Legitimacy of Upcoming Zimbabwean Election Already in Question
By M. Brandon Maggiore
Impunity Watch Senior Desk Officer, Africa
HARARE, Zimbabwe -The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) reports forced voting, arrests, and other issues, and Human Rights Watch (HRW) reports that the Zimbabwe election will not bring about democracy.
Five police officers accused of supporting the MDC, an opposition group to the ruling Zanu-PF party, have been jailed for 14 days. This action comes just over a week before the March 29 elections and while postal voting is taking place.
Four police officers were arrested after boarding a vehicle of Harrison Muzuri, a local MDC parliamentary candidate, while another was arrested for allegedly waving an open hand, a symbol associated with the MDC.
Critics say that the police act which bars police officers from participating in politics is selectively enforced, and that supporters of the Zanu-PF party are not prosecuted. Several police officers have been seen entering vehicles for the Zanu-PF without being disciplined.
According to information obtained by the MDC, police officers and military members are being forced to vote under the supervision of their supervisors. Solders in Mutare were required to write their identification number on the back of their ballot, and police officers in Bulawayo were allegedly forced to vote multiple times.
Postal votes are already raising suspicion of fraud. On Thursday, Eddie Cross, MDC policy advisor for the Tsvangirai formation and MDC parliamentary candidate for Bulawayo South told the BBC, “The Zimbabwe Election Commission has said only the police force has requested 8,000 postal votes. To our surprise, we have information that postal votes, cast and sealed, are over 75 000. Where have the rest come from?”
Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC President, claims that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission had ordered the printing of between 600,000 and 900,000 postal votes. While the armed forces, police, and diplomats total about 82,000, only about 20,000 are eligible for postal votes.
To find out how many postal votes have been sent out, the MDC plans on going to court. The concern is that the armed forces and diplomats are being forced to vote a particular way, not that they are being permitted to vote in advance.
HRW released a report on the upcoming election on Thursday. The report listed numerous concerns stating that ”there is little chance the March 29 elections will help Zimbabwe either establish democracy or bring an end to the country’s ongoing political crisis.”
HRW criticized the use of government distributed food supplies and government-subsidized farming equipment to influence the election. The report also discusses the beating of opposition supporters in February by Zanu-PF supporter, and intimidation of opposition supporters by police forces in spite of the prohibition against such conduct in Zimbabwe’s Electoral Laws Amendment Act.
Access to Zimbabwe’s state-owned television and radio stations has also been a problem for opposition leaders according to HRW. In February, President Robert Mugabe and the Zanu-PF party received five-times more television coverage than all opposition groups combined.
For more information, please see:
BBC News – Zimbabwe police jailed for ‘bias’ – 21 March 2008
allAfrica.com – Zimbabwe: Soldiers And Police Officers Forced to Vote Under Supervision – 20 March 2008
Human Rights Watch – All Over Again Human Rights Abuses and Flawed Electoral Conditions in Zimbabwe’s Coming General Elections – 20 March 2008
