4-27-05, 10:22 am

Time for the World to Act on Zimbabwe

The Diaspora Vote Action Group (DVAG) whose members were denied an opportunity to vote in last week’s Parliamentary election in Zimbabwe feel that Zimbabweans all over the world have been robbed by the government in Harare which can no longer claim any legitimacy.

Innumerable incidents of voter intimidation and coercion have been cited and discrepancies found in the numbers of voters who voted and the numbers of votes won by respective candidates in the announced results.

For example in Mutare South 16,412 voters were said to have voted for the Zanu (PF) candidate and 12,163 for the MDC. However, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission figures for the total votes cast which were announced at the end of voting is 14,054, suggesting that 14,521 ballots were stuffed.

The Voters’ Roll had already been exposed to be containing names of people who were no longer alive. This, combined with other massive irregularities, and the fact that a confirmed minimum of 10% of the voters were turned away, over and above the deliberate exclusion of an estimated 4 million Zimbabweans in the diaspora, illegitimates the outcome. 

We call upon all Zimbabweans all over the world to raise their voices so that the rest of the world can understand our rejection of the outcome of the election.

As the international community opts for the easier route on the Zimbabwean crisis they would seek to rely on observers’ conclusions, conveniently forgetting that the observers were cherry-picked by the Harare regime as if they were friends being invited to a ZANU (PF) party or wedding.

The observers’ impartiality began being questioned when the leader of the observer team from South Africa declared the election free and fair before it was conducted.  

It is public knowledge that after voting was completed on Thursday, a Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) official announced the number of people who had voted in each constituency.

The announcement was abruptly stopped without explanation - however this was not before they had exposed the discrepancies. The following are just a few examples of the most glaring level of discrepancies, or, rather rigging:

In Beitbridge Constituency, the ZEC announced that 36,821 had voted but the totals for the candidates only add up to 20,602, leaving 16,219 or almost half the votes unaccounted for.

In an attempt to explain away the discrepancies a Zimbabwe High Court Judge, obviously appointed to the bench for his loyalty to Mugabe, said the discrepancies were caused because the figures which were announced as the total votes were interim – before the voting was over.

The judge, who was chairing the ZEC, however, forgot that in the case of Mutare South constituency the actual announced figure for votes won by each candidate was less than the figure which had been announced as the total number of voters.

This would suggest that at some point there ZEC’s officials counted more voters, but as people continued voting the total number was reduced!

In Goromonzi Constituency the ZEC announced the total votes cast as being 15,611. However, the winning Zanu PF candidate received 16,782 votes to the MDC's 8,578, totalling 25,360, with the discrepancy being 9,749 votes – hence the opposition claim that there was ballot stuffing using the dead voters who are still on the voter’s roll. The total votes cast for Makoni North Constituency, according to the ZEC was 14,068. However, the winning Zanu (PF) candidate received 18,910, with the MDC's candidate polling 6,077 votes, giving total votes for the two candidates as 24,987. There difference is a whopping 10,919.

In Murehwa South the total ZEC figure for votes cast is 8 579, however, the winning Zanu PF candidate received 19 200 votes, while the MDC candidate received 4 586, giving a total of 23 786. There is a discrepancy of 15 207.

The only thing that can be said about the figures is that they exposed how incompetent those tasked with rigging were! We believe these figures belong in the Guinness Book of Records.

Whilst results in 25 other constituencies were also said to be not tallying, the cherry-picked Mugabe observers announced that the Zimbabwe elections were free and fair.

This defies common sense, and the lack of credibility of the Mugabe handpicked observers can never be more apparent. This in addition to the incredible audacity and naivety by the South African observer mission to declare the election free and fair before it was conducted.

The fact that the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe has already, in typical fashion, sided with the Mugabe government in dismissing our straightforward, constitutional case for the right of Zimbabweans outside the country to vote, underlines the despair we now feel.

The whole state machinery is waging a brutal war against defenceless masses - crushing their liberties while the judiciary sacrifices everything for patronage and stands firm in defence of an indefensible status quo.

As beneficiaries and by-products of the same pariah, despotic and oppressive regime, nothing much was to be expected from them, but sober minds will now seek answers as to who shall judge the judges, what recourse is left for the exposed and oppressed? Whither Zimbabwe!

The same Zimbabwe Supreme Court which refused our demand that the current international convention to provide polling stations wherever there are significant populations of citizens be extended to Zimbabweans in the UK, Britain South Africa and Botswana and the US had already sat on opposition Movement for Democratic Change electoral petitions dating from the 2000 and the 2002 elections until they were overtaken by current, and again disputed elections.

It is therefore no longer a case of whether anyone has confidence in the impartiality of the courts; rather we begin to question the relevance of the Zimbabwean judiciary beyond the defence of the oppressive Harare regime they so religiously patronise and worship.

Zimbabwe has already been expelled from the community of the Commonwealth for failing to adhere to democratic principles, including The Harare Declaration was adopted with Mugabe chairing the Summit.

We call upon the international community to unequivocally express its abhorrence of the rigging of elections because right thinking people would always rightly why we bother go through elections if a fraudulent electoral process always predetermines the outcome.

General elections in 2000 and Presidential elections in 2002 were rigged and now the 2005 general elections. Unless the will of the people rules, then there is no justification for elections in Zimbabwe.

In this context we call upon the international community to unreservedly denounce and pressurise the Harare regime to recognise Zimbabweans abroad in its periodic elections as failure to do so would be equivalent to declaring us stateless.

As we are not rightfully considered refugees according to the restrictive definitions of the relevant United Nations conventions on refugees we find ourselves brutalised, jailed and exploited, and in the latest UK cases, deported to face an uncertain future in Zimbabwe.

Our cry and struggle is a patriotic demand for involvement, participation and inclusion, not to be made stateless in the 21st century in the full view of the whole world.

An unashamed state versus its stateless citizens and the rest of the world has been exposed time and time again, but we still refuse to believe that the rest of the world would wait and watch and not act until blood starts flowing down Harare streets – then it will be too late and it will be yet another scar on this much suffering planet and will represent failure, again.