IRIN Focus on election concerns

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday a boycott of parliamentary elections was being considered because a free and fair poll was unrealistic given the level of political violence directed at his party supporters.

“We have already maintained that boycott is not an option, but we have now reached a stage where we have to review that,” the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader told reporters in Harare. “Given the current state of anarchy and lawlessness, we will also discuss whether something should be considered in the form of mass action and appealing to the international community for much more drastic measures.”

He said a decision would be taken by senior MDC officials at a policy meeting on Saturday.
Violence escalates

“We are simply saying that we can’t go to elections in the current circumstances of state-sponsored violence,” MDC legal secretary David Coltart told IRIN. Other than a boycott, the party’s only alternative would be “non-violent passive resistance” and an appeal to the international community “to make the government accountable”.

“This programme of violence is escalating, it’s a systematic campaign. It started with the farmers and has now spread to anyone supporting the MDC,” Coltart said. He cited a study prepared by a local NGO which has documented 5,700 cases of human rights abuse since February, 86 percent of them allegedly committed by supporters of President Robert Mugabe’s ruling ZANU-PF party. At least 18 people are known to have died in the countrywide political unrest.

“We want international observers on the ground and Mugabe held personally responsible for the violence - these are crimes against humanity. What’s the difference between what (Serbian leader Slobodan) Milosovic did last year and what Mugabe is doing now?” Coltart asked.

No date has been announced for the parliamentary election due by August, as a delimitation committee completes the redrawing of constituency boundaries.

Electoral process questioned

Analysts and diplomats told IRIN that even if the level of political intimidation eased, there would still be concerns over the potential for gerrymandering and the lack of an independent electoral body that could affect the transparency of the poll. Zimbabwe’s elections are run by the controversial Registrar-General’s office and a small Electoral Supervisory Commission which does not have the authority to correct irregularities. Presidential powers, on the other hand, give Mugabe enormous latitude to order changes to the electoral rules.

According to Dren Nupen of the Electoral Institute of South Africa, the electoral mechanisms “could be the tool that sways what happens here”. She pointed out that “to judge whether an election is free and fair, you can’t wait for the balloting process to take place. You have to look at the pre-election environment.” She added that “donors are not sure whether they will give money for observers as they are anxious about legitimising” what could be a flawed electoral process.

The constituency delimitation exercise is headed by Wilson Sandura, a respected judge. However, the electoral boundaries are to be drawn on the basis of voter registration data provided by Registrar-General Tobaiwa Mudede. The opposition has repeatedly questioned Mudede’s political impartiality, and fear that deliberate interference with the voters roll will result in the reduction in pro-MDC urban constituencies in favour of rural voters, who in the past have formed the backbone of ZANU-PF support.

“The trouble is that the delimitation board has to do their work based on the figures supplied by the Registrar-General. He has said that there has been minimal registration of voters in the urban areas, which we know is nonsense,” Coltart said. The Registrar-General is also responsible for appointing polling officers.

“Yes there will be gerrymandering because ZANU-PF wants to reduce the urban constituencies,” political scientist Masipula Sithole said. He warned that the registration exercise has also been controversial because “many people” were not issued with receipts to prove they had registered.

“They could just destroy those registration forms and turn away people entitled to vote,” Coltart said. He added that permanent residents - mainly whites and farm workers originally from neighbouring countries - were “systematically denied” the right to register. “We have still not seen the voters roll as an opposition party, although our information is that ZANU-PF has,” Coltart alleged.