittances from relatives in prosperous neighboring countries. Mugabe’s
political opponents have generally been weak and divided — when not being
jailed and tortured by the government. And some residual support for Mugabe
remains, particularly in rural areas, because he is an anti-colonial hero;
it is hard for many to accept the idea that their founding father is also a
corrupt, brutal incompetent.

There are, however, signs of resistance. My friend reports that lower-level
members of the military and police seem increasingly alienated and
disillusioned. At a demonstration last year, he says, “they were
unenthusiastic and malnourished, with ragged uniforms. They pleaded with us
to go away, because they didn’t want to hurt us. And then I was saluted for
the first time by the police.”

And Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party is beginning to fracture. The former finance
minister — who opposed the policy of printing money and price controls —
is running as an independent against Mugabe in the March 29 election. Simba
Makoni is viewed by U.S. officials as a smart, honest technocrat. He clearly
possesses bravery, though not much grass-roots support.

The March 29 vote, as usual, will be a fraud. Mugabe — despite pressure
from surrounding nations — will conduct a police-state election, with tight
control of the media, corrupt voter rolls and massive intimidation,
including the use of food as a tool of political control. But the opposition
has little choice but to participate. It may gain some support in local
councils and the parliament. And if opponents abandon the electoral route,
says my friend, the only alternative would be “street action, which is
fraught with problems.”

And so Mugabe remains on his bayonet throne as his country becomes the
Weimar Republic and totalitarian, all in one.

michaelgerson@cfr.org

The Zimbabwean 20 February 2008

BY CHIEF REPORTER
HARARE

With the diaspora unable to vote, next month’s crucial poll in troubled Zimbabwe will be decided largely by the country’s rural population, who make up 75 percent of the total 11,9 million population.

These are the people who have borne the brunt of a violent intimidation campaign by the ruling party.

“The outcome of the vote will be determined in rural areas,” said Ronald Shumba, a Harare-based political analyst. Green bombers and party activists have terrorised the countryside to prevent farm workers and peasants living on community settlements from voting. The farm workers must now take loyalty tests to Zanu (PF) in exchange for a guarantee they will be allowed to continue ploughing, sowing and harvesting.

Prof Welshman Ncube, secretary-general of the MDC (Mutambara) said the main question was not whether the elections would be free and fair, but “whether the estimated 5,6 million registered voters will be brave enough to turn out in large numbers and say ‘No’ to intimidation.”

Respected lawyer, David Coltart, said the government was trying to use old intimidation techniques, but “they simply do not have the same resources as before.”

“They used to have a guerrilla army of 50,000 people country-wide. We think that there are probably no more than 300 to 400 of these people – the rest are untrained youths,” he said.

Presidential candidate Simba Makoni has claimed the huge turnout last week at the registration centres was actuated by his entry into the presidential race.

“Judging by the response we have had since our announcement, we are heading for a landslide win,” Makoni said. “We have reports that voter registration was up 10-fold since the Tuesday we launched our bid. The enthusiasm is palpable.”

Makoni claimed he also had the rural vote and refused to categorise Zimbabweans saying “all of them are Zimbabweans, and all of them yearn for the same thing, which is an immediate renewal of our country.”

But the MDC also claims it is in the lead and has clinched the significant portion of the rural vote.

Washington Times

By David R. Sands
January 26, 2008

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe is expected to win a sixth term during early elections in March — despite ruinous policies that have led to the world’s highest inflation rate, estimated at 50,000 percent.

Zimbabwe’s opposition parties will almost certainly take part in elections set for March 29, a leading opposition figure said yesterday, even though President Robert Mugabe has “reneged” on a promise to put off the vote until key constitutional reforms had taken effect.

David Coltart, a senior member of parliament from the anti-Mugabe Movement for Democratic Change, told a Washington audience he doubted the presidential and parliamentary votes would be free or fair, but said it was unlikely the MDC and other opposition forces could agree on a total boycott of the election.

“We’re damned if we do and damned if we don’t” take part in the election, said Mr. Coltart, a lawyer and leading human rights activist in the southern African country.

The opposition and many international monitors have condemned past elections in the country, charging they were rigged by the president’s ruling Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) party. MDC rallies have been violently disrupted by the government’s security forces.

“My own view is that we have little choice but to participate unless we can organize a total boycott of the process,” Mr. Coltart said in remarks to the Heritage Foundation think tank.

Over opposition objections, Mr. Mugabe’s aides yesterday confirmed the vote will be held at the end of March. The 83-year-old president has ruled the country since it won independence from Britain in 1980 and will be seeking a sixth term through 2013.

He is expected to win despite Zimbabwe’s international isolation and ruinous economic policies that have led to severe staple shortages, rampant unemployment and the world’s highest inflation rate, which was unofficially estimated at 50,000 percent in 2007.

A land reform program — which often amounted to giving productive white-owned farms to ZANU-PF officials and supporters — is widely blamed for severe food shortages in a country once considered the bread basket of southern Africa.

The government blames the country’s woes on international pressure and economic restrictions, led by Britain and the United States.

The MDC had pushed for a summer election date to give recent constitutional and institutional reforms time to take hold. The changes, reluctantly agreed to by Mr. Mugabe last year, include press reforms, easing restrictions on opposition gatherings and safeguards to ensure free and fair elections.

Accusing the ZANU-PF leadership of acting in an “exceptionally cynical way,” Mr. Coltart said, “At the end of the day, there is absolutely no prospect that the reforms will have any material effect on the electoral environment” on March 29.

MDC officials said Mr. Mugabe’s decision to hold early elections was also an embarrassment for South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has led a regional effort to mediate the bitter political dispute.

“What Mugabe has done is a slap in the face, not only of the MDC, but of Mbeki and the Southern African Development Community,” Nelson Chamisa, an MDC spokesman, told reporters in Harare.

MDC head Morgan Tsvangirai was briefly detained earlier this week before an opposition rally, reviving memories of a brutal beating he suffered in March at the hands of security forces during another anti-government gathering.

Mr. Coltart said the government is pressing for a quick vote because it realizes the economy is on the brink of collapse and because serious divisions have emerged within Mr. Mugabe’s own ZANU-PF ranks. There is a chance, he said, that the March vote could produce an informal alliance of MDC lawmakers and ZANU-PF dissidents, leaving Mugabe loyalists in the minority in parliament.

He added that Zimbabwe’s situation is so dire that even modest reforms could prove fatal to Mr. Mugabe’s rule.

“ZANU-PF’s core of power is so weak now that once they start down the path of reforms, they will not be able to control the process,” Mr. Coltart said.

Business Daily (Nairobi)
OPINION
22 January 2008

By Ochieng’ Oreyo

A lot has been written about Brand Kenya. I am doing that again. Why? Because I want this country to move from writing to doing something about the idea. My writing is directed at every Kenyan, who I remind this country is our motherland. The respect we accord it should match what we extend to our own mothers at home.

I will start by addressing the Office of the Government Spokesman, whose head today is Dr Alfred Mutua. He has been doing a good job until it hit me that daktari was at most times denying, or “talking tough” to remind others about the existence of the Government. Being in charge of telling the public what’s on, Dr Mutua’s office should help Kenyans and the people we, as a country, deal with to know better about Brand Kenya without necessarily dismissing them – like the development partners.
This is the one office that should thumb through wads of Government documents to arrive at facts and figures that our customers and potential visitors in the tourist circles want to know about Kenya.

This office should put emphasis on interpreting data from the Government, its agencies, and even private entities to better inform our markets and publics. Dr Mutua should work day and night, literally, to put into context the political statements that fly from MPs and ministers who want to add their voices to ongoing debates.

Example: When the country was expecting former UN secretary-general Mr Kofi Annan to help with mediation in the current political crisis, and others before him, it should have been the business of the Government to ensure that it has only one voice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Nobody else.

Most people know about Brand Kenya so far. But we need to graduate from mere awareness and fire on all cylinders to see the constituencies and partners working with Kenya remain loyal all the time – something akin to brand equity.

It is incumbent upon every citizen to visualise the pride of being a Kenyan. A Kenya where tourists will fly pennants reading ‘Destination Kenya’ all the time. But this will only happen when Opposition MPs state publicly that violent protests give the unfortunate picture of a “violent brand”.

A meaningful demonstration should be one that the leaders are able to control. If they find the events spilling through their hands, it behoves them to make a stern statement that they do not identify with criminals or looters.

Kenyan voters, neighbouring countries and the larger international community should see ODM as a political party of today and the future when it takes its war with the Government to Parliament not to block its agenda, but to thoughtfully engage PNU on useful debate resulting in a good life for ‘Wanjiku’ and wooing investors.

We need a Brand Kenya Opposition that will go to court to show a commitment to the rule of law, without being worried about the outcome, but the process. They need to look for the world’s best lawyers to make life miserable for Government counsels – of course they must be willing to pay. ODM has told Kenyans that democracy is expensive. This must not mean that Kenyans will go hungry, be maimed, and killed. No. When people die in droves and indiscriminately, we lose future leaders.

Just like a Zimbabwean opposition MP David Coltart wrote recently in this newspaper, the sessions of election petitions in courts of law should be used to lay foundation for future informed debates, without necessarily saying who lost. The arguments and judgments should be used as cases in future legal battles.

Why the future? A group chief operating officer at a local media house, whom you will permit me to just call Paul, once said: “Put future first. Not once, not twice, but always.”

But having said that, the sitting government has a tough job of showing undiluted commitment to democratic life and culture by allowing demonstrations, but also ensuring that life is made tough for hooligans and goons who take cover in the protest marches to loot and harm innocent “working nationals.” If the media are gagged, politicians are tear-gassed, the brand loses its lustre and passes for any counterfeit.

A scarce product, as economists would say, sells. People queue for such a brand: Investors, tourists, and international students.Fellow Kenyans, I am saying that dismissing other people and talking tough pass as ordinary stuff that we have heard, read about and seen elsewhere before, but which has made such zones pariah states, scarred nations, and areas that “people with money and ideas” have shunned like the plague. They want a Working Nation and a Functioning Country.
Oreyo is a Sub-Editor with the Business Daily.

By Craig Timberg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, January 18, 2008

JOHANNESBURG, Jan. 17 — South African President Thabo Mbeki traveled to neighboring Zimbabwe on Thursday to pressure leaders to complete negotiations that have brought the government and the opposition to the brink of a deal after years of political stalemate, officials from both countries said.

The two sides have deadlocked in recent days over the timing of upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections and when to implement a new constitution, sources familiar with the negotiations said. Mbeki flew to Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, with a compromise plan, raising hopes that a deal might be imminent.

Negotiators representing Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and the two wings of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change have made substantial progress in recent months, including a deal for a new constitution with a bill of rights guaranteeing expanded political freedoms.

“What I saw of an earlier draft constitutes a substantial improvement over what we’ve got,” said David Coltart, an opposition member of parliament.

Agreements between Mugabe and opposition leaders also have led to the easing of restrictions on journalists and political gatherings, and steps have been taken to make the electoral commission more independent.

But the timing of the elections, tentatively scheduled for March, has emerged as a divisive issue. Mugabe favors keeping the vote on schedule, with a promise to implement the new constitution soon afterward. The opposition is demanding that the constitution, with its new freedoms, be implemented before any national vote.

“Having an election would just be a farce if they happen in March,” said Nelson Chamisa, spokesman for the wing of the opposition party led by Morgan Tsvangirai.

The picture is complicated by news that Simba Makoni, a popular former finance minister, may soon launch a third major party in Zimbabwe, splitting Mugabe’s ruling party after 27 years of unbroken power.

The brutal beating by authorities of Tsvangirai and about 50 other opposition activists in March caused an international uproar and brought new pressure on Mugabe from southern African leaders, who appointed Mbeki to oversee negotiations to end eight years of political stalemate.

That process has brought the country closer to a deal than at any time since the Movement for Democrat Change formed in 1999.

“All that runs the risk of being torpedoed,” said Trevor Ncube, publisher of two of Zimbabwe’s few independent newspapers. “That’s why Mbeki has gone there, and there’s a real possibility he’s going to come back empty-handed.”

The Telegraph

By Sebastien Berger and Byron Dziva in Harare
Last Updated: 2:28am GMT 16/01/2008

Robert Mugabe is to face a challenge from within his own Zanu-PF party at a presidential election in March. It is the greatest threat to his rule since he came to power almost 30 years ago.

Mr Mugabe was unanimously endorsed as the ruling party’s presidential candidate at a stage-managed congress last month. But the public show of unity behind the octogenarian leader failed to repair deep divisions in the organisation between modernisers, who believe its mismanagement has gone too far, and radicalisers, who think that the solution to Zimbabwe’s impoverishment is more of the same.

Senior sources within Zanu-PF told The Daily Telegraph last night that dissident party members will nominate Simba Makoni to stand against Mr Mugabe.

Well-regarded and considered atypical of the country’s political elite, Mr Makoni, 57, studied chemistry at Leeds University in the 1970s before going on to do a doctorate at Leicester Polytechnic.

He was the youngest minister in the first post-independence government when he was appointed deputy minister of agriculture.
A party insider said Mr Mugabe would hit back with “the ferocity of a tsunami” and those behind the “putsch” had “better hold their own before the worst comes”.

Rather than forming a breakaway party of their own, the rebels intend to bring in as much as they can of the Zanu-PF machine – which would severely restrict Mr Mugabe’s ability to rig the election.

The move has been born out of “frustration” with Mr Mugabe, the source said, and he predicted a “landslide” victory at the polls. “It’s the end of him,” he said.

“We are offering the party membership and the nation at large a new hope. We will put an end to the rubbish that is going on, with better management and a start to national healing.”

Mr Makoni has long had the backing of Solomon Mujuru, a former army commander who has substantial business interests, and observers point out that he would be able to mobilise his loyalists in the military and intelligence apparatus.

The key question may be whether an electoral pact can be reached with the divided MDC. Tendai Biti, its secretary-general, said that it was open to talks with a new organisation once it was formed. But he said it was “out of the question” for its head, Morgan Tsvangirai, to stand aside to give Mr Makoni a clear run.

David Coltart, a senior figure in the other MDC grouping, said: “At the presidential level nobody wants to split the vote. The question is will Makoni be brave enough to take this step? There’s no doubt in my mind it will unleash a terrible backlash.

“If Makoni entered into an electoral pact with the broad opposition and managed to split Zanu-PF down the middle, that would be the most significant event probably since independence and they could win.”